Cam23 2.0

That's all folks!

2011-09-25T12:34:00.000+01:00

Well done to everyone who has completed the Things. If you haven't finished yet, don't worry, we will keep this blog open and you can work your way through at your own pace.

On Thursday evening we held our closing event at the Museum of Classical Archaeology. During the evening we announced the winners of the Cam23 Awards. And heeeere they are!

Best Blog Title
Runners up: 'Cardies and Tweed'
                   'Gareth 2.0'
                   'Views from the 'LibRhi'
Winner: Heather Lane with 'The Magic Lantern'

Best Blog Post
Runner up: Gareth 2.0 - Thing 10
Winner: Jenny Sargent with Murmuration - Reflections on Blogging

Most Supportive 'Thinger'
Runners up: Becky Woods
                   Jenny Sargent
Winner: Suzan Griffiths (Wild Venture)

Best Blog
Runners up: Alliteration Station
                  Murmuration
Wee Bookworm
Winner: Gareth Burgess with Gareth 2.0

The final thing we would like you to do is to take a moment to fill in this feedback survey, so that we can evaluate the programme. I know you have done a lot of reflection already, so the survey is only a short one!

Photos taken by Annie Johnson and Becky Woods

Thing 23: Reaching Cam23Thing Nirvana

2011-09-19T11:00:00.000+01:00

Now arriving at Thing 23, which is where this programme terminates.
All reflect please, all reflect...
So it's reflection time again, but this time, you can sit back, relax, and gaze out over the landscape of all the new web 2.0 tools you can now use.

But first ...

We'd like you to check the list of 23 Things and make sure you have blogged about each one, preferably with an evaluation of each Thing either for libraries or your personal and professional development. You've got a bit of time though - you need to be finished (or as close to as possible) by the end of next week (Friday 23rd September)

Now reflect upon...
Things which made you smile

Things which have become a part of the way you live and work

Things which you'll never go near again

Web 2.0 and social media more generally - what role do they really play within libraries and information services?

...and don't forget to write this all down!

In fact, as well as writing it down, how about turning it into a beautiful word cloud with:

1. Go to Wordle and click on "Create".
2. Paste in the URL of your blog, click submit and watch for the result (this may take a few minutes, especially if you have posted lots). You can restrict the content to a single post if you prefer: just enter the specific URL of that post, rather than the general URL for your blog.
3. You can play with the display using the toolbar at the top until you are happy with it, but don't navigate away from the page or you will lose it. If this happens, just re-submit the copy.
4. When you are happy with your word cloud, simply take a screenshot of it, save it as an image format, and upload it to your blog, where it should look something like this:

Is that all?
Not quite. The end of programme party will take place in the Museum of Classicial Archaeology in the Faculty of Classics on Thursday 22nd September at 5.30pm. We'd be very grateful if you could register your attendance on the form here or by emailing Annie at aj390@cam.ac.uk.

We will also be handing out a few special prizes in the following categories:

Best blog
Best blog post
Best blog title
Most supportive "Thinger"

So that's a little more reflection for you to do - have a look through some of your favourite blogs from throughout the programme and nominate your winners using the form here.

Where did that curtain come from?
Lastly, but by no means leastly, CONGRATULATIONS on surviving 14 weeks of relentless techy torture and, hopefully, learning one or two useful things for future use, personally or professionally.

As a treat (and what a treat), here's the man himself to sing us out...

Thanks to Sarah Stamford for more than a little inspiration and for the Wordle instructions

Parties and prizes and all kinds of exciting things!

2011-09-16T09:56:00.000+01:00

The end of the programme is drawing nearer. I'm sure there will be mixed feelings about this - I certainly feel a strange mixture of sadness that it will soon be over and overwhelming relief that we have pulled it off (touch wood) without any major disasters!

As a final hurrah, I hope as many of you as possible will be able to join us on Thursday after work at the Museum of Classical Archaeology (more details here) for a celebration of your achievements. It doesn't matter if you made it to the end or not! There will be drinks and nibbles, and some prizes! So that we know how many to cater for, please could you send me a message at aj390@cam.ac.uk, or fill in this form.

Everyone who has completed either the 23 Things or the 9 Extra Things will be entered into a prize draw (there's still time to finish of the last few Things if you're a bit behind!). We will also be holding an awards ceremony for the blogs and bloggers you have judged to be the best. So please, take a couple of minutes to vote for your favourites below.

Loading...
I hope to see you on Thursday!

Week 13, Thing 22: Wikis

2011-09-13T10:09:00.009+01:00

The end is nigh - hang on in there!!

We're all familiar with Wikipedia and the notion of a wiki as a website written and edited by a community.
But aren't wikis a bit 'old-hat' now? All very 2005/2006. Take a look at all the articles and talks about wikis listed on the professional development library wiki Library Success; they all date from 2005-2007. Facet Publishing have even got around to publishing a dead-tree book about library wikis.
We've got Twitter and blogs now. Aren't they the Web 2.0 tools of choice?

I think that in many ways, blogging software has replaced wikis - it's more intuitive, easier to set up and customise. But wikis can still be a useful way of storing documents that are linked in linear and non-linear ways and in enabling collaboration.

Wikis are really great for managing project documentation. I worked on a 4-year digitisation project which generated a lot of reports, minutes of meetings, plans and timetables. The project wiki was a great repository for all that information, enabling all members of the team, on both sides of the Atlantic, to read, edit and upload all this material at a glance. Documents could easily be shuffled around and archived. A wiki discussion was much more easily retrieved and organised than an email thread.
Staff Intranet Several university libraries use wiki software to manage their staff intranet. Take a look at the University of Minnesota or the University of Connecticut. The wiki operates as a content management system, combining both publicly available and restricted access documents.
Staff Manual If you want to produce a document with multiple sections that you'd like staff to be able to edit or comment on, with those changes being tracked, a wiki might be the answer.
Subject guides Have a look at this example from Ohio University. It's fine but a basic list of links like this is probably easier to put together with blogging software. Chad Boeninger from Ohio University set up a popular BizWiki guide to business-related info in 2006 and has now replaced it with a Business Blog. Take a look at both and see for yourself which is the most user-friendly.

Wikis used to be touted as interactive spaces for collaboration between library staff and users but they're pretty unsatisfactory for that. As Chad notes, he had high hopes that users would get involved and contribute content to his wiki but nobody ever did - he only had to deal with spam. There are of course issues involved in allowing open editing of a wiki. In general, users are much more likely to add a comment to a blogpost or perhaps offer a guest post than they are to edit a wiki page. It's perhaps easier to see how teachers might use wikis collaboratively, where students are obliged to contribute.

Wikis are still a great medium for archiving and publishing large quantities of documents, no matter how you obtained them.

But for the final word in deciding between blogs and wikis, what better than a presidential debate??

Week 13, Extra Thing: QR Codes

2011-09-12T09:00:00.000+01:00

Before we get onto this week's Extra Thing, just a reminder about our wrap party next week! It's at the Museum of Classical Archaeology (upstairs in the Classics Faculty building, Sidgwick Site) on Thursday 22nd September from 5.30pm. If you're coming and you haven't already done so, please could you email me at aj390@cam.ac.uk or fill in this form to let us know for catering purposes!

Now onto our final Extra Thing - QR codes.

What is a QR code?

I'll let Wikipedia explain this one: "A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) designed to be read by smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded may be text, a URL, or other data."

So if you have a phone with a camera and the ability to download a free QR reader app (e.g. QR Code Reader and Scanner for the iPhone or QR Droid for Android) you can take a picture of a code like the one above, and be taken directly to the URL or the message that the code links to.

What can I use it for?

QR codes are appearing all over the place nowadays. On billboards, TV cookery shows, note paper, CVs, and yes, in libraries. As an example of how they can work in an academic library setting, the University of Huddersfield have started using QR codes throughout their libraries "to deliver library instruction and help at the point of need". These link to electronic copies of materials in the catalogue, mobile-friendly versions of instruction videos, floor plans, handouts etc.

Okay, how do I make one?

Searching for "QR code generator" brings up a variety of options. I've used Kaywa QR code generator which works well, but most will work in much the same way. You can choose whether you want your code to link to a URL, a message or phone number, choose the size and then click "Generate!" You should then see this:

You can then copy the image into the document you are working on. Simple!

Now how do I make it look good?

Let's face it, QR codes aren't the most visually appealing thing to stick on those beautiful library signs you spent an hour lovingly crafting. Geeks like me might be rather fond of their blocky, pixellated style but even I'll admit that one QR code looks much the same as another. Never fear! Although most codes you see are the standard black blocks on a white background, they can in fact be customised quite a bit.

Firstly, they don't have to be black and white. As long as the background is lighter than the code and there is enough contrast between the two, you can make your QR code whatever colour(s) you like. You can do this yourself with something as simple as MS Paint, or there are web apps such as http://rasoftwarefactory.com/qr-generator/ that will let you customise colours etc. when generating the code.

Secondly, designs can be built into the code itself. On a fairly simple level, http://vanity-qrcode.com/ will generate a personalised QR code incorporating words or numbers of your choice. I used this to made the Newnham College Library code on the left, which links to our library website.

RHCP QR code by Annie_Bob on Flickr

Some brands are getting really creative with the QR codes they are using in their marketing. A Mashable article from April this year gives some great examples of designer QR codes, and I recently spotted the one on the right "in the wild", where the code is incorporated into the Red Hot Chili Peppers' logo.

What to do for this Thing

Think about how QR codes could be used in your library. What are the benefits and the drawbacks?
Have a go at generating a code of your own. Unfortunately you will only be able to read it if you have a phone with a barcode reader (e.g. QR Code Reader and Scanner for the iPhone or QR Droid for Android), but try and get someone to read it and test it out.
If you're feeling fancy, try making a personalised code!

Extra Reading

Andrew Walsh, University of Huddersfield, QR Codes - using mobile 'phones to deliver library instruction and help at the point of need
Slideshare presentation by genelg, QR Codes in an Academic Setting
Prezi by Laurie Bridges, QR Codes, the What, where, why, and how for libraries and museums!
Hamilton Chan, Why QR Codes Are Here to Stay

Week 12, Thing 21: Reference Management, part 2

2011-09-06T10:00:00.011+01:00

So you've decided to take the plunge and commit to using a reference management tool. There are various questions you need to ask yourself before you start.

Will I mainly be working from a single machine? Or will I need to add to and access my bibliography from multiple locations?
Web-based or desktop program? Where is the data actually stored?
What kind of references will I be adding? Is it principally bibliographical material or do I want to add lots of other types of files?
Do I want to share my bibliography with others?
How much support might I need? Do I prefer support from an open source community or a proprietary manufacturer?
Do I envisage maintaining my bibliography after my academic affiliation ends?

Endnote
This is the principal reference management software supported by the university. It is installed on a selection of public workstations across campus but if you want to use it on your individual machine, you'll need to buy a licensed version from UCS for about £60.
It works best on a single machine. It can be combined with Endnote Web if you're away from your desktop, though you need to be careful with the syncing process.
It connects seamlessly with many major databases, particularly Web of Knowledge to import references. It integrates well with Newton and with the library's e-resources to search for full-text versions of citations via the OpenURL link resolver.
It is possible to attach files (eg PDFs, images) to bibliographic records.
It has an enormous number of output styles appropriate for different journals and publishers.

RefWorks
This is another proprietary product but one which is web-based, avoiding the complications involved with syncing across multiple machines. Both institutional and individual accounts are offered but Cambridge is not a subscriber so you would have to sign up for an individual account and pay the annual fee (currently $100).
It connects seamlessly with major bibliographical databases to import references directly.
It has a nifty RSS feed reader so that you can add feeds from publishers, for instance.
It is possible to attach unlimited files to records.
It has lots of output styles and if you don't find the one that you need, you can modify an existing one or request that one be created.
There's lots of online help documentation, including webinars.

Zotero
This is a free, open source tool which started out as an extension to the Firefox browser but is now available as an independent stand-alone application.
It also works best on a single machine, though it has recently improved accessibility from multiple locations through syncing.
Since it sits within your browser, it's very easy to add citations from webpages.
It handles multimedia items well, and has a useful archiving feature which allows you to save and annotate webpages.
It does not interact quite so seamlessly with major bibliographic databases such as Scopus or Web of Knowledge. It's often necessary to save your list of references in a format like .ris and then import into Zotero.
It can also be configured to work with CUL's OpenURL link resolver to find full-text items.
It doesn't offer quite so many output styles - but you can always request one or create your own.

