Second life

Have checked out a number of the links to Second life sites, but I must say they just leave me cold. I've never been into animation, even as a kid and as yet the whole SL set up seems so clunky & visually totally unappealing. I suspect it could be a generational issue with me, having never played any computer games and having no desire too, I'd much rather observe first life with all it's complexity than engage in Second life.
Perhaps when SL becomes more visually appealing & less clunky I may be interested, but @ the moment I'm not engaged by it at all. I feel much the same about library usage of SL. What I've
seen so far looks pretty amateurish, with current modes of presenting information just transposed into SL without much innovation. I'll just keep an eye on SL & see how things evolve....who knows I may become a convert yet!!

You Tube videos about Libraries

Found a few interesting ones. More later......
Off to the Swinny Christmas party by the Lake.



New take on what the compactus gets up to when we're not looking!

iGoogle

Have created myself an iGoogle page. Quite enjoyed selecting & adding a variety of gadgets that I thought would be useful. At least now they're all on one page!

Everything from Buddhist thought of the day to Cash converter! Not sure how often I'll use it, but it was fun putting it together.

Pets on the Wiki

Here are little Koto and Tashi boy, they're brother & sister and I've had them since they were one month old. As kittens you could hardly tell them apart, but as adult cats Koto is petite &
'Tashi Tiger', as I sometimes call him, is a big boy!

They are now approaching the grand old age of 13. They were found above the Vice Chancellor's Office (then Ian Wallace). He apparently thought there were possums in the roof, but on getting a 'possum man' in to investigate they discovered a mother cat and 3 tiny kittens, not yet 4 weeks old. We were contacted at Prahran, being known as cat lovers from way back, to see if we wanted to give them a home. Alison, who worked here then, collected them from Hawthorn & brought them to my house for me to see them ( I was on hols at the time). Of course I lost my heart to them straight away. They were snuggled up to each other and as I'd been thinking of getting two cats anyway, I decided to take them both. Al took the other kitten, who she named Bella and the mother cat was taken to the Cat Protection Society.

They were so young they could not yet lap, so I had to feed them with a bottle for the first week! They would always snuggle up together when they were kittens, but now as adults they don't do that much anymore and they have the usual sibling tiffs. Although far smaller than Tashi, Koto has all the tactics & sometimes the fur flys!!

Google books

Just checked it out, but didn't enjoy using it all that much. I think I'm quite used to Amazon now & enjoy using it.I'm always keen to see the latest items published on a subject & found the non-chronological set up of Google books a bit frustrating.Wouldn't be my choice for book selection. Really like the nifty things in Amazon like the Wishlist & readers' reviews.

Am just about Googled out for the day will tackle iGoogle later in the week.

Google docs

Julie Sue & I are using Google docs to put together our report about the ANZIL Conference. This should be a good way to do collaborative work together, rather than sending attachments back & forth, so thought we'd try it out. The document that was posted seemed to disappear, but I've now just found it again! A few hiccups along the way, but it should be useful.

Google maps

Have checked out Google maps. Decided to look at central Australia around lake Eyre, the satellite pics are just wonderful, like beautiful abstract paintings.

Used it for finding my way to Port Melbourne recently too...think the Melways will soon become a poor cousin to the ubiquitous Google, well at least if I'm planning ahead for where I'm going!

Post Tassie post

Had a great break in Tassie. The ANZIL Conference offered food for thought & an overview of the current issues in Information Literacy, not least of which is the
concern about the term itself. It's generally felt that the term is not really meaningful to academics or students, but at this stage no other term has been suggested. Julie Susan & I are collating our notes & will post a report on the Wiki soon.

I stayed on for a five more days with a friend who lives on a 30 acre bush property with her 'boys'. Two dear little dogs called Lucky & Trix, both of whom came from Animal Rescue. Did lots of relaxing, walking the dogs & breathing fresh mountain air!
Also spent quite a few hours at Salamanca market...brought back some yummy edibles & drinkables, including a fortified rasberry wine, which goes down a treat with strawberries!

Off to Tassie!

