For me this facebook Thing started at just about the time facebook really exploded in the national consciousness. I've discovered a zillion people I know using it, many of whom I've been happy to not know where they were for 20 or more years now, so it's disconcerting to have them requesting my attention. Otherwise the hurdle I have is figuring out which apps to use and tailoring the whole mess to represent my needs, without getting sucked into a black hole of pointless conversation.
I like the way you can turn elements of your own life and that of your family and friends into a newspaper of sorts. That's power!
I've also had several incidents arise with my newfound village. One was discovering a friend that I'd been out of touch with for awhile was inspired to post an "incident" from our past that I'd rather not be known by the general public (I could still run for President someday). Another was a fellow who presumed that my complaint about a minor facebook thing meant that I was too ignorant to figure out how to fix it rather than that I simply trying to be amusing. He corrected me in a supercilious manner that I found irksome being the technowhiz that I am (although I know he was just trying to be "helpful"). Another when I posted a link to one of the 23 Things articles that questioned the motives of facebook's masters and how they are out to exploit the general public. That person simply couldn't believe that if the general public was too stupid to understand the implications of what they were doing they didn't deserve better treatment. Of course, she's smart (and libertarian to boot so I guess it's a case of Atlas shrugging). I've always studiously avoided chat rooms, forums, blog discussions, etc. so I'll have to get used to the rough and tumble world of internet discussion.
MySpace is similar and different but who in the hell has time for all of this (outside of the PCC crowd)? Maybe there will be a solution when I get to aggregators. I think there are also apps that address the problem of having so many different Web 2.0 things going (let's see, MySpace, facebook, Twitter, a blog, email at 6 different accounts, LibraryThing, Meebo, wikis--take me home, country roads!
And of course libraries can use these things but it must be done with forethought, not just to jump on board the latest rage (which is what facebook is IMHO.)
Next!
PS
I'm convinced now more than ever that it's important for us to keep up with social networks and other web tools.
PPS
I know I skipped Thing 15, I'll get back to it.
Showing posts with label 23 things. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 23 things. Show all posts
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Thing 14--YouTube and Online Video
I'm not sure whether I should be ashamed or proud but I'm a regular user of both YouTube and Hulu (and a half a dozen more video sites). It all started when my TV blew up and I decided that I wasted too much time with TV anyway so instead of getting another one I started looking at YouTube and now I waste time watching things online.
The difference is the control I have to watch the things that interest me, whether it's skateboarders getting their nuts cracked or the origin of the universe. While there is an awful lot of time wasting stuff there, it's easy to avoid. I don't have to watch something awful because it's the only thing on and I don't have the willpower to turn the tube off. Instead, I can watch something edifying even though I still don't have the willpower to turn the d*mn thing off. My only concern is that if the "content providers" ever get their act together some of this stuff could disappear, which makes me want to waste a lot more time watching it than I should.
Hulu is especially great if you don't have a TV because there are lots of television programming there as well as movies and other odds and ends. The best thing about it is that it ends the tyranny of broadcast TV. You can watch what you want when you want it. You don't have to wait for a commercial to run off to the bathroom or kitchen, just put the player on pause. It's the civilized way to watch TV.
The difference is the control I have to watch the things that interest me, whether it's skateboarders getting their nuts cracked or the origin of the universe. While there is an awful lot of time wasting stuff there, it's easy to avoid. I don't have to watch something awful because it's the only thing on and I don't have the willpower to turn the tube off. Instead, I can watch something edifying even though I still don't have the willpower to turn the d*mn thing off. My only concern is that if the "content providers" ever get their act together some of this stuff could disappear, which makes me want to waste a lot more time watching it than I should.
Hulu is especially great if you don't have a TV because there are lots of television programming there as well as movies and other odds and ends. The best thing about it is that it ends the tyranny of broadcast TV. You can watch what you want when you want it. You don't have to wait for a commercial to run off to the bathroom or kitchen, just put the player on pause. It's the civilized way to watch TV.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Thing 13--LibraryThing
My question now (even before we reach the Facebook and MySpace Thing) is what possible use (or time) do I have to participate in a dozen different social web sites that demand learning how they work, participating in their conversation, adding a profile and information (as in the books I've read for LibraryThing) and on and on and on? I think we need an OpenID equivalent for these sites where you can share your information with all of them at once.