Conclusion
Think about using a reference management tool if you've got an upcoming project - an article? library course or chartership?
A fuller comparison of the various options is available.
For more info on how reference management software works in a Cambridge environment, see the CUL e-resources page or the Computing Service documentation.

Week12, Thing 21: Reference Management, part 1

2011-09-05T15:53:00.007+01:00

Sounds like a very fancy thing, doesn't it?
Obviously, as a librarian, there's nothing I like more than seeing a well-ordered, beautifully-formatted list of references but I don't necessarily enjoy the sweat and tears involved in producing such a list. That's where reference management software comes in.

It's worth knowing about some different programs in order to help students or researchers who might find them useful for essays or dissertations but it's also worth thinking about projects within the library for which such tools might come in handy. We've used them in the Parker Library to organise a bibliography of works citing our manuscripts. And we're planning to set up another database of works produced by Fellows and alumni of the College.

I'm going to look at three different programs that you might want to try: RefWorks, Endnote and Zotero.

But first some basic points common to all of them.

There are three elements to using the software: input, organisation and output.

1. Input: These days this is rarely about manually typing entries into fields of a database. It's more likely that you'll want to import references directly from

bibliographic databases such as Scopus or Web of Knowledge
online sources such as Google Scholar
a .txt file, perhaps from a saved search
a library catalogue
an RSS feed
another reference management tool

These references might be of many different types - not just the bibliographical details for books, articles, reviews and abstracts, but also webpages, audio files, news stories.

2. Organisation: You'll want to store the references in folders, tag, index or search them.

3. Output: There are two main types of output: in-text citations, footnotes or endnotes and stand-alone bibliographies. Generally the reference management software interacts with your word-processing program and saves you having to type in the full references. What's particularly useful for academic writers is that you can instruct the software to output the information according to a particular stylesheet. This can save enormous amounts of time and make copy- editors at journals and publishers very happy.

The keys to success with reference management software are selecting the right one for your needs, getting to know the features that you'll need and then making sure you use it. It does take a little time at first to find your way around but it will save you oodles of time in the long run...

Tomorrow I'll have a look at the questions you need to ask yourself before choosing a program and run through some of the main features of the three frontrunners: RefWorks, Zotero and Endnote.

Week 12 Extra Thing: TeuxDeux and other list-making tools

2011-09-05T03:00:00.001+01:00

What's the problem, chum?
It's an increasingly busy world that we live in, and we librarians know this better than most, as our profession encompasses many diverse tasks and duties.

Luckily for us, there is a huge variety of web-based tools which aim to eliminate flurries of paper reminder notes and guilt-inducing emails from people that you've forgotten about...and thanks to some kind people on Twitter* (get me, using another of my newly acquired Things), here are a few of them, tried and tested by librarians and shambrarians alike.

Where teux start?
All the applications featured here took seconds to register for and to start using, so I won't be presenting a 'how to' for each one. Instead, here are the main features of some of the available applications, and please don't hesitate to get in touch or to comment on this post if you have any questions at all.

TeuxDeux is one of the most well-known list-making applications around, and was presented in Cambridge by Suz at the March Teachmeet.

It's a very simple, clean-looking application which allows you to keep a virtual to-do list for each day and tick things off as you go along. You can view a week at a time, with days in the past in grey, today in red and future days in black. There is also a section at the bottom for "someday", that is non-urgent things that could be looked at any time. It really is that simple!

In addition to its simplicity, the calendar format of TeuxDeux is useful for spreading tasks evenly across the week and keeping track of particularly busy (or slow) days. Teux Deux is also available as an app for most different platforms, keeping you organised on the go. However, if you find it a little stark, new kid on the block Wunderlist does a very similar job with a slightly prettier interface, which looks something like this:

A similar kind of idea is found in the form of Remember the Milk, which is also compatible with most platforms and can be logged into using your Google account.

It has a slightly different format which allows you to organise your tasks into tabs such as personal, study, and work - maybe useful for any part-time or distance students? You can also tag your tasks, set reminder dates and attach locations and other information to them. RtM does have a habit of automatically alphabetising your tasks, but for those tag-fiends amongst us, RtM provides a multitude of organisational solutions.

For something completely different, which may appeal to Post-it devotees (I'm thinking of you, Jenny...), the Japanese-designed LinoIt (no, it has nothing to do with wipe-clean floor coverings as far as I can tell) may offer a colourful and kitsch solution.

With LinoIt, you can add a variety of different coloured Post-it notes to each 'canvas' - as a default you have a main and a 'someday' canvas - choosing to pin the particularly important ones. You can add dates to them and also add pictures, which are a nice aide-memoire for predominantly visual learners. It is also possible to open canvases up to groups, both across the internet and to invitees only, which could be useful again for distance learners, but also teams which work on similar projects from different locations.

There are also a number of Things that we've already explored which have built in list functions, such as Google Calendar, Evernote, Netvibes and Diigo - so if you're trying to keep your subscriptions to a minimum, it might be worth checking out the Things you're already using in order to maximise their functionality.

So what will you put on your TeuxDeuxWunderRememberListIt first? Number 1: List lists. Number 2: Blog about lists...

Best of luck!

*That's you, Annie, Katie, Aidan, Ange, Tina, Lynne and John...and anyone else I may have forgotten, thanks!

Week 11, Extra Thing - data visualisation

2011-08-30T08:40:00.002+01:00

This week's extra Thing gives you some options! We're looking at data visualisation, and I have three tools for you.

Ever felt that something would be a lot simpler if you could explain it using a picture, but your artistic skills were left behind when you stopped using felt tips? Or perhaps you work better with a good diagram than a paragraph? Then data visualisation is what you need! These tools all make your scrap paper drawing into something intelligible, legible and presentable.
First off are two tools for making charts - Lovelycharts and Gliffy.
Both programmes allow you to create a variety of charts. In particular I have used Gliffy to create a decision tree/flow chart relating to some stock removals. If you need to communicate a set of data, or a decision-making process to a team, these tools can provide you with a good visual reference beyond a list, or a scribbled diagram.
Each programme has a slightly different set of available tools, so you'll need to select the one that works for you, and you'll need to create a free account as well.

Here's a floorplan that I created in Gliffy:

It's simple, but it serves the purpose I needed it for, and it took less than 10 minutes to complete. I've exported it, but I can also access it in my account to edit for a different size sofa, or extra pot plants.

Both programmes have libraries of standard elements to choose from, whether making a floor plan, a decision tree, a people network or a Venn diagram. And everything can be manipulated to change size and orientation, with most things also able to change colour too.

Because there are so many options I'm not going to suggest that you try a particular task - have a look at Lovelycharts and Gliffy and experiment with one or both, so that next time having some visual input would be handy, you can just login and get started.

Visualising in a different way...
Wordle is something that some of you who did the Things last year may already be familiar with. It is a great tool for visualising text in a more interesting form. By pasting in text, or linking to a blog, Wordle will create a visual collage, and make more frequently used words larger within it, thereby providing something between an artwork and a concordance.

It's a great tool to present data in a different manner, and can be used equally to engage users as to demonstrate trends to senior managers. It is however inherently limited, providing just this one function, albeit with multiple styling options for the final image. There is no account to sign up to with Wordle, but that does mean anything you create is public on the gallery. In general I think the way the text is displayed is too abstract for that to be a problem, but do bear it in mind.

Why not try using a link from one of your blog entries to create a picture - you might be surprised how often you use certain words! You'll need to use what you've learnt on screenshots to make the most of Wordle, as the html code provided doesn't necessarily give a big enough image.

For more advanced Wordle users, there is the option to type your own text to create an artistic work that is devoid of textual meaning. Or, perhaps more usefully, you can use the 'language' link to remove common English words, so you don't end up with an enormous looming THE. The 'Advanced' button also allows you to get specific on both sizes and colours, to remove the slightly random nature of the resulting graphic.

So why not go and try at least one of these tools to brighten up your data.

Week 11, Thing 19: Slideshare

2011-08-30T08:40:00.000+01:00

The problem
You've made a great Powerpoint presentation (for a conference perhaps) and now you want to share it with the world.

The solution
Slideshare is a presentation hosting website, allowing you to upload your presentations or videos which can then be shared. To get started go to http://www.slideshare.net/ and create an account:

Click on "Sign up" or follow this link, then fill in the registration form. (Alternatively if you have a Facebook account and are happy to log in to Slideshare using this, just click "log in with Facebook")
The next screen will probably be an advert for Slideshare Pro, the paid service. Skip this, the free service provides all the features we need right now.
Now upload your first presentation! Lots of file formats are supported, including Powerpoint formats, Keynote, Open Office, pdf, mp4, avi, and wmv. After skipping the advert for Pro, you should see this box:

If you don't see this, click on the orange "upload" button at the top of the page and this will bring you here. Although it gives you the option to upload either a private presentation or a public presentation, the private upload is a Pro feature so if you click on the blue button you will just get an invitation to upgrade to Slideshare Pro.

Click on the orange button and upload a presentation or video. While the file is being uploaded and converted you can give it a name, description and tags:

Once the file has uploaded you can then share it on Twitter, Facebook or email, embed in your blog or simply stick the link wherever you want to share it.

Of course you can also browse Slideshare to find interesting presentations by other people. Try searching for "libraries" or "social media" or whatever else you're interested in!

Other things you can do with Slideshare

Favourite the presentations you like to save them to your Slideshare account (the favourite button is on the bar along the top of each presentation). Or, if the author has allowed this, download them to your computer.
Upload an audio mp3 file to create a "Slidecast" (once you have uploaded your presentation go to "edit" and then the "Create Slidecast" tab. This could be used in a similar way to screencast-o-matic to create instructional slides with a voice over.
Import a presentation from Google Docs here.

Try uploading a presentation (it doesn't have to be long or particularly spiffy) and either sharing the link or embedding it on your blog. Have a browse of the other presentations on Slideshare and share anything interesting!

Week 11, Thing 20 - Prezi

2011-08-30T08:25:00.001+01:00

Ok, time to get creative! By the end of this Thing you will have been introduced to Prezi as an alternative to PowerPoint. You will also have some hints and tips on what not to do to make a good Prezi.

What is Prezi?
Prezi is a free online programme that you can use to make presentations. In some ways it is like PowerPoint, and, in any situation where you might consider using a PowerPoint, you can create a Prezi instead. What makes Prezi so good though is the extra capabilities it has, that can take your presentation beyond the boring 'slide with text, next slide with text, slide with text and a picture' format of most PowerPoints.

Let's get started.
Go to Prezi, and click 'sign up' on the top right. You'll need to create a free account to use the programme.

When Prezi opens, there are three tabs at the top of the page - 'Your prezis' will display all the presentations you have created. 'Learn' offers tutorials on using Prezi, at both a basic and more advanced levels. 'Explore' allows you to view other presentations on all manner of subjects - a great way to get an idea of how Prezi can be used (and perhaps what not to do as well).

To start your first presentation click the 'New prezi' button on the top left of the 'Your prezi' tab. You'll be prompted to give the presentation a title, and a description, but these can be changed later, so don't worry too much.

You'll then be offered a number of templates to choose from. I would advise not selecting any of these until you have mastered the basics of Prezi, and know the effect that you are trying to create. So select the blank template.

Prezi will offer you a tutorial - it isn't very long, and is quite useful for the basics, so have a watch and then get started.

Now click on the canvas and type to get started. You can add pictures (try using Flickr with Creative Commons licensing), and you can link to YouTube videos.

The tools can take a little bit of getting used to, particularly sizing and the animation. And be aware that your first attempt is likely to be fairly poor - mine certainly was! So practice a bit if you like it before trying to use Prezi for a presentation. The biggest tip is perhaps not to get too carried away with all the features you could use, particularly with the animation - don't underestimate the ability to create a rather seasick effect.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, have a look at this Prezi from The Wikiman (@theREALwikiman) which gives a good video demo: http://prezi.com/_sto8qf_0vcs/the-how-to-make-a-great-prezi-prezi/

Something more advanced
For a good longer presentation you can watch the one below, which you may have seen at the libraries@cambridge conference in January: http://prezi.com/if9wccvvunup/escaping-the-echo-chamber/

Like Prezi?
If you think you might use Prezi, as you work for an academic institution you can upgrade to the academic use version of Prezi for free. This allows for more privacy options for your presentations amongst other things.

And now...the end is near...and so let's have a party!

2011-08-25T10:24:00.000+01:00

Don't worry just yet, you have a month to catch up with the programme (and do the remaining Things, of course!) but we've got a date for your diaries even so:

The Cam23 2.0 End of Programme Party

will be held at

The Museum of Classical Archaeology

(upstairs in the Classics Faculty)

Sidgwick Site

CB3 9DA

Thursday 22nd September

from 5.30pm (the main door to the Faculty will lock at 6.15pm, so please arrive before then!)

