Libraries and Facebook

Having looked at the Facebook pages of various Oxford libraries, it seems to me to be used in the main by colleges and smaller libraries such as the Language Teaching Centre. I was very surprised to see Facebook there at all - I only knew about individuals' pages before, and thought it quite strange when an American friend told me last year that she'd set up a Facebook page for her university department (telling me sadly it still 'had no friends'. I can see advantages to using this medium to communicate with readers: speed/ease of posting, no paper, wide dissemination without the need for multiple notices. This would be very useful for e.g.time-limited messages about workmen, noise, closures (cf snow crisis), new books etc. But I don't see this is any advantage over a blog - unless it's that students are so regularly on Facebook that they check the library page at the same time.
Also, the sections for pictures, RSS feeds and links are a good idea - many things accessible from one place.

What about the more interactive dimension? This is what I don't take to. While it could be useful for staff to ask for specific information, all this 'fan' business and 'so and so likes/d this' seems juvenile and inappropriate in the context. Maybe I'm just an old square (as anyone using this term indubitably is!!)

Google.docs

I think I really like google.docs. I have used it before, although only to open documents which have been sent as e-mail attachments. Or maybe there was one occasion - the first time I came across it - when I actually edited a document and sent it back. This would have been a very easy way of proofreading and editing the articles for our parish magazine for Alice, but I've not done that more than the once. Pity. I would now, definitely. It would have been easy too to make changes, send the document on to the contributors and thence to Alice, so that queries could have been resolved en route. Ah well, I shall know in future.
Playing around trying out the different formats, fonts etc for this Thing was fun. The only real problem was that nothing happened when I tried to insert a special character, so I'm not sure whether diacritics are a possibility or not. I need those quite often. Other than that, creating, saving and sending documents seemed really straightforward. Definitely one to remember about!

Wikipedia

This is not the first time I have used Wikipedia. Several times, when I have been stuck for a piece of information before a class, an on-line search has produced a Wikipedia article. Clearly also, this is the reference tool of choice for today's students, as I have often heard them mention it. This Thing has led to me to go more deeply into it, and actually I find the whole concept pretty interesting: people joining forces to produce an article. I had heard it criticised for inaccuracy, and scaremongering about how easily information can be changed, so I was fairly sceptical abut what I would find. However, I looked at three articles about an author, my home city, and my old college - all of which I know well - and was pleasantly surprised. I suppose this bears out what the information article says about mistakes being quickly corrected by users. Makes sense. The 'discussion' sectin was soemthing I'd not been aware of before, and might be a way of finding peole with shared interests. Or maybe just oddballs. I decided not to join in with any comments because I didn't want to sign up for yet another thing. So all in all, I was a bit disappointed not to collaborate on an article but didn't find anything to add or correct.

Wikis

Now here I feel I have learned something useful. I read about what Wikis are, and what they might be good for. I'm vaguely curious about what goes on in the C & RD wiki, but fel I would have nothing to contribute, in all probability. Looking at the signposted web 2.0 wiki, I read all the case studies with interest, before setting out to look for references to OULS to edit, because this was all I had to offer. Finally found one in the Linacre piece, and changed it. Rather a minimal contribution to a wiki, I grant you, but it's done.

Twittering away

Well no, not exactly. 'Engaging with my network' has not been a success. As I said in my last post, finding friends on Twitter didn't work too well, although technically I do have one follower. I have faithfully looked at the posts tagged ox23, and I did do a retweet. I've looked at various things, but there seem to be vast numbers of useless comments, which are just a waste of time. I think I understand the 'how' of Twitter, but am not convinced there is a 'why' in my case. It seems much more the sort of thing for a mobile phone, but I have no intention of trying that! Yet.

Twitter

Ah Twitter, how marvellous. At last I'm going to be introduced to the source of gossip from eg Sarah Brown and other significant people...What? This is so difficult to get to grips with, and after a bit I really doubt the applicability for me, personally or professionally. The best thing is the little bird logo. I signed up, dutiful to the last, and tweeted. And waited. And then looked for people to follow. From my mailbox I found two former students...That wasn't appropriate. Then found organisations from the lists. Signed up to follow Oxfam (no sign of Christian Aid in which I have a personal interest) and then thouight better of it as I don't have time to do this. At least I discovered how to follow and un-follow, which I guess is the point. A friend is following me, no doubt just from kindness; she will be disappointed as I don't think I'll be tweeting much. However, I'm sure she hasn't time to read tweets anyway, so that's OK.

LinkedIn

Well, I've done as instructed and explored this site. And signed up to it. However, I have a great dislike of putting personal details on the web, so really wouldn't be happy with using this. I can see the intention, and perhaps it even works well, but I just can't imagine ever feeling comfortable with doing this this way. And from reading the blogs of various other 23 Thing-ers in Oxford, I am heartened to see that I am not alone in my reluctance.

YouTube

This was hilarious, especially before I found out how to turn the volume on/up, although marginally more meaningful than soundless podcasts, for obvious reasons... After amazement at the number of videos of squirrels, and at the mere existence of videos of snow falling in Aberdeen, I turned my attention to 'library' videos and watched a few guides to university libraries. They were all American, and unfunnily funny to the nth degree, except that of Vassar. I'm sure with more time I could find much better ones.
On to channels: I hit on the idea of watching the video my friend David uploaded of St Giles' Fair last year; and the one of our departing church organist playing her special fair voluntary (Lefebure-Waly) - huge wave of nostalgia, I have to admit. It was good to see what else he'd uploaded - e.g. snowy Headington, and Mummers' Play.
I then switched to YouTubeEDU but there didn't seem to be as many institutions represented as I'd expected, though each had lots of videos. Had a quick look at the Open University. I'm glad to have discovered all these resources exist - and look forward to returning.

Podcasts

After initial technical difficulties (being too ignorant to know how to turn up the volume and get sound), I listened to Thought for the Day (3 minutes was about as much time as I had), then switched to the University's podcasts and tried part of an interview with Professor Barry Cunliffe and the whole of a short interview with a friend of mine at St Hilda's. I was very impressed by the number of University podcasts there are, especially of the big lectures I never have the time/energy to go to. This could be very useful. I subscribed to Thought for the Day, as that was easy to do and a genuine interest.

Even more Delicious

I finally succeeded in adding St Stephen's House Library and the Language Teaching Centre Library to my network. Delicious seems quite easy to use, but although I can see the point of all this in the abstract, nothing in my experience to date makes it seem useful to me.