#51. Libraries and the social web

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about libraries and how they can use 2.0 & 2.1 applications.

This is partly because I took myself off to Brisbane to the Beyond the Hype symposium (which I have blogged about here), and partly because I got to go to some sessions at the VALA conference in Melbourne (2 as part of a shared registration, and 2 because other staff members were ill).

So far our Library Service has:
*a web page (connected to the Council web page)
*a Facebook page
* our catalogue is available on Bookjetty;

we are working on:
* a myspace page
* a bebo page (if I can just get the bl***** logo to skin)

We are also running the Library 2.1 program through a ning, as well as a Local History ning.

In the setup for staff to play and learn on category:
* we have a blog
* a ning

Independently staff are working on:
* wikis (for Local history and library in general)
* suprglu (blog aggregator)

Hopefully we will have a blog for the public to access up and running in the next couple of weeks.

Scarily of the 25 social networking tools list I have accounts on all but 3 of them.

I like to try the different tools and then use the one that I like the most, that suits the way I work etc.

So mnay tools, so little time...

#50 I'm cooked

"It's like you tube for cooks" We ll can't argue with that!

I'm cooked is a video recipe sharing website. The idea is you film yourself cooking something then upload it to the website for others to see.

Now while others cook vats of plum sauce or bake lovingly - I don't. I cook because I can't afford to eat out every night!

The thought of being filmed as I look in the fridge, rummage in the cupboard for ingredients is not a good one, nor is my recipe for "it's in the fridge so can go in spaghetti sauce" one that should be handed down from generation to generation.

However I searched for corned silverside and watched a couple of videos of silverside being cooked. One with ginger beer, and the other with the more traditional(?) vinegar and brown sugar.

Would I use this site? In a library sense I doubt it; in a personal sense maybe - if I wanted to see how to cook something rather than just reading the recipe - could be helpful I suppose.

After playing with this site I was mega hungry - thank goodness I didn't look at video recipes for chocolate mousse.