IT'S A STEEP LEARNING CURVE

From this point, I would like to take the time out to do a little reflection on what I have done and accomplished so far with my Blog. After signing up to Blogger.com and creating a personal account, I was somewhat lost! That's right. It took me a while to adjust to the Blogger dashboard and all its fancy buttons and drop-down menus, but I eventually realised that when creating a new post you are directed to a new page or virtual space in which to write - much like email. It also took a little while to figure out that in order to view your actual blog itself, you are diverted to a new window and away from the back-end production to the front-end polished product. 

Once I had managed to navigate my way around the blogging platform, I then began to experiment with different functions located in the "Settings" menu. For example, I played around with the aesthetics of my blog by changing the template design, which can create a colourful background by utilising shapes and patterns. I finally settled on a sort of burgundy colour as it reminded me of a finely aged port: something sophisticated, yet simple and appealing. I also started to experiment with various tools that can be embedded into the blog such as: links, my blog lists and RSS Feeds. I believe that these are very useful tools to have as they can keep track of other blogs that you are currently following, important links that are of some relevance to the blog and an RSS Feed to convey the latest news and events from a relevant organisation such as the State Library of Victoria. 

When creating a post I have tried to include several links to various sources such as websites and other blogs that I have deemed relevant. And, where necessary, I have also incorporated a screen shot from a source to illustrate a particular point, or to give a visual indication of the content. I found the process of inserting a screen shot to be rather challenging, as I had to use the "Snipping Tool" and then import the image from a saved file to the blog post. This took me a few attempts to master, but I feel that I am more confident with this process now. I have yet to insert a video, and believe that this could be quite challenging, although I am uncertain about copyright issues surrounding this area and will have to do a little more investigating. Maybe as long as the video is within the realm of the public domain it is free to copy?

So far, it has been a steep learning curve for me, but I have been exposed to a new technology and have had to swim rather than sink. I have actually enjoyed my experience of blogging and getting to know the platform by playing around with the various tools and functions, so I can safely say that I have at least achieved one learning goal: learning about and creating blog posts. Now I have to be more proactive in communicating and collaborating with other members of my buddy group.    

** Learning is fun! ** 
 image taken from: http://latino-review.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/frankenweenie-la-9-11-12.png

        

YAMMERING ON

I thought I would talk a little about Yammer, a relatively recent "micro-blogging" tool. So far, I have found Yammer to be a good resource tool for communicating with other fellow MIM students. Admittedly, I have only "Yammered" once, so I can't profess to being an expert, but rather more of a novice. I have been taking Yammer for granted and don't regularly check my account. I do, however, get the Yammer updates via my student email account, which I find useful, as I quite often will follow the latest student conversations, or for want of a better word, "Yammerings". And, from time to time, I click on the various links that are also supplied by well intentioned students divulging all the latest news and gossip in the world of Information Management and all things library related.   

In an effort to try and understand the main differences between the two "mirco-blogging" platforms, I would have to say that on first appearances I have found Yammer to be slightly similar to Twitter. This is probably due to the fact that it shares a similar methodology in the sense that it relies on the postings of a community of users that communicate information, thereby forming a dialogue of sorts with each another. That seems to be as far as it goes though. Yammer, in my opinion, is easier to use: it has a better user interface and is easier to post and reply to other users. There is also less of a corporate presence, and no zealous celebrity worship, which makes it seem less artificial and more practical. On doing a little reading up on Yammer I found out that it tends to be used for more private forum and company/organisational purposes, as opposed to Twitter, which is for more public and social communication purposes: http://r3r.com/blog/2008/using-microblogging-in-business-communication/. Another interesting blog I came across also outlines the differences between Yammer and Twitter and discusses how to make the most of Yammer: http://www.learningconversations.co.uk/main/index.php/2010/03/15/using-yammer-yam?blog=5. 

** My Yammer page ** 
 image taken from: https://www.yammer.com/student.rmit.edu.au/

I prefer the more private and personalised functionality of Yammer over Twitter, and I shall endeavour to do much more yammering now that I am aware of the pros and cons of each social networking tool. I believe that Yammer is a more powerful tool in helping to connect with a community of peers in a business, educational or networking context. Excuse me while I Yammer on...

                                            

TWITTERBUG

It's official! I have now finally set-up a Twitter account. I have to admit that I have been avoiding Twitter, not out of malice, but rather due to the fact that I thought I would have to post evanescent musings about life in general to a virtual audience hungry for even the most mundane scraps of trivial information. I can understand the concept of correspondence and writing to someone in the traditional sense by putting pen to paper, but the idea of "Tweeting" seemed somewhat soulless, or artificial. Well, now that I am part of the "Twittersphere", and have to participate, I have come to realise it can be a powerful tool which can be used to communicate important information such as news updates instantaneously.

The process of creating an account was fairly straightforward: first create a username then a password. That wasn't too hard! And I even managed to use my name and not some pseudonym. Anyway, I will probably change it later in order to sound mysterious. Once this was done I simply added a few details to my profile page such as language, timezone, country etc. Originally I did select the "Protect my Tweets" box as I preferred to maintain a certain amount of privacy, which in this Web 2.0 age seems almost impossible. However, as I soon discovered when I wanted to tweet to the Doc Man 1 group discussion at: #isys1166, my tweets were not visible, or were not being published. After deselecting this option, my tweets then started to appear. I have also discovered that other users can also become your "followers" without approval if the "protect my tweets" option is deselected. I have had to block several users already! I am a little concerned about the issue of Twitter and privacy, as I will discuss further in more detail.