This event will be a great opportunity to meet even more Cam23Thingers face to face, to share that sense of achievement and, of course, find out who's got lucky in our prize draw! There may also be one or two other surprises, but I couldn't possibly say...

What we would ask you to do, however, if you wish to attend, is to email Annie at aj390@cam.ac.uk or fill in the form below so that we have an idea of numbers:

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We very much hope that you can come and rub shoulders with Dionysios, Athena, and your fellow librarians!

Week 10, Thing 18 : Reflection Week

2011-08-22T09:00:00.001+01:00


Reflecting at the Faculty of Classics

Well done everyone for reaching week 10 and the second of three reflection weeks. Or as I like to think of it a chance to catch up on those things still waiting to be done. As we are well over half way through now you will all have developed or still be developing your reflective style. The 23 things programme asks you to use and reflect on a number of web 2.0 tools. You may not even have realised you were reflecting as you went along so in many ways thing 18 is already accomplished. You will have been asking some of the standard reflective practice questions such as why am I using this, what have I learned and how will I apply it.

You may choose to add the thing 18 tag to one of your other blogs where you have already reflected or write a separate post, perhaps on

what you have gained from this programme so far (it doesn't have to be a specific thing but more general)
which thing you particularly liked or disliked
which of the forthcoming things you really can't wait to try (the things are listed here)

If you would like to share your reflections with other people on the programme, ask a burning question on one of the things or just meet for a drink and a chat then come along to the University Centre Grads Cafe tonight at 6pm for an informal get together.

This is a reflection/catch up week rather than a blog on reflective practice but if anyone is interested in more information on this then there are plenty of links and information at the cpd23 blog post.

I started with a photograph of the glass doors of the Faculty of Classics. This seemed an appropriate image as it showed a reflection and part of the motivational Euripidean quote on the door. The full quote can be translated as "happy is the man who has gained knowledge through inquiry" (Fragments, translated by Christopher Collard and Martin Croop. Loeb Classical Library, no. 504, p.227, fragment 910). So by the end of this programme you will all hopefully be ecstatic from the new knowledge that you have gained!

Next week
You will be learning about the presentation tools slideshare and prezi as well as an extra thing on data visualisation.

Reflection week meetup #2

2011-08-19T10:02:00.000+01:00

Thank you everyone who filled in the Doodle poll! We're going to go for Monday 22nd August at 6pm as most people can make that. If you haven't been to Grad's Cafe before it is on the third floor of the University Centre on Granta Place.

See you there!

Week 9, Extra Thing: Creative Commons

2011-08-15T12:16:00.004+01:00

Fuss-free flickr attribution

So exploring flickr has given you an appetite; you've picked out some fantastic flickr images and they're all ready to adorn your blog posts. All you need to do now is add the images, cite the author, its title, details of where you found it, a link back to the source, and if it's a Creative Commons image you'll need to provide information detailing whether the content can be reused or remixed.

That's a lot of fuss for one image- thankfully there is an easy way to do this!

by Stefan

If you are using Creative Commons flickr images regularly then you might want to bookmark ImageCodr, it'll save you so much time as well as making your attributions nice and neat. Simply find a Creative Commons image on flickr, copy the URL (Tip: click right through to the image, entering a URL for a set or member won't work) and paste it into the Get code! tab of ImageCodr.

ImageCodr reads the licence assigned to flickr images and pops out a handy chunk of HTML linking to both the image and the appropriate licence.

The HTML code will change depending on the size of image you wish to embed. Then it's just a case of pasting the code into the HTML editor of your blog and watching as your chosen image and the correct licence and attribution details appear. Voilà- just like the picture above. Clicking the name hyperlink brings you to the creator's flickr page and a click on the license symbol reveals the full Creative Commons licence which explains exactly what you can and can't do. Neat and, er, neat too.

This is a share-alike license which means that although you are free to adapt, change, remix or alter the work you must license the work in a similar manner. This means if you were to re-colour, or add extra images to the picture you couldn't pass it off as your own work or stop other people from using it and adapting it in their own way. Additionally, you may not use this image commercially, or Darth Vader might have something to say about it!

by Stefan

Don't be afraid of using Creative Commons licensed content, it's been licensed to encourge use. I license my content because I want people to reproduce it in an appropriate way, simply by attributing it correctly. In fact some sections of this post I've taken from an article I wrote last year, which is covered by a Creative Commons licence.

You can find out more about Creative Commons licences, including how to get one for your own work, on their website. This also hosts a handy Creative Commons search covering flickr, Wikimedia Commons and Google image search, amongst others.

Extra Credit:

Creative Commons images and you: a quick guide for image users- Ars Technica
Remixing with YouTube Creative Commons Content- YouTube help

Reflection week meet up and drinks #2

2011-08-15T09:46:00.001+01:00

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying Cam23 2.0 so far! We're now over halfway through, and as next week is another reflection week we thought we would have another meetup. We really enjoyed meeting lots of you in the last reflection week, and hope as many people as possible can make it next week. Please fill in our Doodle poll to help us pick the day, I'll let you know the chosen date by the end of the week. Edit: I've changed the venue to University Centre as it's more central to where most peoples' libraries are, and added lunchtime time-slot options to the poll.

Link to the Doodle Poll

(Not actually where we're going sadly) By Thomas Graham on Flickr

Week 9, Thing 17 : Podcasts

2011-08-15T09:38:00.000+01:00

A podcast is a pre-recorded audio or video broadcast that has been published on the web. It can be subscribed to and downloaded via a RSS feed to your media player or PC. Lots of people have created podcasts ranging from tv shows, interviews, lectures, library inductions, commentaries and just about anything you can think of on any subject. One of the reasons for their popularity is that users are subscribing to the content they want and if they subscribe to a series then new content is automatically downloaded so they do not have to keep checking back for updates.

Still unsure then check out the following video on podcasting in plain English by Common Craft :

Where do I find some podcasts?
Podcasts can be listened to and or watched via your PC or downloaded onto your ipods or MP3 players. If you use iTunes then check out Apple's iTunes store for lots of free podcasts. Radio and tv stations also create podcasts, for example the BBC, and there are numerous directories such as Podcast Alley to help you locate podcasts in your area of interest.

Libraries and podcasts
More and more libraries are using podcasts to create audio tours of their library or to promote new services and introduce staff. A search on 'library' at Podcast Alley had over 150 results of library related podcasts. Some UK examples include:

University of Aberdeen's induction podcasts
CILIP Communities podcasts
The British Library's Lecture, talk and event podcasts

Creating a podcast
This blog is not going to go into a step by step guide on how to create a podcast, especially as I have never made one, but for an audio podcast you just need a microphone and the software to create the file. Hopefully before the Cam23 2.0 programme ends, Classics will have produced a podcast introduction to our collections which we will share with you, including how we did it. Some of you in the screencasting Thing may have created audio/video files that you made available on your blogs. These may serve the same purpose as a podcast for one off events. The University of Cambridge runs training on using the Camtasia software (available on the pwf) for creating video tutorials if you are interested in exploring this area further.

Streaming Media Services
Although the definition of podcasting refers to files that are subscribed to and downloaded, many of the video and radio podcasts are watchable without a subscription and, in the case of such sites as YouTube and the Cambridge Streaming Media Service, you can just search for a video and watch it direct. Not all the content is officially podcasts but loading a video in such a high profile area may lead to people seeking out your podcasts if you develop a series on your library. Plus there is some fun stuff out there!

The University of Cambridge's streaming media service includes interviews, tutorials and lectures for viewing or downloading. The service will also host files for departments, institutions and colleges within the University releasing space on your own servers. Choose the 'institution' tab at the top to see a list of entries including Cambridge University Library and their how to use the widget guide.

On YouTube there are any number of library related videos. Here are some (old) favourites:

Nice Spice : Study like a Scholar

Cookie Monster pays a visit to the library - where are the cookies?

Goggle Vision : using electronic resources

Introducing the L-Team - let your users know who you are in a memorable way!

What to blog about?
Time to blog about podcasts. You might want to comment on how you think you might use podcasts in your library or some of the useful podcasts you have seen created by libraries. Is a podcast just a marketing tool or can you use it to add value to your services for your library users? Or just have some fun watching some of the library YouTube videos and let us know if you find any that you think are effective.

What next?
There is an extra thing this week on Creative Commons licensing and then next week is another reflection week (or, as I am sure you all like to think of it, a catch up week).

Thanks to Andy Priestner for the ideas from his original podcasting blog last year for the Cam23 Things programme.

Week 9, Thing 16 - Flickr

2011-08-15T09:04:00.000+01:00

Photo by Muffet on Flickr

Yes, it's a gratuitous wool picture!

After completing Thing 16 you will have ...
... learned how to download and reuse images for your library presentations, posters and website.

Why Flickr?

What makes Flickr so useful for libraries is that many images are licensed for reuse under Creative Commons, a licensing scheme designed for the social web. Unlike professional photographers, many Flickr users don’t make a living out of their images and are happy for others to make use of them. Best of all, you don’t even need to sign up for an account to reuse images from Flickr: you can search for Creative Commons-licensed images and download them straight away.

There are many websites that sell professional quality images for a fee, but in general, the standard of images on Flickr is more than adequate for library purposes. If you are doing some really upscale expensive marketing you might want to consider a site like iStock, but there's usually no need.

The Extra Thing this week is looking at the Creative Commons licensing, so I strongly suggest that you read it if you think Flickr will be useful. But the golden rule is simple, if you can't establish otherwise, assume all images online (not just on Flickr) are copyrighted and therefore cannot be used.

Ok, so let's get started

Go to http://www.flickr.com/. The best way to start (and not fall in love with a copyrighted photo that would be just perfect) is to use the advanced search.

Click the search button on the top right of the page. When the new page loads, hit advanced search to get lots more options.

Enter your keywords, then scroll right to the bottom and check the box that says 'Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content':

Hint: I probably don't need to tell librarians this, but consider your keywords, and the possible variations carefully, particularly if you are looking for a more abstract concept, like an emotion.

Photo by mrwalker on Flickr

Look what my search for 'angry' turned up!

Run your search, find an image you like, and double-check the conditions under which the creator has licensed the work. You can find this under 'Additional Information' on the right-hand side (you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the right-hand menu).

Clicking on 'Some rights reserved' should allow you to see clearly whether and how you are allowed to reuse the image.

Right-click on the image and select a size. Usually the picture as you see it is medium, the large or original sizes may be huge, but if so they will be a good resolution if you need say a backdrop for an A3 poster.

Now either select 'Download the Medium 500 size of this photo' link (or other as applicable), or right click and select Save Picture As...

Choose a location and filename for your image and click on Save. Since most creators ask that you attribute their work, a useful practice is to save the image with the creator's name as the filename, then you won't forget it!

Uses for images ...
... are endless. Add them to your presentations, use them on posters and flyers to engage with your students, put them on your website and blog, even find your online avatar for Twitter, blogging etc - most pictures include a square 75x75 option that's perfect.

Photo by doug88888 on Flicke

Hmm, do I want the world to think of me as a yellow frog?

What if I don't really 'think visually'?
Use a free photo editor to overlay text onto your images, or go for word art instead: Wordle and Tagxedo allow you to upload strings of text or tags and create tag clouds. And don't forget Lightshot could come in handy sometimes too.

Optional extras:
If you like the look of Flickr, create an account by clicking on 'Sign Up' at the top of the page. NB: you'll need to create a Yahoo account, which is a totally separate login from your Google account.

As a registered user you can upload your own photos, or take the opportunity to contact users whose work is not licensed under CC to request special permission to use an image.

Flickr is also great because it is structured in 'sets', effectively photo albums, which tend to be themed. There are also 'groups' where people upload photos on a theme. If you press the 'Explore' button at the top of the screen you can see how these work, and whether they are useful to you.

If you can't quite find what you're looking for on Flickr, you could also try Stock.XCHNG which works in the same way as many commercial sites but for free and with lots more Creative Commons-licensed material.

Some of this material is from Emma Coonan's 2010 Cam23 post on Flickr remixed under Creative Commons licensing.

Week 8, Extra Thing: tumblr and posterous

2011-08-08T14:24:00.033+01:00

Blogophobia: fear of blogs and blogging.

Her blogophobia was a kind of online stage fright: what if someone actually READ what she had to say?

