Del.icio.us, tags, and Library 2.0

I first heard of Del.icio.us when I was in library school. I was in our computer lab, probably working on a paper, and I overheard a couple of other students talking about it. I looked at it briefly but didn't really think about it much after that(probably because I have trouble remembering where to put the dots, and what's the point of using a URL that you can't remember?), although I did hear about it on periodically. Looking at it now, I do see it as useful, although I tend to just keep my list of favorite websites in my head. I can see it being useful, though, especially if I were to use multiple computers on a regular basis. It would also be particularly useful in situations involving roving reference. I guess that's part of what Library 2.0 means to me - the ability to share information and resources that we find useful in ways that make them more convenient and likely to be found. That's not to say that everything works or is a good idea for every library, or even every person, but in this networked world, we have to figure out ways to make the technology work with us.

I found Technorati to be a good place to "visit," although I'm not sure I'd want to encourage my blog to "live" there by using its tags. Perhaps if I wanted to keep a "professional" blog I'd want to be listed, but I generally try to keep my non-library life offline, or at least make it difficult to find. Besides, I already have plenty of ways to lose hours on end (especially now that I've learned about so many through TLC 2.0)!

Wikis

Although I've used wikis before for various reasons, I've never done any editing on one. I must admit that I'd rather use html than the tools provided in the pbwiki site to apply styles, but that's mainly because it's easier to just keep the fingers on the keyboard. The mouse is just so far away! Okay, maybe not. :) But despite the bad press sites such as wikipedia get, wikis are tremendously useful. I've taken classes where students in group projects used closed wikis as a collaborative medium to share thoughts, ideas, and their work. In libraries, wikis can be especially useful to share information and ideas among library staff.

So I haven't quite completed all 23 things yet (vacation really threw me off!), but I still can summarize my thoughts on what I've done so far. Then if I have more thoughts on those things I haven't done yet, well, that's what the "Edit Posts" function is for! :)

Overall this has been a really good experience to introduce me to some things that I hadn't really considered before. I had heard of almost all of the things in the 23 tasks before, although there were many that I hadn't actually looked at, or that I hadn't looked at beyond a cursory glance. A few were things with which I was already pretty familiar, which tends to be par for the course in just about any learning experience. After all, starting completely from scratch on something is frequently extremely difficult!

I had a lot of fun with Facebook, since that's something I'd been meaning to get around to eventually anyway. The mashups, image generators, and poking around on YouTube were all a little more time-consuming than I would have liked, although that's just due to the fact that they were fun to play with. It's good to have set tasks, since a cursory glance or quick play with various tools often doesn't really provide you with enough information to know whether you really want to use them. I enjoyed the Second Life workshop, and although it's technically not Web 2.0, it's one of the "extra things," so I'm counting it here. I wish I had more time to explore many of these resources, as I suspect I'll be hearing and learning more about them in the future.

Podcasts

Just as with feeds (don't you like how I'm tying two posts together?), I tend not to go out looking specifically for podcasts. I suspect that if I had an MP3 player, I might do it more, especially if I could make myself get back to the gym, where I'd actually be likely to listen to them. I do listen to several regularly, though, Car Talk and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me (both also heard on NPR) being by far the most regular.

By the way, if you ever feel as if you don't know what's going on in the world, Wait Wait is a very fun one-hour summary of what went on in the world over the past week. It's also good exercise (ooh, now I'm tying two paragraphs in this post together), since you spend a lot of time laughing, and laughter is supposed to be very good exercise.

When I went searching for podcasts through the directories provided, I came across this reading of the news in German especially for non-native speakers. This gives me a little more hope that I can get back into my German again!

RSS and newsreaders; finding feeds

Although I subscribe to a few RSS feeds via other sources, I've never actually tried to set one up or actively searched for them. I generally just either stumble across something with a feed I want or already know of something with a feed that I want to keep an eye on. Although it did take a bit to really figure out what was going on and find some feeds that I wanted, I did end up finding some that I think will be useful. As far as the search tools for feeds, I may be showing some of my weirdness, but the one I liked best was Syndic8, largely because it focused on text rather than the pretty formatting of the others. When I go looking for news or other information, I prefer to not be distracted by all the other neat things that are out there (well, I don't mind finding out about other things, just not when I'm looking for something in particular!). One problem with setting up and subscribing to feeds like this is that, while it helps to cut down on time spent reading or listening to a variety of sources, it encourages you to subscribe to even more than you (or at least I!) normally would, which doesn't help to cut down on time. But ah, well, I guess that's the price we have to pay in this information-rich world. I can definitely see using a feed for comments to this blog, since I don't have Blogger set up to automatically email them email to me.