My views of Twitter are of a fairly amateur standing: I have not quite become fully versed in the useability of Twitter, and still remain somewhat hesitant to tweet. I think this is partly due to the nature of learning a new technological tool, and also due to the way that twitter represents how technology is shaping social and cultural trends: social networking sites are becoming increasingly widespread and can possibly be controlled by corporate entities and government bodies, where forms of propaganda, advertising and celebrity worship have become the norm. These are just a few of the concerns that I have already noticed on Twitter, and they are difficult to avoid. As a user, I have already started to follow a variety of different tweeters, and have found that every now and again I will receive a random tweet from a company advertising some sort of product. This brings me to the issue of user privacy and protection: who can access private user information? Who can view user tweets? And who saves and records user tweets? After a little research, I found an interesting article on tracking user locations: http://socialitemedia.com.au/twitter-over-sharing-and-potential-privacy-issues-point-and-case/983/. This article dealt with who can view user tweets, and alarmingly, who can track user movements by linking Twitter with other social media accounts. I also discovered that the Library of Congress digitally archives all tweets since 2006, which comes under their historical preservation program. This is an interesting issue as it involves a section of the government being able to access user information in the form of tweets: http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/04/how-tweet-it-is-library-acquires-entire-twitter-archive/. What are the legal ramifications of this?  Can tweets be used as evidence in a court of law? All interesting questions that I'm sure will set new legal precedents when these sorts of issues arise. 



** My Twitter page ** 
image taken from: https://twitter.com/

                

And a final note on Twitter: I will give Twitter a chance and I shall continue to tweet on a semi-regular basis as I'm no doubt sure that as a prospective librarian, I will need to be an expert on all things Twitter - who knows, I may even become a "Twitterbug". 

BLOG REVIEW

In my search for a decent blog to review, I stumbled across the State Library of Victoria website, and much to my excitement discovered they had several blogs to peruse.

(1) Library News Blog:
I found this blog to be more of a way to keep users up to date with the latest news of what's happening in the SLV. For example, it was more concerned with postings related to opening hours, catalogue updates and other announcements on exhibitions etc. This blog was useful to source the latest news in the SLV.

(2) Dome 100 Blog:
This was more of a specific blog related to the centenary of the SLV reading room dome. I found this was a truly unique and fascinating blog as it not only dealt with the SLV dome, but looked at other library domes in the world. There were postings that also dealt with the history of the dome through photographs, text and visual art. 

(3) Such was Life Blog:
This blog had more of a focus on Victorian history and had a variety of postings that dealt with all manner of topics. For example, there were postings related to Harry Houdini's flight of a Voisin biplane at Digger's Rest in 1910, as well as the founding of coach company, Cobb & Co. and the history of fire fighting in Victoria to name but a few. Definitely worth a look!    

                               ** Houdini flies at Digger's Rest **                                      
 image taken from:  http://suchwaslife.blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/2013/03/01/houdini-flies-in-diggers-rest/

                               

(4) Family Matters Blog:
A blog that examines all thing genealogy with fascinating guides on how to start family research for the beginner, as well as more advanced searching tools for the expert. Other areas of note are new records added to the Genealogy collection and for those interested in medical genealogy, there are the abundance of death certificates!

(5) Arts Blog:
I found this blog to be the most interesting, as it covered all sorts of diverse topics related to arts and culture such as music, visual art, film, theatre, as well as collecting and popular culture. Some postings dealt with the music of contemporary composer, John Cage to Miller's Collectibles Handbook, and not forgetting Korean contemporary art. A cornucopia of material with something for everyone!     

All of these blogs were well laid out and easy to read and navigate around the page. There was also a "search" blog function, a "browse by tags" area and a list of relevant categories for the more traditional blogger. There were also links to other SLV websites and SNS such as Twitter and Facebook. I found that all of these blogs covered there own niche area and offered something different in terms of research, content and subject. I will definitely be keeping an eye on these blogs from now on. Also great for dinner party conversation! These blogs are particularly useful for people with an interest in history, arts and culture, genealogy and library events and exhibitions. As I will more than likely enter the library profession, I found that these blogs are relevant to information professionals and librarians for their scope and user-friendly appeal.     

** The State Library of Victoria's Blog page ** 
image taken from: http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/

                                     

INTRODUCTION

Greetings from the Farside!

My name is Stuart and I am new to Blogger.

I am quite excited to start exploring and using this new technology as I believe that it will be an invaluable resource with which to communicate and create. As I have never started a blog before this is all new territory for me, and so far is a little bit overwhelming as there are lots of different options and functions to acquaint myself with.

Learning Goals that I would set myself for the duration of this assignment would extend to learning about and creating blog posts, communicating and collaborating with other members of my 'buddy group' and commenting on their posts. I believe that this is particularly important as it will establish relations with other members of the Blogger community by creating a dialogue about thoughts and reflections using this new technology. I would also like to learn about RSS Feeds, their function and place in Web 2.0. and I am also keen to investigate microblogging tools such as Twitter and Yammer and the role that they play in social interaction and communication. Other areas in the realm of Web 2.0 that I am interested in exploring further are certain social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and how user created bookmarks can be captured and tagged for future access.

Anyway this is just a start, and as I become more acquainted with of of these different tools, hopefully I will become more confident at using and understanding this new technology.