Sometimes its useful to go back to basics, especially if you think you know more than you do.

Me being a case in point. I have been blogging for over a year, have used various Web 2.0 sites etc and got very excited about PLCMC’s Learning 2.0, but thought I knew enough and didn’t join in. Yarra Plenty has just started the program and same thing, I didn’t join in straight away.

I have now and am already seeing the benefits. PLCMC started with a video of 7 1/2 habits of effective learning - those being:

1. Begin with the end in mind
2. Accept responsibility for your learning
3. View problems as learning challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as an effective learner
5. Create your own learning toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
7. Teach/mentor others

and 7.5 PLAY!

Part of this week’s lesson is to discuss these habits. I am pretty good with all of them - just ask anyone who knows me. In fact, I relish many of them. However, the one I have most difficulty with is PLAY. Who would think it would be hard to play. Well it is, for me anyway. I’m task oriented, so what I do has to be to a purpose, play isn’t necessarily achieving an ultimate goal. It might solve a problem - but you don’t know that at the time of playing.

So I started this program for a couple of reasons - I am going to PLCMC next year as part of my study tour, so I thought I should see how the program works and once we have our staff settled with our new ILMS, I would like to start this program in my workplace. What I have found however, is that there is still much for me to learn and this program will help to do that.

If you haven’t started the Learning 2.0 journey, either do so with Yarra Plenty or go back to Charlotte Mecklenburg - its all still there for you to follow at your own pace. You might be surprised at what you may learn, I am already!

My boss thought of a great theme for our last blog post for the year, based loosely at the Christmas season, on the 12 days of Christmas. So here’s my personal Library 2.0 achievements for 2006.

1. Got involved in contributing to a second blog (besides my first) - the VALA blog
2. Celebrated my first year of this personal blog
3. Got a blog started on my library’s website, with management support and co-contributing to it
4. Invited to join the team at libraries interact - so cool and gives me the opportunity to learn and work with some awesome people across library sectors and across Australia. Thanks!
5. Applied for and got a study scholarship to go to the US and study successful Library 2.0 initiatives (going April 07)
6. Started training in our new whiz bang library system (coming early 2007)
7. As a result of 6., started plotting other new ways we can serve our patrons
8. Talked about starting a Flickr account (or more than one) for various purposes
9. Started the review process of our website, by looking at what else is out there
10. Started using a wiki for number 9.0
11. Started using Meebo for IM
12. Getting my personal library onto Library Thing

And that’s just off the top of my head. Its been a great year, a very progressive year in terms of Library 2.0 and 2007 is going to be even better.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you have all had an equally successful 2006!

Time Magazine has announced their person of the year - and if you blog, use MySpace or other social networking site, have edited a wiki or uploaded a video to YouTube, its YOU! Which means its me too! Check out the full story: “

You — Yes, You — Are TIME’s Person of the Year

Next, a special for the fast approaching Christmas holiday. You can check the progress of Santa and his sleigh via

NORAD tracks Santa

with hourly updates as to his progress.

After that, check out

Santa’s Toy Hunt and Santa Tracker in Google Earth

(Thanks to Search Engine Land for letting us know about the Christmas gems!)

All my very best wishes to all my blog compatriots and readers. May you have a very safe, healthy and happy holiday season!

I subscribe to the RSS feed from Digg. For those of you unaware of Digg, here’s what they say about themselves on their website:

“Digg is a user driven social content website. Ok, so what the heck does that mean? Well, everything on digg is submitted by the digg user community (that would be you). After you submit content, other digg users read your submission and digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of digg visitors to see.”

Now I am a very slack Digg user, I only subscribe to the RSS feed, which delivers the top stories from the Digg homepage. I have yet to join up or submit anything, I guess I haven’t found anything worthy of submission, so haven’t felt the need and I don’t have the time to troll the stories and digg the ones I like, I leave that job to dedicated others. I am a fan though and it took great restraint for me not to use “I dig Digg” as the title of this blog entry.

I read a Digg post today that celebrated a milestone -

Digg Hits One Million Story Submissions!

That’s a lot of story submissions, a very small proportion of which, if ever gets the diggs needed to get it to the front page. Not bad for just over 2 years of existence.

I get anywhere between 50 and 100 posts each day from Digg, most of which I delete because they are generally of little or no interest to me. Many are plain fun, some are fascinating, some are very weird and others very informative.

So what do I get out of Digg? For me personally, of the posts I do check out, I get a lot of laughter, some great information and an awareness of what’s going on in the world. Some news I read on Digg, before I hear it elsewhere. Others I never hear about anywhere else other than Digg, especially US focussed stories, as I am in Australia. For example, the recent case of James Kim - CNet editor.

Digg also gives me an insight into popular culture. Stories only get onto the front page and then I get the RSS feed, if they get a lot of diggs. For them to get a lot of diggs, either the people posting the stories have to know a lot of people who they encourage to digg their entry, or it is an entry of great interest to a wide variety of people. Either way, its something that’s of interest to a lot of people and therefore I think that I, as a public librarian, should be aware of.

Its also one of the few RSS feeds that I get that is not library related and therefore helps to keep me in touch with life outside of the LIS profession.

If you want to know more about Digg, check out their website or the the blog entry “Beginner’s guide to Digg” from ProNet Advertising.

So thanks to Digg and all their members who post and digg those entries for me to reap the benefits. Here’s looking to the next million story posts. Long may you digg!

I have been swamped lately, instead of getting quieter towards Christmas, I seem to be getting busier. So as I have done before, here’s links to some great reading that I just don’t have the time to blog about at present.

Internet Librarian has been and gone in Monterey, California. For those of us who missed it, there is great coverage on quite a few blogs, including ALA TechSource, Library Bytes, David Lee King and The Shifted Librarian, just to name a few. The presentations are also now available at the Internet Librarian 2006 website. Thanks to all the bloggers who attend and give us the rundown, I am amongst many who appreciate your time and effort so that we can share the conference.

Stephen Abrams has written a fascinating 3 part paper, “Waiting for your cat to bark - competing with Google and its ilk“. You may or may not agree with what he has to say, but either way it is an interesting exploration of libraries and where they fit in this knowledge economy, very well worth the read.

One potential future of book publishing is explored in “The Book as place: The “Networked book” becomes the new “in” destination.” It discusses the different forms of networked book, where people are able to post comments, corrections, thoughts, disagreements, to the contents of a book in draft form online. Fascinating idea.

The Librarian in Black gives a great overview of the papers presented at a mini-conference, “The Future of Libraries Pt 2: Models that work“, in San Francisco.

My friend and coblogger CW at Ruminations did a great paper on blogs at the ALIA Click 06 conference in Perth. “Creating Community: the blog as a networking device” gives a great overview of blogs and their use in libraries and professional development. Many other conference papers are available from the ALIA Click 06 website. The team at Libraries Interact.info, also did a great job at summarising at “Blog the conf“. Thanks guys!

Read, discover, learn and enjoy!