On the Gripping Hand, I have to say that LibraryThing is interesting and useful and I see no reason why we can't use it with our catalog. To answer my own question the solution is to pick and choose the social media sites that best reflect your interests. My goal is to visit Library Thing regularly enough to make it useful for me.
On the Gripping Hand, I have to say that LibraryThing is interesting and useful and I see no reason why we can't use it with our catalog. To answer my own question the solution is to pick and choose the social media sites that best reflect your interests. My goal is to visit Library Thing regularly enough to make it useful for me.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Thing 11
I've been using delicious for a while now and have never taken it past the "bookmark" phase. I knew there was more horsepower there than I was using but, eh, who's got the time? I'm now better aware of the "social" uses of the bookmarks and have already used that aspect to explore subjects of interest. I'm also intrigued at the potential of using it as an alternate search engine and as a way of sharing with a group of like-minded people (the Henry Clay Admiration Society, for example.) Tagging is another thing I've grown to like and am very frustrated at the inability of Windows to use tags. Files would be so much easier to find over time if I didn't have to search through various folders trying to remember where I've left them. Saving bookmarks and being able to use them anywhere is useful, and exploring weird or obscene words is good for a laugh, too. Using delicious, or some other social bookmarking tool, at the library is a natural and should be considered as a dandy alternative to the pages of links we maintain when the Website redesign occurs later this year.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Thing 10
Wikis are a great way of collaboratively developing a website, but they are not suitable for every web-based project. While some websites might benefit from the insights of the community, others function better under tighter control. If you are looking to develop content that requires input from people outside of the library, a wiki is a the ideal tool to solicit that content.
A wiki is a great format for a subject guide. Because it can be edited by anyone, patrons can add to the collection of useful resources and can prune away the dead links. The librarian can moderate the wiki and decide what websites can stay in the guide, or he or she can let everyone contribute freely. It’s a great way to develop a subject guide that really represents the interests of its users and doesn’t put the entire burden of finding websites on the librarian.
These first two paragraphs are plagiarized from one of the references Phil sited. I used these unattributed quotes to make a point about the wild west nature of wikis, although the fact that they are used successfully by many organizations shows that this is a manageable problem.
Wikis are only as good as the people who make them. The corillary for this is that a wiki can be dragged down by trolls quickly without constant maintenance. One of the selling points of a library wiki is to take the workload of maintaining a site's links off the librarian but if said librarian has to spend time making sure no one has slipped four letter words into the middle of a book review where is the savings in that?
Enough complaining. I found Joyce Yukawa's links especially interesting on how wikis are used by other libraries. (Although the PBWiki update notice was very annoying.) Like many of the 23 Things I'm glad to have this opportunity to learn about these products even if I don't have an immediate use for them.
One last thing, while reading the "Cosmic Variance" website I ran across this statement by Sean Carroll: "What I really found interesting was that Ebert, after giving up on Wikipedia — and rightfully so, their physics articles are uniformly useless for someone approaching the ideas as an outsider - turned next to YouTube for edification!"
This resonated with me because I'm reading a biography of Martin Van Buren and like to fill in the details by checking Wiklpedia. I noticed that the Wikipedia had simplified, to the point of being wrong, Van Buren's involvement with the Free Soil Party. Subtly incorrect information is worse than obvious misinformation and this may be the wikis' Achilles heel.
A wiki is a great format for a subject guide. Because it can be edited by anyone, patrons can add to the collection of useful resources and can prune away the dead links. The librarian can moderate the wiki and decide what websites can stay in the guide, or he or she can let everyone contribute freely. It’s a great way to develop a subject guide that really represents the interests of its users and doesn’t put the entire burden of finding websites on the librarian.
These first two paragraphs are plagiarized from one of the references Phil sited. I used these unattributed quotes to make a point about the wild west nature of wikis, although the fact that they are used successfully by many organizations shows that this is a manageable problem.
Wikis are only as good as the people who make them. The corillary for this is that a wiki can be dragged down by trolls quickly without constant maintenance. One of the selling points of a library wiki is to take the workload of maintaining a site's links off the librarian but if said librarian has to spend time making sure no one has slipped four letter words into the middle of a book review where is the savings in that?
Enough complaining. I found Joyce Yukawa's links especially interesting on how wikis are used by other libraries. (Although the PBWiki update notice was very annoying.) Like many of the 23 Things I'm glad to have this opportunity to learn about these products even if I don't have an immediate use for them.
