Exercise 11: Recommendations - Hornsby Shire Council Libraries

I suggest Hornsby Shire Council Libraries to develop a blog in their services.

 Blogs serve as a platform where the users can file their concerns, queries and suggestions regarding the services and activities of the library. For example, State Library of NSW is using blog services. In the categories of the blog, it provides some information about the children’s book week. It is a brainstorming event, where participants share their ideas about the shortlisted books, displays and competitions. It also provides information on e-books service announcement. This collection is comprised of 2,500 Australian books, mainly academic in nature and all being e-versions of published books held in the Library. Please visit: the website:

http://blog.sl.nsw.gov.au/pls/index.cfm/Bookweek

Another example is Ultimo college blog services, It provides a lot of the latest news about library services and resources. Please visit the website: http://sydneyinstituteonline.net/uclibrary/

I would further recommend the following according to different sections to Hornsby Shire Council libraries.

·         Local Studies : I would like to recommend a blog section to let locals to discuss on books, articles and events related to local community. A good example is librarything website: http://www.librarything.com/groups/local.
·         Children: I think podcats is a good media for libraries to promote children's books and children's events to children via playing audio or video files.
·         Teenage/Youth: Teenage/ youth are very active user of web2.0 technology. Hornsby Shire Council Libraries have been using facebook, twitter and youtube to services this group. It is also very important to apply mobile technology, e.g. Apple and Andoid mobile applications or mobile website. They will easy to know libraries services, programs and new resources.
·         Adult Fiction: I would recommend book reviews in a blog section. A good example is this blog in Groovy Library website, http://groovylibrarian.edublogs.org/2011/04/13/young-adult-fiction-book-reviews/.
·         Information/Reference: Digital reference (or virtual reference) is the service I would recommend. Digital reference could significantly reduce the time of users to search information and reference.

In conclusion, it is important of Hornsby libraries to develop and adopt web 2.0 technology to enhance their library services, it would develop people to socially connect online, through creating, viewing and the sharing of media files and information.  

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