I used Urban Dictionary to self-diagnose this last year during 23 Things. It all started when I tried to make my post on RSS feeds interesting. After staring at Blogger's blank, white, empty content box for a full four and a half minutes I couldn't even summon a vaguely witty title. Fear struck! My palms began to sweat. Just when I was about to file myself under a rock and die of librarian blog-related shame I remembered that it doesn't have to be this way.

tumblr- for truly fearless blogging

by tess_marie

I feel that whereas Blogger and Wordpress demand words with menaces from me, tumblr has a lighter, more cajoling touch. It handles posts consisting of mainly images, video, quotations or audio as easily as text, and subtly adjusts the parameters to suit.

The drafting area is simple, uncluttered and encourages you to write naturally, but the biggest thing about tumblr is that it isn't about the big posts- it's about documenting things as they come. Don't get me wrong, I've written some detailed posts on there, but it is so quick and easy to post that I find myself more inclined to share my snapshot view of the web wherever and whenever I can.

tumblr is often described as blogging lite, or halfway between a tweet and a post. Although these definitions only tell part of the story, they do highlight the immediacy of tumblr.You can set up your blog with minimal faff- the only hold up is coming up with a suitably trendy name! A range of tools and extras means that you can send your posts by email, clip them from the web and even telephone them in (should you wish). Innovative and easy ways to post are also available for smartphones.

Where the wild things are?

tumblr does have a reputation as being the home of the hipsters and Harry Potter obsessives, but it is also a genuinely creative space. Users can choose from over a 1000 themes, customise the CSS or create from scratch, this freedom and flexibility is great for experimenting with bits of code, and there are scores of helpful people who can teach you neat tricks with javascript, JSON and other scary words.

What really sets tumblr apart is the social dimension, as well as actively creating your blog you can follow others receiving updates straight to your dashboard. Not quite a Facebook or a twitter feed, this has a true community feel as you are encouraged to reblog (a bit like retweeting) each other's posts. Some big players have also joined in the fun, taking the opportunity to share quickly and efficiently- The New York Times and the Washington Post host their respective style sections here, and the New Yorker's tumblr looks enviably good.

Librarians on tumblr

Join the growing librarian community on tumblr, including our very own Annie , have some fun and mix it up with Cambridge Noir exploring the fictional dark side of town and the truly bizarre experience that is Garfield minus Garfield.

posterous at Judge Business School

by dolphinsdock

Our posterous was set up in minutes one afternoon in May, it was intended to support a course in New Media aimed at a small group of research students. I had two requirements: first to act as a paperless handout detailing all the tools we planned to showcase, secondly I needed to host video content and key links to be accessed during teaching. Despite our advertising only running to "key cjbsinfo posterous into Google" we reached almost 200 views in the two weeks following the course.

Subtly social

An unexpected strength of posterous is how adaptable it is to group work. At set up you can choose whether to opt for a completely private blog (ideal for family or group newsletters) which acts as an email list with extra knobs, bells and whistles, or a public blog, but whatever you choose it's easy to add extra authors at any stage. This and the ease with which you can import a blog is where posterous has the edge over tumblr. I set up a group tumblr for my bookclub and found it disappointingly faffy.

The final results aren't as impressive as tumblr, but there are people out there using it for educational purposes- try BBC Earth or Scott McLeod's Mind Dump, and if I was setting up a group blog it would be my first choice.

Extra Credit

Comparing Tumblr and Posterous- 40tech

Tumblr: An Introduction Guide For Microblogging – Part1-1WD.CO

HOW TO: Get Started on Posterous- Mashable

Week 8, Thing 15: LinkedIn

2011-08-08T10:00:00.004+01:00

As mentioned in thing 14, the other Thing this week is another social networking site - LinkedIn. The site now has over 100 million users and, although not as well known as Facebook, is becoming more prolific. It is designed to be a professional rather than a personal network. It is popular in the business sector and with a growing number of librarians. As with Facebook, you set up a profile which includes your employment and professional interests and then you make connections (add friends in facebook terms). It is advised that you connect with people you know or have business links with rather than just anyone. This is so that you build up a professional network of people.

Using LinkedIn
It is possible to view public profiles and open group discussions without joining LinkedIn, although if you want to see a full profile or contribute to a discussion then you need to become a member. Many of the discussion groups are closed unless you are registered.

Check out some of the following Cambridge librarians and CILIP discussion group on LinkedIn to see if you are tempted to join:

CILIP Group
Colin Higgins (St. Catharine's College)
Ange Fitzpatrick (Judge Business School)
Libby Tilley (English Faculty)
Iain Shaw (Academic Services Librarian, Cambridge University Library)

To join go to http://www.linkedin.com/ and fill in the join box. You can fill in as much or as little of your profile as you wish as you can always come back and edit it later. But remember this is your professional profile and you want to project the right image, after all you may be connecting with future employers.

When you look at your page in the top right your name is written and if you hover over this you will get a drop down box that allows you to change your settings. From your profile page there is a search box where you can enter names or from the drop down list choose groups to search for some library groups.

Once you join a group, such as CILIP or the Cambridge Library Group, you can follow and contribute to discussions. This is a great way to network with other people in the profession.

Not sure if LinkedIn is for you then check out this article on How are people really using LinkedIn?.

More social networking?
Just as you thought it was safe to go back into the social networking water, having mastered twitter, facebook and LinkedIn, along comes a new one - Google+. Check out Phil Bradley's blog to learn more about it and why librarians need to be on it. Also on Yahoo news there is a review on why G+ is more about cloud based computing rather than social networking. It includes a link to the slideshow by Vincent Wong, using G+ photo viewer, that tells us what G+ is really all about . Google+ seems to be a mixture of Facebook and twitter, plus more, as you invite people on and connect directly or just follow them within circles that you create. I have put below a screenshot from an account I set up to test the waters. If you are logged onto your google account (e.g. gmail, calendar etc) then G+ will appear on the toolbar as well for easy access.

What Next
After reviewing LinkedIn then why not try out Google+ and blog about the different social networks. You could think about what you might get out of them professionally or for your library. Do you think you will maintain a presence on them all or just choose one? If so which one and why.

Remember to look out for the extra thing this week on media sharing sites.

Week 8, Thing 14 : Facebook

2011-08-08T07:30:00.014+01:00

This week we are looking at social networking sites with Facebook and then thing 15, LinkedIn. Unless you have been living in isolation for the past few years, then I am sure you will have heard of Facebook even if you don't use it. According to their website it now has over 500 million active users and you may have a personal account already, especially if you graduated in the last few years. It is a an easy place to share information and photos with friends or colleagues. If you want to create a personal page then connect to Facebook and follow the sign up procedures. For this thing I am going to be concentrating on how you might use Facebook in your library rather than personally.

Should libraries be on Facebook?
In the past there has been debate over whether libraries should be on Facebook as it is seen as a social space. In 2009 Katharine Widdows from Warwick libraries published an article called "In your Facebook, not in your face" on the reception of their facebook page, which was supported by the students. For some years now Facebook has allowed the creation of pages for businesses or organisations and it has become a major marketing tool. It could be argued that libraries should promote their services where their users are and if that is on facebook then the library needs to be there. Unless libraries choose to pay for marketing then it is a passive presence. Your page is there and if your users want to follow you they can.

How are libraries using Facebook?
If you have a facebook account and search for "libraries" you will see the collection of groups and pages set up by libraries from a range of sectors and countries. Libraries are using facebook for a variety of reasons including :

Advertising events
Promoting new or existing services
Tie ins with special days e.g. Valentine's day or anniversary of Shakespeare's birthday
News updates on closures, borrowing, electronic access etc
Links to articles of interest to the library users

Check out some of the examples below (you don't need to have a Facebook account). You will see that both the look and styles are very different. You can be as creative as you want.

Orkney Libraries and Archive
Green Library Stanford
The Open University
Essex Libraries
University of Worcester ILS
Swansea University Library and Information Services
De Montfort University Library (access to subject guides etc from left hand toolbar)

Some Cambridge Pages:
MML Library
Pembroke College Library
English Faculty Library
Judge Business School Library Services

Instructions on setting up a library page

Now you have been inspired by the pages you have viewed, you may want to set up a library facebook presence. A few warnings. Once set up remember to go into the edit page to check your settings are what you want. Privacy is not such an issue on fan pages, more to do with whether you want people to be able to post to your wall or whether you want to restrict it to just you. Remember that facebook is constantly changing its layout and settings. For example, organisations used to have a group page but now groups are less popular and fan pages are used. If you make a lot of changes to the appearance of your page this may have to be redone when new layouts are introduced centrally.

So here is what you need to do:

1. Connect to facebook and on the opening screen ignore the sign up boxes and go down to the bottom right and click on "create a page for a celebrity, band or business" - that is you!

2. You are then given a number of options to choose from. Select company, organization or institution (or whatever you think is most appropriate).

3. Depending which option you chose you will get offered slightly different boxes to fill in. I will follow through with the company, organization or institution option. You are asked to choose a category and then a name. For category you might choose education or university. Then enter your name. This will be the title of your page so think carefully how you want to be represented. Then click on "get started".

4. You are then asked if you have a facebook account already and if not you are asked to create one. For our library page we used our library email address rather than a personal one to create the account. You may want to decide how you want to register the page so that it may be maintained even if staff leave.

5. Nearly there now. Next you are asked to upload a profile picture. This can be changed later if you haven't got any good pictures to hand. All pages now have space for 5 pcitures on the top so make sure you add some later. Once uploaded continue onto the next page where you are given options to collect some fans straight away. There is also a box to share the message on your wall, untick this

if you linked to a personal account and continue.

6. Enter your library web address and write a few things about your library so that potential fans will be able to identify your library. Continue through for your page. The page will give you more options for gaining fans and in the top right is the edit page button if you want to change any settings or delete the page. In the toolbar on the left you can click on "wall" to start posting to your page.

7. Finally you just need to make sure you keep posting information and you let your users know you are out there. Once you have 25 fans you can go into "edit info" under the title of your page and choose a username. This then provides you with a shorter, more memorable url for your page. So why not get some of the Cam23 people to become fans and then when you have enough you can get a shorter url for publicising to your library users.

What now?

Time to blog about thing 14. You may want to blog about your own library page and its benefits or the pros and cons of having a page. Perhaps you are setting one up and you could blog about what you hope to get out of it. Or just blog about some of the pages you have found and why you like them or what you would have liked to have seen on them.

If you are stuck for ideas on what to put on your facebook page try the following article on 25 Great Facebook Page content ideas. It is aimed at business but there are some good general tips. Another interesting article is on the growth of Facebook-commerce and how the platform is being used to sell stuff. Perhaps a future option for library merchandise or subscription services?

Week 7, Thing 13: LibraryThing

2011-08-01T08:23:00.001+01:00

Welcome to Thing 13!

After completing Thing 13...

You will have explored LibraryThing and understand how it can be used by libraries, and you will have created a LibraryThing account and added some books to your catalogue.

What is LibraryThing?
LibraryThing is an online resource, which allows users (libraries and/or individuals) to easily catalogue book collections, add reviews and interact with other users who have the same books and interests. LibraryThing was launched in August 2005 and currently has over a million users and over 61 million catalogued books. The resource is free to use for the first 200 books and then a small donation (suggested $10 per year or $25 for life) is required.

How does it work?
You can add a book to your LibraryThing catalogue by entering the title, author or ISBN. LibraryThing then searches a number of online sources (including Library of Congress, 690 library catalogues and Amazon) and retrieves the book's data. This data can then be edited e.g. if you want to add your library's shelfmark number.

How can libraries use LibraryThing?

Small libraries can use LibraryThing to catalogue their collections, removing the need to invest in a more expensive piece of cataloguing software.
Libraries can create a LibraryThing widget to display new or featured books on their website.
Libraries can integrate LibraryThing data (tags, recommendations, reviews etc) into their existing catalogues. (A list of libraries that have already integrated data is available here.)

Some background reading

1. Read Social networking for bookworms and LibraryThing and the library catalog: adding collective intelligence to the OPAC.

2. Look at the following examples of libraries using LibraryThing:

Central Science Library (Cambridge)

Nuffield College Library (Oxford)

Step-by-step instructions: Creating an account
1. First of all decide whether you're going to create a personal LibraryThing account or one for your Library. (It's probably wise to consult with colleagues also on the Cam23 programme as to who will have the honour of creating your Library account otherwise you may end up with multiple LibraryThing personas!)

