LIS in Oz

In a previous post, I was looking for the best social bookmarking service for my personnal use and for work. My favorite was Blinklist. I still appreciate it, but the release of a new service, Diigo, is very interesting.

See the review of this service by Solution watch : it figures out the features of Diigo, which are great. Except, in my opinion, the import features (very convenient, but not wide enough). Another thing is that I prefer the design of Blinklist, even if it's not the main criterion of choice, of course.

So, I will propose Diigo to my colleagues, and I will stay with both Blinklist and Diigo for my personnal use, at least in the beginning.

I'm currently trying to identify the equivalent of french institutions in Australia. In France, we have :

- the Commission bancaire : the Commission’s mission is to protect depositors as well as to act as watchdog over the French banking and financial system to ensure its profitability and financial stability.
=> Australian equivalent : Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is the prudential regulator of the Australian financial services industry : it oversees banks, credit unions, building societies, general insurance and reinsurance companies, life insurance, friendly societies, and most members of the superannuation industry.

- the Banque de france : its main task is to implement the single monetary policy within the framework of the ESCB (European System of Central Banks).
=> Australian equivalent : Reserve Bank of Australia : the RBA's main responsibility is monetary policy. Other major roles are maintaining financial system stability and promoting the safety and efficiency of the payments system..

- Banque de france : Systèmes de paiement et de titres
=> Australian equivalent : APCA - Australian Payments Clearing Association : APCA sets, manages and develops regulations, procedures and standards governing payments clearing and settlement within Australia.

This days, I am trying to choose a tool to do social bookmarking with my colleagues at work. So we could share our bookmarks and make the most of each of us discoveries, and perhaps share it with our "clients" !
It seemed quite easy to me, but I realize that lot of tools like that does exist : how to choose ?

Here are some links very useful : the blog 3spots who gives a list of the existing tools : ALL Social that CAN bookmark, and another list of Office 2.0 tools : Database Office 2.0.

I've already tried at least 20 of them, but I'm still hesitating between two or three : blinklist (which is at this point my favorite for a personal use : see my bookmarks on this page), furl, and netvouz.

I try to see the advantages and disadvantages of each of them by using them daily. I will make my choice very soon !

I've just discovered Netvibes, which is a custom made web 2.0 home page solution.
It's free, and it allows you to create a personalized page with the content you like, e.g. RSS feeds, bookmarks, mail, and stuff like weather or To do list.
What is really usefull is the possibility to create as many tabs as you want: I've set up one page for general information, one for feeds on librarianship, one for IT news etc...
A new competitor to this website is Linkedfeed.

Some french websites provide informations for people who want to move to another country:

- Les missions économiques: a part of the french ministry of foreign trade. The missions économiques are established in almost all the world, and provide many informations for societies which want to know the market: news, various publications, informations about expatriation, internship, commercial issues... See the list of periodical publications

- Maison des français à l'étranger (House of french people abroad): A service of french ministry of foreign affairs. It's missions are to inform french people who want to live or work abroad. You can look to the part dedicated to Australie, to the forum and buy booklets online.

I will add other websites soon.

I'm learning english since many years: in school, in high school... But there is something that I am struggling with: the phrasal verbs. I was told that the only way to control this expressions is...to know them by heart (good news: there is no "magical recipe" => does that expression exists in english ?).

You will find above some links to websites with explanations and dictionaries:

Dave's ESL Cafe : phrasal verb page

englishpage.com: Phrasal Verb Dictionary

Usingenglish.com: Dictionary of English Phrasal Verbs

Now, I know what to do this week-end !

An obvious way to start looking to the librarian and information sector in a country is the professionnal associations. In Australia, there is:

ALIA (Australian Library and Information Association)

ALLG (Australian Law Librarians' Group)

Both provide listservs where you can find a lot of informations, and ask for it !

There is a lot of ways to learn english. Here are the one I use:

- Podcast: the ESL Podcast is a very good way to listen to english and to learn vocabulary : three times a week, a new podcast is released. Their duration (15-20 mn) is just fine : first, a little conversation, then explanations, all in english.

- The city of Paris, where I live, offers english courses at a very low price. But it's difficult to get a place.

- Bilingual annual reports: that's a very good way to learn technical vocabulary. Each page is split in two parts, one in french, and one in english, which is very useful to compare what I have understand, and the translation made. Two examples :

AFTI (French Association of Securities Professionals)

AFIC (French association of Private Equity)

The best way to begin a blog may be to introduce myself, don't you think ?
Ok, let's do this... I am almost 28 years old, I work as a librarian, or information officer in the banking sector in France. I'm planning to move to Australia in october 2006, for one year (or more, who knows ?!).
This blog will help me to prepare this trip : first, writing it in english will help me to improve my fluency in this language (yet, I decided not to focus to much on my grammar and vocabulary mistakes, at least at the beginning) ; second, I want to gather on one place all the information I pick during my researches for this trip (tips, sources...) and especially about my job (information sector in Australia, finance/banking/legal environnement etc). An perhaps it will help other people in the same situation.
So, please, be indulgent towards me for my english (you can help me to correct my mistakes !).