"Libraries gave us power" (Manic Street Preachers; Song: A design for life; Album: Everything must go)

I was quite surprised at how many libraries were currently using web 2.0 tools; so it was really interesting to look at the Directory and explore the way they were using them. There were a number of Delicious users so it was good to get a feel of what resources they were promoting to their readers. By looking it from a work perspective I can now see why Delicious would be a useful tool to use; as it is a quick way of gathering together useful resources for readers that can easily be searched via the tag facility.

The other beauty of it is that it would be so easy to set up for readers to use; the time would just be spent in gathering together all the websites etc that you felt you should bookmark; and making sure that they were up to date in the future and to keep adding so that it stayed interesting.

I found the networking facility straight forward and added the VHL and a fellow 23 thinger to my network, and it was good that it kept these under a separate section so that they didn't just appear under your own bookmarks. It was also quite interesting to see what other colleagues had bookmarked.

"And I lost my page. Again" (The Strokes; Song: Trying your luck ; Album: Is this it)

Thanks to having already set up the Yahoo account for Flickr the first step of signing up was made easy. Downloading the 'Bookmarklet" was also a good move as it made the process of adding any bookmarks I wanted quick and simple. Delicious seemed very intuitive to use. Tagging was especially very straight forward with all the relevant tags already appearing at the bottom of the screen and then just selecting what you wanted to add to your bookmark.

I'm not yet convinced of how useful I will find Delicious; it didn't immediately grab me in the way that some of the other web 2.0 tools we have tried have. As far as accessing my bookmarks go I have them neatly grouped under different headings in my favourites on my home laptop and at work I tend to use my favourites or my most frequently used ones are on my iGoogle start page. I don't tend to need my work ones at home or vice versa, or just tend to search for the relevant website I want via a search engine if I can't remember it off the top of my head.

I did like the 'Explore Tags' feature though, where you could look for other topics that were of interest to you, and so potentially discover other websites you didn't know existed or articles on topics of interest, so I'll have a play around on this a bit more.

"Old red eyes is back" (Beautiful South; Song: Old red eyes is back; Album: 0898)

Castello Sant'Angelo, Rome, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Picnik is yet another useful Web 2.0 tool that is very simple to use. I'll definitely use it in the future for editing my photos and removing all those annoying red eyes etc. An added bonus was that you didn't even have to register to use it. It was quite fun playing around with the photos to get the look you wanted, although it was tempting just to click on Auto Fix to let the site do it all for you!

I've added to this post a photo I edited via Picnik, taken at Castello Sant'Angelo in Rome.

"Hold still wait for the click" (Barenaked Ladies; Song: Christmas Pics; Album: Barenaked for the Holidays)

Social Science Library, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Here's one of the photos I had taken in SSL a while ago, which I uploaded to 23 Things on Flickr (spot the SSL staff member lurking in the back ground!)

"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you" (The Cure; Song: Picture of You; Album: Disintegration)

Sausmarez Manor, originally uploaded by twilight!74.

Here's one of the first photos that I uploaded to Flickr. It's a close up I took of a sculpture in the grounds of Sausmarez Manor on Guernsey.

"Flick-A Flick-A Flick-A ... Here you are!" (The Cure; Song: The Caterpillar; Album: The Top)

I love Flickr and I can see already that it is yet another Web 2.0 tool that i've never used but will continue to use in the future. The closest I've come to uploading photos and editing them is using Photo Box; which I currently use to order prints of my photos. I found it really easy to use, once I'd set up my yahoo and Flickr account (this seemed to take a while for me as every yahoo e-mail address and Flickr screen name I choose was already taken!).

Uploading the photos was a really simple process and so quick to do (on Photo Box it seems to take forever). The sets option is a really useful feature for organising your photos in a coherent way. Being able to tag and add descriptions is also useful and the geotagging feature is brilliant, I also liked viewing my photos via the slide show option.

As I wanted to create a set on a theme, the first photos I added to my Photostream are photos of sculptures I have taken in various places. It was nice to have them all together in one set and really interesting to look in one set as they had been housed in all different folders on my computer according to the trip they were taken on. I'm going to continue create sets on other themes of interest to me.

