Things 22 and 23

I completed Things 22 and 23 a few weeks back but never posted.
I 'Smurfed Myself' but removed it from my Blog page as it keeps 'speaking', couldn't figure out how to turn off the sound.
I did the mosaic picture scribblar too.
Feels kind of sad to be finished but I really enjoyed the whole process, most of all the blogging aspect and interaction with other bloggers.

Looking forward to getting the Movie up and running once we have a proper meeting etc.

Things 20 and 21

Cloud Computing and Google Maps
I already wrote a piece on Cloud Computing here so I'm not going to replicate my musings as I've nothing new to add.

Of all the recent online applications available Google Maps and Skype are my favourites.  Funnily enough they are both ways of connecting person and place.  My sister in law from Australia visited recently.  Using Google Maps she honed in on her hometown of Mornington outside Melbourne.  She took me to her parents house, then we went down the street and saw where my sister and nieces are living and then treked down to the beach.  It was the closest thing I will get to visiting them for some time, but it was wonderful to see what it was like, and get a feel for the proximity of their lives to one another.

I highly recommend downloading the App to your smart phone if you're going abroad.  No matter where you are, the GPS locates you and can direct you to where you want to go, which makes it very difficult to get lost (though not impossible, lol!).

Here's where I'd like to be right now:

Kyoto, Japan

I became fascinated with Japanese history and culture in my teens.  Their literature challenged my imagination as I struggled to visualise these exotic lands and grasp their culture, so alien was it from my sheltered parochial teenage life.

I was in awe of the Geisha, their beauty, their sadness, their broken hearts and unfulfilled, cruel lives. I was terrified of the emperors and the Samurai, they seemed to have all the power and control but seemingly soft hearted and compassionate underneath.

Though it's thoroughly modern capital Tokyo, is thronged with businessmen and Harajuku girls shuttled on the Shinkansen bullett to neon light karaoke bars, nintendo arcades and hightech business conferences, much of Japans founding culture can still be witnessed in the tranquil settings of Kyoto. 

Traditionally clad girls immerse themselves in Ikenobo flower arranging, tourists visit the machiya townhouses, golden Pavilion, and shinto shrines maybe even taking in a perfromance from the maiko girls.  It really is a country of contrasting cultures and fortunes.
There is something serenely beautiful about Japanese art and music, despite their tumultuous past, they always act poised and composed, even their prostitutes are elegant ladylike dolls, who sit demurely playing traditional music.  A stark cry from their modern counterparts, preoccupied with tacky garish pop culture and a crassly consumerist society.  Yet beneath all that they still strive for perfection and brilliance in all that they setout to achieve.

Ahhh some day I will visit ...............I can but dream................ 

 Google Docs is an extension of the concept of wikis, in that instead of attaching and sending documents you can save a document online and let people read it there.  Less duplication and less error.

You don't need to worry about attaching different versions of the same document to different people or having to re-send once you make a change, they will access the latest version online.  Similar to cloud computing you're not clogging up your hard drive you're using web allocated space.

Things 18 and 19

EBooks & iTunes

We recently exceeded 200 ebook titles in the library.  I have to admit I've never read an ebook and I don't own a Kindle, but when I was distance learning I used online electronic resources and journals extensively so I guess ebooks are an extension of that really.  I think from a students viewpoint it is such a handy tool.  To be able to login to the college website and read a book without ever leaving your home is the ultimate in convenience.
The one thing that disappoints me about academic ebooks is that they are basically scanned in documents.  To my mind I always thought that ebooks would be these amazing texts full of useful hyperlinks, instant translations, references etc.  In alot of fiction this is the case.  If you're reading about France for instance you can click on the word and it will give you a wikepedia type entry with details like population size, climate, national currency etc. I guess the amount of work to do this sort of text linking would be hugely time consuming for academic books and journals, and it's probably unnecessary.  In their favour like any other pdf academic ebooks do have search and find facilities which are very useful.

