Crazy Heart

It is a requirement of this class to embed a Youtube video in one of our posts. Given that my boyfriend just recently showed me the movie Crazy Heart I thought I would share the theme track with you. It's a ridiculously pretty song :3



Aaaaand because this is a library studies blog I figured I should probably include something that is library related, so here is a funny video I found about children in the library.



Peace out!

Uyen's Social Media & Webclass BLOG!: School library websites

Uyen's Social Media & Webclass BLOG!: School library websites:  Examples of school library websites: 1.  Brisbane Grammar School 2.  Parkes High School 3. Hutchins School 4. Harvard Kennedy Schoo...

Louise's Library Studies Blog: Finding a library related organisation who uses mu...

Louise's Library Studies Blog: Finding a library related organisation who uses mu...: I have found a library related website that uses multiple social media platforms to communicate with their user, the people who use and ...

Aaron Library Studies: Posting across networks

Aaron Library Studies: Posting across networks: Pros: Gets information out to an amount of people. Allows for any user of social media to see it on at least one platform Easier on the or...

Bookshops and Dumplings

Great week! We had our first lesson of Training Skills and I feel pretty good about getting that work done. We only have three lessons left of that, hooray for block classes. What else... Friday night I got to spend some time hanging out with good friends (and great wine), Saturday I went out on the town with my bff, Sunday was recovery day so I lounged on the couch watching Batman the animated series, Monday nothing happened.

Yesterday (Tuesday) as part of Childrens Lit and Acquisitions we got to go out in the city for a bit. In the morning I met up with Emma, Aaron, Sarah, Jan and Mel and we went to a few bookshops to answer some questions for Acquisitions, and we finished that early so we went to have an amaaaazing dumpling lunch, I tried sweet pumpkin mini dumplings and they were absolutely incredible!!

Then at 1pm we went to an exhibition at ACMI about the conversion of Shaun Tan's 'The Lost Thing' from book to short film, and we got to watch the film which was great! Definitely check it out if you can, the exhibition is free. http://www.acmi.net.au/shaun-tan-lost-thing.aspx

The great weather continues and today looks like being another fantastic day!

Laters, baby!

P.S. 'Laters, baby!' is a reference from 50 Shades of Grey, and just typing it reminded me that Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy was just cast as the male lead in the movie adaptation. This is a picture of Charlie Hunnam.

I like turtles :3

Woo! What a great week! Finished comp task 1 for Social Media class :D

Just to recap I'll list my other social media accounts:

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/emmajoy.james

Twitter
https://twitter.com/EmmaJoyJames

Pinterest
http://pinterest.com/emmajoyjames/

Oh my gosh, I <3 Pinterest, I can't believe I've been missing out for so long, haha! I made one Library Studies board and another called Literature Love, but I'm hoping both will count as the two library boards I need for the comp task.

Apart from that, I worked a lot and I've been studying. Haven't done as much homework as I probably should have, haha ;) Buuuut, what else did I do, oh I bought a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five which I'm pretty excited about. But I can't read it yet because I'm still working my way through the uncut version of the The Stand. 1400+ pages later...

OH! AND a friend of mine gave me the entire Batman animated series! Super excited about that! Buuuut I can't start that yet either because I'm currently watching season 2 of American Horror Story which is AWESOME!!

I'd better go and get some more work done.

Here is a baby turtle eating a strawberry.

5 Resources for Creating Library Websites

1. Public Library Website Guidelines

 Published by the State of Rhode Island, this webpage contains a generic list of information that should be included in your library website. It focuses on public libraries, but the information could easily be applied to academic or special libraries. It contains a basic list of Do's and Dont's when designing a web site and some neat little links to further resources.

2. WEBMONKEY


Webmonkey has been floating around the internet for years. It is a community as well as a site for tutorials, cheat sheets, colour charts and code snippets that savvy web designers can borrow for their website. I have personally used webmonkey for hex colour codes. For those of you who aren't familiar with this term, check our the webmonkey page here: http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/02/color_charts/

3. W3C

This website is probably a little heavy going for people unfamiliar with web design and development, but the W3C is responsible for creating the guidelines and protocols that govern the world wide web. You can read more about their mission statement here: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/mission.html. This website is good because it also includes design and development information such as 'What is HTML?' or 'What is CSS?', 'What are graphics used for?' and a plethora of other questions pertaining to the creation and maintenance of websites. They also include links to other websites for tutorials and information.

4. Library Patrons

This resource was brought to the attention of the class and I thought it was brilliant, as well as shattered that I didn't even think of it! Of course the patrons are the absolute best resource for designing the library website because they are the ones that have to use it! I think the more often and the more ways patrons are asked about the website and its services the better for the library. There might even be a web design guru hiding there!

5. Library Collections

And of course the final resource which I also overlooked when thinking about designing websites, the actual library collection itself. There are entire journals dedicated to designing websites with tutorials and cheat sheets and code snippets. Any books published on HTML or the like would probably be outdated, but they could provide an excellent crash course in the basics. Online resources as well might have links to video tutorials and things. The library collection should probably be your first stop when it comes to designing your libraries website!

Pros and Cons of FREE Software and Sites

I've already posted a link from another blog in regard to this but I'm going to recycle the information for my competency task. Here is the link to the original post: Pros and Cons of Free Software and Sites from Margie's blog.

Pros and Cons of FREE Software and Sites

In regard to website development and maintenace.

