Thing Eleven: Social Bookmarking

The fun thing about doing 23Things is that I realize I'm not as behind the curve as I thought I was. I use a lot more of the web 2.0 things than I think. What I'm realizing is that these technologies should be integrated to do more easily what you were already going to do. I don't think it's necessary to try to invent uses for things that seem, well, time consuming or frivolous. I mean, it's cool to know that there are all those photo manipulator APIs out there, and I know that so many people use them a lot, but I will rarely, if ever, have much use for them. Some of the people I've talked to at the library about the 23Things project seem to feel put upon or resentful of having to do this, and I think that's fine. If their job is going the way they want and they are able to do what they need to do without web 2.0, cool. For myself this opens doors to the possibilities and gives me a library context; for that I am grateful. I do, however, think that all this signing up for accounts is intrusive. Who knows who is aggregating information about me? Following a digital/online trail is easy. I've been able to find out first and last names of people using nom de webs (not on purpose) just by following links to their various accounts. Not that they are necessarily trying to hide their identities, it's just that sometimes you don't realize how social social networking is. For some things I've set up accounts that I had originally believed would be used solely for myself. Now when I've come to want to link to them, I've been having some hard times trying to change screen names etc. Not to mention that many sites recognize my computer. I don't think it's going too far to be wary of these things, especially when we find that our government authorized illegal telephone taps. God knows who cares or why, I just want the freedom of anonymity...

Anyway, I have been using del.icio.us for a couple of years now, and I love it. I'm not really interested in the "social" part of it, but I really like being able to save online articles and blog entries etc. without having to cram the bookmark feature on my computer. Plus, the tagging makes them far more easily retrievable. I don't know how much I'd use del.icio.us for research, I guess it would depend on the topic. Like Wikipedia, del.icio.us might be a good way to start research and find primary sources.

I think tags are so unbelievably useful. Sure, there are always the too general tags, but in so many ways tags enable searches using regular language. I like that. And I like looking at tag clouds.

One thing that I've had a problem with is posting favorite articles to del.icio.us from a computer that is not mine. It seems that no matter what you must download the bookmarklet to be able to add favorites to your account. Regardless of if they (the bookmarklets) are removable, I think I should merely have to capture a URL to add it. I don't want to always have to add things to computers that are not mine. I just thought that was weird, I couldn't believe that it wasn't as easy as I thought it should be. Otherwise, I really like del.icio.us. I do not, however, enjoy having to type it.

Thing Ten

I edited the 23 Things on a Stick wiki. Well, all I really did was change all of the words "wiki" into bright red, but still. I've edited some Wikipedia entries before, like spelling and punctuation, but no real content I guess. I feel like I'd have to do some hard core research with a list of sources before I could do that, and that's what stops me. But, I think the beauty of Wikipedia is that there is a lot of stuff out there that people know, but don't necessarily know how or why they know it. And that's what makes Wikipedia a great starting point for research; it gives you enough information about something to help formulate meaningful questions. I think it is absurd to ban Wikipedia, but I don't think it's a good idea to use it as a primary source.
Wikis in general are cool for all the reasons that the last two exercises were cool: they allow collaboration through the internet. Strangely, despite all the enthusiasm for wikis, the one that is set up for the reference librarians at my library languishes. Is suspect no one feels they have time for it, as there is no specific focus to it. Maybe I'll have a crack at it...

Thing Nine

Funny, I was just cleaning out and organizing my email when I can across a "Welcome and Activate Your Account" email from 2006 from something called Writely. When I clicked on it now, it re-directed me to Google Docs. I vaguely remember at some point reading about having an online word processor and thinking what a great idea that was. Obviously, I even went so far as to sign up for it, only to never ever use it. Fact is, I generally have no need for that sort of thing, but now that my (other) professional life is taking off , I'm sure I'll be needing it all over the place. Well, not really, but I absolutely think it is great to be able to store documents online and have them be available for editing for selected people. I think Google Docs and Zoho are similar and that the more I used either one the better. I mean, it's just a matter of becoming accustomed, right?
I think the founding fathers would have been so excited not to have to write everything longhand. I, however, am sad to see the demise of cursive.
On another, not really related subject, I'm having something really weird going on with my last post. Every time I try to go into the edit posts page so that I can add a link into "Thing Eight," it flashes quickly on the edit screen and then disappears. I can right click and reload it, but the same thing happens. It's published with all the stuff, it's just that I am unable to further edit it. I think it must somehow be related to the Zoho presentation, so I'll have to remember that and find out what's going on.

