And, I'm done!

I’m still having trouble with the fact that a great deal of the so called emerging technology out there is not really necessary. Or maybe I should say, the ways in which the technology is being used is not necessary. Sure, it’s fun, I like making lists of the books I’ve read and tagging things and seeing what web pages people find interesting and/or useful. I like being able to take a picture of myself and have it Warholized or Hockneyized of Simpsonized, but it’s not even remotely necessary and I end up feeling kind of ashamed that I’m wasting time playing with web sites instead of, oh I don’t know, solving global conflict or balancing my checkbook.

I only have so much time in a day; do I really want to spend it cataloging every book I’ve ever read? Maybe, but I’m a very lazy person. I like Bloglines because it saves time. Instead of going to each of my favorite sites individually, I check Bloglines a couple times a day and can feel pretty confident that I am up to date on all the important library related news. And celebrity gossip.

I know it’s important to be aware of technology, and all of the 23 ½ things have the potential to be used in some very meaningful ways. It’s just a matter of adapting the technology to fit my life, not the other way around. Can Librarything or the dreaded Rollyo be used to make my job and life easier? If not, out they go.

I’m still not entirely sure which of the 23 ½ I will retain in my bag of tricks, but at the very least, I have a lot to choose from.

Audiobooks? or Odd-e-o Books?

I really wish I could download audiobooks. My home internet is really bad. I once tried to download an episode of a sitcom, and had to give up because the bandwidth is so low, estimated time was 21 hours. Lame-O.
At any rate, the checkout process in really easy. And since you can now have 50 items checked out, we don’t have to worry about people wanting to return downloads before the due date to get something else.
I checked out “And then there were none” by Agatha Christie. I’ll see when I get home if I can download it.

Later:
Yeah, no. didn't work.
Hmmm.

Podcast people.

Signing up for podcasts is so easy! I like Podcast alley better than podcast.net mostly because of the layout. Yahoo is pretty good, but come on! Podcast alley lists “Vegan Freak Radio” as one of their top 10 for the month how can you not want to check that out?!

I added the podcast for Wait wait, Don’t Tell Me to my bloglines account. After fretting about the fact that I couldn’t find the tab for podcasts, I realized you just add them like regular rss feeds. No special steps required. Much easier than say...trying to download audiobooks?

Et Tu You Tube?

I chose this video becuas it makes me laugh.



I also like this one:
It's an anti-speeding ad from Ireland. It shows a super graphic car crash so don't watch if that sort of thing bothers you. I saw it by accidnet when I was in Galway and it freaked me out for days. Very effective!

And the Winner is...

First of all, I had never even heard of about ½ of the sites on the Web 2.0 Awards list so already I’m learning something useful.
Healia is a really good one to know about. I had someone call the other day, asking about the health benefits (if any) of tannins in wine and tea. I eventually found her some good information but now, when I searched for “Tannins” in Helia’s search engine. Right off the bat the first article to come up is “Forget Resveratrol, Tannins Key to Heart Health from Wine: Scientific American.” The articles are authoritative, and you can narrow or broaden your search as needed. I’ll definitely be bookmarking this one.

What's up Google Docs?

I decided to try Google Docs because I already have a Google account so why not. I uploaded some documents from my work drive (the word documents of my Learning 2.0 posts) and lo and behold! When I got home I could access them! O.K. s that’s cool. But wait! I can share documents with people and not have to constantly cut and paste and copy and email back and forth. This? I’ll use.

ThinkFree I didn’t like. When I went to the home page there was an excel document that kind of flashed at me and made me wonder if it might cause seizures. And it does that thing where the mouse arrow moves really jerky across the page. I don’t like that. As for the content? I couldn’t say because I abandoned it at the homepage.

Writeboard looks pretty good. I like that each document is individual rather than 1 account with all of them. It keeps it completely separate from any of your other documents. Which could be a pain, but I kind of like it. The down side is, it emails you with your document name and password so if anyone got into your email, they could access your documents. With Google docs, you would need the account password, which is not in your email verification.

17 1/2

Facebook seems to be one of the best of the Social Networking sites. At least the ones of which I am aware. Myspace is skewed to young for me and some of the pages are shall we say “not office appropriate.” I never got into Friendster although most of my friends did. Facebook seems like a fairly respectable option. I haven’t seen anything too risqué. I signed up but I don’t know how often I will use it.

There seems to be a huge gap between the potential and the reality. Potentially, you could use Facebook to reach out to our customers and provide better service. Unfortunately, it seems like all people ever really do with it is “throw” things at each other. I predict I will use it for about a month and then lose interest. I’m more likely to use my LinkedIn account. It serves a similar purpose but is way more professional. Plus I don’t like the idea of being “poked” by a total stranger.

