Geocaching - FINALLY!

Phew! Its been tricky to get the time to finish this but finally I can complete this course...and whats the last topic..something ismple and easy that I'm relatively familiar with I take it..hmmn..I...GEOCACHING!!!

Ok..ok..relax. This should be easy enough..after all I did complete a year of the Geographic INformations System course at Uni - I should be fine...hmmn..."USe your gps on your mobile phoine or find someone who has one.." ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!

Ok, I'm calm. Geocaching then. Its a cool fun little tool - I've seen it used in stuff like Foursquare and the like (i think thats the same thing)..I think its low on the priority list compared to the blogs and the podcasts and the twitters and the facebooks and such but its still a handy fun little thing to be familiar with.

I can see lotsa cool activities that could be linked with this/ Having a kids activity over school holidays where they had to use this to get to various parts of the library where they can find clues would be a cool little idea ..and maybe one id like to try and implement one day..could be fun. I wont go into too much detail on it (as I havent exactly thought of it yet) but yes, I can see how it can be used for fun activities and such. But I don't think its as important to libraries as the other web 2.0 tools we've been discussing.

Ok. My final thoughts and wrap up. Its been fun. I've enjoyed doing it - enjoyed the social elemnts and reading everyones blogs, twitter posts (oh sorry..tweets. Nope. I cant say that non sarcastically) and so forth. Its been fun. I'm a bit of a computer nerd myself so I was already relatively familiar with the bulk of the program (plus I just did a unit on essentially the same material last semester at university so that helps too) so while I REALLY havent learnt too much new stuff its been great revision. Tagging i guess, and delicious, is an area ...oh! And wikis... that I wasnt too familiar with so thats nice.

Thanks to Melissa and Mark for organising it all and thanks to the guys at Spearwood for providing me with that lovely iPad that I shalt win. :)

And yeah, I'd like to do some comics for the course next year - should be fun!

Online Video

OK, I'm going a little out of order here but I'm doing my post about Online Video now. Yup - AFTER podcasts. That's the way I roll.

Anyway, yes, online video is a nifty thing. There's been talk about recording storytime (as i think i mentioned in next weeks task on podcasts..oh wait..) and hosting it somewhere so people can watch it from home if they cant make it in. Whatever gets me more exposure I say! (I do storytime at Success once a week)

Er..anyway, I do watch a lot of online video - mostly (to be totally unexpected here) comic video shows. Yes, shocking I know. Revision 3 is a site that produces a lot of Internet TV shows of very high production values - check em out. The best of these is actually no longer a part of revision 3 but iFanboy is a podcast and videocast (or vodcast if you're cool and in the know ;) ) which I've been watching/listening to for around 4 or 5 years now.

Argh. I apparently cant figure out how to start typing again after the embedded video so I'll leave it till the end of the post. Embedded video of library events of any type, authors reading excerpts from their books (Neil Gaiman is doing a tour of the US at the moment and at each stop he's reading a chapter from the Graveyard Book which is then being uploaded to the net) and other book related events would be the first step I'd take in using online video. And now I'm all motivated, darnit.




Hey whaddaya know, i figured out how to do it after all. (hint - 'edit html' rather than 'compose' tends to work fairly nicely.) Oh by the way, I haven't actuallyw atched the above episode. Normally its pretty SFW but they can be known to drop a little language from time to time so be warned.

Edit..AAANNND Its messed my page up. Oh well. Its widescreen people - get with the times.

The Madcap Adventures of Pharnabus Filch #1

So I did a strip based on the title of the blog with more of a library focus. Its rough..very rough but what the hey..click on the picture to make it legible..

we've all been there right folks?

PODCASTS

Yeah, now this is more like it.

Big fan of podcasts. I think i discovered them about...hmmn..5 years or so ago? I was approached about being interviewed on one at the time and that led to me looking into them and finding a couple of burgeoning comic book podcasts which had just started up. I got friendly with a couple of them, provided some artwork for some of the sites and so on.

At one time i think i was subscribed to around 50 podcasts (not that I listened to them all mind you) mostly being comic book and video game related! I was working as a flatter and drawing my strip/doing comissions at night after looking after the kids during the day, so it was great to be able to listen to something while I worked.

I also..cough..used to a podcast myself with my wife. We were going through Marvel comics from the 60's, reading them in chronological order and reviewing/discussing/makingfunof them. But then she got pregnant with our third and morning sickness is not an attractive quality in an audio recording so there went that..