Heading off to Tassie on Sunday to go to the ANZIL Conference @ Uni of Tasmania.
Hopefully some inspirational ideas about information literacy. Looking forward to exploring Sandy Point where I'm staying, walking distance from the Uni.

Staying on for a few extra days to visit a friend who has a lovely property on 30 acres of bush. Looking forward to a relaxing time after all my culture-vulturing @ the Melbourne Festival. Saw some great shows this year- Laurie Anderson's concert & discussion session, The show must go on, Sankai Juku's Kagemai, Daniel Kitson's C-90, the European House & tomorrow a matinee session of NICA's Divino! Did anyone go to any of these shows? If so what did you think of them?

Del.ici.ous

I set up a Del.ici.ous account a while back & haven't used it much as yet, though can definitely see the potential. One of the best things is that you can access it on any machine, where generally your bookmarks are machine specific & that can be a pain sometimes. I've added the little Del.ici.ous tag icon on my toolbar, then it's quite quick & easy to add a new site. The name always reminds me of food though & the site certainly doesn't give anywhere near the gratification delicious food does!

My Space

Returned today to the My Space account I set up a few months ago. Not likely to use this much, although the teenage daughter of a friend of mine is 'talking' with me on My Space, so that is interesting. I did lots of letter writing to my best friend when I was a teenager & I can see how MySpace may have been very seductive, had we had it at the time! Back then we were listening to serials on the radio & the Argonauts Club on the ABC (no TV!) and writing letters! The photo is of Argonaut Peter Finch, before he joined up in World War ll, with fellow Argonaut, Andrina Watton from the The Birth of the ABC - Photogallery
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those who have never heard of the Argonauts it was a radio club with over 100,000 members aged 7-17. Each member was allocated a ship name and number - one of Jason's fleet - on a quest for the mythical fleece in a world beyond adult control...

The Club encouraged children's contributions of writing, music, poetry or art and was one of the ABC's most popular children's programs, running six days a week for 28 years, until it was broadcast only on Sundays and was finally discontinued in 1972. Any former Argonauts out there? I was a regular listener to the show, but never did join up.

Laurie Anderson

Went to Laurie Anderson's talk/discussion last evening....very interesting. When she was asked what she saw as beauty, she answered for her it was empathy & she likes this to come through in her work too. To get outside of me, me, me!

I'm going to Homeland tonight, really looking forward to it. She said that this show was sparked by anger, as artists generally in the US are not speaking out about what's happening in the States & that makes her very angry. Although her work has never been greatly political she feels she can not remain silent now.
Laurie Anderson's homepage

Thanks to Mishalleneous from Sea of Memes blog I discovered that Laurie Anderson has a presence in My Space too!
Laurie Anderson on My Space
Some interesting YouTube video clips here

Sharing and Following/Listening in the Social Web
The web home of Thomas Vander Wal. A blog that notes changes in the web design and web development world as well as Thomas Vander Wal's random observations on life and technology (and possible rants).

Top social networks:Facebook grows while MySpace slows

Facebook Sees Flood Of New Traffic From Teenagers And Adults comScore

Returning to Facebook

Have gone back into my Facebook account, which I set up in August, but have not contributed to it since then. Having become relatively at home with blogging & it feels strange to me in Facebook.

New format, new tools & not as much control over design either. At this point feel I'm more into blogging....maybe it's just the familiarity of it? Will explore Facebook a bit & see. Maybe I'm not innately a social networker, in the global sense anyway.

Technorati

Have just been exploring Technorati. Interesting to see what makes it into the top 20 most popular blogs. I see the Huffington Post there at no.5 Just heard about this news source a few days ago, so will keep an eye on it for a little while to see what I think.

Going back to my passion for textiles, I did some searching and when I used specific search terms I did find a few blogs of interest.
Shibori girl World Shibori Network Ragged Cloth Cafe art cloth text Dancing on temple tops

Also found postsecret at no.14! Happy to see that...just discovered it yesterday (see my previous post about it) It's a great site. Ordered a copy of the newly published book A Lifetime of secrets for the library today

I Don't Dig Digg

Loaded up Digg on to my blog a couple of weeks ago using the widget.
First I selected Design as an option for the articles I wanted to look at, but seemed to get a lot about car design, which was not of interest to me, so I switched to the Health ctegory.Very weird stuff comes up now, the informed along with the plain whacky!

