MyLanguage 2010 Conference Papers

The MyLanguage Conference which took place from August 9 – 11 2010 generated many interesting ideas and proposals about how digital technology can be used to promote social inclusion and to support language and cultural maintenance.

The theme of the conference explored how digital technologies could be used to assist culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities to achieve greater social inclusion and to maintain their linguistic and cultural identity.

The conference presentations, information about the speakers, and a list of useful links are now available here on the MyLanguage website.

The MyLanguage website provides access to search engines, web directories and news in over sixty languages.

Social Software in Libraries report

Interesting report on the use of Social Software (Web 2.0) from the Association of Research Libraries (thanks resourceshelf.com for this one!) 

While a growing number of libraries have adopted social software as a way to further interact with library patrons and library staff, many things are unclear about the use of social software in ARL member libraries. This SPEC survey was designed to discover how many libraries and library staff are using social software and for what purposes, how those activities are organized and managed, and the benefits and challenges of using social software, among other questions

It’s a subscription report but you can see the table of contents and executive summary on the web.

Handy hints on Web 2.0

One of my colleagues has pointed me in the direction of Commoncraft’s sweet little hand made animations explaining in simple terms the basics of various things Web 2.0.  You can find them on YouTube at  http://www.youtube.com/user/leelefever So if you are in a twitter about Twitter, can’t face Facebook, are bothered by Blogs,  worried by Wikis and don’t know an RSS feed from your elbow, check them out.

These videos are released under a creative commons licence  If you want to use them in the workplace then you need to get a license – more at   http://www.commoncraft.com/

 

Thankyou CommonCraft, thanks to you I’ve now finally set up my RSS feed reader!

 

 

LibraryThing goes local…

Library Thing (see my earlier post!) now has a facility to add bookshops, libraries, festivals and events to their database.  It’s called LibraryThing Local.  The info is mapped onto Google maps (though there are still a few problems with the geocoding – SLWA is showing up across town from our actual location – the joys of Beta).

Let’s get going a get more WA libraries and bookshops into Library Thing!

Your own LibraryThing

Are you a closet librarian?  Do you have a passion for putting  your own books in order?  Do you want to talk online about your books but can’t find like-minded people on MySpace or Facebook?  Help is at hand with LibraryThing – sometimes known as the world’s biggest book club, or in their own words:

“LibraryThing is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.”

I’d dipped into LibraryThing myself, but hadn’t done much about it, however an exciting interview with founder Tim Spalding on Radio National’s book show reminded me to take another look.  Sadly you had to be quick to get the podcast and it’s now gone – however you can find out more about becoming a thingamabrarian on LibraryThing’s own site and on Wikipedia.