Investigative Exercise 9 - Community Profiles

The Northern Regional Library service has no web 2.0 technologies that I can see. Add to this the factor that their web catalogue does not function at all for me to search their items and I would say that the Northern Regional Library service definately needs a revamp.

Now, there are number of reasons behind this "library fail."

1. The library service is covering a number of small rural town areas and as such I believe that only basic services are provided to cover a small population over such a large area. (Northern Regional Library service covers 68,905 square kilometers yet serves 28,729 people. Compare this to Blacktown city council which covers only 47 square kilometers and had a population of 271,000 as of 2006!)

2. Collaboration. Northern Regional Library Service isn't a 'library' in itself but a network that comprises of different rural libraries. I can imagine it would be difficult for any of the librarians to actually get together and discuss the introduction of web 2.0 technologies due to the amount of travel and time outside of their working hours. Of course this could be done online too but I am also unsure what kind of resources they actually have for this. Rather narrow minded of me to say but smaller libraries and smaller councils = smaller budgets. This brings me to our next reason;

3. Cost. Whilst we're on the topic of councils; there isn't one councils but 4 different councils covering the span of these libraries and from experience it is usually people working for or in the council that end up making their own websites with a sub-section for their libraries. The fact that this service exists is a testimony that the councils themselves decided not to maintain their own libraries and pay for online searching programs to be integrated tells me that this is both costly and time consuming for them. Much easier to band together like so.

Investigative Exercise 8 - Community Profile for Northern Regional Library

[Image taken from Northern Regional Libraries website]

The Norther Regional Library groups together services for 7 different libraries within the Northern area of New South Wales. Altogether it serves some 28, 729 people over an area span of 68,905 square kilometres. The libraries included in this service are Bingara, Brewarrina, Lightning Ridge, Moree, Mungindi, Walgett, and Warialda.

The councils that support these libraries are as follows:
Lightning Ridge & Walgett: http://www.walgett.nsw.gov.au/library/1644.html
Bingara & Warialda: http://www.gwydirshire.com/libraries.html
Brewarrina: http://www.brewarrina.nsw.gov.au/
Moree & Mungindi: http://www.mpsc.nsw.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=frontpage&Itemid=1

There is an emphasis on Aboriginal Heritage, for which the library service has created a whole seperate webpage for.

-Toni

Blog activity 7 – Comment on your teachers blog.

Hear ye Hear ye!

I am writing to say that I have posted a comment on Gary's blog on his post, "The Federal Government has deferred the introduction of its mandatory internet filtering program."

Now I believe there is some ice cream with my name on it! *goes to forage*

-Toni

Blog activity 5 & 6 – Commenting on other blogs

I have commented on Anne's & Angela's blog posts', on Story time and Social Bookmarks respectively.

Whilst we are on the subject, I also invited Anne, Angela, Thuong and Tim to be blog authors on my blog.

-Toni

Investigative Exercise 7 - Podcasts

The following is a podcast located on the University of Adelaide Library website under the Podcasts tabs. Currently they only have 3 podcasts and the length of the podcasts are all short, yet sweet.

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/help/podcast/podcast3.mp3

The podcast is called, "Research Librarians and how they can help you" and is read by library staff members Rebecca and Ursula. It details why a research librarian could prove useful in aiding students with their assignments, rather than just doing google searches and getting lost along the way. It is promoting the use of the university library and its staff to the University of Adelaide students.

There is also a transcript of each podcast for clients to read which could prove useful if the they needed to be in a quiet environment or simply did not want to listen to the podcast at the time, or even if they wanted to follow it along with the script for better understanding.

-Toni

Investigative Exercise 2 - Slideshare

Upon browsing the wonderful world of Slideshare I located the following slideshow, which I believe would prove beneficial with 'training' library staff about all the possibilities Web 2.0 can offer for libraries.

The slideshow in question is called, "Technology trends in libraries - today and tomorrow".

It's 55 slides long and methodically goes through all the possible trends and applications a library can utilize to adapt to web 2.0. It also provides a useful comparison to old web 1.0 technologies and helps explain how much more useful web 2.0 can be.

I think it would be useful in training library staff to adapt to the coming changes in library services, and help them think outside the box when it comes to promoting their library.

-Toni

Investigative Exercise 6 - Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking has become very popular recently within online library sites and the internet in general. Looking at the State Library of Tasmania, I read the reviews on Born or bred?: Martin Bryant: the making of a mass murderer by Robert Wainwright & Paola Totaro.
(The book reviews at Stonnington Library link did not work properly I am afraid)

I think that social bookmarking and the services involved within it can beneficial, when used right within libraries. The ability for a user to add their own review to a catalogue item could certainly proof useful for those wanting to learn more about the item and who value feedback. Within the State Library of Tasmania catalogue, the review functions themselves can be rated as well as the item in question itself. I think this option is useful provided a lot of users are using such a function. Combined with personal reviews a user can get a general feel for the item combined with their own opinion.

As for drawbacks, I guess it comes down to how many people actually take to this function as it is only really useful if a large proportion of users participate, in my opinion. Also I suppose reviews could be subject to bias but that is what a personal opinion usually constitutes. There is also the problem of spam/junk that some people take it upon themselves to plague the population with, but that comes with any socially active site.

I would like to see how social bookmarking develops in the future, hopefully with good results.

-Toni