I would LOVE the library to get more on the podcast bandwagon and Lawley and I have taken some steps in that direction by recording a recent Genealogy talk at Coolbelup with the hope of putting that up as an audio podcast. I really think given how much we pay for these guest speakers it makes sense to provide the material to as many people as possible. If only 20 people can make it to a talk at 2pm on a Friday afternoon why stop there? If we have it available to download it can be so much more worthwhile.

I know we're also talking about recording Storytime (ye gods, i'm one of the people who do storytime) and streaming it live (with the option to download it later of course) using something like UStream i guess. That would be good too.

I really feel since all this stuff is pretty easy to setup and get going it makes sense to be able to provide as much content as we can as long as its not overly time consuming or expensive.

I know other librarys have authors read excerpts from their books. I would LOVE to start a podcast inviting local or even Australian authors to read the first chapter from their upcoming books which we could release as a podcast promoting Australian talent. I think its a great idea but I dont know, i may be missing some of the negatives.

Other libraries release podcasts where staff just discuss books and what they're reading, some release podcasts from the groups that meet at the library (i think it'd be particularly good for school aged kids to work on something like this) never mind the more practical uses such as using podcasts to update people on news, events or tutorials on how to search through the catalogue.

SOOOO many excellent options available - really keen to be involved in implementing some of them.

I'm not sure if any local libraries are doing any of the above but its a shame if they're not. As long as you have someone on staff enthusiastic to do it it really doesn't take that much time or expense to get one going and they can be quite fun once you get going.

As for podcasts I like, the main two i have followed for the last 4 years or so are;

The Player One Podcast - Great videogame podcast hosted by ex editors of EGM..and..

iFanboy - excellent comic book podcast. Expanded their weekly schedule to include video podcasts as well. Out of the thousands of comic book podcasts around (some release episodes every 2nd day!) this is the best.

If you like comics or videogames (I know of at least one other blogger on our web 2.0 journey that likes the latter) the there are MANY MANY options available to you.

twitterin' the day away pt1

Well, that didn't work. Tried to write the blog with the ipad but no good. Then again,I seemto have problems with blogger no matter what I'm using.

Off sick today (fromchildren minding duties) so I'm playing catch-up and decided I'll start with twitter.

My twitterid/name/thingy is msparkinson if anyone wants to follow me.

Edit: Whoopise - did i forget to do this part? I think I did.

Twitter! I like me some twitter. Its agreat way of dripfeeding constant information in tiny bite sized chunks! I have a number of library people that I follow and I'm getting constantly bombarded by interesting library related posts and information that I have no way of being able to consume. So theres that. As a basis for your personal learning network its a great tool (oooo, i used a buzz word). Then theres using twitter as a library tool - interacting with members and pushing out information about the library. Very good for marketting and communication and if you have someone sitting on the librarys twitter account all day keeping tabs on whats going down (in twitter you can keep track of any mentions you might get)..well, it really is a great way for direct (well, not direct but you know what i mean) communication with the public.

Facebook. I hate me some Facebook. I much prefer Twitter- i dont really like how Facebook works and what its all about but again its a great communication and marketing tool for libraries to use. Linking to pictures via flickr or promoting upcoming events is a great way to establish and build a community around the library and gives you that extra ability to interact a little more directly with the library members.

Cockburn has a great facebook presence that I believe links to the twitter feed as well so while theres a little crossover between the two, users that may not be following us on both services don't miss out on any of the updates that are posted. I just completed my first unit in my grad dip of Library Stuff at Curtin and my first unit was on this type of stuff exactly (and i'm not too unfamiliar with it in the first place) but I REALLY cant think of too much information to write about onFacebook in the library field strangely enough.

The State Libraries facebook page has general information about them as well as links, photos and general information that their followers (sorry friends, getting my social network tools confused) would be interested in reading or viewing. Interstingly they also provide access (its just a link I suppose) to their catalogue through the facebook page.

Its essentially a hub for everything State Library related for the public - which is a good use of the Facebook service.

Out of Print #13,16,17

I like the last panel



Another early favourite


overly sentimental?

more self indulgence..

Typing on my graphics tablet screenand ittends to miss letters so if there any tpos i sncry aplogse

a few more strips..



The thing about these strips is these are all realcharacters..ive changed their appearance obviously but the characters and costumes are all real...ok maybe except this dude.


