Week 7: tasks 13 - 15: file sharing and collaboration

Task 13: explore Google Docs and Drop Box. Create and upload a document in one of these and share it with some of your 23 Things colleagues.

Task 14: explore and blog about Zotero; a citation management system with the advantage of being able to save resources in multiple formats (journal articles, PDFs, PowerPoint, images, webpages and podcasts).

Task 15: explore existing wikis such as LISWiki (www.liswiki.org) and read Noodle's article on using wikis as an intranet (www.vialect.com/ways-to-use-wikis-in-your-intranet). Post the advantages and disadvantages of using wikis as a library intranet.

Google Drive (which was Google Docs until 2012) https://drive.google.com: I first uploaded a document to my  in 2007, a Word .doc. In my work with CILIP SE Hants&Wight I also have access to shared documents in a Google Drive by logging in to ciliphw@googlemail.com.

Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com: I signed up to and downloaded Dropbox in December 2012 at the request of Richard Hawkins, CILIP's Online Information Manager, for CILIP's Website Refresh Project which I am involved in as I am the web editor for both the SE Hants&Wight sub-branch and the ARLG Southern sub-group:

"Access to Documents and Images from the Current Website: All the documents and images (including publications such as newsletters etc) from your branch and group web pages are now available to you via a Dropbox folder. If you require access to these files please let me know and I will share the appropriate Dropbox folder with you so you can download them (you will need to sign up with Dropbox if you haven’t already). Please therefore reply and provide me with the email address you used to register your Dropbox account as I need this to enable the sharing to take place, and state which branch or group’s files you require access too. Many of the files will be available in the future via the British Library Web Archive copy of the current site. However some documents saved in member-only pages will not be available so unless you have a complete record yourself you might want to download the Dropbox back-up before the current website becomes unavailable."

Zotero www.zotero.org: You have to sign up and then download a browser plug-in - these are available for Firefox, Chrome and Apple's Safari (and ZotPad app in iPad for £7). This looks like a useful online store for researchers who want to collect, organise, and share oline articles and book references from online library catalogues etc. that they've found.

Wikis: LISWiki's content is patchy; lots about some topics while little or nothing on others. But it does indicate the potential of an informative website where many people log in and share what they know about certain topics, and so build up a reference resource (like Wikipedia).