Week 10 - Mashups

Mashups are a great way to create signs for the library and add a bit of colour around the place. They can be used to promote events in the library like author talks or storytime and photos from such events can then be used to create mashups. They are a fun and creative way to create images within the library. You could also have compeptitions for children and adults to create mashups about books they have been reading.

Podcasts and Audio

I think that podcasts and audio would be a useful tool to any library. Firstly in regards to audio I think a lot of libraries are moving into area of having audio books available to download as mp3's directly to patron ipods or cd. I think that this is a great way of having books available to patrons as it still allows for the traditional "borrowing" to happen without the damage that also comes with this to cds and books. When a patron downloads the file it is their for the borrowing period and then the file will stop working after this. I think this is a great way of making books more portable and more useable in todays techonological society.

In terms of podcasts I think that could be used as a way of recording story times that occur in the library or even author talks. They could also be used for training purposes for staff and as a way of keeping patrons up to date on whats new in the library e.g. services, books, activities. Podcasts would be any easy way for anyone at home or with computer facilities then to keep up to date with the library without having to come in. In relation to this parents who arent able to make storytime for whatever reason can still play the file at home to their child and can read along to the book with their child on a one on one basis.

Week 8 - Answer Boards and Social Searching

Consider is there a role for your library in “slamming the boards”?
Although this resource allows for the answering of questions that people may have in a easy to use way I think that if something like this was brought into the library it could be very time consuming for staff to keep updating the site with answers. With the lack of staff and resources etc available this would just be another area that staff wouldnt have time to spend on and I think that although at first it would create interest it could be something that is easily forgotten and neglected. Personally if staff want to spend their own time answering questions or are free at the desk to help someone out with their question then by all means as it is a way of helping someone who may not have the knowledge or resrouces that we do but overall I wouldnt include it as an "official" library resource or task.

In what ways might your customers like to rate or review items in the collection or services you offer? I think that customers might like to rate certain authors, books and any sort of service that the library offers as well as possibly finding out more information about any of these things through the question/answer format of the posts. I think in terms of library patrons sharing their questions with one another this could lead to people recommending authors and books to one another which could increase circulation of books throughout the library.

Week 7 - tagging

This week we were asked to create a del.icio.us account. I have found this site to be fairly easy to use and thus would be a useful tool for the library to use. As with the Sutherland Shire del.icio.us page I think that this website could be used as a very useful research tool for library members. Like the Sutherland Shire page we could create a useful site of links on various topics. This could be used to group different areas of research that are well known to the librarians as being used by school students such as the area of study "journey" that many students do in their HSC. As the bookmarks can be searched and anything can be tagged/bokomarked I think it would put a lot of useful information at our members fingertips. It can be used to create a collection of resources on basically any topic which makes it very versitile. Other then using it as a useful research tool it would also be an eay way to group information and have it accessible anywhere so members could not only accesss it here but from home and school. I think this tool would be useful in any library.