This isone of my fave early strips..the colours dont look right, but whatever. Plus my first attempt at lettering by hand..it'll get better.

Out of Print comic.

I'm gonna post my old stuff cos theres been such an outpouring of interest to see them (Fred.)

These are a year old and they start out pretty rough. I basically took some public domain superheroes and centered the strip around them attending a support group (cos they're public domain. must be harsh.)

Again, i was rusty when i started these so be forgiving.

Again (2), click to read if you have a standard screen. stoopidblogger.

Pharnabus comic?

I tried to whip up a quick comic strip based on the title of the blog partly as a learning activity as its beena while. Annoyingly though it seems i dont have the right software anymore and it won install on this computer either - so ignore the bad lettering.

Was about a kid and his sister travelling through various novels..kinda lke Quantum Leap.

But then i had a better idea so this will probably be it. you mayhave to click onit to get a better view.

Delicious and such.

I feel like I'm starting off a lot of posts with "i'm not really into.." but its the same case here. I went through the whole Delicious thing in my uni course and i dont really get into social bookmarking myself. I mean, I see the advantage in having your bookmarks in the cloud so you can access them anywhere but I'm just as happy to use my own bookmarks on my own computer most of the time. And i can see the advantage of sharing bookmarks with others but I'm not worried about sharing my bookmarks with anyone and not too fussed on people sharing them with me. But again, thats just me.

Delicious is a good way of collating information and being able to jump directly to a topic or subject you may be interested in I guess. But i follow the sentiments of another blogger where I like to just search and sicover the information myself mostly. I've never really clicked with social bookmarking but I can definitely appreciate their importance and how they're used. (can you tell I'm strecthing for my 100 words - a rarity with me, normally I don't want to stop typing.)

I Do understand how they're helpful when it comes to implementations like Librarything though which is a very cool site. Unfortunately I'm not reading many books at the moment and I feel a little self conscious if I start clogging up Cockburns Librarything account with Graphic Novels..I wonder if theres specifically a site like that for comics. Will have to look into that as it could be rather cool. As far as I know Librarything has GN's in there as well - i just feel a little self conscious as the Librarys widget would be then filled with Spider-man and Batman. :) I should explain that on the Cockburn Library blog (and possibly the webpage, not 100% sure) they have a widget which shows all the books that the Librarystaff are currently reading.

Edit: As you can see by my librarything widget which is running all over the rest of the sites real estate, I've filled it with graphic novels in my collection. Librarything is pretty cool - and since i started putting graphic novels in my collection I've been contacted about putting up reviews or something. Im sure they're sent to every single person who puts graphic novels in their collection though but hey. *End Edit

Unfortunately I havent updated my reads for quite a while as apparently I'm still reading Lirael and a Harry Potter book. Oops. Sorry Lawley.

I've popped a few links over on the right there which should take you to my very empty delicious links collection which at the moment pretty much consists of the trailer to the new Green Lantern movie (!!) which just came out today! The Trailer that is, not the movie.

Glee!

Edit: Just added my own Librarything feed. Unfortunately it doesnt seem to want to animate which is making me sad. Oh well, I'll figure it out. Edit: I did, Yay me!

Wiki-Wiki-Wild West!

Does anyone remember that Will Smith song from that movie Wild West about a decade ago. Didnt that go "wikiwikiwiki wild west"?

Which has nothing to do with anything really. But it was a bad song and it said Wiki.

Anyway.

So. Wikis then. I've never been a fan of them for some reason but i understand how they're helpful and why they're popular. I guess I still have the mindset that anything that can be edited by anyone is not a good resource but thats growing more and more incorrect as wikipedia seems to have the answer to half the reference questions I come across these days. Much to the parents chagrin.

Wikis are handy for a group of people to be able to collect and information on a particular or group of topics and when you have enthusiastic people this can be a very good tool. I regularly see wikipedia being bandied around when people are asking questions or worried about keeping up to date with the goings on in the comic book world.

The Joys of RSS...

Ok, I have to say, first I was down on the whole RSS thing. As someone who worked in the field of comics on the web (cough...webcomics.) I wasnt too pleased with the idea that people could subscribe to my strip without going to my site at all thus lowering my visits crippling my advertising cache.

But now I'm not doing it anymore so what do I care?