At the moment I'm being a bit cautious and apart from the photos I took of SSL to upload to the 23 Things Group I've made them all private; which I would always tend to do for holiday/family photos and just share them with friends and family. I'll probably change this in the future as I add more things and finish adding more sets and playing around with them.

"I've got a feeder for you to perch on" (Eels; Album: Daisies of the Galaxy ; Song: I like birds)

I found that I already had a Google Reader account from a previous training session, so that was one less thing to do. However, I hadn't looked at it since the course so I was only currently subscribed to one feed.

I found this task quite straight forward, it was more of a case of thinking of things I wanted to subscribe to. I settled on feeds from the National Gallery, Oxford Playhouse, 2 from Carluccios (one of my favourite restaurants) which has separate feeds for events connected to the restaurant and one for Antonio Carluccio's blog, and finally a feed from one of my favourite bands 'They might be Giants'. It seemed to vary to how prominent the RSS feed logo was on each of the webpages, some needed a bit of finding.

I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of information I'm getting each day in my Google Reader though, learning more about managing my account and subscribing to more feeds. I may even wonder how I managed without it before!

"Hope you don't mind that I put down in words" (Ewan McGregor's version from the film Moulin Rouge; Song: Your Song)

Setting up my blog was suprisingly easy, and I soon got the hand of adding posts, editing them and changing my settings. If anything I spent too long changing things around, altering font and colours and adding gadgets; it can soon get quite addictive. My one fear of not being able to think of things to say hasn't come to fruition yet, in fact it's is quite easy to just ramble on and on. The other addictive element is having a nosey at other peoples blogs taking part in 23 things.

So at the moment I am very in favour of blogs but I guess it depends on what they are being used for. Our blogs for 23 things have a definite purpose but I can't imagine keeping a personal one for myself rambling on about what I ate for tea etc. As far as their use in a library environment we currently have one that has been set up for a while that is to keep staff informed of IT problems, lost property, visitors, items for collection and other useful information that they will need to know for their session on the issue desk. We've found it is a good way of keeping e-mails down and a central point that all staff can refer to. It also has the added bonus of having an archive of posts which will be of use in the future (e.g. how to solve a particular IT problem).

I also had a look at some of the OULS Library blogs. They all seemed informative and user friendly and were a good way of getting readers to keep abreast of library news. I can also see they have the added advantage of being much easier to set up and maintain than websites.

"An end has a start" (Editors; Album: An end has a Start; Song: An end has a start)

I had actually created an iGoogle page in the past after attending a WISER session which introduced you to a few Web 2.0 tools, which included start pages. I thought they were a really good idea so I followed up on it after the course and created my own. However, as I had done this over a year ago it was time for an update, so I've added some new gadgets (I'm now the proud owner of a pet hamster!) and changed the 'Theme.' There are so many gadgets you can add that you could get a little carried away, so I've tried to limit it to things that are useful (bookmarks, to do list etc) and a few things that are decorative but interesting (places to see etc).

After creating my own page I felt it would be really useful if we had an iGoogle page for our staff issue desk pcs. I created this along with a colleague and we have used gadgets such as a Note Book to create an FAQ section for helping staff deal with issue desk queries, a To Do list for vacation tasks, Bookmarks for frequently used websites, and a few fun extras as well. I've also included an image of this page as well.

"Like Harrison Ford I'm getting Frantic" (Barenaked Ladies; Album: Stunt; Song: 1 Week)

Finally I'm getting started on this '23 Things project' just a few weeks late, my main problem is that there always seems to be another 23 things I needed to get finished before I could get started with it!

I thought that taking part would be a really good introduction to Web 2.0. Looking through the different tasks that we would be asked to complete I could see that there were some things that I already knew how to do, or already used, but there were lots of things that I hadn't and wanted to try. Also, it's great to be able to take part along with a lot of other people at the same time, that way you know there will be plenty of people that can answer you questions if you get stuck on a particular 'Thing.' Lots of colleagues are taking part in my work place and so 23 things has generated plenty of talk at coffee breaks, so it's good to be involved so you can join in the debate!

Inspired by a fellow colleagues Dr Seuss quotes as titles for posts I'm going to try and head as many of my posts as possible with lyrics from songs I love, which are connected to the theme of the post (most tenuously and I can see me spending longer of thinking of them than it takes me to actually do the task and write the post!)