YouTube

I was going to use the Monty Python Gorilla Librarian sketch for this post, but someone already took that. So instead, here's one of my other favorites - the Sesame Street library skit.


I've seen a lot of library-related videos posted on YouTube. Some have come across through the AL email newsletters (March of the Librarians, anyone?), while I've seen others because of links folks have shared in other fora, or friends have sent them to me. I try to avoid spending time browsing YouTube, because I'd end up stuck there for hours on end, never to see the light of non-computer-monitor again.

Facebook

I kept meaning to get around to joining Facebook. I originally wanted to join back when you had to have a college/university email address, but I wasn't in college or working for one at the time, so I couldn't. Then they changed that rule, but I wasn't so into the idea any more. After all, I have other ways of keeping up with many of my college friends. I'd been toying with the idea again lately (okay, I'll be honest: I'd think about it periodically for the past year or so), so this was the perfect opportunity to go ahead and actually do it. Side note: Isn't it funny how you're most likely to think of something when you can't do anything about it? Seems I'd only remember that I wanted to join Facebook when I was either away from my computer or involved in something else and couldn't do it at the time.

Thoughts on Facebook:
-I'm slightly annoyed that you can't pick more than one option for the "I am" and "School Status" parts of registration - what happens if you fall into more than one category?
-I'd really like some assurance that, since I have to provide my full name, they won't be posting it anywhere. I like to keep the various aspects of my life as separate as possible.
-The registration process could have been a little quicker.

But enough ranting. Here's what I liked as I registered and beyond:
-the ability to import and find friends from my address book and AIM. Timesavers! Even though most of the ones found were folks with whom I work instead of the college and grad school friends I'd pictured it finding. ;)
-Registration is broken into steps, which is quite nice.
-Lots of ability to personalize and edit the information shown.
-Finally getting around to registering and playing around on the site!! :)

Web-based applications and the Web 2.0 Awards

Zoho Writer is something I wish had been around a few years ago when I was in library school. One of our mandatory classes involved an enormous group project in which we analyzed workflow patterns for an organization, documented them, and made recommendations. Our group of four (or was it five?) people spent countless hours meeting and cooperatively editing the various documents required for the class and the final presentation to the class and all of the organizations that had been involved. While ZohoWriter may not have helped as much with the final product (I'm always suspicious of any type of file conversion when there's a set of very specific rules as to the formatting and presentation of the final product), it would have been a great help as we shared our various portions of the work.

I'd heard of Kayak.com before, and since I'm always on the hunt for good airfares, I decided to try it out by searching for fares from Ft Lauderdale to my hometown. I was slightly surprised to see that it found a good variety of fares, as my hometown airport isn't exactly known for a large number of options (it's always funny when the pilot announces that we're first in line for takeoff - the only other possible travelers in line for takeoff would be of the feathered variety). While I'm not sure that this particular tool is as useful for me as it would be for someone going to a larger city, it certainly helps to be able to search multiple travel sites at once. I also appreciate that it searches airline sites as well, although with only two airlines (we just got a second last year!), and a grand total of 5 flights out daily, it's not a particularly difficult task to search the airlines' sites myself. I do appreciate the ability to easily email or print the fares found, and the ease of adjusting preferences for layovers, departure and arrival times, etc. Another thing I found myself appreciating here was the lack of graphics. Even with a fast Internet connection, ads (because let's face it; that's what the majority of the graphics on standard travel sites are) are annoying and take time to load. So I suspect that I'll be using Kayak.com more in the future, even for booking flights to my tiny hometown. I love one-stop-shopping!

Rollyo

This is completely new to me, but oh, so useful! I'm used to going either to the search engines on a variety of sites or using Google to search a specific site if I need to, so having everything in one place is a nice thing - another tool in the arsenal. Since I enjoy playing around with math-related topics, I decided to search several of my favorite math websites. Here's the result.

LibraryThing

I used to have a LibraryThing account, but I forgot about it. Now I have No Clue what my username and password are. So I made a new one here. I like the different ways to view your lists, as well as the community and reviews. Possible favorite was the "Author Cloud," although mine was pitifully small. I looked at the cloud for one of my friends who uses it regularly, though, and it was very large and very much in line with what I like to read. Not that our shared reading preferences were news. ;)

For those of you who are familar with such things, doesn't the font on the top of the page look like the font that Unshelved used to use?