Honestly though, I found most the sites I was subscribed to required me to visit their site anyway after the intial blurb or teaser and I never really found Google Reader to be that intuitive in the first place. HOWEVER, since I got my iPad I have found several very cool apps that rearrange the RSS feeds to essentially look like a virtual newspaper or magazine which is GREAT.

So in this case I didnt really search or add anything to my feeds as they're full enough right now, thankyouverymuch, but I can certainly talk about what I'm already subscribed to.

As should be of no suprise to people who know me, I follow a lot of Comic book sites. In fact that covers the most of my RSS feeds. Sites like Newsarama, Comic book resources, ifanboy, Comics Alliance, Webcomics.com and the-isb.com are just a few of the places I check up on.

Besides those, I have a folder that keeps tabs on various library blogs(Librariansmatter, tamingtheweb), as well as folders for Science (I intend to check these, I do. Hey I have a degree in Environmental Science. I will check these..just like I'll read the New Scientist magazines I keep collecting...), Technology (Engadget, Wired, that kind of stuff) and Entertainment (Dark Horizons, /film, you get the idea). Finally I do follow a few Videogame Blogs as well (Gamelife, Toucharcade, Kotaku and so on).

So a good mix of Work and Play there I believe.

The Adventure Continues! FLICKR (yes, its s'posed to be missing an 'E'. Really!)

Ok, so my post for Week three is about Flickr (as is everyone's, true). The picture I've chosen has no deep meaning I'm afraid. As most people who know me would be aware of, I'm quite interested in Graphic Novels in Libraries, having worked in the comic industry for quite a while now. (Lowest possible rung of the comic industry but I'll take what I can get than you very much)

I'm very interested in altering a few things with Cockburns current collection just to get things all purty like and I'm excited that I may be able to influence and help shape and grow our collection in the future.

My pic shows Canton Public Libraries GN collection. Its nothing amazing but it seems to show that everythings grouped together by title rather than by author which is a big bugbear between me and the state library. I may actually make this a thing and see if i can find various pictures from different libraries showing their graphic novel collection. I'm kinda interested in actually starting a Graphic Novel collection for Libraries type blog (why do i keep capitalising everything) but I need to look around and see if that niche has been filled or if there's even space for one in the first place.

Excelsior! )(sigh...sorry.)

Wow.

Just checked out the other blogs that are particpating in this course and suprised to find all the pseudonyms and mystery going on. I feel a little exposed and vulnerable now. Erk.

Plus what the heck was I thinking with that title!

Seacrest out!

I am NOT Pharnabus Filch

Ok. I have no explanation for the title. I needed a name for the Blog and thats what I came up with.

On to business.

I am currently doing my grad dip in Library and Information studies at Curtin University. Actually i just started. I'm doing it externally and veeerrry part-time (one unit. cough). The unit I happen to be doing this semester seems to cover exactly the same material as this course....except its 1500$ more expensive dabnabbit. On top of that I am fairly familiar with web 2.0 already, having participated in my fair share of twittering, facebooking, podcasting and blogging. Once upon a time i made a living (meager though it was) through comics and these tools are vital in promoting and maintaining a community to pay your bills. :)

Still, its always good to refresh your skills and potentially develop new ones. I think it's a great idea that all staff are encouraged to complete this course. Computer skills and knowledge and understanding of the internet, web 2.0 and how the library can use this to interact with our clients is very important in todays digital age. Courses like this are one of the reasons i decided to to (try to) become a librarian. I'm very interested in lifelong learning. I hate stagnation. Despise it. I'm the type of person who needs to be continually working towards a goal and this field enables me to be always learning, always developing new skills which is a huge incentive for me personally.

As for blogs, due to my Uni course i have a plethora of pages I try to visit (although I'm not getting to visit most of them as often as i should (including my course co-ordinators Librarians Matter )), i think theres around 15-20 in my rss feed, so yes, i'm kept busy with reading.

One blog i do hope to spend more time with is our own. I'm trying to start writing a Comics (or graphic novels if youd prefer the more literary (or snooty) definition) column for our public blog once a week but I havent written anything for public consumption for quite a while so I'm very out of practice. I think its a great idea to have more conversational pieces on the libraries blog, its the sort of thing that can only improve the community that the library wishes to develop.

Thats it for now..I'm hoping those bulletpoints were only suggestions for the blog post and not actual topics that we needed to write about.

I'm sure they were just suggestions..

right..?

yeah..