Technorati

I hadn't heard of Technorati - I've had a look and it looks like a bloggers' paradise. I knew that when you blog, lots of strangers can read your messages, but I didn't realise to what extent! The whole world can read it and at Technorati they do it very systematically. You can read, organise and collect blogs on everything you're interested in from all over the (internet) world. You can spout your opinions on everything and everyone to your heart's content. A lot of it seems like talkback radio to me - blah blah blah all day, every day- but at least with Technorati you can select what you are interested in. Found some opinions on Kevin Rudd and Australian politics.
I've seen RSS feeds on clearing out your clutter - you definitely have to do this with blogs.

Delicious and Flickr

I've spent some time adding sites to my deli.cio.us site - I have a hard time changing the headings in bold - they seem to stay, while the other headings can be edited easily. It's also easy to delete headings inadvertently! It's like adding a lot of bookmarks, and it's handy for our Chat email enquiries.
Flickr was quite fun - you have to create a file of photos or images first, but it wasn't too hard. It is a bit clumsy having to upload each image, but otherwise it's quick and easy. I like the choices of layout. The number of categories is limited if you aren't a "pro" - you would need more than 3 categories. They also recommend Flock - will have a proper look at that site if I get time.

RSS feeds

I found the Google reader easy to use for adding RSS feeds and I like the way it organises them. It's not really good for getting Australian news. You do have to search for web pages which actually have RSS feeds, as a lot don't seem to have them or they aren't easy to find on the site. Added some slv ones and an informative library blog.

Wikis

Wikis could be a good idea for promoting communication between the library and users. It is interesting to read about libraries' experiences, and how one library found it more convenient to use paper updates after introducing a wiki. One issue is how to handle a lot of material and how to have consistent metadata or subject headings, as there would not be control over headings provided by the public. The pages could also become too lengthy and difficult to navigate. However, I think a wiki could be very good for timely information for the public eg New books in Redmond Barry and the Domed Reading Room - the public could add their comments and recommendations and Events at slv.
I found I could not edit the wiki in Internet Explorer, so I tried Mozilla Firefox and had no trouble. The format was quite different.

Getting started

Just trying out this new blog while I'm on the desk. Interesting that you can limit blogs to groups - could be useful in the workplace.