Mosman Ning is great. What i like about nings is that they can bring together a whole range of inforamtion and comunication applications within the one interface. The whole package would seem to me to be very attractive in developing a community of users with some common interest. I particularly like that it is easy for users to add content - this gives them a sense of ownership and belonging in the ning.

What i dont like is the cluttered nature of the example pages. Too many words - too many categories of items. Use more icons and limit them to 5-6 high value sections.
I also wonder about the amount of input required to maintain the content on these pages to the required standard and with a high level of content turnover. I guess the idea is that you develop a wider set of content providers and after a while they run themselves.

I have set up a delicious account and played around with it a bit. I can see its advantages in organising your bookmarks and making them more transportable. Locating and organising sites is not a problem for me at the moment - it might be if I was more mobile in my work or personal use of the internet. Delicious seems a bit complicated and i think you would have to really spend some time to fully utilise the program. I can see it could be useful in identifying information about a new subject, perhaps for reference work.

Signed up to Twitter today - initially dubious but I like what Mosman Council have done. Graham Jaunay, an SA genealogist has a useful twitter too.

I have signed up as a followerr and asked a few friends to join in.

I cant see myself using it for personal stuff but can see the possibilities for work related material. It would seem to me to be best used for very specific topic areas. I dont think the public would be really interested in a Library wide twitter but they might go for one that is specific to a certain area - such as a genre book discussion, family history, stuff specifically for children, for specific groups with well defined areas of interest.

What is its advantages over email lists & discussion groups ?

We shall see how it goes.

Changed my blog template by uploading a non-standard template from Mashable.com. Upload was ok but the new template wiped out a few of the things I use such as my Blog Archive gadget and my top navigation bar. It also added in an undefined date element to the posts which i dont know how to fix. The template doesnt resize to fit the screen either. I also noticed a lot of comments and notes about compatability problems when investigating.

I think the range of different designs that are available are great but when you move beyond the approved designs you are likely to have to spend some time cleaning up the design. The incompatability and usability of non-standard designs is a bit of a worry also.

I found this image on Flickr and it is a marvellous example of the type of thing that can be done with scrapbooking to illustrate your own family history.

Ancestry have added this resource to their collection of databases.

This directory was first published in 1966 by The Trustees of The Public Library of New South Wales. It was originally compiled by James Raymond, the Postmaster of NSW, primarily as a reference book for use in his own department. It was the first publication of this nature to include a directory of householders.

The collection contains images of the pages in the original book including a map of Sydney from 1831. There are 291 page images and 2,500 names in the directory which is fully word-searchable.

This blog is being set up as part of a Library 2.0 training program. It will cover a range of tips and techniques that I have personally learnt in researching my own family history. I will try to include the sort of stuff that you dont find in published works. It will also include posts about new resources and sources as they come to hand. It will also be open to comments, evaluations and experiences about genealogical services.