Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Youtube Video

Here is the link to the youtube video I produced showing how to set up a laptop and display it on an LCD screen.
(How embarrassing!)

Monday, April 26, 2010

E-Portfolio

We have just started to create our own online E-portfolio using Mahara. While doing this I discovered that the existing Blog link is only for a blog created in Mahara. To actually access your external blog you must create a RSS feed to it.

First go to the Edit Profile View page.

Next click on External Feed Link.

Drag the External Feed Icon down onto the page where ever you want it. A small External Feed Configure window will open and you can fill in the name of the box. Leave this window open.

Open another window to your actual blog and click on the Subscribe to: Posts(Atom) (usually down the bottom of the page)
Copy the URL from this window and paste it back in the External Feed Configure window.

Hope this helps.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Rollyo

I have just subscribed to Rollyo. This site gives you the tools to create your own search engine and allows you to add up to 25 URLs to your own unique Search Roll. My user name is Tigerquollsmum. I have made two separate Search Rolls. The first is called Library Quest and just combines The State Library of Tasmania, UTAS and Trove. The other Roll is called Useful Library Blogs and combines:

Connectinglibrarian.com
Librariesinteract.info
Oedb.org
Libworm.com

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Libraries Interact Blog

I thought I had better look at some home grown blogs. Here's what I came up with.

CW, Fiona Kathryn, Peta, Snail, Michelle, Morgan, Techxplorer (2010), Libraries Interact,Australia, viewed 5th April 2010, http://librariesinteract.info/

The blog was set up by a group of Australian Librarian bloggers but they only give their user names and there doesn't seem to be any qualifications or authority provided. Apparently anyone can contribute, you do not have to be Australian, a librarian or a blogger. The site does stipulate that your posts do need to be non-commercial and relevant to the scope of the blog. The scope of the blog seems to be fairly general and includes any library related reflections, job postings, notifications of events, links to interesting sites and discussions of the biblioblogosphere (I love that word!).

The site is well designed and provides very flexable search options in the form of a general search field, an archive month search field, a categories search field and a Thali tag cloud. A link to a list of Australian library blogs is also provided. This blog is more relevant for Australian library employees as it covers both the local industry and general library issues.

Librarian.net Blog

West J (2010) Librarian.net,Vermont, USA, viewed 5/4/2010, http://www.librarian.net/

This is an authoritative and well designed blog produced by Jessamyn West. Jessamyn has worked in the library industry since 1994 and is a former member of the American Library Association council, a current moderator on Metafilter, an author of many library related books and articles and has her own entry on Wikipedia. This blog was voted number one in the Top 25 Librarian Bloggers on the Online Educational Database website in 2007. It has been established since 1999 and is active and frequently updated . Jessamyn is known for her unconventional views on her profession and is very politically active and aware. She states she is anti-censorship and pro-freedom.
The blog has links to a "Frequently Asked Questions" page, a comprehensive "About" page and to her "Talks" page. The blog covers a range of issues related to the library industry and in pariticular the political pressures in the USA.

Draw backs are that the blog doesn't provide a list of subjects covered or a search field to enable you to search the blog for your subjects of interest.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Teachertube: Worldcat video

Just had a quick look at Teachertube, the educational version of Youtube. I have decided to do a critical evaluation on this video

McCormack A (2009),Multi Library Search at WorldCat, Teachertube,USA, viewed 4/3/2010,-http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=102155&title=Multi_Library_Search_at_WorldCat

This video sets out how to search the Worldcat site for an item in a library nearest to your actual location. There isn't any information provided about the authority for this video. Anne's tutorial is clear and concise, she speaks slowly and clearly and gives you plenty of time to follow the links that she uses. The actual visual is a little fuzzy but not enough to create a problem. I used the steps that she outlines to find a book about Tasmanian Tigers in the State Library of Tasmania.

Planet Cataloging

Baxmeyer, J, Clarke, K, (2010) Planet Cataloging, viewed 3/4/2010, http://planetcataloging.org/

Planet Cataloging is an automatically-generated aggregation of blogs related to cataloging and metadata. There are approx 59 cataloguing blogs on its list. The site was named one of the top 10 Librarian Blogs to Read in 2009. Subscribing to its RSS feed permits subscribers to collect recent postings from all 59 blogs. While some of the blogs listed are regularly updated, many are not, and some had been inactive for quite some time. Even with these problems it is a great site to find and connect to cataloguing blogs.

Catalogablog

Bigwood D (2010), Catalogablog, Texas, USA, viewed 3/4/2010
http://catalogablog.blogspot.com/


This blog is written by David Bigwood an Assistant Manager for Libary Services at Lunar and Planetary Institute, a research institute funded by NASA. It is recommended by several other blogs as an excellent site for finding out what is going on in the cataloging world. The blog commenced in 2002 and has been consistantly published since then.

The site has alot of articles dealing with the various aspects of cataloguing ie MARC, RDA, Semantic Markup of Bibliography. David provides a lot of links to current conferences and up and coming events in cataloguing.

Friday, April 2, 2010

British Library Podcasts

British Library (2010),"Whats On" British Library Podcasts, London, U.K., viewed 3/4/2010 http://feeds.feedburner.com/BritishLibraryPodcasts

These Podcasts are produced by the British Library, which gives them great authority. They cover a wide range of subjects but mainly concentrate on British literature and history. There are three main categories to choose from -
The Curators Choice- the Curators best picks ie. "Messiah concert in the British Library", "Beowulf", "Untitled Beatles lyric found"
Exhibitions link takes you to podcasts related to present and past exhibitions at the British Library i.e. "Henry VIII", "Ramayana", "From Parchment to Pixel".
Talks, Discussions and Interviews takes you to interesting talks such as - "Book Makers: British Publishing in the Twentieth Century", "Essential Shakespeare Live Encore", "Cheryl Tipp introduces 'British Mammals'"

The Podcasts are of a high quality and are presented by a variety of well known and respected professionals. I highly recommend these podcasts as there is something of interest for just about anyone.



My personal favorite podcast was the "The Lady in the Tower: The fall of Anne Boleyn" by Alison Weir, one of Britain's most respected and read historians. This talk concerns her next book which is a detailed account of the controversial imprisonment and execution of Anne Boleyn.Great stuff.