Pros:

• It's FREE!!!!!!!
• It's simple
• It's user friendly
• It's well known
• Gives you a good platform to share your message - creates a ready made community
• I don't have to worry about the technical stuff
• I trust the security is good

Cons:

• You can get hacked if it's not a reputable supplier
• You have to follow their rules
• It's not always clear about what they do with your information
• It's not always clear what they do with your images etc
• I have to look at advertising
• The software is often limited and I have to pay more to get the good stuff
• I'm often constrained by what I can change in the software
• Less choices about what I can do
• Poor customer service
• They could close down at any time
• It could go out of fashion and not be updated
• It's often hard to get your information and content off the sites to transfer them somewhere else

Important Features of a Library Website

When designing a library website I think there are a number of key features that should be included to ensure that the website meets the needs of its patrons and correctly serves the purpose for which it was created.

Library websites need:

• They need to be user friendly and attractive, while its not essential for the website to look good I think it adds to the user experience and encourages patrons to use the online service.
• They need to include all of the relevant information in order to answer any questions that patrons might have.
• The pages need to be set out logically in order for patrons to be able to find the information that they require in regard to the library collection or fines or booking fees, etc.
• Access to the catalogue needs to be provided so that patrons can search for the book they want without having to physically visit the library. I think this service is essential in this era of modern technology.
• They need to include relevant news for library patrons to provide that window into the community and generate interest, get people involved.
• There must be contact options because people will always have something to complain about, haha, but more importantly they may have questions or may not be able to find the information that they require and so they will need to contact library staff.
• Different language options reflecting the demographic are important because someone might need to know which languages are included in the library collection, but also a patron accessing the site might speak a language other than english and require information. 
• I also think it is important these days for a library website to include social media access, and I think it is important for libraries to have a social media presence.

The above points were written with local public libraries in mind, but the requirements are mostly the same for academic and special libraries (in my opinion).

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Messages to you using blog

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Messages to you using blog: The questions was asked - If Margie needed to send an urgent message to all students, how would she do it? Via Web/CT? Via Blogger? Vias...

An older post on Margie's blog, but the task is to share a post from someone elses blog, so I chose this one. Enjoy.

What I did this week. So far.

The first task for today is to write about my week, such as it were.

I worked alot.

On Sunday my best friend's daddy went to hospital so I stayed at her house to support her.

Then I did some more work.

On a lighter note, some awesome metal gigs have been announced! Hell on the Bay featuring my favourite band Ne Obliviscaris, Behemoth, KORPIKLAANI,and Steven Wilson who performed guest vocals on an album by my other favourite band Opeth.

This is Steven Wilson :

Rock on \m/

Library Related Websites

Today we had a group discussion about our favourite library related websites, and here is a short list of some of them:

ALIA
CAVAL
Libraries Australia
National Library of Australia
New York Public Library
OCLC
SLAV
State Library of Victoria

For the first competency task in Create Web Pages class we are required to talk about why we like some, or all, or five of these sites.
So.

1 - ALIA - I like this website because I find it to be super user friendly, and I like the bubbly 'web 2.0' feel. As for functionality, they provide clear links to other sites and to a variety of social media platforms. I like ALIA because it makes me feel like a real librarian, haha. I don't like that ALIA costs so much to join, and I don't like that a lot of the website content is hidden from non members, but I think it does a great service.

2 - CAVAL - The CAVAL website is similar to the ALIA site, very clean and neat, attractive. The colours aren't as bright, and I don't like brown, but I still think its great!

3 - Hobsons Bay Libraries - This website has been my 'go to' for a number of assignments, and I've found time and time again that the information provided is clear and relevant, easy to locate, the website is well designed and attractive, great colours, handy widgets that list upcoming events or special features and they have cute little social media buttons at the top of the site. As a lib studies girl I sometimes find that the information provided isn't as specific as I might need, but I think it serves its purpose admirably.

4 - Libraries Australia - This website is great, and we've all needed to rely on the resource a number of times during this course. I think the trap with library and academic websites is that the content can at times be rather dry, and often there is not much design work done to engage the user, because it's there as a tool. But that doesn't mean that is has to look dull. Libraries Australia is very conservative but I find it quite pleasant, and of course the database is fantastic!

5 - State Library of Victoria - Of course I'd have to list this as a great website, it's the state library hub, providing access to a plethora of social media platforms and listing some great information, both current and relevant. I think it is the plainest website of all the ones I've talked about, and I think it could be redesigned a little better, but it is very slick and polished.

:)

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Pros and cons of free software and sites

A blog for Margie's Social Media and Web classes 2013: Pros and cons of free software and sites: Pro: It's FREE!!!!!!! It's simple It's user friendly It's well known Gives you a good platform to share your message -...

Making websites, making websites, la la la

One of the activities we need to do is make a new Facebook page specifically for this class, so here's the link if you guys wanna find me:

http://www.facebook.com/emmajoy.james

Second week of web design class and our task is to confess our secret social media obsessions. Mine isn't a secret, haha, I <3 Facebook! <--- (Extra part of the task was to provide the link)

Aaaaand Tom suggested we post our favourite LOLCat pics, and Margie said it was ok because it would teach us about uploading pictures to our blogs, so heres a picture that made me LOL :) (No offense guys!)

What? Why? How?

Second week of class and we have posed the question 'What is Social Media'? 

Summation of the discussion that followed:

Social Media is about participation, communication and input through comments and messages. It's about sharing, updating, encouraging the 'to and fro'.

Margie says we will go into greater detail over the following weeks, delving into the 'hows' and 'whys' of social media.

Bring it! 

Hello World

First blog entry.

I just spent about half an hour trying to make the blog all pretty before I posted anything. This blogger thing is complicated and silly. 

Alas, 'tis compulsary, so here we are.

My name is Emma Joy James, and although I have a background in Multimedia and IT, I've never used Blogger so I'm a bit lost. I've been a Library Studies student for a few years now, started part time and I'm now attending full time in order to finish the course and embark on a career in the industry.

I'm a checkout chick at Coles and I like heavy metal music. And Batman.

Laters, baby!