24 warning signs you can't afford to ignore Surely a fast track to becoming a hypochondriac!

Wikipedia describes the editorial control of Digg as non-hierarchical and democratic, as news stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking
system, differing from the usual hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ.

This sounds good in theory, but I have found that there is a lot of stuff coming up that I am just not interested in, so I'm definitely not a Digg fan.

PostSecret.com

For the past three years Frank Warren has invited people of all backgrounds and nationalities to send him creatively decorated postcards bearing secrets they have never before revealed. He has shared these PostSecrets on his award-winning blog, PostSecret.com

In his latest book A Lifetime of Secrets he shows us a never-before-seen selection of provocative and moving PostSecrets, laying bare our private fears, hopes, regrets, and desires, from people as young as eight to as old as eighty.

Frank Warren started PostSecret.com as a community art project. Since November 2004 he has received more than 150,000 anonymous postcards. The website won two Webby Awards in 2006 and this year was named Weblog of the Year at the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards. The PostSecret project also received a special award from the National Mental Health Association for raising awareness and funds for suicide prevention.

The Life of Riley

This is a delightful blog all about Olive She was born in Broken Hill on 20th October, 1899 and will soon be 108!

Her friend Mike is doing the typing for her. They started the blog together in February 2007. She is the world's oldest blogger! There are some Utube clips of her singing & chatting on her blog too. Well worth a look.

Feeding frenzy!

I now have my little reader 'chicklet' installed, so
if you'd like to subscribe to my blog...be my guest!

Bloglines was confusing so I went to Google Reader, which
was so much easier, especially with a gmail account.
It's reassuring when others express their views about
these new tools 'cos @ times my brain synapses seem
severely challenged! When I hear someone comment 'no
it's not very intuitive' ....phew, I'm relieved!

Have now subscribed to a few Library related blogs using
Google Reader, including some of my favourite Swin 23 Things
blogs!

Library blogs

Started checking out some library blogs. Library link of the day says there are over a thousand library weblogs, so I decided getting a feed from a blog that provides you with a daily link for keeping up to date with the library profession, seemed like a good idea. No information overload & reminded by a feed too! Both tasks done in one hit!

Where to start? Try this 'mother of all lists' of library blogs!
Lis wiki
Here are a few sites that appealed to me:
library web chic
librarian.net
Information Literacy Weblog
Information Literacy meets Web 2.0
Stephen's Lighthouse
iLibrarian

tantalizing new textile titles

Explored Library thing & found some great new
textile titles recently published,or about to be published .
Possible wishlist for Christmas!

Did you watch 4 Corners last evening?

A chilling doco about the current status of women in Afghanistan.

Despite the fall of the Taliban many women still live in dreadful
repressive circumstances. One of the most disturbing things is the
number of young women who try to commit suicide by burning
themselves to death. This is often unsuccessful & they are left with

horrible scarring & living in pain thereafter. It is confronting indeed
and left me with a sense of powerlessness in terms of what can be
done. My small gesture is to be a member of Amnesty International.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2007/s2038790.htm

Flickr groups

Have joined a few groups in Flickr. With my current interest in shadows,
two caught my eye......shadow cats & our shadows (alter egos)
Will post a few shadow pics there soon.

Done! Posted my profile shadow photo to the our shadows group.

Top 5 uncommon timesavers for bloggers

Whilst checking out some info about blogging, came across this
little gem by a guy called Tim Ferris, who is the author of
The 4 hour week. With our current binge on blogging thought
a few tips for time saving may be useful!

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/09/21/
the-top-5-uncommon-timesavers-for-bloggers/

Commenting on blogs

Have browsed through a few of the many SwinLib blogs that are out there now & left a few comments. Happy to discover someone planning to travel to Japan. Reading their blog brings back many fond memories for me of my travels there.

Can now see the use of comments
and how they're great for sharing
ideas & information.

SAVAGE LUXURY
Modernist Design in Melbourne 1930–1939
14 July - 4 November 2007

is a lavish insight into early modernist interior design originating in Melbourne during the 1930s. The exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of modern interiors and furnishings designed and commissioned in Australia prior to World War II, positioning Melbourne at the forefront of interior design at this time.