Thing Eight

I figured, since it seemed I would have to sign up to Zoho for Thing Nine, when we edit a public document, that I might as well go ahead and do it now and use their online presentation/slideshow maker. It's kind of cool, but boy, I spent SO much time on it and it doesn't really have the sweet options that I would like. Granted, if I used it a couple of times it would definitely get speedier, and I'm sure I could figure out how to customize it so that the page appearance is better, but still it seems a bit clunky to me. With that said, I could see how it could come in handy. Not having to sweat importing a presentation to a new computer would really save a lot of anxiety, I think. It just wasn't as easy to manipulate as I would've liked.
Please forgive the cheesiness and roughness of the presentation, I HAD to force myself to quit or I would have spent forty hours on four slides:


For those of you who cannot appreciate the Unofficial Ontario Theme Song: Take off, eh?

Thing Seven

I can't imagine not using email. It's just so great to have text-based way of sending information that's faster than writing letters, but not instant. Which brings me to IM; I don't want to say I'll never use IM for personal use, it's just that I can't even stand talking on the phone. I hate having to make small-talk, or trying to come up with a conversation for the sake of conversing unless I can see someone's face (in person). With that said, IM at work rocks because we don't have to pick up a phone. It is so much faster and easier to be able to identify who is where and contact them directly without the added interface of a phone, since all of us are pretty much staring at the computer screen constantly anyway.
I'm ashamed to admit, being the mover and shaker that I am, that I am slow on the uptake as far as texting is concerned. Part of my issue is, again, the frivolous nature of seemingly 95% of texts(basically to hook up, right?) . Then there is the problem of cost: until it's free, I'm not adding another charge onto any of my bills. Speaking of, check this out all you readers of my blog (har har): Japanese Bestsellers. It's astounding and unsettling to read about these books because the sentences are shorter and the plot lines are virtually non-existent, but what strikes me is that the writers are really, really young. This is what young people do, and whether I like it or not, that is how people will want to communicate. More evidence: "Digerati." Yuck. Maybe if I just start doing it and stop bitching about it I won't hate it so much. I think, for the library, if messages could be sent and received using a computer then it wouldn't be so sucky. And I love the idea of request and overdue notifications being sent through text if a patron desires.
BTW why are the article links from 23 Things On a Stick from 2005? Are they the original articles from the original program? I think they should be updated.
I attended a Minitex webinar about Google custom searches. I started watching a webinar on OPAL, but my browser didn't work correctly. I could have switched, but I just thought I would try them both anyway. I think webinars are a great idea, I just have a hard time staying focused when I'm watching in my livingroom. It's great though-I don't have to take time off work or at least drive anywhere to go to a class. Smart. I'm gonna spend a bit more time to find something really interesting.

Thing Six

This is pretty fun. I wish there was some cost-effective way to figure out how to use book trading cards for a summer reading programs. Wouldn't it be cool for kids to have their own, personalized decks of cards showing what they had read instead of the traditional written down lists? They could write reviews on the bottom part. That would be so much more slick. But again, I can't think of any way to do it that would make financial sense. Maybe choosing selected books and reviews ...I dunno. I think there are some really fun things to do with these.
And yes, I am very concerned with legalities and making sure that artists get their due. I just think it is very important to educate (especially kids) that just because it is available, doesn't mean it is yours. The lego man image is from this article.
The photo itself is by Paul Vreeker for Reuters

What do you think of this bling? I am so funny I can hardly stand it.

Thing Five

I really like lip balm. I mean, I have big lips,so maybe it's justifiable that I'm using lip balm as a search term. Or maybe it's pathological:

LOOK AT LIPBALM

I love seeing the contents of people's purses and backpacks. I like it when it's all out in an orderly fashion. It makes me think that order is achievable. Anyway...

These APIs are fun and I think the main use for them is to make things look more slick. That may or may not be the top priority, but I really think that appearance gives credence and draws people in. The whole concept gets kind of dangerous to think about, especially with web design becoming more and more easy. One of the qualities that we were taught to look for when evaluating a website for library school was design:; how sophisticated the site was. I don't think it's as simple to tell as it used to be, because now there are so many ways to get code. Don't get me wrong, I love the look of well-designed things (duh),but so many things in the library are more important, yet I loathe the dated look of our libary's homepage, so I guess maybe I feel it's more important than I want it to be.

It's just nice to know that these mashups are available to use in whatever way you can think of. Integrating them into blogs and sites richens and enlivens the visitors experiences.

Thing Four

photo by massdistraction

I can't say that this is going as smoothly as I would like. I've been really distracted here at work (the only place where I have computer access currently)and it's all because I'm obsessively trying to upload photos to my blog. First of, let me say that I think visuals are intrinsic to the Web 2.0 experience. I don't think that they (the visuals) necessarily have to be photos, but I can tell you that when photos are involved I am fifty percent more likely to be interested. Even for simple things like finding books: despite what's been said, you can tell a lot about a book by it's cover. I love the concept of scrolling over a picture of something, like a bookshelf, and having it give me information about that thing. I've seen it done with aerial view maps, too, and that's totally rad.

