Sunday, August 22, 2010

Mashup - Wildlife Near You.com

Wildlife Near You is a mashup site dealing with photographs and locations of animals. It deals principally with wildlife parks, zoos and nature reserves, because its intention is to enable people with an interest to travel to these places to see wildlife. The site is owned by Wildlife Near You.com Limited incorporated in England. The site has a function to enable the company to be contacted by email and it also has a page detailing General Terms and Conditions including copyright and the Privacy policy. The site is considered authorititive given these details. There is also a blog although the last post was in May.



A search for animals can be made by name or locality or a combination. Contributors can register to be able to upload photographs and details of their trips to zoos etc. The site is less than a year old so the number of photographs and trips is limited, however there seems to be a dedicated group of 'spotters' who regularly submit trip and photo details. This site has way to go before it is really interesting and it is very northern hemisphere oriented. Photographs and trip details are first uploaded to flickr and then to the site, in a slightly complicated procedure which may put some people off contributing. Good general interest probably for younger age groups.



The site can be visited here http://www.wildlifenearyou.com/

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Monroe County Public Library Flickr collection - Florida Keys

Monroe County Public Library 2006, Florida Keys--Public Library's photostream, viewed 5th July 2010, http://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/



The Monroe County Public Library system covers 5 community libraries in the Florida Keys island chain. Over the past 4 years they have digitised a proportion (approximately 7,500 images) of their archival image collection with the help of volunteers. Many thousands remain to be digitised. The aim of the digitisation project is to make the images available to those people who cannot visit in person and since the project was initiated the site has had over 400,000 visits. The collection covers such areas as historic buildings, fishing, personal collections donated to the library, the aftermath of Hurricane Georges, and recently a collection of WWII waterfront passes. These images can be viewed as separate collections



This collection of images is accessed through the library web site and is included in the area of 'Keys History' along with a history blog and oral histories and is aimed at social researchers, historians and local patrons with an interest in the history of their area. The site is considered authoritive as it is a local government authority and has links to other government organisations as well as an email contact for the site at the government agency. The latest update to the site was June 11th 2010.



The site can be visited here http://www.flickr.com/photos/keyslibraries/

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Annotated Citation - St Johns Library Collection Development Policy Wiki

St John's University Libraries., 2010, St John's University Libraries' wiki, Main/Collection Development Policy Statement', New York, viewed 25th April 2010
http://libraries.stjohns.edu/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.CollectionDevelopmentPolicyStatement

This wiki contains the Collection Development Policy of St Johns University in New York. The site is considered authoritive, as the university has been established since 1870. Contact details are available through links from the website. The site states that the page was 'wikified' by J. Garino.The last updated date from the wiki is 1st February 2010. A history of alterations to the wiki is available through a 'history' link.

The wiki itself does not appear to have many changes which can only be made by logging into the wiki with a password. The content of the wiki i.e. the CDP is extremely interesting and covers everything from acquisitions and maintenance through to withdrawal of materials. Each subject collection is covered. As well the universitypolicy on digitisation of the collection is also covered. While the amount of detail is perhaps not applicable to library technicians it gives a valuable guide to all aspects of CDP and in parts could be utilised in our libraries.

Rollyo

After some initial teething problems I finally was able to get my Rollyo scroll accepted and available to all. I found it a little clunky to start with but after using it more i think it is a valuable site. My scroll is called Library Interest and a number of websites that cover a variety of general interest areas for all who work in the library area. The sites are:

resourceshelf.com
trove.nla.gov.au
librariesinteract.info
vala.org.au

The link to my site is http://www.rollyo.com/orion21

Annotated Citation - RMIT Library Podcast

RMIT University 2010, Library//Available Podcasts, RMIT University, Vic. viewed 20 April 2010



This is a series of podcasts which give instructions on how to use the RMIT Library and other items of interest to students such as plagiarism, referencing, using Google Smart. The site is authoritive as it is produced by a reputable academic institution despite the .biz url. No authors are given for site although the url has an author name within it. Contact details are available via the podcast page to members of the staff. No update dates are given for the site although the bottom of the web page refers to copyright RMIT University 2010.

This is a good podcast site as it can not only be used by RMIT students but also other interested parties. General information on the use of dictionaries and ABS info are included. The podcasts use a conversation between a librarian and a student as the learning tool. Of interest is the transcript on 'Copyright and wrongs' which gives a good rundown on the use of images and music in student work and their attribution. About half way through this transcript the librarian and the student are suddenly transposed in their roles with the librarian asking questions and the student answering.


The link for the podcast website is:

http://www.rmit.biz/browse;ID=6hm8p5agsbje;STATUS=A;PAGE_AUTHOR=Kieran%20Wilson;SECTION=2;#content

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

You Tube video

This is my You Tube video showing how to use a back binder. Only took about 3 hours on my home computer. Simple!!

You Tube Video - Using Binder