Summing up my time exploring Web 2.0 tools

I came into this task with relatively no working knowledge of Web 2.0 tools. I'd banished them to the dark corners of my mind where Facebook languishes dank and unused. I thought that there would be no real change in how I perceived them.

Wrong I was. It is important to know about them. What a knowledge-expanding assignment to have done! I am cranky with myself for not having gotten right into it from the very start. Once I'd gained some momentum I actually really enjoyed it and looked forward to each weeks new tool(s). It has truly been a collaborative assignment with lots of to and fro with my buddies. I've enjoyed reading the blogs of my buddies very much - Bev, Emily, Kathrine and Liz. Each one is different, and from each one I've learnt something, thought about something in a new way or just been inspired to get started on my own exploration of a Web 2.0 tool. I've benefited from their feedback on my posts and felt supported and encouraged. We all have different backgrounds and different ways of approaching Web 2.0 tools. This has been a good awakening to the fact that we all have specific personal information needs and what might work for one person will not be so convenient for the next.

Above is my Chrome browser homepage. I've included the screen grab because for me it shows quite clearly and simply how much learning about Web 2.0 tools has changed my perspective on them and more importantly, my use of them.

There are four new additions - Feedly, diigo, TweetDeck and of course Blogger.
All added, used, appreciated and enjoyed because of this Document Mangement 1 task. Emily said in her 'Update on Learning Goals' post that she thought it would be about headers, footers, paragraphs etc. Me too!

To hark back to my learning goals, which have been -

• to increase my knowledge of, and experience in using, Web 2.0 tools so that I am able to use them competently and effectively 

I think that of all of my goals I've been most successful with this one. I have learnt a great deal in these last 6 weeks. I have been able to use these Web 2.0 tools in a way that has allowed me to communicate, collaborate and create. I have learnt that it is needed and well worth it to dedicate some time to start to use new Web 2.0 tool. Too often in the past I have installed/downloaded a tool (Google Reader for example) to not take a bit of extra time to fully understand its functions and uses. I don't use it and I forget about it. I will certainly be spending more time in the future giving my self a few hours with a new tool before I dismiss it as being along the lines of Facebook in its worth to me. 

I will still keep using these tools because I have a way to go before I am totally competent in their use. But, in saying that, I can use the tools I've explored with ease and can communicate effectively with them.  

• to explore if/how this blog and other Web 2.0 tools (ie Twitter) will allow me to collaborate, interact and communicate with my fellow buddies and classmates 

This goal has been the most enjoyable. I think that my buddies and I have been able to communicate and collaborate and to help each other out really well over the course of this assignment. We've all posted and commented on each other's blogs. We've tweeted, shared and collaborated on a Google document, replied and answered questions on each others blogs.

The effectiveness of our communication has shown me the value in Web 2.0 tools for communication.

• gain an understanding of how these tools can be utilised specifically by the library and information agency sector 

Thinking about how Web 2.0 tools can be translated into the professional environment has been an interesting process. Its made me think about my work in the Document Delivery department at Monash University and how, if at all, these tools could be utilised in my working environment. I have had some interesting discussions with work colleges and librarians about how they personally use Web 2.0 tools and which ones they use in their professional life. This has been a good way to start my thinking about how these tools can best be used in the work-a-day-world context.

I still have reservations about the public/private divide with tools such as Twitter, but have come to understand how I want to use theses tools and what parameters I need to set up to put myself at ease. 

• to gain a deeper understanding of how these tools are shaping how we communicate with one another on a global scale 

This goal is a little tricker to pin down but I feel I have gone some way to meet it, Looking at social bookmaking and beginning to understand what tagging might mean for us was a bit of a revelation. I think that Web 2.0 tools will allow us to communicate with each other in very powerful ways.

Today in Boston a bomb went off during a marathon. There is already a wikipedia page on this  and the Guardian has been using the tweets of people who where at the scene to inform and provide updates. 

Twitter and wikipedia - both being used to come to terms with a world event. Web 2.0 is definitely shaping how we communicate, collect information, and create on a global scale. 

Final thoughts - 

I'm glad to have had this experience. I've learnt a lot. I've got new Web 2.0 skills that I want to develop further and I have changed my sceptical and slightly negative attitude towards Web 2.0 tools into a much more positive accepting one of them. 