With the increasing popularity of iPads and other more affordable tablets, I really believe that ebooks will see huge growth.  The Kindle suffered from having such limited functionality, kind of expensive for just an ebookreader.  But with a tablet you have internet, music, photography, word processing and a host of other applications and you can just download an ereader app and hey presto it's a kindle with a thousand other apps.  And yet, I still don't want one,  I love my paperbacks.

ITunes is an interesting development, I can totally see the usefulness of having an academic ITunes library.  Why not? Instant hub for anything you might want, makes perfect sense.  I think it would be useful to be able to download to your iPod/smart phone etc and be able to listen to something in the car or on the luas/bus while commuting.

Completely off topic, but I think students are really lucky to have so much instant access to materials.
When I was an undergraduate in the 1990's I remember trolling through index cards and looking up library catalogue on old terminals, there was no internet, it was such a chore to 'find' information, never mind sifting through what was relevant or not?  I wonder did our research suffer greatly or do students now adays just spend less time doing the initial 'search'? 
I think it would be a great challenge for students to have to do an assignment without internet access.  But then what would be the point?  Technology is constantly changing and you can't reinvent the wheel.

Julia Donaldson is new children's laureate

Apologies as this is a little outdated.  There was an interesting piece on Newsnight book review before they finished up for the Summer.
They ran a piece on  Julia Donaldson,(The  Gruffalo), the new Childrens Laureate in the UK.  Julia is a huge endorser of libraries and attributes them to her fame and success.  Here's a short excerpt from an interview with her in the Guardian:

In recent months she has flung herself into the campaign to save libraries, leading a protest meeting at the Scottish parliament, signing petitions, and turning up at readings in libraries in Scotland and England.
She is promising even more ardent efforts in her new role.
"I'd love to do a libraries tour from Land's End to John O'Groats," she said. "The children who would come to events in libraries would have been briefed beforehand that they would come to perform something to me, so the first 10 minutes of each session they might perform a class poem they had written or act out a favourite picture book.
"Maybe I'll be able to talk to the minister of culture and persuade the government to have some kind of overall plan because at the moment I feel all the library cuts and closures are very piecemeal, so I'll do what I can," she added.

The World and us libraries could do with a few more Julias on board.

The same show had a wonderful interview between Kirsty Wark and Philip Roth.  I was astounded at how likable Roth came across, so human and open, not at all how I'd perceived him from other interviews.  She interviewed him in his Conneticut home, I've trawled the internet and cannot find a link to it anywhere :(

No place like the Library!

This is fun, but it's also to the point, how many students even know the range of services we provide CDs, DVDs, ebooks?  Maybe we could make a back to basics fun library video, that hammers home what we actually offer?  Just a thought :)

Thing 16 & 17 Youtube and Vimeo

I’ve used Youtube a lot over the years, primarily for looking up old music videos, but also I find it great for crochet and cooking etc. I have a Youtube account and  I’ve uploaded private videos for family viewing.  The privacy settings are quite good, you can set it up so that noone can see a clip unless you invite them to see it and send them a link.  In that regard it’s REALLY useful.  For my brothers 30^th last year, I made a mini film where I edited together birthday greetings from several family members into one message, it took a while but he was chuffed.

In the library over the last semester I’ve been creating little online tutorials for students and uploading them to youtube before embedding them into  the library website. The product I use to capture mouse  movements on the screen is jing.  I then open the unedited file in a package called Camtasia Suite, where I can edit out pauses, and add in captions and there is even a facility for a voiceover( which does not seem so daunting an experience now that I’’ve made my first Podcast).

Here's a tutorial on how to remew library books.

You can see all the current tutorials here: 

http://leabharlann.spd.dcu.ie/EnglishSite/OnlineResources/onlinetutorials.html 

I downloaded Celtx and had a play around with it.  It seems like quite an elaborate programme, I can see its uses if you are delegating out tasks as everyone could input their own ‘section’.  At first I thought it looked like it would create more work, but actually when I had a play around with it, seems like a neat way of storing the data in a very organized way and again, for a project with several inputters, it could be really useful.