One last thing, while reading the "Cosmic Variance" website I ran across this statement by Sean Carroll: "What I really found interesting was that Ebert, after giving up on Wikipedia — and rightfully so, their physics articles are uniformly useless for someone approaching the ideas as an outsider - turned next to YouTube for edification!"
This resonated with me because I'm reading a biography of Martin Van Buren and like to fill in the details by checking Wiklpedia. I noticed that the Wikipedia had simplified, to the point of being wrong, Van Buren's involvement with the Free Soil Party. Subtly incorrect information is worse than obvious misinformation and this may be the wikis' Achilles heel.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Thing 7
(Written while waiting for a notoriously impatient, rude, and technically inept patron to explode. She left with just a few sighs, grunts, muttered curses, and after throwing an offending printout behind the printer where it could be a fire hazard—oops, now she's back.)
Using MeeboMe to enhance the PAC is a good idea, especially for patrons using the catalogue from their homes.
Twitter could be used to give general announcements: "The library is closed due to the weather," "Monday we have a special book sale," "Advanced Word Class Tuesdays 6:30-8:00." There could be multiple threads: Employees, Adult Services, Mystery lovers, cat fanciers, etc.
Problems: Getting People to check their Twitter feed (at least until they get used to doing it) and Who will feed the feed?
Another pain with Twitter and Facebook is that the inbox of the email address I gave when I signed up is full of notices from people and groups that claim to be folowing me and want me to do the same with them. I don't have time to sort through all these self-promotong goobers, much less follow them. It's like SPAM all over again. I blame you, Phil. Tweet this! (Update: I just read an article about how Twitter has become an avenue for spammers, so Tweet this twice, Phil!)
Using MeeboMe to enhance the PAC is a good idea, especially for patrons using the catalogue from their homes.
Twitter could be used to give general announcements: "The library is closed due to the weather," "Monday we have a special book sale," "Advanced Word Class Tuesdays 6:30-8:00." There could be multiple threads: Employees, Adult Services, Mystery lovers, cat fanciers, etc.
Problems: Getting People to check their Twitter feed (at least until they get used to doing it) and Who will feed the feed?
Another pain with Twitter and Facebook is that the inbox of the email address I gave when I signed up is full of notices from people and groups that claim to be folowing me and want me to do the same with them. I don't have time to sort through all these self-promotong goobers, much less follow them. It's like SPAM all over again. I blame you, Phil. Tweet this! (Update: I just read an article about how Twitter has become an avenue for spammers, so Tweet this twice, Phil!)
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Thing 6: Communication Tools
Awful lot of reading to this one. (Imagine that!)
Once I figured out what pr0n means I was able to soldier on with this section.
43 Folders wasted an awful lot of time being clever, "pouring a 40" for himself. I learned some slang terms, but if Merlin Mann was really interested in productivity he could have said everything he needed to say in a paragraph or less.
Looking around 43 Folders there is actually good advice here. For instance the "Procrastination hack" is a technique I discovered on my own and works pretty well (of course I often put off using it). Maybe I will bookmark this site and probe it once in awhile.
Email is sort of the "grand old person" of communication. It makes a good bulletin board to get the general issues of the day as well as specific interchanges with folks. It's also a good way to keep a record if one ever needs explain the genesis of an idea or controversy. I've heard IM espoused as a good way to keep some things "off the record" but since the services I'm aware of seem to keep records of the conversation I think I'll stay wary of that usage. I would say that email increases productivity since most messages are to the point and devoid of social chat that are inevitable over the phone or face-to-face. I'm not sure that IM works the same way.
I use many email services and my biggest gripe is that once I've invested in one by saving emails to folders and by giving my address to people it becomes very difficult to leave that service if I ever become dissatisfied with it (I'm talking about you, Hotmail). The thought of downloading 8 years of saved messages one at a time and informing everyone I write to from the account that I'm moving is (so far) more daunting than the aggravation of putting up with their so-called improvements. The solution could be using Outlook or Thunderbird to download and store emails on my computer, but that seems so 20th Century.
