Monday 18 July 2011

Extra Thing 3 (week 4) : widgets

Library Widget on Classics Page
The extra thing for week 4 is using the Cambridge Library Widget.  I promote the widget to our users and we have it embedded on the Classics library page.  I find it useful to direct students towards it rather than logging in to Newton.  I had not tried the RSS feeds or adding it to my google calendar before.

The RSS feed worked well - I issued myself a book as I realised I had nothing on loan - as my loan appeared straight away. Although whether it sends me a reminder when it is due I don't know. That would be more useful than knowing I had just borrowed it.

I also added it to my Google calendar but it did not show there even though I refreshed the calendar. There is obviously a delay in data appearing and so its usefulness is dubious, especially as at Classics our undergraduates have a 2 day loan and so need the information quickly.  I will need to check when I am borrowing properly to see if things appear or not.

Extra Thing 2 : More (t)wittering

I have to admit to a bit of a love/hate relationship with twitter - or more a love/apathy relationship.  For cam23 last year I joined twitter as instructed.  I followed people but found it difficult to keep track of everything.  Someone recommended giving tweetdeck a try and I installed it on my computer and found the whole experience much better.  I could create boxes for my saved searches, lists and fav people.  I was becoming addicted.  Then I changed computers and tweetdeck was gone.  I drifted for awhile back on twitter before losing interest. I found it useful if I couldn't go to a conference to follow some of the tweets, although often they mean nothing unless you are there as too brief to properly portray what is going on.   

I then gave hootsuite a try as you can access that anywhere via a browser but I didn't like it as much as tweetdeck.  It was slow to refresh and I couldn't seem to link in other social sites, such as Facebook, unless I wanted all my twitter posts to go to my facebook profile - which I didn't.  Now 23thinging again and accessing twitter.  I now have new pc and have installed tweetdeck (now part of twitter) and really liking it. I get a little box popup when there is a new tweet which is useful to keep up-to-date with something I am following or amazingly distracting when trying to work on other things! They are also working on a web interface so I would be able to access it elsewhere (which would be good now as not on my own PC).

I suppose I ought to start tweeting again about #cam23 or at least checking out the other tweets.