Week 4 : Books and social networking- GoodReads website

How can this site be used for readers' advisory purposes? How would Customers & library staff find this site useful?
On this free social networking website for people who love books, you can see everyone's bookshelves, their reviews, and their ratings. You can also post your own reviews and catalog what you have read, are currently reading, and plan to read in the future, join an online discussion group, start a book club, contact an author, and even post your own writing.
If you click on the 'explore' tab there are other things such as trivia, quizzes, videos, quotes, events & a swap option!
Yes I would, & already have promoted http://www.goodreads.com/ to customers.
I don't see why we couldn't have these above options added to the Manukau Library Website. We already have reviews & ratings, so wouldn't it be wonderful for customers to be able to add their own bookshelves, although currently we do have the option of 'Reading History' to keep track of reading history. Through our library website we could compare our booklist to that of another Library member & find readers who have similar tastes - thereby finding more great book suggestions.
I JUST LOVE THESE WIDGETS!!!!

Week 3 : Twitter - micro-blogging at a glance

Twitter is a good way of sharing smaller everyday things that are happening & finding out what your friends are doing, by following their updates on your twitter page.
I found @Manukau_Libs, so now I am 'following' their tweetstream & I sent them a 'tweet' (message) on Twitter. I also added my Twitter page to my RSS Feeds on my sidebar, so now I can go straight to my Tweets from my Blog sidebar.
I also felt I needed a Twitter Profile Widget on my sidebar to display my Twitter updates!
Is it easy to use? Would customers find it simple? I thought the 'Twitter in Plain English' clip was a bit basic & I wanted to know more about it, so found another clip which I thought covered far more, in easy steps.
http://bit.ly/aiSZUl
Yes this would be really useful on the Website, learn.nets and in our workrooms- a good way of providing & receiving latest Library info immediately, such as the following Tweet that I read today:

"Manukau_Libs NEWS: Manukau Libraries now have a small collection of books in the Afrikaans language: http://bit.ly/d0axJt "

A great way for Manukau Libraries to promote a variety of new information to staff & patrons!
Yes I would use this site again if there was a specific purpose for doing so, & yes, I would promote this service to customers.

Week 2 : Zamzar - converting file formats

I think this is great, as I have previously converted PDF files in a complicated round about way. It really is as simple (once I found the right button to click) as selecting a file to convert, choosing a format to convert to, typing in your email address and clicking convert. It was almost instant, it converts up to 1GB in size. I converted a Word doc into a PDF file.
I did find out, though, that the file download expires after 24 hours, unless you sign up for an account to store your files for longer. So you do need to download it before then. You can sign up for a Zamzar inbox to manage your files and store up to 100 GB of your files.

I am pleased I know about this as I think it will be a useful tool for future use.
I then converted the file to JPG so I could upload it to my Blog.

Week 1: Blogger

This has already been done- I am using my old Blog, so can skip the set up and move straight on to the next post!!!!! I will be blogging about the latest Manukau Libraries Learning 2.0 project which is going to encourage us "to experiment and learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today".
The objectives are:

To encourage exploration of Web 2.0 and new technologies by Manukau Libraries staff.
To provide staff with new tools (that are freely available on the Internet) to better support Manukau Libraries mission: To boldly go where no man has gone before.
To reward staff for taking the initiative to complete 6 self-discovery exercises.
To encourage staff to explore any and all Web 2.0 tools Manukau Libraries is currently using.

What more can be said!!!!