We're still trying to get an IM group together. The main problems is that the services we've tried don't have an obvious way to inform someone intent on some other aspect of their job that a new message has arrived, and in having people online when you need to communicate with them. (Well, and having something to useful to say besides lol.) It should be useful for exchanging information that normally goes through email, and it could be useful for the downstairs to communicate with the upstairs (say with IS about a computer problem), but like the phone it depends on the person you're communicating with being at their desk, so why not just use the phone? Ditto for texting.
I'm still looking into web conferencing. I signed up with WebJunction Learning Webinars. It looks useful but it's hard to find the time to take advantage of it and I'm too exhausted right now to take Thing 6 any further.
Once I figured out what pr0n means I was able to soldier on with this section.
43 Folders wasted an awful lot of time being clever, "pouring a 40" for himself. I learned some slang terms, but if Merlin Mann was really interested in productivity he could have said everything he needed to say in a paragraph or less.
Looking around 43 Folders there is actually good advice here. For instance the "Procrastination hack" is a technique I discovered on my own and works pretty well (of course I often put off using it). Maybe I will bookmark this site and probe it once in awhile.
Email is sort of the "grand old person" of communication. It makes a good bulletin board to get the general issues of the day as well as specific interchanges with folks. It's also a good way to keep a record if one ever needs explain the genesis of an idea or controversy. I've heard IM espoused as a good way to keep some things "off the record" but since the services I'm aware of seem to keep records of the conversation I think I'll stay wary of that usage. I would say that email increases productivity since most messages are to the point and devoid of social chat that are inevitable over the phone or face-to-face. I'm not sure that IM works the same way.
I use many email services and my biggest gripe is that once I've invested in one by saving emails to folders and by giving my address to people it becomes very difficult to leave that service if I ever become dissatisfied with it (I'm talking about you, Hotmail). The thought of downloading 8 years of saved messages one at a time and informing everyone I write to from the account that I'm moving is (so far) more daunting than the aggravation of putting up with their so-called improvements. The solution could be using Outlook or Thunderbird to download and store emails on my computer, but that seems so 20th Century.
We're still trying to get an IM group together. The main problems is that the services we've tried don't have an obvious way to inform someone intent on some other aspect of their job that a new message has arrived, and in having people online when you need to communicate with them. (Well, and having something to useful to say besides lol.) It should be useful for exchanging information that normally goes through email, and it could be useful for the downstairs to communicate with the upstairs (say with IS about a computer problem), but like the phone it depends on the person you're communicating with being at their desk, so why not just use the phone? Ditto for texting.
I'm still looking into web conferencing. I signed up with WebJunction Learning Webinars. It looks useful but it's hard to find the time to take advantage of it and I'm too exhausted right now to take Thing 6 any further.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
23 Things Part 2
(Written while keeping one eye on Doug and another on a baby that is starting to fuss.)
The dynamic change we're experiencing is actually an old story in America. One of the main reasons Henry Clay failed in his quest to become President is because he didn't recognize the historic movement that his great rivals Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren embraced, when the idea of a republic changed to a democracy in less than a generation's time. When I started five years ago people did not use thumb drives, iPods, Wikipedia, or YouTube; and cell phones were the exception, not the rule. Libraries, being the repository and the clearinghouse of information, are bound to be at the cutting edge of the information age. The only way to keep ahead is to keep learning. As the saying goes, "A shark has to keep swimming or die."
The questions:
The dynamic change we're experiencing is actually an old story in America. One of the main reasons Henry Clay failed in his quest to become President is because he didn't recognize the historic movement that his great rivals Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren embraced, when the idea of a republic changed to a democracy in less than a generation's time. When I started five years ago people did not use thumb drives, iPods, Wikipedia, or YouTube; and cell phones were the exception, not the rule. Libraries, being the repository and the clearinghouse of information, are bound to be at the cutting edge of the information age. The only way to keep ahead is to keep learning. As the saying goes, "A shark has to keep swimming or die."
The questions:
- I'm participating to learn in order to be better prepared to help the public.
- I'm able to find most information when I need it, or at least where it's located, without leaving my home or office.
- I'm decent, but not great, at Web 2.0, but at least I have an inkling of what I'm lacking. I realized that while I take advantage of much Web 2.0 stuff I don't do so very deeply—I figure out how to do what I need to do and ignore the rest, which means I miss out on many features. 23 Things seems a great way to fix that. Ditto for my library.
- I'm interested in everything to be discussed, although it looks like a list of Phil's classes.
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