I think that this will have given me a good start in terms of thinking about these tools in an information management professional context.

The option to explore one tool in depth or to look at two tools a little more broadly has been an excellent aspect to this assignment. It allowed me, a newbie to Web 2.0, to take the time to investigate and explore a tool so I could fully understand how to use it. I found it quite daunting in the beginning but this was made easier by being able to read my buddies blogs and other students in the class to see how they approached the tasks. If I had any advice to my 6 week younger self it would be to - just get into it! 

Having four buddies was a great way to focus on the assignment and to put communication and collaboration to the test. Thanks Bev, Emily, Kathrine and Liz. 

And thanks for reading,

Ellen 

Revisiting Twitter

I thought that I'd briefly come back to Twitter.

I have been using Twitter quite regularly - but not writing too many of my own tweets just taking in the steady stream of information that is being tweeted and retweeted.

Twitter Deck has been a really useful way for me to understand Twitter. The timeline and my interactions being separated helps me to distinguish my active participation from the almost 'feed' like flow of tweets from individuals and organisations I've followed. I feel like I have more control over my Twitter account using Tweet Deck. I find the interface more intuitive too. 

Having had a crack at tweeting during John's lectures...

...I'm not sure I was that effective doing it. I suspect the distinction between conference and lecture is that with a lecture the emphasis is on you to really get a handle on the material and with a conference you can let information wash over you a little more. What I mean by this is that looking back over a #conferencetweet might be helpful if you've seen three presentations in one day but for a lecture you really have to have grasped the material and are expected to go over it after its finished.

I guess that does not mean that you could raise questions during the lecture, or points of difference/disagreement but I'm a little too shy and uncertain with Twitter at the moment to do this.\

I've enjoyed being swayed with Twitter. I'm glad to have given it a chance and to have found more benefit than I had thought I would at the beginning of the semester for both personal and profesional areas of my life.

Its definitely a collaborative and communicative tool that was used by my buddies and I (as evidenced by Emily sharing a photo of her meticulous home library).

Ellen 

Thoughts on Google's 'My Places' maps function

The previous post is my finished attempt at creating my own map using Google maps. In this post I'll set out how I did it and my thoughts on how it went and the 'My Places' tool that Google offers.

I wanted to create a map of my holiday to Alaska that showed the approximate routes we traved, plus text and photos (no video possible because I only took an analogue camera) for places of interest.

I first had to work out how to get a URL for my photos. This is perhaps the most clunky thing I did. After a bit of searching and reading forums I choose to upload my photos onto Photo Bucket. It occurs to me now only after I've finished the map that I could have used Dropbox. Oh well. 

Photo Bucket is free and therefore riddled with adds. Yuck! 

This was obvious where to go to get the HTML and there were other linking options which I thought was good. 

After having worked this out I created a map. 

It was easy to do and if you've watched an intro video then it's like second nature.

I gave my map a title, wrote a little blurb on its reason for being and ensured that I selected 'public viewing'. 

This is essential if you want to ensure that your map can be a resource for others. 

I then set about adding place marks. I did texts and photos. Pink place marks for text and blue/icons for photos.

This took longer than I thought and was a little frustrating. Sometimes the HTML link for my photos would not work (not sure why).

I used the 'Edit HTML' tab to past my photo links and the 'Plain text' to type my text.

The biggest problem (which if you've had a look at the map and clicked on a place marker with a photo - you'll know what I'm talking about) was that the photos are a little too big to view easily on the finished map. If you click on them they will be brought up on a separate tab so you can see them properly that way. I just didn't want to shrink them and lose the quality. But I imagine that users might find their large size irritating to manoeuvre.  

When the map was done I could invite people to collaborate. I chose my brother because he might have had more photos from our trip to add. I decided against allowing anyone to edit the map. Just because its of a personal nature and I'd like to share it with my family and would't want anyone else's additions.

This, of course, would be very different if I was just doing a general holiday map with recommendations for places to stay/eat/hike etc. I wouldn't include any photos of my brother or me if I were to do this.

The collaborate aspect of Google maps is amazing. There is so much scope for creativity and for sharing. It will be like a collective memory being mapped if enough people take it on.

It was easy to customise the map size before I copied the HTML to be embedded in my blog.