Wikis (# 16 & 17)

Wikis can be a great way to pool information. We use one for the Metro Virtual Reference SIG and, although I haven’t contributed to it, I refer to it a lot since I can’t go to all of the meetings. While the greatest danger with wikis is the fact that anyone can pretty much add whatever they want, in most cases rudeness or inappropriateness is quickly recognized and challenged by the community itself.

I edited a few entries on wikihow: mostly just spelling mistakes. It’s remarkably easy and I like that it just registers your ip address so I don’t have to give them any personal info or sign up for anything.

Libary 2.Doh!

Maybe it’s because the concept of Library 2.0 have been around since I was in Library School, but I just don’t get what the big deal is. Any successful organization or company adapts to the available technology and needs of the users, don’t they? Libraries have been around for a looong time and they have always changed and adapted. Where did this idea come from that libraries, or more specifically: Librarians, are a bunch of unyielding ludites?
Most of the librarians I know adapt to technological innovation as best they can. Maybe they don’t jump on every bandwagon to pass through town, but they do cherrypick the things that will work best for them.

I think we sometimes confuse the wants of the customers with the needs. They might want journal articles to be available free online through google, but what they need to is to be taught how to find them in the databases. Is that forcing them to conform to my old fashioned ways? I don’t thinks so. It’s about me showing them how to use the best technology in a given situation. In this case, database searching is a better use of technology than a search engine.

Now, excuse me while I go telegraph holiday wishes to my friends.

# 14

Technorati is pretty good. I wouldn’t use it for “serious” research since the blog-based searching adds another level of questionable authority, but it’s good for general information. I haven’t come across anything for which it is the first place I would go for answers, mostly because, like Google, you have to sift through a lot of irrelevant listings to get to what you really want.

I tried searching for Web 2.0 articles (Thing #15) and using “Web 2.0” as search terms, well, the first listing was in German, the second was in Italian the third was only on Twitter and the fourth was in Chinese.
Hmm, not so useful…

Del.ici-wha?

Del.icio.us is really starting to grow on me. It’s handy to be able to access my bookmarks regardless of what computer I’m using and share them with others. I don’t really use it for personal bookmarking (yet) but it’s really handy for work. We use it in Telephone Reference to share useful pages and pinpoint specific information. If for example, we notice that we’ve had a few calls asking about one of the presidential candidates speeches, we can tag the press release and it’s easily accessible to whomever is on the desk.
It’s also handy for locating information. By browsing through other people’s collections and find some new pages or sites.
The only real problem I have with it is that remembering where the .'s in the name go is a pain in the neck.

LibraryThing

I already had a GoodReads account, but i might like LibraryThing better. I havent decided yet. Good Reads lets you choose different shelves, such as currently reading, read in 2007, etc, but the formatting is kind of weird and I ended up having to delete everything and start over, so not the biggest fan.
So far LibraryThing has caused me no heartache. I like the format, and although I haven't entered enough books to really make use of the tags, I think that would be a great resourse down the road.

Image generators

Note to self:

Se7en

I’m a little uncomfortable with how much of the “new” technology is geared toward, if not entirely based on, social interaction. Obviously blogs, Myspace and Secondlife exist specifically to create some sort of interaction with other people. Flickr, Snapfish and others sharing sites are a great way to share photos with friends or, if you prefer, total strangers.

Library Thing, del.icio.us, Good Reads and the like seem to cater specifically to some sort of sharing impulse. It’s not enough for me to keep track of the books I’ve read, I need to let everyone know. Sure, I can keep bookmarks of my favorite websites in my “Favorites” tab, but what good is that if no one else can see it? Clearly there are reasons other than ego to share such information with the world at large: We in telephone reference use de.licio.us to share links and pages that can help us do our job better. In a world of shared computers, online applications go with you. So why am I so uncomfortable with such cyber-sharing?

Maybe I’m a bit leery of having too much personal information out there for anyone to find. Maybe I feel like it’s too braggey to think that my opinion matters to anyone other than my close friends. Or maybe I’m just too lazy to bother updateing so many different accounts and blogs and forums.
The world may never know…

News feeds

Ok, so I'm going out of order. I'ver completed a lot of the 23 1/2 things the problem is finding time to post about it. So, I'm going to do my best to finish.
So, Number 9 find Library related blogs and /or news feeds.
Here are some good ones:
Tales from the Liberry
The Annoyed Librarian
A Librarian's guide to Etiquette
Shelf Check
The Shifted Librarian
and then there's McSweeney's Dispatches from a Public Librarian.

Number 6

Wow, you (ok, I) could spend a LOT of time playing around with various mashups.

Since it's the holidays I checked out some holiday themed mashups ans web apps and found one that sends letter to kids from Santa. Awesome! You plug in the childs name, hometown and what they want and they get a personalized respose from the big man himself!

Check it!