#9 - Tags, Del.ico.us and LibraryThing

I have looked at the various sites suggested - although some I am already familiar with through working on AskNow and SLVChat. I do like the concept of all of these and how you can use them to tap the collective knowledge of others to help you identify new resources. My main "contact' with LibraryThing has been through the Boroondara Library catalogue and have often used it there to see what others who read like me are reading. I am pleasantly surprised by how often titles I have read, or are considering reading, appear as "recommendations" - which makes me keen to explore the others listed as well.
I had also noticed that some blogs I have looked at have a bookshelf (that looks like a bookshelf)on their page that shows the books they are reading/have read and that this was identified as being "courtesy" of Shelfari. ( I gather this might perhaps be a widget? ) I wasn't sure how this might compare to LibraryThing as they seem to be pretty similar. Not sure how this will all pan out eventually as it seems that Amazon has acquired Shelfari and also has a stake in LibraryThing. However Rob Lewis, writing on Techvibes, states that "Speculation about Amazon supporting one or the other or even merging the two services didn’t make sense as they serve different types of communities: Shelfari is focused on the casual reader that is interested in talking about what they're reading while LibraryThing is much more focused on serious bibliophiles that love cataloguing their personal libraries. Think “social reading” versus “social cataloguing”.

# 8 - Exploring Podcasts

I have never really even thought of exploring podcasts before as I don't own any sort of iPod or similar - and so read my book on the train. However, I have occasionally found things I am interested on the internet which only exist as a podcast without any transcript available and, of course, I also can't listen to the radio at all the times I might want to so to take away a podcast to listen to does have it's attractions. Mind you I've had someone listening to something on their headphones cross the road in front of my car oblivious to their surroundings or danger but that was probably (very) loud music.
I had a look at the ABC site and listened to the StarStuff podcast http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/ of Tuesday 22nd September. I would see some appeal in being able to listen to programmes that interested me while I was doing the ironing or hanging out the washing or - as we used to be able to do - watering the garden.
As far as libraries are concerned I imagine there would be potential for use in library tours and in being available for patrons to access to guide them through such things as catalogue use etc.

#7 - Adding a journal RSS feed

Happily I have managed to add a feed from a journal from ANZ Reference Centre plus one from an about.com guide which was very easy to set up and guided me nicely through the process. In the process I found out that Winona Ryder is going to play Spock's mother in the new Star Trek movie ( for the uninitiated Spock's mother was human, although I can't imagine she ever was into shoplifting ) - and now that I am set up for these feeds I will know lots more valuable snippets like this.

#6 -RSS feeds

After having come across references to RSS feeds quite often and really having no clear idea of what they were, but having a vague idea that they kept you "up-to-date" with things, it has been good to learn a bit about them.
One of the misconceptions that I had was that it was a matter of having your own search terms and that you somehow received a notification ( email I thought ) when something new appeared with that term in it. Instead of that the RSS feeds are determined by the "producers" of the website on what sections should have a feed. eg something like new books received that month for a library feed.
Sometimes it can be surprising to see what feeds are and are not offered. For instance, SLV offers a number of feeds but I could pick up only one from the New York Public Library - a couple more if I narrowed it down to the Science Library.
I've subscribed to my 5 feeds - but I will explore all this a bit further when I have the time - -
right now I must try to catch up - - I'm behind schedule - - I've been travelling on impulse speed - - time for Warp factor 1 - -

# 5 - Managing to add something to a Wiki - or 2 Wikis

I thought I had actually successfully posted something useful about electronic journals represented in SLV databases to a wiki - but then I couldn't find it - and thought that someone else had removed it - - for absolutely no good reason !
Turned out that I had actually added it to the Redmond Barry Team Wiki and it's still there safe and well - so I am pleased about that - reassured that I can actually do it.
As I am adding this I am also looking at RSS feeds and talking to Lynette about how they can be used. Further down the track I will see if I can set up feeds from the internal SLV wikis - as I've found out that all wikis and blogs should automatically have feeds as it is enabled by the software behind them.
I added my blog - not without one hiccup though - to the PB Sandbox Wiki and I think I might go back there and also have a look at the information that Rebekah has added to the favourite restaurant section.

# 4 -Wiki Wackys

Here I am back again after a bit of a lull in my blogging - hope it will all come back to me. I've had a bit of a look at some different wikis - certainly seems that they can be useful in libraries and elsewhere. We all know to be a bit wary of Wikipedia but we also know that it is often a very good starting point for research on a subject.
Thought I'd have a look at the Star Trek entry on Wikipedia - no mention of William Shatner's muffins but I did find out lots of recent news that I wasn't aware of about new productions etc. Even some of the Star Trek items - which you would have thought would have been added to ad-infinitum - were still asking for citations to be added for some statements.
In addition, it isn't too likely that entries such as these are blatantly misrepresenting the facts.
However, and I can't begin to imagine the United Federation of Planets ( that's their flag at the top of this entry ) doing this, according to WikiScanner, it seems that a host of blue-chip companies have altered their entries on Wikipedia to cover up embarassing episodes in their history. WikiScanner can track the IP addresses of the machines that were used to make the changes to the online encyclopedia - see more

So wikis can be used for good -- or for evil - - -

Lynette is helping me at the moment - I'm going to try adding a picture and a hypertext link -- here's a nice recipe to eat on a starship - -