I really liked that from last weeks lecture and tutorial on HTML I didn't bat an eyelid when I had to copy and paste the HTML text into my blog. I definitely would have felt much more daunted by this had I not recently had a go at writing some HTML code. Learning bit by bit. 

Summing up Google 'My Places' Maps - 

Collaborate mapping is truly a tool for collaboration, communication and creativity. 

It would be useful for an organisation - for whatever purpose they chose. A university could map out all of the libraries on its campuses with collection summaries, opening times and photos of the buildings for their new students. This would be a very helpful resource for a student during orientation week. 

I found a map created by the European Library that shows all of the places they are going, and the events that they are holding there. Click here for map.  This is an good example of an organisation using Google's 'My Places' map to their advantage.

I enjoyed creating the map. And I think I will do one on Berlin for a few friends going in a month - I'll be able to list all the spots I think will be of interest to them and to include pictures and websites. 

Handy! 

Ellen 

My Google map of Alaska!

This is a map showing some of the places in Alaska that my brother Tom and I visited in June and July of 2012.

We hitchhiked everywhere so Alaska can be seen on the cheap, including some very remote places.
The environment is awe inspiring, beautiful but very unforgiving. Not a place for a lazy summer holiday and definitely not 'Northern Exposure'! If you like to hike, love mountains and don't mind 24 hour day light in summer or the certainty of seeing grizzly and black bears - you should visit Alaska!

I hope that this map might inspire someone to go to Alaska! Also it will be great to share with my family and friends.


View Alaska Trip! in a larger map

Starting to map Google maps

This is a relatively recent intro video that is handy because it shows you how to create a Google map - using the place marking, route marking and shape marking features. It also talks about how to use the 'collaborate' function where you can allow anyone to add to your map or invite specific people to collaborate on it.

The creator of the video says that he thinks that this collaborate function is the best part of 'My Places' Google maps because it "leverages everybody's information to create something that is a lot more useful.'

That sounds really handy!

E

Delicious vs Diigo: social bookmarking

I chose Delicious and Diigo as my social bookmarking tools to investigate. My thinking being that as I know zero about this Web 2.0 tool it might be good to compare two similar social bookmarking platforms to help me to focus on understanding how they work, what differs between them and how/if they help individuals and organisations communicate, collaborate and create. 

                         

Our group has been editing a Google document  so we can share which each other our social bookmarking tools we've chosen and to put the collaborative/communicative aspect of Google docs to the test. Emily and Bev had already added their thoughts to the document and it was helpful to see their discussion as I mused over what I thought about social bookmarking. It has definitely helped me get my head around this topic. Also I had also forgotten about the useful chat function on Google docs that allows you to communicate with other editors when they are also viewing the document at the same time as you. I think that is a great instance of collaboration and the necessity of simultaneous communication. 

My questions to consider for this post are - 

• Are Delicious and Diigo exactly the same/if not then which one is better?
• Would I use both tools or just the one?
• Will I be able to effectively be able to tag? 
• Is EndNote a better option for study/professional purposes?
• Can I manage a social bookmarking tool and a RSS reader? Are they the same thing?
• Are social bookmarking tools a good way to communicate, share bookmarks and be exposed to new areas of the web?

So many questions! And in no particular order...

Delicious works well and looks good. Its easy to create an account and you can add a 'button' to the top of your browser that lets you bookmark a site with just one click (you can see from the below screen grab that I've also got a Diigo button in my Chrome browser too).

To add a link is intuitive and Delicious and Diigo have an almost identical way of doing this.

Here is what Delicious looks like when you're creating a bookmark - 

You can see that the box to the right is where you entire the link title, add comments to describe the link/why its useful to you and then the tagging function. To get the hang of tagging there is a handy box to tick 'insert recommended tags' so if you're at a loss to know what tags to use (as I was) this gives you an idea of what to do. 

The my main account page looks like this - 

You can hopefully see that my most recent bookmark is 'How many websites are there?' from Business Insider. My taggs are (too simple but I'm getting the hang of it) 'number of websites' and 'websites' and below the tags is my note on why I've bookmarked this site for reference - 'So many websites now!'. 