2. Go to the LibraryThing website and click on 'Join Now'. Enter the username (member name) and password you want to use and select either 'personal'or 'organization' as the type of account. Although it's optional, LibraryThing advises that you also enter an e-mail address as this makes it easier to retrieve your password if you forget it. (N.B. If you do enter an e-mail address you can edit your profile to hide this from view.) Click on 'Join Now' again.

3. On the next screen you'll see an image of a book cover and you'll be asked to enter some information from the cover to confirm that you're a real person and not a machine - a LibraryThing version of verification codes! Your LibraryThing account will now have been created and you should be on your 'Home' page.

4. Next edit your LibraryThing profile. Under 'About you' you could enter a mini biography, your location and your Twitter ID. You may also want to add a photo (under 'Pictures'), choose to hide your e-mail address and opt not to receive automated e-mails from LibraryThing (under 'Account settings'). All of the fields are optional so you can enter as much or as little information as you wish. N.B. Remember to click on 'Save changes' on each page ('About you', 'Account settings' etc) otherwise you'll lose the information you enter. Once you've finished editing, click on the 'profile' tab to see how it looks.

5. Now we're ready to add some books to your account. Click on the 'Add books' tab (beneath the LibraryThing logo in the top left of the screen). Enter a title, author or ISBN into the 'Search' box and then click on 'Search'. A list of matching books will appear on the right hand-side of the screen. Simply click on the title of the correct book to add it the library you're building. (N.B. If the book doesn't appear in the list, you'll need to enter it manually. Click on the 'Add manually' link beneath 'Other options' at the bottom of the page and enter the information that you have.) Once you've added a few books to your library, click on the 'Your books' tab to see a list of them.

6. We'll now edit the books' information by adding tags (subjects), further bibliographic information, reviews etc. Click on the title of one of the books in your list and then on the 'Edit book' link on the left hand-side of the screen. Add any additional information that you wish to and click on 'Save'. Repeat for the other books in your library as appropriate.

7. Blog about LibraryThing! What are your thoughts on LibraryThing? Do you think it could be used in your library? Do you know any other libraries already using LibraryThing?

Further reading

A short introduction to LibraryThing

LibraryThing for Libraries

Week 7, Thing 12: Bookmarking tools

2011-08-01T08:05:00.001+01:00

Ever had the frustrating experience of bookmarking a webpage on your computer, only to find the next time you want to access it that you are on a different computer? This is where online bookmarking tools come into their own - here is a whistle-stop tour of a three bookmarking tools.

Delicious

Perhaps the best known is Delicious . Delicious has undergone a period of change in the last year. At one stage it looked as though Yahoo might close the service down. In fact another company AVOS has taken it over. Therefore anyone who had an account prior to 31st July 2011 needs to re-register to the new service or risk losing their bookmarks. (Hopefully this won't have an effect on this blog entry, as naturally I had to write it prior to the August 1st changeover!!). To see what can be done with Delicious it is worth reading this brief overview

The easiest way to bookmark articles is to add a button to your toolbar in your browser by going to the tools link. The easiest being the 'bookmarklet f or any browser' which in many cases just involves dragging a link and dropping it in your toolbar.

Once you have set-up you r account - you can start to create your page as you would wish to. To see your bookmarks either click on "your bookmarks" to the right of the home logo, or pick my bookmarks from the bookmarks tab at the top of the page. The screenshot below (click for a larger image) shows my choice of display options. Personally I find the briefer list easier to negotiate - but others prefer more details.

Play with the various display options till you find one to suit. If one chooses the med, or high detail level, the tags will be visible in the list without the need to click on the link to see them. When tagging a page you only need to leave a space when filling in the tag line to separate tags).

The figures in the blue boxes are the number of other people who have also bookmarked that link. It can be interesting to see who else has bookmarked similar articles, and to see what tags they have given them and also what other items they have bookmarked. Your tags will also appear ot the side of the page, and you can put them into bundles of like items (my husband's hobby is flying model aeroplanes - hence the plane tags!). Tagging is of course optional but can be handy for retrieval. Bookmarks can be shared by Twitter, E-mail or delicious itself.

It is worth looking at Emma's excellent instructions from last year's Cam23 programme for more information.

If you would like to see how various libraries make use of delicious, have a look at this article from the Library Journal "Tags help make libraries del.icio.us". Although from 2007 and so somewhat dated, the list of links to libraries using delicious is worth accessing to see how this tool has been used in libraries.

Diigo

Diigo is a similar tool to Delicious . This is how Diigo compares the two tools. Signing in is simple enough - then you just need to wait for the e-mail before activating the account. Again there are a number of ways of accessing Diigo - either downloading it, or the more basic option of dragging the button to your toolbar.

The basic option limits the applications you can use - however one can still bookmark a page, highlight sections and add 'sticky notes'.- more infomation and their video tutorial can be seen here . After that it is worth looking at the features in the Help Center at the bottom of the page - Take a tour - research, share and collaborate.

Readitlater

People tend to bookmark items for one of two reasons - either because it is a useful piece of information to which they wish to refer to again and again, or alternatively they have been given a link to a page which looks interesting, but which they don't have time to read immediately. It is for the later use that readitlater was designed .

Firstly go to the SignUp at the top of the page (I am not choosing 'add to Firefox' as I don't wish to download it to my computer). The following page appears with more information.
The bookmarklets just drag to your toolbar and you are ready to start.

Choose a page to save and click the read it later bookmarklet.
There is no doubt that is has been saved to your list!!

After you have save a few items click on the reading list button - your list of items will be there.
These can then either be viewed by clicking on the link of the page - which brings up the webpage, or the T which brings up a text view of the page (though thankfully even in this view one can still click on any links).
Clicking on the red 'mark it as read' tick removes it from your list. All these bookmarking tools have more features to explore, for example the ability to read the pages while offline. Some of these extra features are dependent on using the downloadable version.

For other bookmarking tools it is well worth looking at the article Phil Bradley's blog post "28 delicious alternatives to delicious"- This was written when Delicious appeared to be on the point of disappearing -and provides a useful introduction to a selection of tools .

Next time...
You will be looking at Library Thing.

Week 6, Thing 11: Reflection

2011-07-25T08:05:00.001+01:00

Just one 'thing' this week - not a shiny online tool to play with, not a download or a widget in sight - but a chance to catch our breaths, to catch up and to meet up.

Whether you're doing these 'things' for the first time or refreshing your knowledge, try and take a bit of time this week to think about how it's going.

What have you learned that's new?
What have you enjoyed about '23 things' so far?
Which of the things do you love/hate?
Which ones will you carry on using?
Can you incorporate the things you're learning on this programme into your (working) life?

Use your blog to share your thoughts, chat to colleagues or come along and reflect with some other 23Thingers at the B Bar from 6pm tonight.

Reflection week meet up

2011-07-18T11:17:00.000+01:00

Hope everyone is enjoying the programme so far! Thanks to everyone who let us know their preferred dates for the reflection week meetup. The runaway favourite was Monday 25th July. The venue is B Bar on Market Passage, and I'll be there from 6pm or just before. Looking forward to seeing lots of you there!

Week 5, Extra Thing: Dropbox

2011-07-18T09:03:00.001+01:00

How many times do you email a document to yourself to transfer it from work to home?

Or look at the various versions of a document on your hard drive and USB drive wondering which one is the most current?

Or want to send a photo or video to someone and find that the file is too big to email?

Google Docs are a great way to share documents with others - or to access the same material from different computers but sometimes you want to keep your file formatted exactly as it is.

This is where Dropbox can be useful. It provides you with a secure online storage space so that you can share files and access them from different machines.

Getting started with Dropbox

1. First step is to go to the Dropbox website, set up an account and download the program, ideally onto each of the machines that you use regularly.
Once downloaded, the little blue Dropbox icon sits in the taskbar at the lower right-hand corner of your screen. You will also see a My Dropbox folder sitting among the folders on your machine. (By default it places itself inside the My Documents folder but you can move it.)

2. Drag or save folders or files into this Dropbox folder just as you would any other folder.

3. Now go to another computer. If it has Dropbox installed, log in and you'll see your files in the My Dropbox folder. If it doesn't, log into the Dropbox website and the files are there.

If you change the file, it's automatically updated for wherever you next look at it.
You can also use Dropbox on various mobile devices.

Sharing files with Dropbox

There are two types of sharing - using shared folders and using the public folder.

Shared folders
You can invite other Dropbox users to join a shared folder, much as you would share a Google Doc. If one person changes a file in the shared folder, everyone sees the updated file.

Using the public folder
If you want to share a file with someone who doesn't have a Dropbox account, you simply put the file into the public folder, right-click and then click on 'Copy public link'. This gives you a URL that you can post into an email to share the link.

I find Dropbox pretty easy to use. I like having an online backup for the files that I'm working on currently and it's a handy place to save back-up copies of presentations. But I mostly use it in the library as part of our image supply service. We supply digital images to publishers that are far too large to supply via email so nowadays we mostly use the Dropbox public folder.

I have a couple of gripes about it - that each individual file has to have its own public link (so 5 photos means 5 links to click) and sometimes our customers have trouble opening the links. My biggest gripe is that it's not as good for file-sharing as the much-missed drop.io

My other major gripe about Dropbox is the relatively measly 2GB limit for a free account. If you're sharing photos or videos, that's not a lot. One way to increase your limit for free is to refer others to Dropbox. So if you are installing it, do so via this URL. That way you and I both receive an extra 250MB of storage.

I'd be interested in the comments to hear about other library uses...

Week 5, Thing 10: Pushnote and Evernote

2011-07-18T08:30:00.001+01:00

There is a fair bit to cover this week so feel free to have a play around with these 'Things' but don't worry if you can't explore them fully!!

The problem:

When you want to comment on webpages you find that you have to have an account with them and that the comments are filtered and screened. You also want to be able to make comments on webpages and archive them along with your own notes.

The problem-solvers:

Pushnote is a new browser plug-in, supported by Stephen Fry, that allows you to post uncensored comments on sites across the web whether or not the site supports comments itself. You have the ability to follow friends and read their comments and ratings as well as select to see the most popular webpages. Pushnote was launched in January of this year and is still in beta format. There is a facility to publish your comments to Twitter and/or Facebook and there is a set of FAQs on their website that is pretty helpful.

Evernote allows you to take notes on webpages and archive them for later consultation. Your notes can have file attachments and be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated etc. There is a paid version as well as a free version (limited to 60 MB/month and there is a usage bar so that you can keep track).

How to use Pushnote:

1. Go to http://www.pushnote.com

2.Create an account and choose whether you want to follow your Facebook or Twitter friends, who have Pushnote, or neither.

3. You then install for whichever internet browser you have: Chrome, Mozilla or Safari. (Pushnote cannot yet be used on others but this is in the pipeline).

4. Installation is quick and easy and there is a helpful page pointing out the various features of the 'Pushnote page'. Installation results in a star icon appearing on the top right of your screen (just under the minimise and cross buttons). It will be green when you visit a page that has comments and red when your friends have made new comments on a page on the web.

5. Clicking on the 'Pushnote.com' at the top will take you to your account where you can make changes to your settings.

6. Now comes the exciting bit. Go to a webpage, say the BBC homepage, and click on the star icon. This will bring up the 'Pushnote page' with references, ratings and comments of your friends.

7. Making a comment yourself is very easy - just fill in the box with a star rating and click on whether you want to share it with Facebook and Twitter.

8. Once you have commented your 'Pushnote page' will look like this:

So this allows us to rate and comment on pages as well as instantly access information on the webpage be it about the reliability of the product, breaking news, suggestions for improvements, interesting things people have discovered or how better to access information.

Further reading:

This article weighs up the pros and cons of Pushnote in the business world and we can use this to think about its uses in the information sector.

How to use Evernote:

1. Go to http://www.evernote.com and have a look at their Getting started pages.

2. Sign up for an account (you will need to get the confirmation number from an e-mail they will send you) and get to the welcome page.

3. Download Evernote according to their Getting Started pages and follow their instructions and sign in to your account. You can create a note by clicking on New Note. You can add URLs and tags and decide which folder to put it in. It saves it automatically and it appears in the central panel, which you organise to view by date created, updated or title.

4. Evernote is not just for making notes but can be used for archiving pictures from your computer or webpages or photographs taken during conferences to save you having to take notes all the time. All you have to do is to click New Note again and click and drag a photograph from the web or your computer etc. and drop it into your new note (or you can copy and paste if you prefer).

5. You can use the View and Edit drop down menus to alter how you view your information and the Usage button along the top tells you about your monthly use. The File menu also allows you to organise your notes and attach files etc. Evernote for Windows or Mac will automatically synchronize your notes with Evernote on the Web every few minutes, but you can manually sync any time by clicking the Sync button. (This means that changes you make to your Evernote account on different appliances i.e. computers, phones or mobile devices will all synchronise to keep your account up to date).

