Downloadable e-Audios and Podcasts-Friday 30th Nov.

Following my blogging/slogging yesterday about e-books etc, the concept of audio e-books for listening via an ipod or computer would be a great boon for the home service library clients.
I am confident that learning to use an ipod would be less intimidating and cumbersome for elderly clients. An added bonus of accessing e-audio books applicable across all ages of library customers would be no loss or damage to tapes / cd's.

Podcasts would be an excellent way of listening to programmes, interviews retrospectively, following the time of original broadcast. The ABC Radio National and ABC 774 are examples which offer podcasts to download.
As I am finding that it will take my lifetime to learn to speak Italian, I am interested in researching the possibility of participating in learning Italian via a podcast.

Ciao again,

Robert

E-books / e-audios - Thursday 29.11.07

Enjoyed having a look around in the discovery exercise sites for e-books and audio e-books online --ie, Netlibrary, Overdrive and World e-bookfair.
Recently I have been assisting our library's outreach / home service co-ordinator.
The sites explored above have enormous potential to assist clients of the library home service, at least in theory.

The difficulty I can see surrounding this , is the "general" computer illiteracy and feelings of irrelevance felt by our elderly library clients ( despite having witnessed wonderful exceptions of elderly library clients who have embraced computers) .

Unfortunately I don't have the answers, but if this problem could be somehow improved, what a terrific resource for such a group of library users.
Conversely, reading from an actual, physical book still holds a greater appeal than reading from a screen for many library users.

Ciao,
Robert

Cream reunion concert

Week 9.

Great to explore Youtube site. Heaps of rock music videos to sample. Loved viewing videos of the 2005 reunion concert of British rock group, Cream. Superb videos and sound of Cream performing "White Room" and "I'm so glad" .

Robert

Zoho - November 15th

Very impressed with the variety of templates and tools available in Zoho - resumes, presentations, ticketing, word processing, etc. An excellent site to access for the various word processing applications. The internet is providing a way of harnessing "people power" to break the monopolies of the likes of Microsoft corporation.



Checked out the discovery exercise nominations and awards. Very American. For example, I am interested in travel and would most likely access Australian sites such as Lonely Planet , YHA and Backpacker.

Cheers,

Robert

Wikis 2.11.07

Explored the discovery exercises and links for wikis. There are a vast array of useful links as the Princeton library book lovers site indicates.
I have accessed wikipedia sometimes to find information for library patrons.
The wikis tool opens up another virtual "google" world of information. Paradoxically, the need to cross reference information is still pertinent.

Cheers,

Robert

October 26, 2007.

Spent a very useful session exploring Learning 2.0:-

Flickr-would you believe that I don't yet own a digital camera ??; still use a film camera but don't panic just yet-I do have plans to go digital next year. Still even without a digital camera to share pics around, I can enjoy viewing landscape photos on Flickr.
Libthing- bring it on--it could revolutionize our library's cataloguing department!!
Tags-reading about how tags are used.
Delicious-reading how this social bookmarking site is used. Contains useful links of interest eg travel destinations.