I bookmarked this website so I could bring it up here - according to Business Insider there were in March 2012 664 million websites! This is possibly the best, and most simple, reason for having a social bookmarking tool - so that you can wade through the mass amount of websites, bookmark the ones that interest you and then find your way back to them using your social bookmarking tool searching for their title or tags that would be appropriate to the article/website/blog's content.  That is an excellent reason to use a social bookmarking tool.

I choose Diigo because it seems better than Delicious. They are both free. But Diigo offers more things. The best being that you are able to highlight text in webpages, add stickynotes to the page with comments and and make notes and attach images.  

Here is what my main account page looks like (you can upgrade to Diigo premium for $20.00 a year and have an add free site - might be worth it as the adds really irritate me) - 

Here is a screen grab of Diigo of the same article 'How many websites are there?' that I bookmarked in Delicious. You can see that I was able to highlight relevant text for when I go back to the article and 

also that I added a stickynote which will come up every time I view the bookmark. 

And these are quick shortcuts to take - 

Tagging has taken me a while to get used to for some readon (like @ and # for Twitter). I had a look at 

John's taglist to see what kind of tagg collection someone who has had an account for a while looks like. It is pretty amazing to see how varied and how many there can be. I do think that tagging will be something that I get better at - its a creative process! 

Tagging for social media has me thinking about my last learning goal - 

• to gain a deeper understanding of how these tools are shaping how we communicate with one another on a global scale 

if millions of people are tagging millions of webpages can we learn about pattens of information seeking behaviour? How people categorize and navigate their way through the web? I suspect that we could learn a great deal about human interaction, information seeking and a whole host of other behaviours if more research was done into social bookmark tagging.  

Here is an example of it happening already - an article by Margaret Kipp - 'Tagging practices on research oriented bookmarking sites'. 

She talks about Vannevar Bush's associative trails and that tagging is similar - in that it might better represented how users actually work with their documents: by association rather than by 

categorisation. 

Do I need more than one social bookmarking account?

There would be absolutely no point in having a Diigo and a Delicious account. They serve essentially the same function - collecting, organising and accessing information from the web to refer back to at anytime. I choose Diigo. 

Diigo has a more intuitive way for navigating around its site - the my library, my network, my groups and community being the main tables at the top of the web page make getting to what you want easy. As Emily noted in our Google document that none of her friends are members - and neither are mine but Diigo let me see all my email addresses from my Gmail account and then let me select who I thought would like this tool to invite (as with Dropbox). Hopefully some of them take Diigo on and we can start sharing links on movies, music art...etc.

EndNote vs Diigo - 

I think that here is an instance where I would have both. I feel that EndNote is better suited to academic study/work and I don't think that Diigo would be as good as EndNote in creating collections of journal articles, books, theses, conference papers etc for an essay or research assignment. EndNote is visually much more paired back and is purely for function. 

Diigo would be good too for school work/professional work. Bev has said that her work uses Diigo to share relevant information. So it works too in a professional context. EndNote just feels more secure and academic to me. But I am also mindful of the fact that when there is a version upgrade people have lost their whole library. 

Social bookmarking vs. RSS readers

Emily made the observation that the wasn't sure if she'd keep both the RSS reader Feedly and Delicious simultaneously with a preference for Delicious because it wasn't focused on keeping up with content but allows you to 'save and share the different things you like on the web'. I think that this is a really relevant point. I'm not sure I'd be able to dedicate the time I assume that maintaining Diigo and Feedly each require for them to be a benefit to me. Maybe that is because I am brand new at both and haven't put the initial time into each one to make it easy to add to little by little. One thing I just found out was that I can (of course!!!!) add my Diigo account to Feedly as a RSS feed - 

This is a bit of a revelation to me and because the two tools are now linked I might be more inclined to use both. 

Collaborative and communicative aspect of social bookmarking - 

For me it is the ability to see other what other people have tagged using social bookmarking tools, join groups etc, that brings it further towards being a tool of total communication, collaboration and creativity. More so that RSS readers/feeds.

Because the button is on my browser I don't see how I couldn't keep using it - its there and its immediate. Diigo offers me the ability to explore the web knowing that I can keep what's of interest to me and to share it with others. 

I will most certainly be using Diigo long after I finish Document Management 1.

Thanks for reading.