6. You can also save web content, which involves installing the Web Clipper (a quick and easy process which adds the Evernote button to your Internet browser). All you need to do is to highlight the information you want to save and click on the Evernote button. I highlighted a BBC article, clicked on the elephant, added tags when prompted and went to my Evernote page to find it had been filed with my other notes:

This is a really useful tool for bringing together everything that you look at on the web as well as drawing together photos, notes and text from various sources to one location, easily accessible from a variety of devices.

A bit more:

Have a play around with folders, tags, searching and how to integrate Evernote with Facebook and Twitter.

Coming up:

Why not try our Extra Thing this week which is Dropbox?!

Week 5, Thing 9 : Google Docs

2011-07-18T07:57:00.001+01:00

Thing 9 is your chance to create a document online and share it with other cam23 2.0 colleagues via Google Docs. You might be thinking "why would I want to do that?". Watch the video below for some of the reasons why Google Docs is useful:

Google docs is particulary helpful if you are working on a collaborative project with colleagues outside your library. You can put up a document and share it with the others. All of you can edit it and there is just the one version rather than lots flying around via email. Also if a file is large (e.g. a powerpoint with lots of images) you don't need to worry about size limits on email accounts. The cam23 2.0 organisers made use of Google Docs to plan this programme and update the information centrally.

Google Docs may also be used as a place to just store some files, especially if you are working across sites or want to access some files at home but can't get onto your office network. Instead of moving everything about on a flashdrive you can save it up on Google Docs and, as long as you have access to the internet, you will have your files.

How do I get started using Google Docs?

1.   Go to Google Docs and sign in with your Google account email and password (or set one up if you don't have one - you don't need to have a Gmail account you can use any email).

2.   Click on Create New under the Google Docs logo and choose either a document, presentation, spreadsheet, form or drawing.

3.   Depending what type of document you chose you will get a different work area. Enter your text and use the toolbars to help you format and save your work. When finished just close the window to return to the Google Docs home page where your file should appear under modified today. For more information check out the Google Docs help.

4.   If you have created the file on your PC then instead of clicking on Create New, just click on Upload and then Files and find the file you want to upload. You will also see a settings option which allows you to confirm if you want your files converted to a Google docs format or not.

5.   You are now ready to share your file. Click on the share button in the top right corner and an option box will open. Enter the email addresses of the people you want to share it with or make it public to the world. You have the option to allow view only or edit permissions. The people you share it with will receive an email with a link to the document. It will also be displayed on their Google Docs home page. A word of warning. If people are registered on Google with a gmail rather than their @cam address then this is the email you need to enter.

Experiment and blog about it
Even if you do not wish to share files, Google Docs is great for creating quick forms and embedding them in your web page. You have already used one when you registered your blog for cam23 2.0. At Classics we use it for our book suggestion form on the website, check Book Suggestions. We find it useful as we receive an email when the form has been completed and all library staff are able to view the spreadsheet that the form populates.

Why not try out a form on your Cam23 2.0 colleagues. I quickly set up the following form finding out about your use of Google Docs. Why not give it a go by following the link and let me know what you think of Google Docs?

Google Docs survey

Now blog about how you think you might use Google Docs or have used it.

Next time you will be trying out Pushnote/Evernote.

Thanks to Kirsty for the original Cam23 Google Docs blog.

Reflection week meetup

2011-07-12T20:07:00.000+01:00

During the first reflection week we thought it might be nice to have a Cam23 2.0 meetup, to have a few drinks and chat to other participants.

Now that we're all Doodle experts thanks to Erin, I've set up a poll to see when the best day would be during that week (w/b 25th July). It would be great if as many people as possible could make it, so please take a few seconds to mark your preferred dates in the poll.

Poll: http://www.doodle.com/4x4ue88hi3tpfftc

By VancityAllie on Flickr

Week 4, Extra Thing: Using the Library Widget

2011-07-11T09:45:00.000+01:00

So many libraries, so many books. How do you keep track of them all? Newton very helpfully sends out emails before (and after!) your books are due but it's good to have some additional reminders to stop those fines from mounting up.

The nice people at the UL have created the Cambridge Libraries Widget to make it easy to keep track of all your loans. You can embed the whole widget into your iGoogle page, Facebook, CamTools or into any webpage (perhaps your library's?). It gives you a Newton search window and the ability to manage your loans, renewals and requests.

Embedding the widget into your iGoogle page is as simple as pressing a button on the Widget page.

But seeing your loans still means logging into the Widget. It might be more helpful to have them inserted directly into Google Reader or your Google Calendar which you'll probably look at more regularly.

How to view your loans in Google Reader

1. Make sure you're logged into Google.

2. Log into the Library Widget. You can find it embedded in many DepFac and College library webpages. For example, go to the English Faculty Library webpage. Click on the tab on the righthand side called 'Library Accounts and Renewals' and log in.

3. Choose the Feeds tab and click on the first link 'RSS loans feed'. It will offer you the option of adding the loans feed to your iGoogle homepage or to your Google Reader.

How to view your loans in Google Calendar

1. Open your Google Calendar.

2. Log into the Library Widget (as instructed above).

3. Choose the Feeds tab and right-click on the second link 'iCal Calendar Feed'. Choose 'Copy link location'.

4. Go to your Google Calendar and open the 'Other calendars' section on the lefthand side. Click 'Add' and choose 'Add by URL'. Paste the iCal link in the box and press 'Add Calendar'.

5. You can use the 'Settings' feature under 'Other calendars' to rename or otherwise customise your calendar.

Extra Extra Thing
Take a look at the Libraries@Cambridge calendar which brings together all manner of library calendars. You can copy feeds or individual events from it to your own calendar.

Week 4, Thing 8: Google Calendar

2011-07-11T09:40:00.001+01:00

I hope Doodle went well...on with the organising!

The problem:

You need a calendar, which can be accessed from any computer and can be shared with other people.

The problem-solver:

Google Calendar is a free web-based calendar which can be shared with other people and accessed from anywhere with Internet connection. Events can be added quickly and viewed by day, week or month. It can also be integrated with other Google services, such as iGoogle, and imbedded in web pages and blogs.

A lot of institutions already have Google Calendar on their web pages to keep their staff, students and followers. Libraries such as the Ul, are using Google Calendar to publicise opening hours and events.

How to use:

1. To create a Google Calendar, go to http://www.google.com/calendar/.

2. Log in with your Google ID.

3. Your new Google Calendar will look like this.

3. Before you add any events to your calendar, go to the left of the screen and select Settings under My Calendar and then click on the General tab. In this General section you can change the time and date formats, plus have a mini icon of your local weather displayed and choose whether to show weekends etc.

4. Click on Save.

How to add events:

1. To add an event, click on Create event on the left of the calendar (you can also select Quick add or highlight a date on the calendar (probably the easiest)).
2. Fill in the boxes for your event and add duration, location and whether you want to have a reminder at some point before the event.

3. Click on Save and you will be taken back to the calendar with your new event visible!

How to add your calendar to your iGoogle page (from week 1):

1. Go to your iGoogle page.
2. Click on Add Gadgets.
3. In the Search for gadgets box on the right of the screen, type in Google Calendar.

4. You want the first on the list - click on Add it now.
5. Click on Back to iGoogle and your calendar will be displayed!

Further reading

A blog on how libraries are using Google Calendar:
http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/2010/04/libraries-and-google-calender.html

Using Google calendar to manage library web site hours: http://journal.code4lib.org/articles/46

A totally non-library, but very topical, use of Google Calendar! http://blog.artesea.co.uk/2009/12/world-cup-2010-google-calendar.html

Optional extra

How to share your calendar with someone else:

1. Under the My calendars section on the left side of your calendar home page, click on the drop down menu next to your e-mail address and select Share this calendar.
2. You will be taken to the Share this calendar section.
3. Type in the e-mail address of the person you would like to share your calendar with and their details will appear automatically underneath (note: this person must also have a Google Calendar too otherwise you won't be able to share it!).

4. Set the Permission settings you would like this person to have.
5. Click on Save.

Next time...
You’ll be getting to grips with Google docs or why not try this week’s ‘Extra Thing’ – adding a library books feed to Google Reader and Google Calendar?!

Week 4, Thing 7: Doodle

2011-07-11T09:30:00.001+01:00

Welcome to Week 4

The problem:

You are always trying to organize events/meetings and are fed up of dealing with group e-mails and constant rearrangement of times.

The problem-solver:

Doodle is a simple, free way to schedule any event which includes several people. There is no registration required and the basic idea is that you set up an ‘event’ and input several days and times that are suitable. You then invite all attendees to go to a webpage and view the suggested times. They tick which they are able to attend, and by the end you should be able to see which time most people can make.

How to use:

1. Go to http://www.doodle.com/.

2. Click on the ‘Schedule an Event’ button.

3. Follow instructions for Steps 1-4 each time clicking ‘next’ to get to the next page.

At Step 1, you come up with a title for your event and, if you want, add a location, which is automatically linked to Google maps to show your participants where the even will be.
At Step 2, you decide on the dates that you are free and the time slots within each date that you are free and add them in the chart. If you want more time choices then you can add these at the bottom.
At Step 3 you can change the settings and allow participants only to give one answer or to answer yes, no, or maybe etc.
At Step 4 you need to decide whether you want to send an email to your colleagues/friends yourself or whether you want Doodle to do this. I tend to send the link myself but it is up to you!

4. If you have chosen to send the poll out yourself then check your e-mails from Doodle and follow the clear instructions in them.

5. Send the link out and wait for responses. Doodle will send you an e-mail every time someone votes.

6. You should get something like this in the end with a running total along the bottom to indicate when the most popular times are.

A filled in Doodle poll

Further Reading:

Blog - 'Scheduling meetings' - Musings about Librarianship

Next time...
You’ll be signing up for a Google Calendar...

For those old hands...

2011-07-04T12:08:00.001+01:00

There's no extra Thing this week, but please take a bit of time to read the other blogs and encourage those new to the programme this year. Your comments and any advice will be really appreciated I'm sure. We'll have a new Extra Thing for you next week!

By Rickydavid on Flickr

Week 3, Thing 6: Screencasting

2011-07-04T11:36:00.000+01:00

Ever noticed that you’re demonstrating the same process on the computer time and time again to different students? Perhaps they weren’t paying attention at induction, or it’s just something you don’t have time to cover at the start of term? Well then screencasting could be the thing for you.

Screencasting is the process of recording your actions on your computer as a video (with or without sound), which can then be shared with other people on your website/via YouTube etc. So it is perfect for making short demo videos for students, but has potential as an application beyond that too.

There are a number of screencasting tools available online, both free and for purchase. If your place of work already subscribes to Adobe Captivate then it is a fantastic tool to use, but it will otherwise cost a fair bit to purchase. I’m also aware that it can be difficult to download programmes onto work machines, so I have chosen to use Screencast-o-matic http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ . Please note that you will need Java installed - sorry, I can’t find a good product that doesn’t require it.

Screencast-o-matic is quite simple and intuitive as these things go. First things first, go to http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ .

There’s no need to create an account to record a screencast, but you might want to consider it if you want to store the videos on Screencast-o-matic. You can also watch a demo that takes you through how to do a recording, but the best thing may just be to dive in and press ‘Start recording’ on the top right.

A frame will appear on your screen, with some brief instructions. Frame the screen as you wish, and change the other options at the bottom of the frame as desired. Then press the red record button and go! Be aware, if your computer has a microphone it will be recording even if you don’t have anything to say. Avoid background noise like radios too. One more tip – go much slower than you would usually! Demonstrations done at normal speed are far too fast!

Screencast-o-matic will record up to 15 minutes of footage. Once you’re done press the ‘done’ button and choose where to upload your video to. If you save it as a video file (which you can then embed onto a website), you have a choice of format. Ask your IT officer if you want any help ensuring you choose a compatible format. Or, choose YouTube to get the video out to the world – it really depends on whether your demonstration includes password-protected resources.

Have a go and see what you think! Try a video without commentary first. Then, if you like the format, try formulating a script to go along with the demonstration.

Week 3, Thing 5: Screenshots - no more tears.

2011-07-04T11:09:00.049+01:00

Sometimes we want to use fantastic pictures in our blog posts, something that really encapsulates what we're saying

by sally_monster

When that's what you want, something fantastic from flickr usually does the trick. Sometimes we have to depict things that are a little more mundane, like showing how your iGoogle looks, so how do we make the decidedly un-wow a little bit more, well, wow?

