TheCorey's Thought #12 - Thing #14: Delicious

Normally I try to come up with a cute, clever title for my blog entry. This time I had nothing, which was a good thing this time. First off, I'm glad they redid Delicious without the odd little periods in the middle of the word. Much easier for us 1.0 folks upgrading to a 2.0 world. Second, this is definetly a "good thing". I'm rather ambivalent about the "social" aspects of Web 2.0, but I do see a lot of potential in Delicious. At the Lincoln City Libraries, we have a "webliography" of useful web sites arranged in an old Yahoo-style category format. It's useful if you can figure out which category you need. The tagging aspect of Delicious would make our webliography, a good thing, into an even better thing. I can also see it as being potentially helpful in my personal life, though I have to admit I'm still doing okay with bookmarking so far. I guess I just don't have that many websites I feel I want to or need to visit on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. I found Delicious to ba straightforward, fairly intuitive, minimally cluttered and very useful. I get why this one is so popular.

TheCorey's Thought #11 - Thing #12: LibraryThing

Well, today I got started with LibraryThing. I grabbed a few books from the Jedi Apprentice series, one of the best Star Wars series out there (it's targeted towards young readers, but I recommend it for all ages). As far as Web 2.0 stuff, I see some crossover personal/professional appeal to this. It's not quite as intuitive as I'd like and feels a bit cluttered. However, this one I like well enough to accept it's quirks and shortcomings and give more than half a chance. Now, finding time to develop a maintain my LibraryThing, that's going to be quite a challenge.

Anywhere, here's my LibraryThing:
http://www.librarything.com/home/TheCorey

TheCorey's Thought #10 - Thing #11: Where's the Oneness?

The one thing that strikes me about the technology of Web 2.0, Library 2.0 or whatever 2.0 that's currently being touted and celebrated as "the next big thing" is the lack of Oneness. By that, I mean Web 2.0 seems very fragmented and confusing; a lot of small groups doing their things in their own way. Maybe that's a good thing, but I can't help but feel we miss out on having a shared experience; something that we all experience and share as a one culture, one people.
In addition to the fragmentation, I sense a growing complexity that I'm not so sure is needed. For example, back in the old days (insert Common Sense guy going booooo at this point), yow wanted to record something, you got a video recorder, you got a video, you hit record and you were set. Granted, most folks didn't know how to get the 12:00 on their VCR to stop blinking. And maybe that should have been a hint to keep things simple. Now we've got this website that uses that software that only works with certain other websites, software and equipment and you have to set up accounts and passwords, etc. etc. etc.
I'm glad the guy on Common Sense is excited about everything new. And maybe I am slipping into grumpy, old curmudgeon territory. I've accepted being out to the target demographic for quite some time now. I'm just convinced that all of these new ways of doing things are necessarily better ways of doing things. We seem to be drifting apart and fragmented as a people, as a culture and as a society. We're very good at talking. We're becoming not so good at actually communicating.

TheCorey's Thought #9 - Thing #10

Here's a little something I put together using Speech Bubbler:

http://www.coverbrowser.com/bubbler

It turned out kind of blurry, but I liked out. I'd hoped to make a Read poster through ALA's website. I'd hoped to make a poster of embattled (i.e. caught by the Feds) Illinois governor
Rod Blagojevich with the caption "Read Before I Sell the Books". Fun stuff.

TheCorey's Thought #8 - Thing #9: I'm Bubblr-ing over with excitement

Well, for Thing #9, I played around with a Flickr third-party tool called Bubblr: it lets you make comic strips from Flickr photos. I had created, in my mind, a fairly amusing strip about Darth Vader leading a squad of stormtroopers to a Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving to buy an IPod. Unfortunately, my computer froze up and I lost it before I could publish it. I guess this could have some value at libraries by using Flickr and Bubblr to create comic-style artwork for physical and electronic (i.e. website) decoration. I had fun playing around with it. I may head back and see what else I can create.

TheCorey's Thought # 7 - Thing #8 - How many words is this worth?

Here's a picture I found on Flickr. It combines two things I love: cats and Star Wars. I tried to get the picture to post, but couldn't manage the trick. I guess the Force wasn't with me on this one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/go2net/129572213/

TheCorey's Thought #6 - Thing # 7: trying to catch up

I've heard the comment about those who run perpetually behind as "You'll be late to your own funeral". To me, that doesn't seem such a bad thing. One, you get to live a bit longer - always a plus. Two, you get to see who showed up and what they're saying about you. Three - if you're lucky, thy'll think you're a zombie and you give 'em a funeral they'll never forget. On to Thing #7- finding news feeds:

Google Blog Search felt very "free form" to me. Which makes sense given its a Google thing. I'd definetly need to play around with the advanced search tools to fine tune what I'm looking for.

Topix felt very constrained and clunky. With Google, by playing around I could likely home in on a feed that appealed to a topic I wanted. With Topix, all I could find were links to latest articles rather than directing me to a feed that I would want.

Syndic8 was alright. I would have liked some advanced options on the search feature from the get-go, like Google. But, for me, it was much more intuitive and easier to direct my search to find a feed that I wanted. I'll definetly keep this one in mind.

Technorati was a mixed bag. The search feature was the nicest of the ones I sampled. It really helped me to hone in on my searches. However, it flet kind of cluttered and not as organized as Syndic8. It didn't feel very intuitive to me.

Of course, the biggest challenge I face with finding blogs, feeds, etc. is motivation. Having spent more than a little time on various community boards, etc. I am all too aware of how much garbage there is out there. Finding the nergy to wade through all that garbage to find the few true gems is a lot of work, even with RSS. I'll have to percolate this concept in the ol' gray matter for awhile and consider how this might work for me. My luck, by the time I figure this out, we'll be onto Web 3.0 and RSS will be "so 15 minutes ago".

TheCorey's Thought #5 - Thing # 6 - Out of Order

Well, I set up my first RSS feed today. Feels a bit odd, like many things Library / Web 2.0. I guess I'm still adjusting to how free-form this comes across as to me. I'm still getting used to the "feel" of having things coming to me as opposed to going out and getting them. I see this as probably being more use professionally than personally. Professionally, I need thing s bottom-lined and simplified, which I can see RSS doing for me. Personally, I like the "old way" as it has more of a "browsing" feel to it for me. I like coming across things I wasn't expecting to find. Maybe RSS does that too and I just don't "feel" it yet. Once I get more acclimated to RSS maybe I'll have ideas about how it can work for my library. Until then, adjust, adapt, evolve or whatever it is I'm supposed to do to be of use to the public.