Now I just need to think of something to do for our Cregan Library video.  I'm thinking I go to the wiki area to discuss that?

Podcast - Film review of The Guard

So I've finally got back on track with the remaining 'Things'.
I listened to some of the library podcasts and choose to do a film review for my own podcast, simply because I went to the cinema last week, and the film was fresh in my head.
There are no words for the embarasement of listening back to your own voice.  I have not heard a self recording in years and I never realised I had such a pronounced lisp, cringe!
I downloaded Audacity but had problems saving the file, and somehow corrupted it in the process, after much messing about(and I'll admit it a little help from my hubby) I uploaded it to Podbean.
I'm sure with a little more patience I would have figured it out myself but patience is a virtue ............ and in my defense I am conscious of how far behind I've fallen so am panicking somewhat.  Silly I know!
In spite of the cringe factor, I actually enjoyed the process.
As regards practical application of podcasts in our library, we could feature some on our blog.  And it would be a welcome feature to the youtube clips we do for online tutorials but more on that in the next 'Thing'.

The Guard Film Review

Playing catchup

Back from holidays and two weeks behind on the 'Things' I have to do, to be honest I'm quite daunted by how far behind I am.  Baby steps, and I'm sure I'll catch up!

Weather malfunction

INSTALLING SUMMER.....
███████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 44% DONE.
Install delayed....please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Season not found.
Season "Summer" cannot be located.
The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.
Please try again later.

Source: Youghalbayweather.com

Open day in IFI this Saturday

 If you're in town Saturday and fancy going to the movies for FREE, check out the IFI Openday schedule.

According to Facebook the audience choice movie is Submarine. Enjoy!

The fog is lifting

With all this talk about clouds, and the new Dell global research center for cloud computing opening here in Ireland, it's time to figure out what cloud computing is all about. It's a term that has floated around in computing for a few years now, but really seems to be gathering momentum of late. 

Getting to grips with the ideology brought to mind my first iPod and bringing it home to show it to my mother.  She could not understand how all my CDs were on this tiny machine. I tried to explain it was a high capacity hard drive, but she just smiled and said she was too old to figure out modern technology.  Fast forward a couple of years and she is addicted to the latest 'Angry Birds' app on her own little gizmo.  That's the crazy thing about IT, alot of the time you really don't need to understand how things work, but once you get used to a new concept it sort of becomes the norm and you just accept it and don't question it any more.
 
At it's most basic cloud computing is just a different way of storage.  Right now we are all used to having our own hard drives.  But the difference now will be that we will have an area on the interweb where all our data is stored and we can log into it from any country or device and access all our files.  A bit like a hotmail/google account really, but you can store eveything, email, photos, music, films, depending on the size you go for.  And no matter where you login from you will see your own customised desktop.

In practise all companies will be able to sync everything in these clouds, from databases to accounting packages, and according to all the blurb it should be possible to run packages such as Talis and the library catalogue in a cloud like a big virtual server.  (IT departments across the globe shudder at what that will entail!!)

In theory it does sound advantageous, as you don't need to worry about backing up data anymore.    Personally I have two big concerns, privacy of data, and threat of hacking from an external source.  What happens if the clouds get hacked? How safe and/or private is your information?   I guess these are the things that everyone will worry about so they will have to iron them out before it takes off. 

An additional concern is, what does it mean in terms of streaming data.  In terms of dropbox and torrents, how will these be monitored and does it mean your cloud can be randomly searched?  Is it really safe to hold all your music/films in it?  I am a bit sceptical about the intentions of this longterm.  Is it going to be a way of finally stopping file sharing and music/film swapping?  Or am I just being paranoid?  Could it be that these multi billion dollar organisations are benevolently trying to make our lives easier with no ulterior motive. Interesting times ahead for sure!

All this cloud talk makes me yearn for a time when life was simpler and they were just little balls of fluff that billowed across the sky.

Can you hear me Major Tom....................

Houston we definitely have a problem!! 
Beyond frustrated at not being able to comment on everyone's contributions. Suffice to say I've enjoyed reading them. 


