Task 23 Summary!

this is such a cleverly designed program - the information in each task builds on that in the previous task, and while I found some of the material in weeks 1-7 (up to the rss feeds bit) to be really very time consuming indeed, after that it became easier and I think the functions / tools featured in the last half of the program are definitely more 'high end' and useful to me personally & professionally than some of those in the earlier part of the program.
In my own case, i don't have up to date pc equipment at home, so it was quite a task fitting it in at work. I also don't have a digital camera or lots of the other technological gizmo's that would enable greater access to some of these products. That got me thinking about how there is really becoming a divide between the 'haves' and 'havenots' in technology terms, and how libraries traditionally try hard to place themselves as a provider to those who may not have great technology access. It seems that these days (in my experience) there are also greater expectations from people who actually 'have' got good technology access at home - they also expect that we will be able to provide them with the latest and greatest materials that will complement their own equipment - such as downloads and mp3's for loan and the like. I think this also places an extra demand on library staff - on a typical day we could work with a customer who had not even used a mouse much, right through to someone who had high expectations of technology access and provision - and they do expect us to know the answers to all their questions! it may be that in 12 months time (or less) we will all need a '23 things' update! congratulations to all those responsible for this program.

task 22 - e books

the gutenberg site is just a bit cluttered and hard to manage for my liking, but there's certainly some great content there, and a number of titles that I would enjoy listening to. I don't have an mp3 player so it was all a bit academic really. I was not actually able to listen to anything, but I know if i had the right gear it would be pretty easy. there was one (a louisa may alcott story) that i tried to access, but it was agonisingly slow so i gave it away. I personally really enjoy talking books on cd (in the car), and can see that if I got into mp3 technology (or similar) that I'd really get a lot of it, and so would library patrons. the idea of the access 'expiring' after a given period of time is certainly enticing.

task 21 Podcasts

Actually found the podcast directories to be not wonderfully user friendly, and one of them had no links older than 2006? - Because I'm doing this task in a bit of a hurry I didn't really try very hard with the directories, and will have a look later. I decided instead to just go to the radio national website, and look for some of their really good book shows, and they have a great link to all their podcasts by topic. I'm a bit of a phillip adams 'late night live' fan as well, so have put the rss feed for LNL and for the 'book show' onto my bloglines account. I'm often sewing while i'm listening to LNL and sometimes it's not a good combination - I've had to rip out seams more than once! Now I could download the podcast and listen to it whenever i feel like it. Libraries could download interviews with authors, (or lots of other technology / cultural material) for broadcast, (if legal or course!) or link to podcasts of relevant topics from their homepages.

task #20 you tube

I was looking forward to this one because i particularly wanted to see the video of the arnhem land dancers and their interpretation of 'zorba' - I loved it, and was able to see other peoples comments and reactions to it. as always, opinions are divided, but of course mine is the right one! I can see that you tube could perhaps become a bit of a messy screen, but if you have particular interests or topics to pursue or share, you would be able to get straight to what you want with relative ease.

Task 17 (just working backwards for a change!)

finally got my blog into the sandbox - did not realise that the password was in front of my eyes the whole time! it's interesting to see how many zillions of people have participated in this program.

task 19

Backpackit - that's the answer to all my prayers - no wonder it was a 2.0 award winner. I'm going to investigate the calendar sharing option. I'm going to sign up, use the calendar for work purposes and then share it with the people in my team and my supervisor, so they know my whereabouts and shift times. I've been mucking about with publisher calendars and 'word' templates and they've been a total pain to share with other people. Yet another thing that we all wanted but needed someone with the knowledge to actually 'build'. post script - I went into it a few days later and it would be tremendous but I need to pay for it (dammit!)

Task 18

zoho writer - now here's something really, really useful! Just what we've all been imagining the web should be able to do if only someone would sort it out for the rest of us - and they have! I think I'll most likely use this - the idea of being able to email files / save files without having to worry about protocols and suffixes and all that tedious stuff is a great relief.

week 7 task 16

wiki's - I had not previously understood that previous versions of wiki entries can be 'retrieved' and viewed. This would be useful for authentication or verification purposes. I noticed also that the link to the book related wiki (can't remember the link, but it's on the 23 things list) - may well have had a different 'user-driven' content than what a 'list of books' or 'list of reviews' may have had if it was just mounted on the web by library staff members. I noticed, for example, that there were a great deal of reviews (over 50) for non-fiction titles, and 57 or so for 'contemporary' fiction titles - this is a lot more reviews than were posted for other categories such as 'romance', 'mystery' and the like (allegedly 'traditional' public library fodder). There was also a lot for 'biography & memoir'. I wonder if library staff would have predicted this outcome if they had been the 'fat controllers' of the wiki and its content?