Playing with image generators.

The virtual fortune cookie is quite fun, but it doesn't provide code to copy, and I don't feel like editing a screenshot right now. I guess you'll just have to go and play with it yourself! I have yet to get the same fortune twice.

Then I tried the Web 2.0 application generator, as it seemed appropriate.

I then attempted a Delft plate (click on "Tailor Made" and then "Design Your Own Plate"), but it hasn't arrived in my inbox as of the time I'm posting this.

And remember those 3-D pictures that I, for one, never could see properly? Look, mom! I made one! I still can't see the image, but I did learn that my handwriting on a computer screen is at least as bad as my handwriting on paper.

Flickr

So...I have to admit that I'm not all that familiar with Flickr. I've used it some, I have an account, and I've viewed friends' pictures on it, but I've never done more than just posting a few pictures. And right now I'm not sure that I remember my username, much less my password. Ah, well. I'm sure I'll figure it out some day. I know I've got it written down...somewhere...maybe...hopefully.

Here's an image that amuses me. I guess it's good to know that those Canadians are making important contributions to society.

I also remember a while ago seeing a great set of library-related corporation logos that someone had "adapted." Not the best description, which is probably why I can't find them. I'm going to look around some more and see if I can track them down, because they were good. Very good.

Regarding mashups...I've heard of them, seen some, even. Hadn't really tried to actively look at or explore them until now. I always think of mashed potatoes, which makes me hungry. Fortunately I ate breakfast not too long ago. But still...now I'm craving mashed potatoes.

Anyway, I am highly intrigued and amused by the
retrievr mashup and see a great deal of procrastination potential when it comes time for my next paper for class. Thanks?

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I'm not a huge Flickr user. I think I'll have to do some more exploring now, but I mainly use photosharing-type sites for, well, sharing photos. I'm a long-time Photobucket user, although I haven't gotten around to editing and adding photos to my albums over there for a while now. One thing that I don't care for about Photobucket is that, at least last time I looked, you can set your entire account to "public" or "private." I'd like some of my photos to be private, since I'm slightly paranoid about keeping my identity reasonably private online. When you have a name that's very Google-able, that can be difficult to do. So I try to avoid posting pictures or making blog posts that would allow people to easily link my usernames and real name.

And there's another thing...how about how the Internet and the tools and services we use have become part of and affected our everyday vocabulary? As a grammar geek, I'm intrigued by how certain words have made it into our vernacular. Most of us have probably spoken of "googling" something. I refer to some sites as "over there" as if they're a real physical place - "Hey, check out that great procrastination tool over at Flickr!" Those are just two that pop to mind right now. What others can you think of?

7 1/2 habits

7 1/2 habits sounds so much better than just 7 habits or 8 habits, doesn't it? Or maybe I just like fractions. I had to read The 7 habits of highly effective people for a class in high school, and I'm sure I would have enjoyed it a lot more had it been The 7 3/4 habits of highly effective people or The 7 1/16 habits of highly effective people. They just sound a lot more interesting. And then I could find out what 3/4 or 1/16 of a habit is. I won't say that's something I've always wanted to know, but now that I've thought of it I suspect it's going to bug me until I figure it out. (Hey, this blog does call itself "ramblings." No false advertising here.)

But we're supposed to talk about the habits from the slideshow. So...the easiest habit for me probably is to begin with the end in mind. I've got all sorts of things on my "to learn" list - it grows at least monthly, if not weekly or daily. Some of them are pretty easy to accomplish, but others, such as learning or brushing up on languages, are going to take a while.

The most difficult habit is a little harder to pin down. I've got some aspect of each habit pretty well set - I do take responsibility for my own learning in many areas, but I just need to find the time to do that for everything (or at least most things!) that I want to learn. I know resources for many of the things I want to learn, and those that I don't know, I can find relatively easily by searching or asking others. The trouble is, the urge to learn new things doesn't go away, and even if I were retired, I know I still wouldn't have enough time to do everything I want to.

So I have to prioritize, and many of the things I want to learn I just can't do right now, and sometimes that annoys me. I look forward to times when I'll have more time, though, so that I can hopefully get started on another thing on my "to learn" list. Part of the "trouble" there is that lifelong learning is just that - most things you want to learn aren't things that you can stop learning. It's an ongoing process, even with something you know pretty well.