Screenshots, they're simple, eh?

It's true they are as simple as you want to make them. At the most basic level you can hit Shift + Print Screen, open MS Paint (other products are available...), Ctrl +V, edit, save your picture then upload it onto your blog. Simples, as the talking meerkat says. Simples indeed, but also incredibly faffy, especially if you have to do a lot of them and the quality can be poor. The solution is to try something a little more sophisticated.

LightShot- the little black dress of addons

Whenever I install a browser I like to pimp it with all my must have addons. Some of these work very hard for me, others decide how pages will display, one even keeps me on the light side by replacing content from the Daily Mail with pictures of tea and kittens. But if I had to strip it down to a handful of must-have addons, Lightshot is my irresistible little black dress- simple yet sophisticated.

A screenshot of my simples image search

LightShot is available as an addon for Firefox and Chrome, it appears as a purple feather in the corner of your toolbar. When you want to take a screenshot simply click the feather. The screen will grey slightly, which is your cue to click and drag to surround your subject. Release the mouse button and your screenshot is confirmed. From there you have a handful of options:

Save your shot to your computer
Copy the shot
Edit it there and then
Print your shot
Upload it to the web to share

Using LightShot is quick and easy- ideal if you are taking lots of screenshots, and the nature of the tool means you can select just the area you want to show, saving all that fiddly editing in MS Paint.

Selecting just one image from my search

Saving the images to your computer is the ideal way to use LightShot to add screenshots to your blog; you can also choose from a range of web-friendly formats, meaning you'll never have to settle for that grainy bitmap ever again. If you want to save screenshots or text/images you've clipped from the web, you can use the quick share twitter and Facebook options, or upload it to the Lightshot page where your image is given a unique URL.

Wait, there's more?

There sure is! LightShot is available as a stand alone utility that you can download directly onto your desktop. As well as capturing and manipulating images from the web, you can take a screenshot of anything on your desktop, save it and use it as a standard image object. That means you can place it in an email, shrink it for a Word document, or invert it in a slide show. Again, simples. Check out this video to see how easy it is.

If you haven't yet added screenshots to your post, why not try the LightShot addon for your browser. And if your appetite has been whetteted there's a whole range of free image capture tools for everything from simgle images to video.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for browser tools, skins, addons and extensions. You can find everything you need to 'pimp your broswer' here- Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera. Take some time to explore and share!

Week 2, Extra Thing: Twitter, extended!

2011-06-27T12:00:00.000+01:00

This week's Extra Thing is really several things - third party Twitter applications and clients. These tools or add-ons complement your Twitter account and add extra functionalities which can be extremely useful. Here are a few handy ones, but there are many more out there!

Applications

Twitterfeed - sends a tweet every time you publish a new blog post.
Future Tweets - allows you to schedule tweets to go out at a specified date and time.
The Archivist - creates graphs about tweet volume over time, top users, top words used etc. Despite the name it doesn't create a full archive of your tweets.
Twapperkeeper - creates archives of tweets. You can create 2 free archives, if you want more you'll either have to delete one or pay.
Twittermail - update your Twitter status by email.
Bit.ly - not really a Twitter application, but if you paste a URL into the box, it pops out a shortened URL such as this one - http://bit.ly/jYjYDS - which is a short URL for this blog. If you use shortened URLs in your tweets then it saves on precious characters!

Clients
Twitter clients make it easier to manage more than one Twitter account at once. (Great when you have a library and a personal account!) Most also allow you to schedule tweets, and automatically shorten URLs

Hootsuite - Comes in browser and mobile versions. Multiple tabs make it easy to keep track of several Twitter accounts at once (and Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare and a few other social media sites). Can also have multiple contributers to accounts without sharing passwords - could be useful for library tweeting teams!
Seesmic - comes in browser, desktop and mobile versions. As with Hootsuite you can add other social media accounts besides Twitter.
Tweetdeck - desktop and mobile client (browser version for Chrome only - but with a limited beta testing version for other browsers). This client is now owned by Twitter, so if you want the official endorsed platform, give this a try!

Try out one or two of these, or google "twitter apps" and see what else you can find!

by IconEden on IconFinder.com

Week 2, Thing 4: Twitter

2011-06-27T11:06:00.000+01:00

I'm probably supposed to be impartial, but I have to admit Thing 4 is my favourite Thing! Otherwise known as Twitter, this microblogging service allows you to publish short updates of up to 140 characters (this is because Twitter was designed to work with mobile phone text messages, which have a character limit). Users follow other users to subscribe to each other's updates. All the updates from the users you follow will be aggregated in to one timeline that appears when you log in to the site.

Twitter has been in the news a lot over the last couple of years, what with super-injunction breaking and celebrity endorsments from the likes of Stephen Fry. Although a common belief is that Twitter is filled with people tweeting about what they had for lunch, in reality few users actually use the service to send updates about the minutiae of their everyday activities, instead preferring to use it to network and share ideas or interesting things they have seen around the web. Because of this, Twitter can be of use to librarians on (at least) two levels - for personal networking, and as an institution interacting with users.

Twitter for libraries
Firstly, here are a few examples of libraries using Twitter: The UL, The Jerwood Library (Trinity Hall), the Judge Business School information and library services, New York Public Library, and Orkney Library. I've picked out these five as they give a range of both style and purpose. The Judge Business School aggregates business news for its students - their Twitter feed serves as an information service. Orkney Library on the other hand mixes library news with all kinds of other things, almost all of it hilarious. Building up a relationship with their patrons (and the rest of the interwebs) like this has worked very well for them, as is evidenced by their massive list of followers. I suspect in most Cambridge libraries however, the staff don't have quite so much leeway for irreverence as this!

Other services a library Twitter feed can provide include linking to eresources, plugging the library's blog, and reminding followers of end of term due dates etc. It is obviously important to remember that a lot of students will not have Twitter, so this should be enhancing other communications rather than replacing them. However it is very easy to embed a widget into your library website that displays recent tweets (just follow the simple steps here), and the libraries@cambridge team have aggregated all tweets by Cambridge University libraries into a widget on their libraries gateway.

Twitter for networking

By Artdesigner.lv on IconFinder.com

While we were talking about library twitter accounts in the section above (where the account is one of the public faces of the library), the majority of accounts on Twitter are not institutions but individuals. Tweeting as an individual you will again have to decide on the level of personal vs professionalism you want to have for your "Twitter style", and there is no one right answer to this. As a networking tool, Twitter really comes into its own, as its real-time feed allows conversations to be held, thoughts on conferences to be aggregated as they are taking place using hashtags (more on this later), and questions to be asked and answered.

Once you have been tweeting for a while and have built up a few followers, Twitter can be really handy for asking questions. To help me with this blog post I asked my followers who their top 3 Twitter accounts were for LIS news and information. (I also asked them to "retweet" this message - commonly abbreviated as "RT" - so that it reached more people.) Here is the crowdsourced list. Take a look at this list for starters, then why not explore a bit further yourself! If you find someone interesting, take a look at who they follow and go from there. But follow as many or as few people as you personally can manage - current awareness is good but information overload is bad!

Being able to view all updates using a particular hashtag has made Twitter a valuable tool for following conferences. For example, if you wished you'd had the chance to go to CILIP's New Professionals Conference, here are all the tweets from conference-goers: #npc11. Another use for the hashtag is for holding real-time Twitter chats on a particular topic. A great example of this is #libchat, the brainchild of @NatalieBinder which is held every Wednesday at 8-9.30pm EST.

How to get started

Go to www.twitter.com and click the yellow "sign up" button and follow the steps to create an account.
Once you have created your account you will be taken to your Twitter homepage where you can update your profile to include a short biography, a link to your blog and a profile picture. We recommend that you leave the Twitter Privacy box unchecked because this means other Cam23 2.0 participants can read your tweets. You can always change this at any time.
Now post your first update. Click in the status box at the top of the screen where you see the question "What's happening?" Write a comment, maybe something about your participation in the 23 Things programme. You are restricted to 140 characters, and as you type you will see the number at the top right of the box decrease. Leave enough characters to add #cam23 at the end. This is known as a hashtag and allows Twitter users to group tweets by subject. By adding #cam23 to your tweet your comment will be picked up by other participants. Once you click "Update", this tweet will be added to your timeline, and anyone who follows you will be able to see your tweet.
Search for @cam23things (or click here) and click "follow". Now our tweets will appear in your timeline!

Week 2, Thing 3: RSS feeds

2011-06-27T10:42:00.000+01:00

On to week 2! Now you've got your blog set up and have registered it with us, we're going to explore how to gather all of the blogs and news sites you want to keep track of into one place.

RSS (commonly known as Really Simple Syndication) allows you to view new content from web sites, blog entries, etc in one place, without having to visit the individual sites. This obviously makes following library news and developments a lot easier, as all the news comes to you!

The first step you need to take when subscribing to RSS feeds is to sign up for a feed reader. There are many available but for the purposes of this programme we will use Google Reader as you have already created an account with Google. As an example of how to subscribe to a feed, let's get you subscribed to the Cam23 2.0 blog. In the right sidebar of this blog there is a "Subscribe to..." box. Click on the arrow next to "Posts", and click "Add to Google". This should take you to your Google Reader (you may need to sign in with your Google account) and you can then subscribe to this feed. From now on, whenever we post something new it will come straight to your Reader, eliminating the need to keep checking the site. You can subscribe to other blogs and news sites in a similar way, even if they don't have a subscribe button embedded in their site, most web browsers will have an RSS button - this may be up by the address bar, or in Firefox 4 this is in the bookmarks menu.

We have added all the registered Cam23 2.0 blogs to the "blogroll" in the left sidebar, so spend some time this week reading a few of the blogs, and then subscribe to your favourites, or click here to subscribe to all the Cam23 2.0 blogs in one go.

In addition to the Cam23 2.0 blogs, here are a few other library-related blogs which I find useful:

Phil Bradley's weblog - "where librarians and the internet meet" - search engines, web 2.0 technologies
The Wikiman - library advocacy and marketing, social media
Librarian by Day - US librarian writing about (amongst other things) transliteracy and digital library services
Tower Project Blog - ever wanted to know more about what was in the UL tower? This is the blog for you!
Rarely Sited - special collections and outreach blog set up by Cambridge's very own Naomi Herbert
Mashable - social media and technology news

For some more suggestions of library blogs to subscribe to, the 2011 Salem Library Blog Award winners were announced a couple of weeks ago, giving us another source of outstanding library blogs to add to our feed readers.

Where do you get your library news and information from? When you blog about this Thing, please share any useful blogs you have come across!

Image by Raindropmemory on IconFinder.com

Sharing Cam23 2.0 beyond the echochamber

2011-06-22T18:46:00.000+01:00

It is great to see so many people signed up already and blogging about the first few Things! It's also wonderful to see a few non-librarians amongst the participants - although the programme was originally planned with librarians in mind it will be really interesting to see how those "on the other side of the desk" approach the Things.

With that in mind I'm really excited to announce a side competition which Phill Hall has just announced:

"I would like to put a challenge out to you, and as the Cam23 2.0 sponsor representative I will back this up with a special prize.

With Cam23 2.0 there will be a special prize on offer for the Librarian that represents clearly they have gone beyond the echo chamber with their blogs and discussions beyond interacting with just other librarians and show interactions / discussions with Cambridge University students / academics / staff / alumni / interested tag-alongs.

Learn a new application through Cam23, teach it to a couple of others and learn from them how they would use such a tool."

The whole post can be read here: http://decentdescent.wordpress.com/2011/06/22/ministry-of-cam23-2-0-pass-it-on/

So as you're blogging about the Things, have a think about how you could share what you've learnt with your library users, and don't forget to let us know how you get on!

by Britta Bohlinger on Flickr

Week 1, Extra Thing: Ways to make your blog beautiful

2011-06-21T10:04:00.000+01:00

You have just created your first blog. Congratulations! It is likely, though, that you are not completely satisfied with how it looks. You might wonder how to make it look interesting and professional, like some of the more established library blogs.

Do not worry, you do not need great coding or design skill to make a nice-looking blog. Blogger (and Wordpress) offers many templates and gadgets/widgets that add sparkle to your blog and extend its functionality -- and most are easy to install and configure (and free!).

Quick definitions: A template controls the layout, colors, and overall look and feel of your blog. In Wordpress, these are called themes. A gadget (or widget) is a snippet of code that you can copy and add to your blog and which adds functionality to your blog, such as a feed from your Twitter account, a connection to your Facebook account, or slideshow of your photographs. There are literally thousands of themes and widgets to choose from.