Curated by Nanette Carter, Design Lecturer, Faculty of Design, Swinburne
*****Highly recommended

Photos of Living Library @ Prahran

Tom has posted some good ones on the Wiki.
I have put the ones I took on the day onto my
Flickr account. To look at them just click on
the Flickr link in my Links list
Happy viewing!

Life after the living library!

LL was a great success. Lots of enthusiastic books & readers, a stunning cake & yummy food. Once it gets going the LL seems to just take off and have a life and energy all of it's own!

Our Off the Cuff Poet summed up the experience in her poem

Book's Epilogue

We've been read,
our pages turned.

The question is who
got more learned?

I met some brilliant
inspiring readers -

Obvious stars in life,
true leaders.

Loved the time to
re-live, chat,
share, feel rounded,
no longer flat!

Jennie Fraine

The A B C of Living Books

A is for Animator / Aerialist / AKA Fat Helen / Artist
B is for Backyard Beekeeper
C is for Costumier
D is for Dapper Feral

Just a few of the Living Books who will be at Prahran
Campus Library tomorrow between 2.00-4.00 pm

& there's more....... Off the Cuff Poet / Outdoor Adventurer /
Visual Artist / Motherboard Down / Permaculture Designer /
Intrepid Jamaican Traveller /

Do hope this tempts you to come along & join in!

Living Library comes to Prahran

Preparations are going well.....a real team effort.

We have 15 interesting Living Books generously giving their time
and ready to chat about their life stories/skills/interests.

It's all happening on Thursday, 13 September, 2.00 - 4.00 pm
in the Library @ Prahran Campus,
PK Building, St John Street

Come along if you can, as it will be a fun afternoon.

I went to the Living Library @ Croydon last week & had a great time.
Talked to several books and my eyes were opened by some of their
stories, especially those of the Burmese students, who had fled from
Burma as refugees to India & after years of living in New Delhi have
now come to Australia & are studying English.

A few days in the country does wonders...

Had a great break in East Gippsland. My friends have made a sea change
to a 5 acre block & live now, what seems to me, a city slicker, a relaxing
laid back lifestyle.

The many native trees & bushes they have are beginning to bloom & one morning I was woken by a noisy wattle bird, feeding on nectar from flowers on a bush, just outside my bedroom window.

We had a nice reciprocal exchange of skills while I stayed, as they were keen to start a blog ( of which I know a tiny bit about now) & I wanted to learn some simple yoga stretching exercises,
to help stretch out my spine after hours of sitting at a PC each day. They being disciplined yoga practitioners were happy to teach me. Fair exchange!

I had a leisurely drive home to Melbourne, stopping at a few local galleries
& visiting Kongwak ( yes that is the name of the town!) market.

Hit the road tomorrow

A long weekend coming up for me & I'm heading off to
East Gippsland to visit friends.

Looking forward to fresh air, friendly dogs, a walk on
the beach and relaxing. Will cruise down, stopping for a
few cuppas & a bit of country op shopping ....what more
could a gal want?!

Learning curve continues!

Have now successfully loaded a photo into my profile
with a little help from my friends! I'm into shadows
at the moment hence the pic.

Also found a good pic in The Age of the sequence of
the lunar eclipse, so uploaded that too.

Have started a del.icio.us account...really handy to
have on the browser toolbar, have added this link
& a few others to my blog.

Learning, but think I need more than the 15 minutes
per day to 'play' that Stephen Abrams recommends!
Guess it's cumulative & I'll pick up speed...here's hoping!

Total eclipse

Managed to catch a glimpse of the total lunar eclipse last evening.
A moon partially in darkness, but about half of it a dull orange glow.
Standing in my back garden & viewing this brought much,
momentarily, into perspective, including Web 2.0 & Library 2.0!

The great cosmic mystery. It's explained to us scientifically, but
I suspect the awe we experience is much the same as millenia ago.

Grey skies & rain threatening.......one cosy weekend coming up! Hot chocolate, a warm fire & a warm cat curled up on my lap, winter bliss!