Must be a New Year thing!

It seems I only come back to my blog at New Year - when I am updating the new diary for the new year's meetings etc. and transcribing the numerous passwords that I now seem to own from old diary to new diary. That's when I notice my little blog...Once again, I will resolve to fionish the damn Web 2.0 course before I die!

How time passes

Well, I see I have let many months pass and not added anything to my blog. I never did master the whole web 2.0 thing or finish the online course that got me started off doing a blog. After failing completely to upload the photo of our City Museum referred to in that long ago posting, I abandoned the whole thing but did mean it to be temporary - meant to come on back and finish the course and learn all about UTube and Flickr and RSS feeds etc.
But... how time passes when one is busy with work and play.
In the time that has passed someone actually added a comment to my blog...having viewed my profile, he wanted to know if Aquarians had garnered any great wisdom or self-knowledge now that the Age of Aquarius has passed! He also remaked that Aquarians are "messed up". (He did admit he was an Aquarian.) I don't know about us being messed up but we are a bit vague - concerned as we are with the past and the future rather than the present. Hence all that sc-fi and history stuff in my profile.
My idea of Internet fun is trawling for information...just following link after link particularly to any page concerned with history or science or my favourite hobbies. Lovely sites like Nature, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Being a Librarian means that I know how to find all the best and most trustworthy sites - and that I have easy access to great online databases from Gale and Ebsco and Proquest and Facts On File.
I don't really get the social networking thing anymore than I get the obsessive need to constantly be on the mobile phone. We've all had that experience..."I'm on the train, just coming into Bankstown (or wherever), I'll be there soon...I'll ring you from the station etc. etc." Why the modern person feels the need to share and relate every trivial detail of their daily life is just beyond me. I am definately turning into one of those grumpy old women!

Roaming around in Flickr is lots of fun. The PictureAustralia Mytown was especially interesting and I found a photo of the inside of my local fish shop where I get my fish and chips. I did not find any photos of my Library but did find some excellent shots of our City Museum. Have a look here:

This is an outside shot of a traditional slab cottage.

Read ALL the instructions first

First post to be 150 words...of course I had already posted before I got to that bit.
What do I hope to learn? Well, I have already learned that creating a blog is easy - finding intelligent and entertaining things to write in the blog - not so easy.
People use blogs to write about all sorts of things - hobbies, projects, special interests, Obama mania etc. How can libraries use blogs? To tell customers about new services and resources and to get customers to tell us back what they think of same. To promote specialist groups such as Book Clubs, Writer's groups, Local History groups, Friends of the Library etc. and to give these groups a forum for communication.
Have I got to that 150 words yet? Close enough.

Beginning the adventure

Sofar, so good with the blogging.
I enjoyed the videos, especially Stephen Fry who really is an international treasure. The example blogs from other public libraries were OK but not inspiring and had next-to-no comments posted. Of course, that does not mean people are not reading them. Seems like a good format for newsletters.
The Teen blog was visually pleasing with content of interest to Teens.