I checked the Blogger Q&A and "Not being able to comment" is apparently a known bug, Jeez you think they'd fix it!!

It's so weird being able to read and not being able to repsond.  Obviously it's not exactly the same thing, but it's making me imagine the frustration of not being able to speak, which actually I've never thought about before.

Hopefully this will rectify itself over the next few days, for now I'll have to content myself with listening............

Just 'cause it's Sunny outside.................

Fingers crossed for some blue skies a few cold beers and a BBQ.....................Mmmmmmmmm

No Comment!

Having major issues with Blogger the last few days.  I can post on my own blog but when I try to comment on anybody else's it forces me to re-login, enter the disabled text, enter my password, kick me out, round and round we go!! I must by now be filling half a cyber graveyard with all my missing posts. 

Pitseleh, love your Guardian photo sequence, I was on the verge of blubbing too! Horrible to think that that kind of life could cease to exist.  There's something actually beautiful about their self-reliance and contentment.  I'm not sure which number it was but I was endeared to the one where one brother said the worst day of his life was staying in a hotel 3 hours away!

With regard to Pitseleh's house burning down post, checkout the burning house project it's cute!  I have very little personally that's irreplaceable.  Photo albums, and childhood memory box would need to be rescued. The main thing I would want to keep is  a box of diaries and letters I wrote during my teens and twenties.  Even reading them now, I cringe and smile at my younger self.  So clueless, and so naive. I think when I'm older I will cherish these dearly.

Totally against kids on Facebook, I fear having under 13's on  facebook will transform it into a grooming portal for paedophiles.  For every parent who monitors their kids internet use, there will be thousands that don't.  It is so easy to assume a fake identity and groom a child, I really don't see any benefits to this at all. 

I fear something more sinister with Zuckerberg than passive advertising.  Like Twitpic, Facebook owns any photos you upload, so he 'owns' billions of photos of people's lives.   Think about the stars of the future.  Their parents are busy posting every highlight of their little lives on Facebook:  baby scans, first photo, first tooth, first step, first birthday, first day of school, communion, confirmation, graduation............All there in technicolour and OWNED by Zuckerberg.  By the time the next generation go to sign their first record deal or begin to learn the lines for their first movie, Zuckerberg will have a lifetimes worth of photos ready to sell to the biggest bidder.  I find this whole concept terrifying.

Bookshops..............

World's  most beautiful bookstores, have a look and drool! I like the one in Porto and the quaint coffee shop in Massachusettes the best. 

If I could have one dream come true it would be to win enough money to open my own book shop complete with coffee area & slouch couches.

I'd home bake muffins and scones everyday for the coffee area, and have coffee mornings for OAPs.  There would be a book club and I'd show foreign/independent movies  a couple of times a month.  I'd have Story Time for kids & guest readings

I have it all worked out, just need to get my hands on that illustrious winning lotto ticket.  I know it probably wouldn't make any money that''s why I need to win the money to fund it.  

Back in the real World, Dublin has it's very own new independent bookstore. the Loft Bookshop, check it out above Twisted Pepper on Abbey Street. 

All set for Obama



Oh dear......



Lost in Space

So my take on Creative Commons is lost, floating somewhere in cyber space.  I could re-write it alas it's one of those strange concepts, where my opinion is evolving the more I read and talk about it.  I had a lengthy discussion about copyright with AnonLibrarian the other day, how quaint, actually speaking to each other as opposed to firing our ideas across the interweb.  We could have spoken for hours, it's such a contentious issue, and possibly the most relevant to librarians of any of the 'Things' covered thus far.

I still feel in essence that Creative Commons is half hearted; it just doesn't go far enough.  Interestingly I've discovered a lot of my friends use it.  You know you're a complete bore when you ask people at a dinner party if they've heard of or used Creative Commons, YES, I am that much of a geek.  I dunno, I'm just strangely fascinated by the whole concept. 