Ellen 

RSS and Feedly

This post is my attempt to dig a little more into what RSS is and what it can do.

I thought I'd start with 'Ambient Findability' by Peter Morville. 

He has a pithy definition of RSS, which - '...allows us to subscribe to news feeds, blogs, event calendars, search results and any other type of dynamic web content"(p. 100).

He makes the point that we can now turn the sources that we actively go out and seek on the web into sources that come and find us. In essence it makes life in the WWW easier because instead of having find content, it is collected by our RSS reader (because we initially asked the RSS reader to by subscribing).

Morville again - 'We can selectively opt in to push, so we need not remember (or take the time) to pull" (p. 100). I think this is a really interesting point of the change between push and pull, between having to always actively go out and seek information on the WWW any time we want it, and having it delivered to us whenever we choose to open up our RSS reader. 

The advantages of RSS feeds/readers seems to me to be:

• it allows you to surf the web quickly from one location - ie. your feed. You need not spend time clicking on individual bookmarks in your bookmark folder (or typing blogs, newspapers etc into Google every time I want to view them - that being said I think Chrome is great and makes doing it real easy). Information is pulled into a single feed and the first few sentences appear (at least on Feedly) so that you can scan get an outline of the content and choose to read more if you want.

For instance a few days ago my Feedly had a topical blog post from a New Yorker magazine writer on Margret Thatcher's death and what Meryl Streep (who played her in the film the Iron Lady) has to say on this. 

From the screen shot above you can see that it gives small amount of the articles content but enough to gather the gist of it, when it was published and you can see that 500+ people have approved it.

• It is user centric because each person chooses which websites to include in their RSS aggregators  and you can edit, delete and add websites you find interesting(or uninteresting) and relevant( or no longer relevant) at any time. It is like Twitter in that regard - as your likes and interests shift and grow so too will the websites you subscribe with you RSS reader. 

• It means you don't have to send yourself links to websites you've found interesting which clog up your email account or which you won't ever go back to. The RSS reader does not send emails to you when the content is updated (as with Twitter when someone sends you a Tweet, or Facebook if someone messages you or tags you in a photo etc) so you are not bombarded by emails.

• It keeps you up to date. You can obtain a feed on an unlimited number of topics which you can group together into categories. So that if you only feel like reading about all the gardening websites you're subscribed to you can.

• Your privacy can be maintained because you don't need to sign up to a website's email newsletter.

The disadvantages seem to be:

• You're not wholly immersed in a specific site because you don't visit it - only get the most recent updates/posts. 

• Perhaps I won't be tempted to leave the security of my RSS feeder once I've collected enough to go out and explore the internet, thus preventing myself from a whole range of new things? 

• You do have to spend time collating an RSS feed list and splitting them up into manageable categories which, if you want to do it well, will take thought and time - and then there is always the chance (as we've just seen with Google reader) that your RSS reader might not be around forever and what if you can't migrate your feeds over to a new reader? 

I've become a believer of looking at a few introductory videos to get a grounding in the new Web 2.0 tool I am looking into. Even if I feel I know the bare bones of a tool I generally have missed a part of its functionality or haven't been using it to my full advantage. RSS is no exception so here is an intro video which succinctly show you how to subscribe to web sites, how to give some order to your feeds by grouping them in subjects and how to do things like subscribe to someone's Twitter feed. 

I've decided to go with Feedly. I do/did have Google reader but rarely use it because I didn't initially spend the time adding feeds and didn't really understand the advantages of an RSS reader. This reminds me of my first learning goal...

• to increase my knowledge of, and experience in using, Web 2.0 tools so that I am able to use them competently and effectively

...and how I keep being reminded writing this blog that it is important for me to dedicate some time to learning any Web 2.0 tool. I have a pattern of joining/subscribing/downloading/installing and then not understanding/forgetting. I think that so far this has been the most important thing I've learnt 'personally' from this task. 

Feedly can allow you to import all of your subscriptions from Google reader but I thought that I'd wipe the slate clean and compile my internet explorations anew.

Google Reader will shut down on July 1st 2013 so there is quite a bit of discussion about which RSS reader to go to when it does close. I found an excellent 'RSS reader alternatives to Google reader' table from the Online Journalism Blog that lists what I assume is most of the RSS readers out there in terms of -

• whether it will work with mobile devices
• whether it costs 
• what its features are 
• what its limitations are 

This is great because the link to each reader is provided if you want to know more about a particular reader.

