Week The Second. Twitter, Trove, and a Billion Graves

This week I joined Twitter, with the handle @jayechats.

I followed 'buddies' and other classmates, then found some library institutions to follow like The State Library and The Library Of Congress. Then I tweeted! It was surprisingly easy to use the different functions, like the hashtag for our class #isys1166, and replying to specific people using their @handles.

I attempted to get fancy with my blog by taking advantage of the 'link to twitter' function at the bottom of the post, and I shared it to #isys1166. Loving this connection with both blogging and microblogging! I can see how these skills can be extremely useful when wanting to keep up with the latest information and also promoting yourself.

I'm not ashamed to admit consulting a Twitter beginner's guide: http://mashable.com/2012/06/05/twitter-for-beginners/

Which got me onto this as I was getting started, also fun and interesting: http://mashable.com/2012/02/10/twitter-employees-to-follow/

I also decided to delve a little deeper, so consulted some tips and tricks:
http://mashable.com/2012/09/24/twitter-search-tips-tricks/

I had a look at media outlets and organisations using Twitter, and was impressed with Metro (Melbourne's metropolitan rail service) which tweets instant updates about delays and incidents on the transport network.

I also discovered that The Taco Truck, a popular Melbourne mobile Taco-selling business, tweets its location every day. At the time of writing this, the Taco Truck did not have a website, the way they communicate with their clients is through their Twitter or Facebook accounts. This really demonstrates the power that Web 2.0 social media can have, especially for information organisations like libraries trying to engage younger, more tech-savvy audiences.

The lack of privacy was an issue I initially had with Twitter, but on the other hand, it seems that you're not just following friends as you do on Facebook, you're engaging with interesting people all over the world.

I think the best approach for using Twitter's enormous potential is for people, organisations and companies to be professional at all times, whether that takes the form of being authoritative or informative. Just be yourself, and then you're contributing to a fascinating and endless worldwide resource with boundless possibilities.

Moving onto my fun with the world of Wikis, I explored Wikipedia for a while and didn't feel comfortable making any changes so I just browsed.

I did check out this interesting video from the Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian's blog about the connection between Wikipedia and libraries:
http://lonewolflibrarian.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/wikipedia-and-libraries-whats-the-connection-03-18-13/

I moved onto Trove, as the idea of correcting text and engaging with that kind of work appealed to me.

However, I wanted to take a screen grab of the article I started correcting so I could illustrate my progress, and realised that as I had just bought a fancy new Windows laptop for Uni, I didn't know how to do this. (I'm a Mac user predominantly). Then, a brainwave! Consult WikiHow!

WikiHow Did Show Me How!

Screenshots are go! Success using wiki information contributed by the masses.

So, back to Trove, and editing was surprisingly fun. My nerd-like qualities were out in force, and I thought to myself, I could happily do this for a job. But then, 45 minutes later, after completing my very first full correction for the article 'Cattle Judging at the Exhibition', I might have changed my opinion on the whole 'doing this for a job' idea...

Trove! http://trove.nla.gov.au/

Fixing the cattle judging article.
 Riveting stuff.

The Final Product!

Text corrected by sandwichfiend! That's me!

The very exciting link to my fabulous Trove work:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/881869?searchTerm=%20title:(cattle%20judging%20at%20the%20exhibition)%20date:[1800%20TO%201905]&searchLimits=q-field0|||q-type0=all|||q-term0|||q-field1=title%3A|||q-type1=all|||q-term1=cattle+judging+at+the+exhibition|||q-field2=creator%3A|||q-type2=all|||q-term2|||q-field3=subject%3A|||q-type3=all|||q-term3|||l-australian=y|||q-year1-date=1800|||q-year2-date=1905|||l-language=English


Then, finally, I moved on to explore the Billion Graves Project, which allows people with smartphones to visit cemeteries and take photos of headstones utilising GPS tagging.

Photos are then uploaded to the internet so that people all over the world can search for their ancestors. It's genealogy records on steroids!

I downloaded the BillionGraves app to my smartphone, and used it to locate St Kilda Cemetary. It gave me a map for easy navigating, and then I simply started taking photos and uploading them using the user-friendly interface of the app.

My St Kilda Cemetary Headstone Pictures

The next day, when I logged into the website to begin transcribing the names on the headstones into the BillionGraves database, I found that someone had actually already labelled and transcribed ALL of my photos! I found it quite amazing that only a day later some anonymous internet person had seen my photos and spent time inputting all the information.

Transcribing done for me!

My small contribution to the St Kilda Library Headstone Map

After my activities this week, I am even more enthused about delving further into the fast-moving world of technology and using it to explore and enhance the world of information management.