Anyway, it turns out my husband has been using it forever.  He works in publishing and with restrictive budgets getting stock imagery can be a nightmare, now he can use anything with cc logo, and he's not in breach of any laws.  I am warming to it's uses for people who want to reuse other peoples work.  It's good to be covered.  I think it is something that is going to grow massively or completely evolve as we become ever more reliant on internet in all facets of life.

Here's a paper from Project Muse about rethinking copyright and cc licensing in school libraries.  It's quite long, but interesting and  relevant.

Who says libraries aren't rock n roll!!

Manic Street Preachers single 'A Design for Life' opens with the line  'Libraries gave us power' based on the inscription 'Knowledge is power'outside a Welsh library where one of their girlfriends worked.  

Years later life imitates art as they officially open Cardiffs new state of the art library. 

Here Manic Street Preachers's, Nick Wire bemoans lack of funding for Public Libraries in the UK .  

Friday Fun - Obsessive Librarian

Psychoville returned to BBC2 last night, with a new character, an obsessive librarian, makes us look a pretty meek bunch it has to be said .

This is definitely not a film recommendation

I watched The Killer Inside Me last night.  A conversation in the tea room recently sparked my curiosity, so I gave it a go.  There are only a handful of films that have left me feeling so perturbed (Once were warriors, Nil by Mouth, Lilya 4 Ever).  I admit this is not the most rational review, because in truth I have no stomach for violence.  Suffice to say my husband walked out of the room twice, and he's no wuss!!  It's a pity because there's a good movie in there somewhere, despite the uneven pace and the undeveloped female characters.   Affleck puts in a stellar performance, understated menace in a cool exterior, quite mesmerising actually.  However my residing memory is of brutal violence which is weird considering it's not in that many scenes.  It's the relentless and unnecessarily graphic nature of its' depiction that made it extremely disturbing to watch.  The director is obviously making some sort of statement here; I'm just not sure what it is?  That the calmest of exteriors contain the most brutal beast?   Whatever it is I don't think it works, it feels gratuitous, and I suspect it's actually done for shock value, which is rather sad.  Definitely not one for the faint hearted.

LibraryThing

I signed upto LibraryThing sometime ago, but I've never really used it.  That's not to say I don't like it, I do.  It's just that it's very similar to another product on facebook called We Read(although of course We Read isn't catalogued).  I prefer We Read, because I've 'friends' using it and it cross-references books I've read with what they've read and recommends their current reads to me.  Because I've read similar themed books to them, I get relevant recommendations.  On LibraryThing however I get recommendations similar to the ones I get on amazon, ie nothing I'm interested in.
The virtual shelf is cute and alot less dusty that my 'real' book cases.  It is useful for tracking the books you read over a year, but I actually keep physical written lists of these myself - can't believe I'm admitting to that, old school and incredibly sad.
It's amazing with all the technology available to us, that the pen and paper is sometimes very reassuring, or maybe that's just me?
Library Thing for libraries looks interesting I wonder how much would be involved in setting it up? How cool would it be to have our own library app?

Poignant Twitter

Last tweet from photographer (& Oscar nominated director of Restrepo) Tim Hetherington before he was killed hrs later in Libya(20/04/11):

"In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO."

Film recommendation Catfish

There was a trailer for a film called Catfish on More 4 last night, they are showing it next Tuesday night as part of the True Stories series.  Having seen it in the IFI in the Autumn, and given that it's about Social Networking, I thought I'd recommend it.  I'd advise you not to read anything about it before hand, as it would ruin it.
It is the complete anthithesis of the Social Network, as glossy and stylised as that  film is, this is grainy and low-budget.  It's a documentary about a photographer's online relationship with an eight-year-old child prodigy and her attractive elder half-sister. about deceit and lonliness. Worth a watch especially when it's for free on TV.

(Anti)Social Networking

I already have Facebook and Twitter accounts.  As I have friends/family abroad, I find it an effortless way of keeping in touch.  I'm not a fan of instant messaging and have my account setup so that noone knows when I'm online. Why? Well if I'm only logging on for a minute and somebody starts IMing, how do you get out of it? Will they think you are rude if you just go? I dunno, I just find it a hassle.

