#23 Thank Jane, I've finished!

Well, I thought I'd never get here, but I've finished. I found most of the things interesting because I'd never heard of them before (Del.icio.us, folksonomies) or had heard of them but had no idea what they were (wikis, RSS - still not sure about that one). I've enjoyed blogging, learning how to add pictures especially, and that's helped me to become a book reviewer on our library blog, which is a good way to reinforce the skills learnt here. Library Thing was the most potentially addictive, and discovering biblio.com hasn't helped my credit card debt. I found that I could bring most of the learning exercises back to my favourite subject of the moment, whether that was Dorothy L Sayers or Jane Austen, so that made the whole exercise more inviting. I also found that the best plan was to spend a couple of hours each fortnight on the program as I was able to concentrate better if I worked on it first thing in the morning. So, after a shaky start, I'm very glad I finished, and not just because there's a Borders card with my name on it waiting for me. My final pictures, what should they be? Well, on the left, is a very small picture of some of my bookshelves at home, and on the right, some more of my literary heroines, the Bronte sisters.

#22 Audiobooks

Wow! Three things in a row where I actually know what it's all about before I start. Maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this. I have to thank Paul for any knowledge I have about downloadable audio books, as he's been looking into this for ERL & sharing his discoveries. Audio books are the most expensive item we buy, and they are the most easily damaged, so I think any option that means that patrons can listen to the books they want on the device they already have & they can't drop, scratch, break, lose or damage the audio book, is a winner.

I went to the World ebooks site & I'm currently listening to one of my favourite poems, Andrew Marvell's To his coy mistress. Now I've moved on to Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee. So, my pictures for this post have to be AM & EAP.

#21 Podcasts, Smodcasts

I've done quite a lot of podcasting already. It's good to know I have actually encountered some of these "things" before I get to them on this program. I mostly listen to extracts from Radio 4 in the UK, radio programs like Open Book and Women's Hour when they interview authors I'm interested in. I've also listened to some Australian podcasts from Radio National & Classic FM. I had a look at podcast.net, and found it was more useful to use their subject headings and browse rather than keyword search. The few searches I tried came up with either lots of useless results or were so specific that I got no result. I found a RSC podcast with Fay Weldon discussing the perils of Shakespeare adaptation, but it wouldn't play. I don't think our firewall would let the program load. We're already using podcasts at ERL. The Eastern FM weekly radio program is podcast through our website. I think it would be great if we could podcast author talks in the future. Another way to promote our services. My pictures today are the best looking portrait of Shakespeare (whether or not it's really him), and the best version of Macbeth with ian McKellan & Judi Dench.

#20 You too can You Tube

I'm already a bit of a YouTube expert, having watched a few clips there in the past. Mostly movie trailers and Bryn Terfel singing. So, today, I started by searching for Jane Austen. I found a couple of compilation clips put together by Austen fans with a lot of time on their hands! The best one was called Maneater, which was mostly about the unsuccessful women in Austen's novels. Mary Crawford, Miss Bingley, Lucy Steele, the women who don't get the heroes. I was expecting the song to be by Hall & Oates and it was by someone called Nelly Furtado. I feel I'm showing my age. Then, I searched Wuthering Heights and found the Kate Bush clip from the 70s. Lovely nostalgia trip, which then led me on to a trip through Kate Bush's greatest hits. I can see why you can waste hours on sites like this. My pictures today are of Kate Bush and Jane Austen.

#19 Discovering Web 2.0 tools

I chose biblio.com, a bookselling site for new, used & rare books. Sites like this and abebooks.com.au are really useful tools in the library. I've often shown patrons how to use these sites as a way for them to get hold of copies of out of print titles when they don't have time to wait for an ILL, or there isn't a copy available for ILL.

However, can I say that I think this whole Learning 2.0 is a trap for people with no willpower? Naturally I had to explore the site, so I searched for a book I've been discussing with the dovegreyreaders, an online group I'm a member of. We've been discussing Helen Thomas' books about her husband, the poet Edward Thomas. This has led some of us to buy the Carcenet Press edition of the memoirs called Under Storm's Wing. I read these books years ago & became fascinated with the friendship between Edward & the writer Eleanor Farjeon (she wrote the poem Morning Has Broken and lots of childrens books). Eleanor wrote a memoir of Edward too, and, what do you know, it's there on biblio.com at an Australian bookseller. What a temptation! Will I succumb? Watch this space. In the meantime, here are photos of Edward & Eleanor.

#18 Web-based Apps

I joined up with Zoho Writer and had a play with adding emoticons to text etc. I can see it would be useful if you wanted a group of people to collaborate on a document. It would save all that posting & emailing of drafts. Everyone could use a different colour to add their content. We've come a long way from typewriters with multiple carbons. Although, if there had been wikis & Zoho Writer around in Dorothy L Sayers' day, a vital plot point in her novel, Strong Poison, could never have happened. The nosy secretary (I've forgotten her name) in the pay of Lord Peter Wimsey, deliberately messes up a document she's typing so she has an excuse to stay back after the office is closed. She wants to snoop around for evidence and if she'd had word processing, the mistakes could have been fixed in no time. No opportunity for snooping! Fatal to the classic detective story.

#17 Playing around with PBWiki

I've had a bit of trouble with PBWiki. The link to the tour was broken, the tips weren't very helpful and I'm not sure I've added my blog to it properly because it doesn't look like the others. Where is the pipe supposed to go? The instructions on the ERL page don't mention a pipe, just square brackets.
I also added my experiences in rereading Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford to the Favourite Books section. All I can say is what's the point? Would anyone scroll through all that text reading about other people's favourite books? It's an incredibly boring looking site. Oh well, on with the next thing, I suppose. It can only get better from here.