Fin April 23, 2009

So, the last web 2.0 posting. I’m tempted to use the old cliche about “what a long strange trip it’s been”, but it really hasn’t been long or strange.  I’m a digital native, I know and use this stuff and it’s part of my daily life.  Like many of our patrons, when I want a quick answer I go to wikipedia, even though I know it’s limitations (okay, so that probably separates me from our patrons).  I read blogs, quite a few of them, and my morning paper comes not on my doorstep but from nytimes.com.  But, I have been primarily a receiver of digital technology, not a creator.  This assignment gave me the nudge to start a blog, sign up for twitter, and get on facebook.  I doubt I’ll keep up with the blogging, I just don’t have the time.  I do, however, really enjoy the connections that twitter has fostered between folks at different branches.  I will definitely continue that.  As much as I resisted it, facebook has helped me connect with people that I had lost touch with, and that is a good thing.

In many ways, though, this project has affected my personal life much more than my work one.  I was already familiar enough with these ideas, technologies, and applications to provide patron service regarding them.  I’m not, nor do I ever intend to be, the sort of person who will push the system into using these tools, because I’m much more of a skeptic than a believer.  I am now more connected with friends and family, and that’s what I’ll take home from web 2.0.

Delicious April 21, 2009

Should I begin this post by saying that I hate Del.icio.us because I can never remember where the periods go?  The word folksonomy bothers me too, but that’s just because it sounds like an uncomfortable medical procedure (I’d like to keep my folk right where it is, thank you).  Put these two together and you have why my “exploration” paused after wikis.

If you’ve read any of my other posts (not that I would expect you to), you’ll have realized that while I’m quite familiar with most of these web 2.0 gizmos, I’m pretty skeptical of them.  Same goes for delicious and tagging stuff.  I see why they’re useful, and I did like the San Mateo dewey categorization of websites.  It would be nice to have our system recommended sites on delicious (no . in there, sorry, can’t do it), as it would make them much easier to find and use and eliminate some of the cross-postings.  The interface would need some work before we could do that though, since you have to be familiar with web navigation in order to make it work.  I’ll be interested to see how these things evolve into their next iterations…

Wikis January 2, 2009

Like RSS feeds, I feel very “Meh” about wikis.  I see how they can be useful in the world, but I’m less thrilled about their potential for the public library.  They are a handy way to post information for the staff (like the mat man wiki), but that doesn’t really take advantage of the contributive nature of wikis (it’s not like I’m doing that much editing of the collection development manual).  By their very nature, to be truly a community spot, wikis require community buy-in and contribution.  I have a hard time imagining the public adding to and cleaning up library-created subject guides, or putting community information on the library wiki.  Like most of this web 2.0 stuff, I think wikis will find their place in our future world, but it may not be as central as many of the current proponents envision.

zoho trial December 23, 2008

Laura Gottlieb
December 23, 2008

To do before Christmas

• Wrap presents
• Make cookies
• Finish work
• Play with Nathan

I will now insert a table:

Sent Christmas Cards	Bought Presents	Made Adam’s present
Did not have to go to store to buy presents	Working on web 2.0	Made Nathan’s presents for family
Still very cold here	Isn’t this a nice table?	I prefer ones you can eat off of.

Now I get it!

When I started this whole Web 2.0 thing, I was most skeptical of the more highly hyped 2.0 features–Facebook and Twitter.  Why would I care who was going to lunch or what was happening at another desk?  I had no interest in updating another spot or checking in on people.  If I needed to know something, that person should tell me.  I just didn’t get why these things were so popular beyond college kids who had nothing better to do all day.

And now that I’ve completely solidified my prematurely old-coot status, I can say that I tried twitter and facebook and must admit that I like them.  It’s fun to chat with people at other branches.  I’m getting to know folks that I’ve never spoken to except to ask them to check on a book for a patron.  It’s nice to hear what’s going on at other places beyond the official memos.  Even though we all work for the same place, we tend to operate as 15 seperate “companies”, and already I feel more like a whole team.

Facebook too has been a lot of fun.  I’ve found many of my old high school and college friends, people I’d lost touch with years ago but kind of wish I hadn’t.  Even though I still had most of their e-mail addresses, I’d hesitated sending that “Hi, sorry I dropped off the face of the earth, how are you?” message.  But I can send a friend request (though I did have to screw up courage for that), and then post a short hi on their wall.  Maybe we’ll reconnect, or maybe I can just drop in on their page occasionally to see how they’re doing.  I can really see why it’s so popular.  My generation tends to spread out all over the place, we don’t stay within the same hometown, so it’s really tough to stay connected in even the superficial sense.  Social networking (and man I hate that term) tools give us a way to keep in touch when we don’t have the time to send personal notes.  It may represent the death of etiquette, but the connections are still nice.