To change your template on Blogger, follow these instructions. If you would like to customise your template, you can use the template designer.

There are also many third-party Blogger templates to choose from. A Google search for 'blogger templates' yields many sites with many interesting designs. It is important to choose a template that reflects your personality and goals.

To add a pre-loaded gadget to Blogger, click 'Design' and then the 'Page Elements' tab. Any place you see the link 'Add a Gadget' you can click to add one of 24 gadgets Blogger provides by default. Some of these gadgets include a search bar, a 'follow me by email' feature, and an easy way to add an image.

For lists of other great widgets, a Google search for 'blogger widgets' yields many great sites. If you find a widget you would like to add, copy the given code snippet, go back to your blog and 'Add a Gadget' (instructions above). Select 'HTML/JavaScript,' paste the code snippet, and save. Your new widget/gadget should appear on your blog.

Have fun exploring the many ways you can improve the look and functionality of your blog. Change your template at least one time and add at least two widgets. You will be surprised at how easy it is!

Week 1, Thing 2: Creating a Blog

2011-06-20T14:17:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Week 1, Thing 2!

After completing Thing 2...
You will have a shiny new blog to use throughout the programme to record your progress. You will also have begun to think about how you want to present yourself online via your blog and what makes for a good blog.

What is blogging and is it relevant to libraries?
Check out the Wikipedia entry on blogging for a perfectly acceptable definition and brief history, then come back here. There are numerous blogs and bloggers within the field of librarianship. Many librarians pen individual blogs which they use to reflect on their professional experiences and to offer their opinions on the library world, while many libraries on the other hand maintain organisational blogs in order to promote services and enhance communication with their users. There are of course also many blogs written by people participating in 23 Things programmes at other institutions.

Blogging during 23 Things
Blogging is a key element of the 23 Things experience which we'd like all participants to engage with. Every time you complete a Thing we ask that you blog about it. Your blog posts should aim to constructively evaluate each Thing, giving an indication of what you liked (or didn't like) about it. They should also offer the reader an ongoing flavour of your experience of the programme. It's worth mentioning that any blogs which contain posts which say little more than 'Done Thing 3' will not be eligible for completion as that is neither entering into the spirit of the programme nor the purpose of blogging.

Blog platforms
We have chosen to give instructions on creating a blog on the Blogger platform as its very quick and simple to get going on, however, you may choose to use the other main free blog provider WordPress instead. If you already have a blog, there's no requirement to create a new one for 23 Things.

Blogger: step-by-step instructions
1. Go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in with your Google account username and password. This will bring you to a Sign up for Blogger screen. Some of the information may already be filled in for you (depending on what you told Google when you signed up for your account) but you will need to choose a display name and to accept the Blogger terms of service.

2. You now need to create your blog by clicking on the blue Create Your Blog Now button and choosing a name and a web address (URL) for your blog. The address has to be unique so your first choice may not be available.

3. Now choose your preferred layout template for your blog. You can change this at any point for a different one.

4. Congratulations, your blog exists!

Your first post
You now need to create your first blog post.

1. Click on the orange arrow that says start blogging (if you have logged out and are returning, then click on new post by your blog's name on your dashboard - the screen you see when you log in). This will bring you to the posting screen.

2. Enter a title for the post, and then type your text into the box. There is a toolbar at the top of the box which will allow you to format your text and add links and images.

3. Write something here about what you hope to get out of Cam 23 and your previous experience of Web 2.0 and social media.

4. When you have finished writing the post, type Thing 2 in the Labels box under the text box. You will need to tag all your posts with the number of the Thing being blogged about and any other descriptive words you want to use to help you find the post later on (just as we librarians add subject headings to catalogue records in order to help users retrieve books).

5. Click the orange Publish Post button at the bottom of the screen, and your first post will go live.

Any problems?
If you got lost at all at any point above, I can recommend this Blogger tutorial (from YouTube).

Register your blog
You will need to register your blog it so that it can be added to the list of Cam 23 bloggers on the lefthand menu of the Cam 23 blog. All you need to do is visit this URL and fill in the details.

Reminder
Remember, you are required to blog about each Thing on your blog in order to complete the programme. Your blog needs to record your progress through the whole programme so you need to take a bit of time now to write a post about what you thought of Things 1 and 2.

Add tags
Don't forget to add tags (Blogger calls them Labels) to your post - Thing 1, Thing 2, iGoogle etc.

Get social
Blogging is much more fun and interactive if you receive comments on your posts, so now you need to visit a few Cam 23 blogs and comment away. You may have to wait for more blogs to appear on the left-hand Cam 23 blog list before you can go visiting - it really depends how speedy you are compared to everyone else. If someone leaves you a comment from a blog that you have not yet viewed then go and visit it and comment back. Cam 23 is not just about learning about how new technologies work but also about using them to network and share.

Week 1, Thing 1: Set up a Google ID and create an iGoogle page

2011-06-20T09:27:00.001+01:00

Welcome to Week 1, Thing 1!

After completing Thing 1 you will have...
Created a Google ID and your own iGoogle start page, so all your Things can be organised from the very start.

What is a Google ID?
A GoogleID allows you to make the most of Google and its products by personalising and customising pages, search results and your interface with Google. With a Google ID, you can also make the most of instant online collaborative working through applications like Gmail (Google Mail), but also Google Calendar, Google Docs and iGoogle.

How is iGoogle relevant to libraries?
iGoogle is a personal web portal which allows you to organise your favourite webpages and web 2.0 tools, letting you see at a glance what's happening out there. You can add RSS feeds and gadgets to your iGoogle page, some which are useful (Twitter, YouTube, the Cambridge Libraries Widget) and some which are less so (hamsters which need feeding and a "real age" calculator, for instance!) More and more libraries are developing iGoogle gadgets to facilitate renewals, OPAC searches and account maintenance.

Step-by-step instructions
1. To create a Google ID, go to http://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount (if you already have a Google ID, log in here).
2. Complete the form (it is probably best to use a personal email address rather than a Cambridge University one as a couple of people have mentioned problems accessing Google Docs with a Cambridge email address) and click on I accept when ready.

3. To create your iGoogle page, go to http://www.google.com/ig and log in with your Google ID.
4. Click on the Add gadgets link to explore the various gadgets you can install - have a look at All categories on the left of the screen for ideas, as well as the most popular gadgets (Most Users), what's new (Newest) , Editor's picks or use the search box on the right.

5. Type COPAC in the search box.

6. Click on Add it now - when you return to your Home page, your COPAC will have appeared.

You can also organise your gadgets with tabs which allow you to navigate quickly to your content, as well as helping your iGoogle pages load faster.

1. To add a tab, click on the arrow button of the Home tab on the left of the screen and select Add a tab.
2. Untick the I'm feeling lucky box.
3. Type in a name for your tab (e.g Library stuff) in the box.
4. Click OK.

5. Your Library stuff tab will open, but there will be no content in it.
6. Go back to the Home tab. Drag your COPAC box onto the Library stuff tab. It will disappear from the Home page and will only be visible when you click on Library stuff.

You can add as many tabs as you like whenever you think your page is getting too busy. You can also choose a theme to jazz up your iGoogle page by clicking Select theme on the right hand side.

You may find this animation an entertaining way to help you explore your iGoogle further:

Want to go a bit further?
The Library 2.0 blog has an interesting article on the utility of Start pages in libraries here, and MMIT takes a look at how UK libraries and associations, including CILIP, are making use of them here. If you've already been using iGoogle for some time, you might want to look at Netvibes, Pageflakes or even Symbaloo to see if they can offer you something a bit different.

What happens next?
In Thing 3 (next week) you will learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds, which you can add to your iGoogle page. Then you can have all your favourite blog posts and articles streamed directly to your start page.

Thanks to Emma-Jane Batchelor for providing the template and ideas in the original 23 Things Cambridge... and Happy iGoogling!

Cam 23 2.0 Launch - 17 June

2011-06-08T12:23:00.000+01:00

It's almost the end of term. You can almost smell the relief (and the cheap sparkling wine). The libraries of Cambridge are gradually emptying and thoughts turn to the summer...

To academic librarians the long vacation means not just holidays but a chance to GET THINGS DONE.

How many things?

How about 23 of them, give or take.

Yes, Cam 23 is back - a chance for all of us to explore some social media tools, get to know some colleagues better, find some new smart ways of working.

If you'd like to find out what it's all about, come along to the launch on

Friday 17 June from 5pm onwards in the Morison Room, CUL.

The programme's open to all library staff in Cambridge. There's plenty of support and encouragement along the way and participants are free to complete as much or as little of the programme as they like.
And if you started or finished the programme last year, dust off your blog, we've got some new things for you to try.

Hope to see lots of you there next Friday - for catering purposes, could you please let Erin Lee (el345@cam.ac.uk) know if you're coming.

The 23 Things (and a few extra...)

2011-05-27T12:21:00.002+01:00

Here's an idea of what's coming up! As you can see there are the 23 Things and then there is an Extra Thing each week. The idea is that you can choose to do the 23 Things, or just the Extra Things, or you can do the whole lot if you're feeling brave!

Week 1 (20th June)
Getting started
Thing 1 - Create Google account, iGoogle start page
Thing 2 - Create blog (we register them all and add them to the blogroll)
Extra Thing - Ways to make blog look awesome - templates, widgets etc.

Week 2 (27th June)

Keeping up to date/information cultivation
Thing 3 - RSS feeds
Thing 4 - Twitter
Extra Thing - Twitter apps e.g. TwitPic, Twapperkeeper, Twuffer, and platforms such as Seesmic, Tweetdeck, Hootsuite

Week 3 (4th July)
Sharing your work
Thing 5 - Screenshots including Lightshot browser add-on
Thing 6 - Screencasts

Week 4 (11th July)
Organising yourself
Thing 7 - Doodle
Thing 8 - Google Calendar
Extra Thing - add library books feed to Google Reader and Google Calendar

Week 5 (18th July)
Organising yourself cont.
Thing 9 - Google Docs
Thing 10 - Pushnote/Evernote
Extra Thing - Dropbox

Week 6 (25th July)
Thing 11 - Reflection week

Week 7 (1st August)
Tagging
Thing 12 - Social bookmarking tools
Thing 13 - LibraryThing
Extra Thing - Tags in blog

Week 8 (8th August)
Social media
Thing 14 - Facebook
Thing 15 - LinkedIn
Extra Thing - Short blogging/media sharing sites e.g. Tumblr & Posterous

Week 9 (15th August)

Photos, Video and Audio
Thing 16 - Flickr
Thing 17 - Podcasts
Extra Thing - Creative Commons Licensing

Week 10 (22nd August)
Thing 18 - Reflection week

Week 11 (29th August)
Presentation tools
Thing 19 - Slideshare
Thing 20 - Prezi
Extra Thing - Data Visualisation e.g. Gliffy and Wordle

Week 12 (5th September)
Organising yourself even more!
Thing 21 - Reference management including Zotero and Endnote
Extra Thing - TeuxDeux and other lists

Week 13 (12th September)
Thing 22 - Wikis
Extra Thing - QR codes

Week 14 (19th September)
Thing 23 - Reflection week

Cam23 2.0

2011-05-25T21:27:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the Cam23 2.0 blog! Due to the massive success of last year's programme, we will be running a 23 Things programme again in Cambridge this summer. We will begin with the first Thing on 20th June and run through until 19th September.

I didn't take part last year, what's this 23 Things stuff all about?
23 Things is a self-directed course designed to introduce University of Cambridge UL, faculty and college library staff to Web 2.0 technologies. The aim is for staff to spend a little time each week over 14 weeks exploring online tools for communication, promotion, and new ways of working. Throughout the course the practical application and relevance of the tools to the library setting will be explored. Each week we will introduce you to one or two Things. To take part in the programme all you need to do is to explore the Things with our guidance, and then blog about them as a way of reflecting on and sharing what you've learnt. Don't worry if you've never blogged before, that will be one of the very first Things!

But I already did all of this last year!
With you in mind, we have added one "Extra Thing" each week. If you feel confident with everything you learnt last year, you can just do the extras. If you feel you need to brush up on some or all of the things, you are most welcome to do it all over again - and since social media changes so quickly, you may find some things are different from last year!

At the end of the programme, everyone who has completed it will get a certificate and be entered into a prize draw. (If you're not a member of the University's library staff you can still take part, but won't be eligible for the prize draw unfortunately!) To kick off the programme we will be having a launch party, check back soon as more information on that will be coming up...