I checked out NewsBlur wich is free. You can try it out using a mocked up account and play around clicking on the different folders and feeds. I thought that while practical and functional, it wasn't very attractive.
It looks like this....

I also looked at Reader for Mac which, as the name suggests, is for Apple products only. Its free, and works well, but compared with Feedly's interface I find it to look colourless and dull.
It looks like this...

This is what Feedly looks like...

It seems important to create proper categories/folders for your feeds so that when you've got a large number of subscriptions you can access them by them (as shown by the video posted above).
This is what my categories are so far (super basic but I want to add to them as I go rather than doing one massive add).

I like that when you add an RSS feed you can tick the 'must read' square so that it will come up in your feed always. That was good for my fellow buddies' blogs so not only have I subscribed to them but that I'll definitely see when they post anything!

If you need help adding new feeds to your Feedly then here are some helpful tips that I found useful.

Given that when I bookmarked pages I didn't even put them into folders there is little wonder why I never/rarely returned to them. Here is a small screen grab for visual proof of how disorganised they were...

Can RSS readers/feeds be used by libraries and other information management professions?

Short answer = yes, they already are. Below is a slide I found that dot points how RSS can be useful for libraries...

I subscribed to Monash University Library blog's RSS feed and also specifically to their library catalogue new titles RSS feed which I think is cool because who knows - I might never have known I wanted to read about 'Bridal-quest epics in medieval Germany'. So you can see that Monash University Library already uses RSS as the dot points above spell out. They have library openings/closings, branch library news, general news and events and new additions to the catalogue.

Monash University gives students and staff (and anyone else interested) the option to choose which aspects of the library's online presence they would like to subscribe to - which I think is quite a clever way to ensure that what you are communicating to your users is relevant to their needs and wants.

The Library of Congress is even more snazzy in its RSS offerings where you can select a category...

and then it offeres you an even more to select from...

To sum up, I LOVE RSS readers. I have definitely come away from this task wanting to create for myself an excellent collection of RSS feeds for my reader and checkin with my RSS reader each day as if it was my own curated window into the WWW.

Also it seems very relevant for libraries to utilize RSS feeds/readers to inform their users on a whole host of different events, services and updates. 

Thanks for reading.

Ellen 

Exploring Dropbox!

My initial thoughts about Dropbox –

• Super easy to download and navigate

• Attractive lay out (I like the coloured pencil drawings)

• Great that its free (well... you get 2GB)!

• Will the amount of space be enough to really be worth using?

• Can this cloud storage device translate for use in the professional realm?

What I already use Dropbox for -

I have been using Dropbox since the beginning of last year primarily as a means to share music and photos with two of my friends living in Germany. It was one these friends who introduced me to Dropbox. I received an email from him to join/download the software and it was an easy process to set up and share files. Sharing folders of music and photos, however, as far as I’ve ever gone with Dropbox. I have not used it on my phone or as a means of backing up my documents and photos (music would require me to pay for the service to get more space which at the moment I can’t afford to do – but here is a link that’s offers a good, basic instruction on how to sync your iTunes library across all of your computers using Dropbox.


I am still using a USB stick to backup my data but after this exercise I'm thinking that might change!

Logging in to Dropbox with Create-Communicate-Collaborate in mind I realised that hadn’t done the below things… (nice of Dropbox to create a list for me and even nicer of them to give me some free space for ticking them all off – if you want to find how to get some extra space Dropbox lists a bunch of ways to get free space).

I got 125MB for connecting my Twitter account to Dropbox and another 125MB for following Dropbox on Twitter. And 500MB when a friend I've invited signs up. 




So my initial for this exercise was to complete all of these steps so that I had better understanding of Dropbox’s functionality and purposes (you think I could have spared the time when I first installed it to take the tour!).

Investigating Dropbox -

This is what I had still to do -

One excellent functionality that Dropbox offers is that it can be downloaded and used on a whole range of mobiles and tablets so this will appeal to almost everyone. Having a file hosting service that can work with a host of different branded devices is a good start if it is truly going to be a tool to communicate and collaborate. 