Online Libraries December 22, 2008

I tried out Library Thing and Good Reads, and I wasn’t really a fan of either.  Or rather, I liked parts of both of them, but neither of them seemed to work for me.  I liked the ease of adding titles in Good Reads, and I liked that it had a non-flash widget that I could put in my wordpress blog (though I don’t like that it’s all one line).  In Library Thing, I liked being able to tag books, which would make it much more useful for Readers Advisory and provide a handy way to search and sort the many, many titles we have jumbled in our heads.  I also liked the full cataloging it provided (I am a librarian, after all)  However, adding new titles was very clunky and it seemed to take awhile for each one to load.  I think that Good Reads would be a handy way to track what I’ve read for my own personal enjoyment, and Library Thing would be a good tool for readers advisory, but neither really works for me.  Wish there was a way to combine what I like of both, so I guess I’ll keep my eyes out for new versions now that I can see the possibilities.

Twilight December 8, 2008

I know, I know, haven’t we all heard enough about this by now?  Sorry, I couldn’t resist adding my two cents.

I finally jumped on the bandwagon this weekend (what can I say? It was starting to pass me by) and read the book.  Truthfully, I enjoyed it.  It was not great fiction, but I didn’t expect it to be.  Cleolinda described it best when she referred to it as a “twinkie“.  Speaking of which, if you’ve read the book you MUST read her hilarious plot summaries which can be found here.  She also has some very insightful thoughts on the whole Twilight phenomenon, to which I can only say “yes.  I agree completely.”  And then I laughed out loud, repeatedly, because she’s  just that funny.  (A big thank you to Orangerful for posting the link which sent me there.)

I understand better now why it’s become so popular.  Besides being incredibly easy for teenage (and older, ahem) girls to identify with, it moves quickly and was incredibly entertaining.  I didn’t even skip ahead, and those of you who know me IRL know how incredible THAT is.  The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking it was sheer fluffy drivel, and yet I couldn’t. stop. reading.  Now, of course, I’m lamenting the long long waitlist for New Moon, and then there’s the others, and when am I going to have time to read them all, and see the movie, what with Christmas, oh, and the boy, to take care of.   Sigh.

Twitter December 5, 2008

I skipped ahead and signed up for twitter.  Truthfully, I was feeling a tad left out from all the cool kids who are tweeting all over the place.  I’m pretty new to the system, and there’s a lot of people I don’t really know, or have just met once or twice.  This seems like a great way to keep up with folks who are at another branch (or have left the system, sigh, orangerful and cheshire cat).  It also seems like a great way to waste time on official work business (or should I not mention that part).  It has sucked a lot of my time in lately, of course that could be because I also felt the need to upload a picture and redesign my site.  Perhaps I should return to my never-ending weeding list, and the two programs I’m doing next week.

Should you be so inclined to follow my musings, I’m shshingexercise.

RSS Feeds November 12, 2008

Meh.  That’s kind of how I feel about feeds and feed readers.  In my real life, I read quite a few blogs, mainly of the mommy/family type, but I’ve never really liked using a reader.  I keep the sites bookmarked, and it’s part of my morning (or evening) routine, get a cup of coffee and click on each one to see what’s happening.  I don’t like using a feed reader because you lose all of the blog design, they all look the same.  I know it’s kind of silly, but after reading these blogs for years (some of them), I feel like I know these people, and I like to visit them.  I like to go to each site, see the design, see the pictures.  Going to a blogger’s site is like dropping by for a cup of coffee, whereas using a reader is kind of like e-mail, I guess, you lose some of the personality.

That said, I can see how a feed reader could be useful for other applications, especially keeping up with news or events.  It would be a lot easier to have the news stories you’re interested in sent to you and be able to read them all in one place rather than clicking around to NYTimes, Washington Post, CNN, LJ, etc.  I do like the way other libraries are using feeds to update on new books and library happenings.  It would be nice to have a feed that listed events for each branch so that folks could get that information directly.  At a PTA event last night I asked if or how people found out about library happenings and the most frequent response was “if it doesn’t come home from school or into my e-mail, I don’t know about it.”  An RSS feed wouldn’t hit the e-mail, but it would be a step closer at least.

Photo Time!! October 29, 2008

I am supposed to post photos to my blog, to prove that I am all knowledgeable about this web 2.0 stuff (yeah right).  So anyway, here are some pics of my recent world travels (click to bigify):

The Blue Lagoon, Iceland

Guilfoss Waterfall, Iceland

A View across the Petrusse River, Luxembourg City

Luxembourg City

Duh!

Gargoyles on Notre Dame

It was a great trip, but I missed my little guy an awful lot.