Facebook is great for getting alerts to upcoming events.  Dublin writers week, Dublin Book week and the National Library are all great for sending messages.  I find that really useful.  Just 'like' their pages and they send messages and invites to upcoming events.

This is something we could utilise in the library.  I noticed UL use their page quite a bit, for instance when there was snow, they put messsages on their facebook profile.  It is a great way to contact students.  I can't help noticing when walking through the library, how many students are on facebook.

UCD have a cute thing in their photos section, basically when any member of staff goes on holidays, they take a library bag with them, so you can see the UCD library bag on holiday in London, Australia, Paris, New York, it's silly but the photos are cute!

Twitter I just follow people on, I've only tweeted a few times. I don't log into it often.  It is great for big events. The election coverage was second to none, way more accurate and uptodate than TV and radio coverage as you had people at the actual LIVE events giving minute by minute tweetws. You also get some really witty responses.  It is also great for sporting events and if something controversial is happening, it can be interesting to follow the thread.  Vincent Browne for instance and prime time can be good to monitor as it's intriguing to see how others are responding to the show?   In order for it to work in the library we need to get people to follow us first.

Additionally you can link your twitter and facebook accounts which is kind of cool, if you see something amusing and/or interesting on twitter you can re-tweet it to your facebook status update.

Happy Easter!

Tried to do Comic Life thing, but only seems to work for Macs. 
That means I'm finished until after Easter, hope you've all a lovely break. Don't eat too much chocolate.

Wicki-wicki Wild Wild West

Random irrlevant fact:  Ever since I first heard the phrase Wiki, the chorus of that horrendous Will Smith song from the equally horrendous film Wild Wild West (actually I've never seen it, but I don't think I need to!)comes into my head.  It's a dreadful association, and I hope most people don't even know what I'm referring to.  About 6 seconds in if you're curious!!

Back to this weeks task, wikis.  I never knew where the phrase originated from so that was interesting.
I'd never edited or contributed to a wiki before, though I've read them often, especially Wikepedia, despite the fact that it's a questionable source of information.

I setup my wiki account, and posted my thoughts on the 23thingswiki.  SO easy to use, though I fear I could very easily get carried away with adding extra links, it's THAT easy to use.

In a library context I think it would be a fantastic resource.  Just for staff, for instance with an upcoming staff meeting, if something occured to you during the month, you could post it as and when things pop into your head.  Or if you had an idea for an exhibition or any kind of improvement or a suggestion, maybe you could have a link on it, where you can post ideas as you wish.

The one thing that strikes me is the ease at which you can edit other people's posts.  It would be annoying if somebody else deleted something you contributed to before you felt it had been dealt with or discussed.  The fact that there is a feature showing who edited the link most recently would probably eliminate any problems in this regard!

Friday Fun - Computers for Ladies

Before Web 2.0

Comic Strip

Having major problems loading this properly, Pixton gives you lots of information on how to load it into a Wordpress blog but not into blogger.  I had to copy the images into paint, and save as a jpg I'm sure there's an easier way! I had it showing at the side, but it looked odd and had loads of free space below it so I've deleted it now!  It was good fun to do, but I couldn't think of an interesting dialogue............. Comic Strip in full

RSS Feeds

You have to be a bit wary when something is described as really simple, but in this case the description is apt.  I added a few RSS feeds to my blog, one to BBC News and one to Cinematical to get uptodate movie news.
We actually use RSS feeds on the library website as a quick link to the newest items posted on the library blog.  Also for the opening hours.  Initially I was thinking we could use them on the information screen, but   as users could not click on the links to see more information, it would be pointless.

Sin Nombre

I recorded Sin Nombre a few weeks back on BBC4, but only just got around to watching it.  It's sort of a mix between City of God & SlumDog Millionaire.  It's not a new story, street gangs, human traffic, poverty, but it's nicely acted, and paced and the cinematography is stunning in parts. Well worth a look.

Don't judge a book...........

