Robert Burns anniversary - some ideas?

Next year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. It sounds like there will be a 10 month festival in Scotland to celebrate this:

Festival Details here

Ellen from SLNSW thought of two reading lists which could be useful:

* Writers of Scotland (sorted by Nancy Pearl's doorways to make it interesting (character, setting, story, language or all of the above)

* Books to read while drinking whisky (Ellen thought eating haggis or porridge did not quite have the same effect) and this could be a great one to talk about with your readers (with some partnership opportunities as well)

Ellen has set up pages on the RA wiki for these:
Themed Lists
please add your ideas to the wiki (you can e-mail them to Ellen as well).

You might get some ideas from here
City of Literature

Latest from SLNSW

Civic surf is a UK project to encourage civic leaders to write blogs about their organisation.
Civic Surf
There are links to some blogs written by councillors as well as one by a CEO.

For those of you interested in digital preservation you may be interested in the discussion of digital continuity strategies - or how to make sure digital information continues to be available
Digital Continuity Strategy

Statistics
A recently released report alos highlights that many people think the information on the internet is more important than information from a range of other sources - have a look a this blog post summary of the report.
What people think of the Internet

Week 12 - Wrap up: social networks and catch up

How good was this week? I really enjoyed the article on different ways social networking can be used in a business way. I have embedded the table that was in the article.
Good to see that Libraries have a presence on MySpace. Not sure if I want to go there yet....but I was very impressed with the American Library Associations MySpace page - especially the profile that claims the library is a Capricorn and is currently in a relationship (aren't all Libraries in a Relationship?).
I must go and become a "friend" of the British Library on FaceBook. Yep, I have succumbed and joined FaceBook. I am catching up with all my old SOCOG buddies. Plus I have become addicted to a game similar to Scrabble called "Wordscraper" which I am currently playing with 2 of my friends.
I am also on Bebo as this seems to be the preferred social networking site in the UK so am now catching up with my London friends and nieces/nephews there doing the travel thing....
I definitely intend to look more into Second Life (but where to find the time? I barely have enough time to live my own life!).
Make sure you fill out the feedback form and then the separate form to let the State Library know you have finished.
Thanks for coming on this journey with me!

Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

Jill has spoken about her journey - amazing....

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html
about her experiences and insight. [this link takes you to a video of her presentation]

Top yummy stuff

I fell across a reference to this site, Popacular, in one of the blogs in my blogfeeder - it lists the top bookmarks in delicious by hour, last 8 hours, etc. My sidekick is already tucking in to Podcasts by the University of Oxford (#1 in the last hour) . . . won't get any sense out of her all day now.

Here are a couple of gems I found :

The Eyeballing Game. How's your visual accuracy?

How to tell if your cat is trying to kill you - take the 2 minute quiz

36 Cool Custom Error 404 Pages

Week 12 Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket...

Well hasn't it been a great trip! Full marks to the State Library team for putting the course together, and very special thanks to Vicki for encouraging us all with our weekly certificates and sweeties. I'm still discovering the cool stuff our staff have been doing in their blogs and I do hope we all continue with this.

We now have so many more skills and tools in our repertoire and I've used some already: the Remains of the Day kangaroo poster I did on Big Huge Labs Motivator is now going to be used in my pre-schooler Storytime warm up as a reward to the kids for participating in my Squiggles inspired kangaroo dance, there is preview in our Readers in the Mist blog.

The highlight of week 12 for me has been the Rotarua PL on Bebo, it's a really fun library site, especially the Gingerbread-people Haka. Finally I should acknowledge our IT dept for allowing access to what has been considered 'time wasting on the internet', but we know different now!

Helene Blowers in her blog, LibraryBytes has posted a couple of blog analyzers that purport to give some insights into your blog and writing style.

Helene, and now me, provides these analysers with the caveat that the scientific integrity of any of these tools is not known and they are presented here for your amusement only (except where the results are fantastic - see Readability Test below):

1. Typealyzer – provides a Myers-Briggs type analysis of your blog and shows you the area of the brain that your writing style reflects most.

Results:

Readers in the Mist : The analysis indicates that the author is of the type: ISTP - The Mechanics ~ The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Blue Mountains Library Manager : The analysis indicates that the author of http://bmlmanager.blogspot.com/ is of the type: ESTP - The Doers ~ The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time.



2. Genderanalyzer – determines what sex you write like.

Results

Readers in the Mist : We think http://readersinthemist.blogspot.com/ is written by a woman (74%).

Blue Mountains Library Manager : We have strong indicators that http://bmlmanager.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (94%).

Rubbish - obviously!



3. Readability Test - Determine what grade level your blog is written at.

Results

Readers in the Mist and Blue Mountains Library Manager :

Of course!


4. What is your blog worth - Determines your blog worth based upon Technorati ranking and advertising potential.

Results

Readers in the Mist : $1,129.08 (love the .08!)

Blue Mountains Library Manager : $0.00

I think they mean priceless!

Bignoting librarians

"Every book. Every movie. Every album. It's like Borders, Netflix, and iTunes combined -- for free. And it's so easy: You can go online and have the newest stuff sent to your local branch. Why you would leave this complimentary emporium to students and grandmothers is beyond me. Plus, a librarian is like a Google that actually finds what you're looking for and never clutters your screen with porn."

This endorsement of libraries and librarians has come from a very unlikely source.

Here's a nifty mashupy thing, Amaztype - it's an amazon search engine where you can get your search results as book covers, video/DVD covers or CD covers.

Once you've done your search and got your text, you need to do Ctrl+Alt+PrtScrn and save it to a Publisher document to play with.

Thought it might be useful for library posters and stuff.

Week 11 - Online Applications and Tools

I found this an extremely frustrating week and I have been stuck on it for 2 weeks!!! Yes, I understand the usefulness of google docs and Zoho. Especially if you are using public computers or sharing a document between friends and collaborating on a document and/or presentation. But do you think I could get a slide show to embed into my blog?
Anyway, finally, after converting a Powerpoint presentation that I had done and trying to embed into the blog and this not working I went back to the drawing board and CREATED a slide show from scratch. Please be proud of me - here it is and it is on one of my favourite topics (I can see G rolling her eyes now!!!):




I hope this changes the analysis of the blog!

Latest sites to look at from SLNSW

Library buildings
The green library blog http://thegreenlibraryblog.blogspot.com/ brings together information about green buildings - in this case libraries. You might like to see how other people are thinking about these questions. Designing better libraries blog discusses a broad range of topic relating to public libraries http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/

My maps
Google maps is asking people to contribute their expertise to make specialist maps of their area. The site where you can make maps is here http://www.google.com.au/intl/en_au/help/maps/mymaps-expo/ You can already looks at great surf beaches by Mick Fanning http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=115605927050847805681.000458dbbe0b5ed2e4d53&ll=-27.76133,134.516602&spn=50.904562,74.53125&z=4, famous grave sites http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=104524381826730108381.000458b7bf4e40fff0810&z=5 or famous gardens in Sydney http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=112439513477015065616.000458c917c2e4b7dd332&z=8 Wouldn't it be great to add your own local specialities to a map.