Julian Merriman, Torfaen Libraries

A Luddite is dragged into the modern age...
Hi,
My name is Julian Merriman and I'm currently seconded to the post of Information Librarian at Cwmbran Library in Torfaen. I have never used social media websites before this training so found it quite demanding, but I soon came to realise that there are many opportunities for libaries. The world is changing rapidly and libraries are having to change also to stay relevant and interesting. We have to continue to serve our existing customers, but we also need to cater for our new customers, the tech savvy ones who will look for us on-line and make use of our electronic resources. 'Hits' will began to replace visitors through the doors. With the beginnings of an all-Wales consortium, 'cloud' computing and e-Books, it's become clear to me that Libraries would benefit from skilled and informed inclusion in this New Age.
However, for my small beginnings I thought that my project could be a simple Blog for Librarians to share their experiences of on-line resources, and share good practice for promoting use of all our existing on-line resources, like those that we currently subscribe to, and experiences of the new e-Books consortium which should have its' official launch any day soon.　

My Project - introduction by Jeff Harrison

Hi, I am Jeff Harrison from Denbighshire Library Service (no photo I'm afraid, didn't want to break the camera!). I have been asked to do a presentation for our Lead Officers about the potential of using Web2 not just in libraries, but in the Youth, Leisure and Arts Services as well, so I though, kill two birds with one stone, I shall make that my project... wish me luck!

My idea

Hi I'm Carys Roberts and I'm the Collections, Standards and Training Officer at CyMAL. My main areas of work are to do with the Welsh Public Library Standards, the Museum Accreditation Scheme and Sector Training.

I'm trying to think where Web 2.0 technologies could help me in my post and I thought it would be a good idea to set up a blog for the sector training courses. I could use the blog to advertise courses coming up and it could be more interactive than what we have currently. It could have links to slideshare where the presentations for the courses could be stored and course attendees can give their feedback from the courses, in a similar vein to this blog. Photos taken during the course could be also be included. I could also inlcude a twitter widget. That's my idea at present, it may change.....

Heather's children's biblioblog

Hallo. I'm Heather the children's librarian for Cardiff. I'm getting quite excited about how Cardiff libraries may be able to get our children's reading groups involved in biblioblogging (like making up words). I love the way children get so excited about the books they enjoy and if we could encourage them all to share just some of this on a blog, perhaps we could start small with children in libraries and then blog further with primary schools and families.

Anna from the children's library has plans too, so we'll probably mingle and merge in some way.

Looking forward to fun and games!

Sharon's Plan

Hi everyone, I'm Sharon Crossan and I am the E-Learning Advisor (Learning Resources) at JISC RSC Wales.  My role is to support staff across the Learning Resource Centres (LRCs) and other learning providers that provide Post 16 Education  (you can find more information about us and our events on our website).

I pass on information about learning resources to a variety of sectors and work across other JISC RSCs/JISC services/and other agencies to provide advice and guidance to JISC staff/learning providers.  Currently I am working with a variety of E-Learning Advisors across the UK on a Digital Literacy project.  I organise a variety of events for learning providers and most recently our lunch time byte series, a series of online sessions on a variety of subjects.

This is where my project comes in!  I am working with one of the other E-Learning Advisors in the team to hold a lunch time byte on discovering free online resources for learning and teaching.  As part of this I would like to create a screencast on setting up RSS Feeds.  From this course I have learned a lot about using the local/global community to find information and have discovered several screencast tools, all of which will help me build the screencast.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the final date in November due to other commitments but shall blog about the event and pass on a link to the screencast...or you could always join in here!

Best of luck everyone :-)