I feel I was somewhat hasty in my dismissal of Delicious, though  I stand by my initial impression, that it is one of the most un-user friendly interfaces (visually and functionally), that I’ve experienced in a LONG time!! 

I quite like the network feature and can now see bookmarks of SPD23things and a few other SPD bloggers.  Now when I open my bookmarks, I can see who else has bookmarked them.  I can also read through the entire list of things that other bloggers have bookmarked, kinda cool actually.  

From a work perspective I think a Delicious account could be a useful resource in the library, as people stumbleupon (genius website name, love it!) useful/relevant sites, they could bookmark them, and we could all see them. 

Since starting 23Things I’ve started to feel really weirded out by my lack of Privacy. Given my internet activity, it’s  ridiculous that I should feel this way.  I Twitter(but don’t tweet),  I facebook, (as privately as is possible), and yet on Monday when I was logging into Delicious, I felt disturbed and extremely uncomfortable with the fact that suddenly my hotmail, google , yahoo, blogger and delicious accounts, were all now quite clearly electronically linked.  I felt completely exposed, like someone could follow me around, a crazed virtual stalker. 

It’s not that I’m doing anything illegal, saying anything offensive, par taking in any dodgy activity, and yet I feel conspicuously vulnerable.   So dunno why I’m suddenly having a mini meltdown, I may get over it and fast!!

Delicious............

Delicious, such an enticing name, for such a disappointing product.
I understand it's intended use is for book marking/cataloguing webpages etc, What I cannot  fathom is who in the real World would use this?

The way I see it anyone who has a Laptop/iPhone/Smartphone or iPad would have no need for it.   You would already have everything bookmarked on your own device. 

People who don't own any of the above probably already use one of a host of  free online mail accounts, be it, facebook, gmail, flickr etc  for information they may need from their PC when not at home.  I suspect I've missed the point and await an explanation, from someone alot smarter than me!

On the plus side, while looking for something to bookmark I ffffound a cool site with interesting images:

April 01

Too late for Aprils Fools gag, here's a silly youtube clip instead!

Confused.com

The template options on this thing are insane.   I'm suffering from severe Optional Paralysis!!  
It's like going to a restaurant with an extensive menu, and it takes forever to decide!  Then when the waiter brings your food, you've no clue what you ordered in the first place!  Arrggghh, WILL NOT change the layout again!

iTunes

I've been using iTunes for years, so nothing new there really.
It seems only right that universities should have their own hub, makes location of relevant files or topics easier.

Podcasts

I reguarly use podcasts to catch up on items of interest I've missed on the radio.  RTE are actually very quick at uploading shows, if you missed something in the morning it appears on the internet in no length.  I used to download the Ricy Gervais/Karl Pilkington podcasts some years ago, when they were still funny.  Phantom fm have a great regular one at the moment with the increasingly unhinged Jim Corr, always good for a giggle.

Have a listen Jim Corr Phantom podcast

YouTube

Here's a silly Youtube clip, I love this one because I have a weird sense of humour.

                            

I've used Youtube loads, but the clip below was actually one of the first useful things I found on it, as opposed to music videos, and silly stuff like the clip above.

Last year when I was learning to crochet, I used to look up youtube all the time to figure out new stitches.It was infinitely more helpful than any amount of drawings and diagrams in books.

The positives of Youtube are that it's really easy to navigate and search.  It's great if you are learning anything new, be it photo enhancing software like photoshop, or even something as trivial as how to apply hair extensions.  It is great for looking up archive footage and during the election there were some great spoof videos of the main candidates to be found on the site.
It is also useful for uploading family videos for relatives abroad, and it has really good privacy settings, whereby only people you 'invite' to see your film can view it.
On the negative side, there is an inordinate amount of junk on the site, but you don't have to look at it.
Obviously for our own website, we could add little 'how to do' video clips of how to renew books, make reservations etc,  This is currently underway.

I did it!!

Whoop whoop!
My debut blog.........Can't believe it!
I'd like to thank my parents, colleagues....only kidding!
Actually it wasn't that bad getting up and running, thank God for my freebie notebook to log my passwords in! :) Over and out!