Prezi, Youtube and Flickr

Prezi

I've investigated Prezi and it looks pretty good. I can't describe it in detail because I wasn't able to download and use it for myself. From what I've seen it has a good user interface and seems pretty easy to use. It has unique design elements that Microsoft PowerPoint does not and if I was a regular user of PowerPoint I may consider changing to prezi as the finished presentations look quite impressive.

From a Library perspective I think prezi could be a useful marketing tool if you had somewhere to display your prezis, I think something like that would catch the attention of people a little better than signs that users tend not to read.

From a clinical perspective Prezis might be useful for training. PowerPoint is already used extensively for lectures and Prezi is defiantly a viable alternative to PowerPoint.

As for plagiarism, there will always be someone who will steal your work no matter what you have done, you just have to trust in the honesty of the average user, most people are pretty good and will at least credit their source if they use your work.

Youtube

Youtube is probably the most well known video sharing site in the world, despite this I have never used it to upload any of my own videos. From a user perspective it is very easy to use just type what you are looking for into the search box and hit search, nine times out of ten you will find what you are looking for.

Again this is a good publicity and training tool. But again unless you have the facilities to display your videos "in house" you are just supplying your users with another link they won't follow. The training is a good idea though and its a safe bet that you can find instructional videos for pretty much anything (accuracy is another story however).

Once again plagiarism is a big issue. YouTube does try to keep this under control but as always you are dependant on peoples' honesty, however the odds of someone using your Library's promotional video for their own ends are pretty low.

Flickr

I've never used Flickr before and I probably won't again. Usually if I need an image Google image search is the first place I look. Flick operates differently from this and its probably this unfamiliarity that I don't like. Using the site for the first time wasn't very intuitive and I just didn't get on with it.

Using it as a resource doesn't seem very likely. Sure if you need a quick stock image it might be OK but I'd prefer to use Google and there are probably other sites out there that are dedicated to just medical images that you can probably use.

For my views on plagiarism I keep repeating myself so just see above.

Where Eagles Slideshare

Shapes from lemons667

First time I've used Slideshare and I can say its pretty good. I've shared the slide show I made for this task. As you can see its an in depth mathematical essay that redefines the field. Very easy and quick to upload.

I found the presentation below while looking around. I have read it and it might have some good ideas but at 75 pages long and with no narrative to join up the points made its a bit impenetrable.

Getting in the Flow! : How libraries can adapt to changing users and environments from Guus van den Brekel

This demonstrates the downside to slideshare, while you may have a fantastic presentation (see first example) it may not be a lot of use if it can't stand on its own (see second example)

Google Drive High Five

What can I say about Google Drive? Not a lot actually, to me it seems very similar to just sharing a document as an email attachment. Maybe it has other uses but I don't really think I'd use it very much in a work environment as I can just use regular emails.

Well that's it, I might add more later if I use Google Drive and find any useful features.

Wiki wiki what?

Trying to find wikis on Google isn't easy. If you use the word wiki in your search you are going to end up with about 6000 wikipedia pages in your results. However I did find a link on wikipedia to another wiki called Health++ which had a list of medical wikis. There were quite a few so I didn't look at them all.

Of all the Wikis I did look at "Ganfyd" appeared to be the best. Anyone can read it but only Medical "Professionals" can join or edit it. This could be useful to patients who want to research their own condition or Professionals who just want to do a bit of research.

Special mention goes to "mla-hls" a wiki aimed specifically at Hospital Librarians. As with all projects created by a large group of separate individuals the content varies widely in style, quality and quantity but this can be said of all wikis.

Alerts

Google alerts is another web tool I have used in the past. Unfortunately I found myself swamped with too much useless information. This was many years ago so Google may have refined and improved Alerts since then. However, I am sceptical about its usefulness.

JournalTocs is easy enough to use once it is set up. I've subscribed to the Lancet but on reflection would it not be just as simple going to the Lancet's web page and subscribing to the RSS feed directly? Maybe JournalTocs is more useful when you set up alerts for keywords instead of searching for specific journals.

Again Twitter does not impress me. You have to go and look at the people you are following to know if they have tweeted anything of interest. In my opinion, Alerts should come to you, you should not have to go and look for them.

I don't think I'd use Alerts in my personal life. I prefer to track down any information I want because that way I'm likely to find other information I'd be interested in. That last statement seems at odds with my opinion of twitter, but looking at tweets is different than browsing websites. Websites are more personal, Twitter seems a bit cold.

Welcome to Twitter. You'll never leave...

As the person who is primarily responsible for my Library's Twitter feed, twitter is nothing new to me. I have however created an individual twitter feed just for the experience of setting one up as it was not I who created the Library Twitter feed.

I'm not particularly fond of Twitter. I find the character limit on posts restrictive and I'm just not the kind of person who like to Tweet.

To sum up: I use Twitter when I have to in my job but I don't see myself using it for personal enjoyment.

Really Simple Syndication is Really Simple

RSS feeds is not something I've really gotten into before. I'm not sure why but they never really caught my attention in the past. I had a stab at them during the Olympics, trying to keep  up to date with some of the events without having to watch them. For reasons I don't remember I never really got on with it.

Thanks to 12 things I'm having another go and I've been introduced to google reader. Its very easy to use. I've already signed up to some of the feeds from New Scientist's website as well as BBC news.

I can see some uses in a work environment. Following health related feeds would be useful so we know what is going on in the industry and possibly spot changes as they happen so we can stay ahead of the curve. Having an RSS feed for the library on the other hand would be a useful alerting or advertising system for our users.

So to sum up: RSS is easy to use and potentially useful.