Cloud Computing

The idea of having on-line apps like Google docs and Zoho makes sense, especially with mobility and access to open source apps becoming more convenient. The fact that you can collaborate with others in real time on a given document seems a great advantage to productivity. Maybe this is the future for the library network because it means accessibility to your work wherever you are at any time.

Claire also suggested this as a good way for customers to save their work when they have to quit from a library PC. I am about to try to post this to my blog. So if you are reading this in my blog, I have succeeded!!

LibraryThing was a very satisfying application to use. I loved the power of being able to add my little bit of content - specifically tags, reviews and ratings. It was very satisfying to add titles to my library and then see other readers' comments on them and also to see related content displayed which was of interest to me. I will definitely continue to use this.

I really like the idea of cloud tags linked with the library catalogue. It seems such a great tool that would open up a much easier and dynamic avenue for library users to search independently and to have the ability to feed directly into the content themselves. Often I find the catalogue frustrating because it doesn't feature the subject headings I would tend to use but which I would like to use to find material for my interests. And what a lot of bother I would have to go to in order to remedy this in our traditional library system. Cloud tags is the great solution to this problem.

InfoConnect/Discovery

Had set up my account at Zoho but had a nightmare trying to get in and use it so that I abandoned it. Even though I can now get in and do something I have run out of time. I will go back and try it out. Google docs is up and running and I have shared a doc with my co-facilitators but even though I followed the instructions for publishing a doc to this blog it hasn't turned up here at this point in time.

Stumble-upon was fascinating and it has already sent me an email with updates. Good! My little SearchBot has never reported back to me even though I set him up to report back daily 4 days ago! (not impressed). The highlight I guess has been seeing the potential for Google docs. But I may have to spend more time exploring how this works.

InfoConnect/Discovery

Parts of this were fun, some parts were frustrating. Setting up my own NZSearch function was actually fairly easy until I got to the 'add host URL' bit. What does this mean and how is one supposed to know how to do it? I tried and tried and in the end couldn't. It kept telling me my URL contained illegal characters. So I abandoned this in favour of something more productive.

Searchbots looks interesting but my tags and inquiry was quite arcane and when it asked me to select a colour for "mood" I thought "hmmn..Okay!" I have yet to see what the hungry little bot turns up for my quest. Stumbleupon is lots of fun but it seemed to take ages to recognise my log-in user name. For a long time it wouldn't recognise me so I used the "forgot your password?" help function. When I checked the email it sent back giving me my password it turned out to be the very password I was using and when I then went to log-in using it again...hey presto! Grr!

Apart from this hiccup, I like the site for a bit of fun and it has already satisfied my curiosity by finding something useful to me. Moving from the LAMS page to the CCLearn Blog has as usual been infuriating.

InfoConnect

Of the search engines I tried I instantly loved Browsys. The appeal lay in the two tiered search index. The top tier lists categories like 'social', 'images', 'academic' etc. When you click on one of these it opens up the next tier which lists a breathtaking array of all the sites available to search within. It was also nice to be able to just see and then try some of these different sites out all from the convenience of a smartly designed homepage. No awkward navigating here!

Podcasts

Generally it was more efficient using a site like Technorati to find podcasts on various subjects than trying to find them through a search engine. Also, the specialised directories like Technorati are good for a summary of any of the podcast sites with stats available on popularity and so on. As I don't really listen to much in the way of audio books or podcasts I would not have much use for podcasts from CCL. However I acknowledge the popularity of the format and see potential for it in lots of areas. For instance, local history content, readers advisory and perhaps for users who wish to create their own content about resources they liked and wish to recommend to other users.