I already had a Flickr account but, as I've mentioned, I'm not really interested in posting my own image or those of my friends and family online. I know, I know-I reap the rewards without having to take the leap myself. I struggle with how much people are willing to put out there about themselves ; but I LOVE IT!!!! I, however, cannot do it myself.

So, let me say that one of my favorite bloggers is Sharyn Morrow from right here in St. Paul MN, and it just so happens that she is a voracious Flickr-er also.

She's awesome, isn't she? With all of that said I don't know how much I will use Flickr. I would definitely recommend it to people, I will certainly peruse it when my favorite blogs link to it, if I continue blogging I'll most surely use it to add pizzazz to my pages, but I don't even own a camera. I have a three-year-old and I've probably taken no more than twenty photos total of him his whole life. Yes, that's how lame I am about photography. Personally. Come to think of it, I think this is fundamentally about me: I want everyone else to do the stuff so that I can enjoy it.

Thing Three

Hey, only twenty more Things to go! Yeah team!!!
I think RSS feed is intrinsic to a convenient, usable, useful Web. I've been using Google Reader as my aggregator for over a year now, and have the updates directly on my homepage. Before that, I bookmarked all my favorite blogs (sometimes as many as fifty!) and would have to check them whenever I logged on to see if they had been updated. How lame. And time consuming and disappointing if there were no updates. For me, RSS feed has revolutionized my Web use and allowed me to check out the usefulness of many more sites than I would have been able to monitor without it.
I have to say, I use it much more with blogs than any newsfeeds. I just don't need to know if the local paper has updated its feed because I already know that it has. For more general sites such as those, I think it is just easier to have them bookmarked so that your reader doesn't get bogged down by too many updates. Or, make sure that the update from a newsfeed that you want is specific, like choose the food section or the sports section. Otherwise you'll be getting hundreds of updates throughout the day.
Also, I feel that while tools for finding feeds are interesting, I think they'll be going by the wayside any day now; there's barely a legitimate site out there that doesn't have a feed. I have found most of the sites on my reader through links from other sites and have maybe come across one or two that doesn't have a feed. I just think it's almost a thing of the past, like trying to find a listserv. But what do I know?
Really, one of my favorite library blogs is Brian Herzberger's Swiss Army Librarian. He's just got a great voice, and features a reference question of the week which I find helpful considering my lack of experience. Jessamyn and Michael Stephens were two blogs that I had on my reader but got rid of because mostly they just updated me on where they were going next to give lectures. I became totally bored. Obviously they are two great people in the library field, especially as far as advancing Web 2.0, I just wanted more description of service in the trenches. Plus, Jessamyn is the one that linked me to Brian's site, so that was good.
Another site that I think is absolutely a must for Web 2.0 is iLibrarian. It keeps me informed of the latest technologies and how they relate to libraries. I think 99% of my knowledge of new technology comes from this site.
Do not hesitate to use RSS feed. It is not an option not to.

Thing Two

See, I'm already way behind: It's taken me weeks to get to number two.
I think the"Library 2.0" label is just a faddish way of saying that it is of utmost importance that librarians and libraries keep up with the needs and, yes, wants of the public. I feel that libraries in the past have always done an excellent job of fulfilling the expectations of those patrons who came in and asked, but more and more people don't think that they need to ask,or even come in. And libraries have to stay open. Libraries are vital, it's just that a lot of people don't understand how vital. So libraries have to show they are current, and currency means ACCESS.
Capitalist don't have time to wait for anything. It all comes back to money and time. And why should people wait if they don't have to. If libraries aren't going to help, then people will find a way without them.
We need to be "Library 2.0" because that is what we are expected to be. It's not about books, it's not about customer service, it's not about computers. It is about democratic access. To as many things as your brother, your sister, your government or, heck, your president, have access to so that you have a fighting chance to live as quality a life as you choose to live. Access should not be self-conscious: libraries should be matter-of-fact about their capabilities, that we are indeed ahead of the curve as far as providing access in all manner of ways. I think this is a duty of the librarian, just as it has always been. Now there are just new ways of doing it.

Thing One

I am such a great fan of blogs. I thirst for postings and follow some voraciously, yet I've always been so timid about trying new things on the internet for a number of reasons:

1. I've found that the more you know about using computers, the more you don't know.
2. I could spend the better part of a day figuring all this stuff out and getting it exactly the way I want it. And that's too much time. Especially when my three-year-old is wondering why he has to wait for my attentions.
3. Security. I don't trust the government. I don't necessarily trust my fellow man. I wonder just how much of an online presence I am comfortable with. On the one hand I love the online community and the personalities that I have seen there, but on the other I don't like the thought of being watched or tracked or any of that. I mean, it's easy enough to monitor people without being given a carte blanche into their lives as it sometimes seems personal blogs provide.

But, I really want to learn to use these things for myself, my friends, my kid, my patrons, and the only real way to do that is to do it online.

So here goes.