Del.icio.us has had a makeover

The popular bookmark sharing Web2.0 site, Del.icio.us, has had a makeover. The neat new design is certainly an improvement on the old, bland screens they had.

The three areas they have addressed in the new look are: access speed, more powerful searching and design. The bundled tags are now more clearly displayed in the right side bar. Like any makeover it may take a bit of getting used to.

Read all about it on the Delicious blog

My links are stored on Delicious

Del.icio.us library applications

Since completing Learning 2.0 last year, a few of us in the Faculty of Arts and Education subject team have been experimenting with Del.icio.us. Have a look at our nascent collection of links and see what you think. We are FEA.ECU on Del.icio.us

Kathryn Greenhill in her Librarians Matter blog post of 12^th October 2007 http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2007/10/12/two-clever-libraries/

gives a neat example of a Del.icio.us application from QUT Library. Their Creative Industries library subject guide now includes a del.ici.us Tag Cloud . Link to it via the QUT guides on their website. Or go directly to del.icio.us/QUT_Creative_Industries_Library.

Handy hint from Lutie: If you have a few Del.icio.us accounts you can link them under Networks. That way you don’t need to login to each Del.icio.us account.

Subscribing to a tag is a great way to keep up with recent Del.icio.us activity on a subject. I have subscribed to the tag"Facebook" to help me prepare for a talk I'm giving on Facebook at the Perth Unconference in August 08

"All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience" online program starts 21st July

At our ECU Library many staff completed the Learning 2.0 (aka 23 Things) in 2007. This was run through our ECU Library Learning 2.0 Blog

And the content and style of our program was based on the the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County Learning 2.0 program , created and designed by Helene Blowers in 2006.

But the problem for us now is how to update all that valuable information and make it fresh. Hence our in-house hands-on training which we planned offered last week through our ECU Library Wiki

Now a new 2008 online program based on the 23 Things is being offered by Web 2.0 guru and well known US library academic, Michael Stephens

The new program is “All Together Now: A 2.0 Learning Experience.”.

This starts today, July 21 and runs through til in early September 2008. It will be run by Michael through the School Library Journal (SLJ) blog, so check it out now

Library 2.0 Revisited at ECU in July

Following up on the staff survey outlined in my previous post, on what sort of library 2.0 training staff wanted, we are running two ECU Library 2.0 training days this July 2008.

We have planned the two half days through our wiki: "Library 2.0 Revisited". The two days will provide a chance for Library 2.0 newbies to get some exposure to the new technologies.

Most of the staff running the session completed the 23 things Training in 2007. That training was run through the ECU Learning 2.0 blog

2nd WA Library 2.0 Unconference fully subscribed

Perth library staff are keen for professional development opportunites, it seems. Especially when the event is offered to a wide range of libraries, and it's free.

Registrations for the 2nd WA Library 2.0 Unconference opened on Tuesday July 1st, 2008. By mid-day July 2nd the Unconference was fully subscribed.

Unfortunately numbers had to be limited, as the State Library of WA venue holds just 75.

But, if you are attending, it's not too late to put your name down to help, or to run a session. Details of the event: "Library 2.0 and beyond: getting our hands dirty" on 22 August are on the UnconferenceWiki

Free Australian content on Slow TV channel

Along with the increasing amount of streaming video available on the ABC TV website, comes a free Australian channel known as SlowTV .

The site is provided by Australia's journal of politics, society and culture, The Monthly . SlowTV is described as a "free internet TV channel delivering interviews, debates, conversations and public lectures about Australia's key political, social and cultural issues."

The program guide has videos as grouped under 3 headings: "Culture" "Society" and "Politics".

To give you an idea of the range of quality material here, some of the recent programs include:

National Apology to the Stolen Generations by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Tim Winton in conversation with Martin Flanagan
Germaine's Legacy: After 'The Female Eunuch'. Adelaide Writers' Week

Using Flickr to build relationships and promote your library

Michael Stephens' second step in creating a hyperlinked library is to incorporate Flickr images, so your library photos can be linked in to many Web 2.0 applications. It helps to have a ready pool of available images. Flickr is an excellent way to promote your library, to your stakeholders and the wider world.

At ECU, our marketing section has a photo library, but good library photos are pretty scarce. Also we don't have license approval for putting the ECU marketing photos on Flickr. So we are looking to build our own collection of photos to promote the library. We need to be mindful of going through all the correct protocols and gaining written permission, when photographing of students or staff.

We have started our ECU Flickr photo site and hope to integrate this with other Web 2.0 applications as we go along.