iGoogle

This week I had a go at iGoogle.
It was a very quick and easy way to
create a customised Google homepage for my PC plus
create a tab page around one of my interests, film.
I was able to find and add the gadgets I needed.
I'll definitely adopt this new application as it is one that
will save me some time and improve the way I work.

Google Books and Google Scholar

I had a look at Google Books. It's an easy and fun application to use.
Particularly good for searching for works that are out of copyright.
I was able to browse through classic texts by ancient Greek writers
such as Plato, Homer and Zeno. Great for researchers and students alike.

I use Google Scholar a lot in my work. It is great to be able to set the 'Scholar Preferences'
so that my searches pick up books in the VU Library Catalogue and direct links to articles in full-text from our subscribed databases. It is fascinating to see how quickly Google Scholar has become essential to research since its launch in 2004. I hope that in conjunction with the rise of institutional eprint repositories Google Scholar wll be able to break the costly hold that publishers like Elsevier have over Universities. VU Library currently pays over $100,000 per year for the citation tracking products Scopus and Web of Science, and yet when I search a free product like Google Scholar for citations I get better results. Go figure...

Google Docs

I've logged into Google Docs and uploaded a document into my account. I've shared this document with two of my colleagues. The portability of Google Docs is a great thing. I'm doing all this work out at the Info Desk between clients. I don't have to be at my desk to collaborate with others on a document. In fact I could be at home right now!
In the Knowing and Knowledge unit, AXF1001, they introduced the students to another online collaborative, free software called Zoho. There is even an animated tutorial for the students about Zoho that you can find from the Library Webpage under the 'Web 2.0 toolbox' link. Here's the Zoho tute URL http://intranet.vu.edu.au/AEHD/web2_usersite/tutorial2.asp
Zoho won a court case against Microsoft to be able to use the same icons on Zoho so it is even more familiar to those of use raised on Microsoft products. I think Google and small , entrepreneurial web companies like Zoho will eventually break Microsoft's hold on the market.
This will be a good thing as it will allow Web 2.0 innovations to be introduced and developed much more quickly and hopefully they will be low cost or free to use, benefiting Universities like VU and cash-strapped students.

Google Maps

Google maps is great. I can get directions of how to travel from place to place and I could see my house in great detail from above and see the front of the house on 'street view'. However it does cross my mind that the 'Big Brother' George Orwell described in his book, 1984, has happened by stealth without us knowing or asking for it. This type of technology is not always benign, as the article below shows:

German police investigate serial rabbit killings - 9 July 2008

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008. All rights reserved

Some 40 rabbits have been beheaded and drained of blood in northern Germany, prompting a police inquiry

Fear is driving rabbit owners in Germany to lock up their pets at night after a spate of brutal bunny slayings in which pets have been beheaded and drained of blood.

More than 40 rabbits have been killed in the country's Ruhr district since late last summer, prompting police in the Dortmund area to set up a special task force to find the culprit.

There has been speculation that satanists could be responsible because many of the way the rabbits have been killed.

Since April, five officers in the small town of Witten have been investigating the case, according to Spiegel Online.

The task force is looking into the possibility that the rabbits were being targeted using the online mapping programme Google Earth.

The officers have interviewed more than 300 people but have so far found nothing, the website reported.

Initially there were only a few isolated killings, but this spring the number of incidents picked up with four fatal attacks in May.

Animal rights groups in the region have put up a reward of €2,500 (£2,000) for information leading to the arrest of the killer.

My Space and Facebook

I had a look at Myspace and Facebook for the first time today. Myspace seemed okay, the pages used by Libraries and Librarians were informative but a bit dull and I would wonder how useful they are in terms of the time spent on them. Some had an 'Ask a Librarian' box which might make our younger clients more comfortable when they want to send in a query.

I created a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1439345212
and added a few friends. As with Myspace, you'd have to be quite careful using this as a medium to talk to clients in a professional capacity. Myspace and Facebook seem to be very informal spaces both in their structure and the language used on them. I'd question how useful it would be for individual Librarians to have Facebook pages. However I thought the widgits that I could add from different information sources, ie JSTOR, Libraries Aust & Deakin Uni were a particularly good way of getting our 'wares' out where the students are spending time.
The Deakin Library search widgit was clear and easy to use.

Digg

I'm now on Digg. It sure makes it easy to find the popular sites on the web.