Meetings

Finished Playground #17. Previously I had looked at the LV Small Meeting Room and Board Room calendars, but new to me was booking a meeting. I already use the calendar for my own reminders and messages, but I hadn't used it before for this purpose. It is easy, and I will try to remember to use it more in the future.

Rare baby pygmy hippo

I saw this on the news this morning and had to post it!
"Conservationists have been celebrating the birth of a rare pygmy hippopotamus at an Australian zoo. There are less than 3,000 of the endangered animals left in the wild, and zoo keepers say every hippo born is "extremely important" for the species' survival. Monifa, who weighs 13 pounds (six kilos) and is the size of a puppy."
This was a great way to learn how to embed a YouTube video!

Happy Halloween

Netiquette

I read the articles on email best practices and netiquette. Most points were familiar to me, but there were some good tips on phishing. Also, I never thought of embedding answers into a senders email. Good idea though!

Playing in the sandbox

I've done some playing in the NVDPL SandBox wiki by adding a favourite book - Enchanted April - countries I've travelled to and place for good eats. It was easy! As for Enchanted April, I'd recommend the movie too. One of my favourites!

Wild and wacky wikis...

I've explored the suggested library wikis and found others to look at, including VPL's Chinese-Canadians Profiles From a Community. That shows how a wiki can be used to serve/target a very specific user group, yet still interest the rest of the community as well.

I think wikis would be great for promoting programs, especially ones that come up that have little time for lots of publicity. Also, they would make committee communication much easier - no more forwarding and replying to emails to the group. Wikis would not only be good for the standard patron reader's choice suggestions, but also for viewer's and listener's choices.

The only problem with free public access is having an editor who would have the time to moderate the postings. I noticed on the Library Success wiki, the first comment is about vandalism problems. Otherwise, I think the idea of public libraries using wikis as another way to communicate is a good one.

As for the bear. An homage to our neighbourhood black bear, who spent Tuesday afternoon sleeping in the neighbour's cherry tree!

Wandering through wikis

I've started looking at wikis (#14) and will have to finish it off next week. I see many great uses so far, especially for reader's advisory where the public can contribute lit picks and reviews. More next week