Ok so now I can access Dropbox on my android phone, on computers at RMIT and on my work computer (in case I want/need to do some school work on my lunch break).

One app I installed for my android phone to tie in with what Dropbox does is DropSpace. DropSpace automatically syncs SD card directories to Doropbox. I thought this would be a good thing to download to totally ensure that all my phone data is stored somewhere else incase I lose my phone. Here is a link that gives you a bit more info on DropSpace.

I also played around with working on a test document from home on my lap top, on the way to work on the train using my android phone and at work on my workstation computer. It does work very well - giving me the latest version to work from with all of my devices.  The thing I really like about it is that you can go to a previous version if for some reason you've deleted the document (or someone else who you've shared the document with). 



Here are all the tasks checked off. It was good to spend an hour or two getting through them. 

These two points from the tour are what Dropbox is in a nutshell -

•  that you can be anywhere and access your documents/photos/music etc from any of your computers or from your mobile phone - click here for Dropbox's summary

•  and you can share your files with other people and collaborate on shared files  - click here for Dropbox's summary 

I thought that going back to the first post where I set out my goals for this assignment would be a good way to focus my thoughts on Dropbox.

One of the goals is to - 

• gain an understanding of how theses tools can be utilized specially by the library and information agency sector

With that in mind can Dropbox be more than for just personal use and sharing folders and files  between family and friends?

I have this much space....which would be laughable for any kind of library or information agency. 

So the question is can Dropbox work for organisations and institutions?

Can Dropbox be used in a professional environment?

I work in the Document Delivery Department at Monash University. We use a ‘Post to Web’ service where postgraduates and academics are sent an email with a secure link to the scanned PDF article or chapter they've requested and they have 5 days to download the article or print it before it's wiped. 

I thought it would be interesting to see if Dropbox is used by Inter-Library Loan departments.  Turns out it is. A law librarian from California, Tom Boone, blogs about using Dropbox for library document delivery – you can read his post here.

In summary Tom writes about the need to send large PDF documents requested by his university's staff and students and that even Gmail accounts cannot handle how large these files are. So to circumvent this he uses Dropbox. He can upload the article he has got for someone into his Dropbox's public folder and then send them a unique URL and send it to the requester who can download it without even having to have an account with Dropbox!  Another great thing is that he can keep these documents in the public folder after he's sent them so that if a student or academic deleted the email or lost their PDF he can send them the URL again. 

This happens at my work all the time - people delete or never get the 'Post to Web' email (or it goes to their spam). We store documents in a 'sent floder' on one of the library's drives but not for very long because of the amount of documents that we send out. They are deleted to save on space. Perhaps if we had a cloud we would't have to do this. And we do have people phone us up asking for a resend of a document they had been sent 6 months before.

Would there be enough 'space' with Dropbox for a big company or institution?

The one important thing here is that an organisation or business would have to pay for Dropbox - something called Dropbox for Teams.  There is unlimited storage which wold be the main reason for using it and you can select the number of people in your 'Team' - so for my Document Delivery team of 8 people it would cost $1170.00 for 8 licences or  if you had 250 staff it would be $31,420.00. 
There are perhaps problems with the servers being located in the US (ownership problems due to US laws) but this post is already too large to go into it (if I've got time in a few days I might post something because it does seem like an important thing to get a grasp on).

Dropbox vs. Google Drive - 

This is where I feel Dropbox falls down. It has no similar feature for group edits to happen simultaneously. I don't think I would change from Google Drive to Dropbox if I were doing a group edit. But Dropbox will still work well if multiple people are sharing a document and the ability to go back to previous versions will allow a group to see the edit history.

Having used Google Drive (the shared document feature) for both Information Provision 1 (we created a blog and shared a Google document between our group that had our report, our blog summary and any questions we had for each other), and Information Centre Management where it was crucial. When our ICM project was almost due there were some times where all 6 people were editing the project document on Google Docs. We could see with individually coloured cursers who was doing what where. Super useful tool for collaboration.

Over all I give two thumbs up to Dropbox. Its easy to use, its free for individuals not needing much space, it appears as a folder in all my computers and it does feel safe and secure. And I do think that a library or information organisation could use it happily. I found exploring Dropbox very instructive and something that is going to help me with my University studies quite a lot. 

Ellen