Swizzle

This entry is dedicated to Swizzle, our beautiful companion of almost 20 years. Her spirit was strong, her body increasingly frail. Yesterday she passed away. My heart feels so heavy now. I will always love my amazingly valiant and sweet "Sissie".

Blog search tool - Technorati

The Advanced search of Technorati is nice. I like the specificity it allows -- e.g., you can ask Technorati to find keywords in the tags of posts, or the actual text of posts, or look by subject heading, etc. This works similarly to the advanced searches in periodical databases that the library subscribes to, such as Proquest or OneFile (although of course the databases don't include users' tags).

At this point in my life, I just haven't caught the blog-reading bug. (Though I thoroughly enjoy tinkering around with my OWN blog!) I do really like to read newspaper editorials and columns. But blogs and blog postings are like a gazillion letters to the editor thrown in with a few good editorials. I guess this just highlights the necessity of a tool such as Technorati to help separate the grain from the enormous amount of online chaff. For now, though, in my personal life, I will admit that I don't often feel the need to seek news and opinion outside of traditional sources. And our internal work-related library blogs are already at my fingertips.

Delicious aka del.icio.us

Thoughts on del.icio.us (the website, not the pie):

1) Unfortunately, a permissions problem blocked my efforts to add the two delicious buttons to my toolbar in both Explorer and Firefox.

2) User Notes. Hmmm. What is their purpose? I suppose they're intended as the electronic equivalent of a yellow post-it. But with good tagging, many of the notes I saw today seemed pretty superfluous.

3) I can see delicious being helpful with projects I've had that involve creating lists of URLs on particular topics. I may try using delicious with an upcoming project, depending on how much time it takes me to figure out the particulars to do it right!

4) This is one 2.0 application that I need to practice when time allows. I want to be able to add & tag websites easily, when I have spare moments here and there.

Image generators

Some of the image generators are fun and easy to use. I tried several, including the Warning Sign Generator (see image above). Using the Add Letters website I also created a street sign with my husband's name on it, and some other silly stuff. I got nowhere with the Reflectionmaker tool; it didn't work with any of the images I provided, and I couldn't find a "help" feature or other guidance at the site, so I don't know what I was doing wrong.

MySpace rant

First impressions upon setting up a MySpace page:

1) Ads, ads, ads!!! I didn't expect my own MySpace page to be so full of them! I'm told you can screen them out, if your browser is Firefox. Should you find yourself using MySpace much, that's a good thing to keep in mind.

2) The MySpace interface isn't intuitive, at least not if you're trying to figure out how to add a "Friend."

3) I'm disappointed by the heavy-handed emphasis on helping MySpace grow and make money. (See #1). The "Invite" tab turns out to be just a way to ask other people to start their own MySpace page, so that (warning, cynical remark ahead) they too can begin generating advertising revenue for the website. I don't disagree that MySpace should be able to make a profit. But I'm surprised by the degree to which that goal is apparent on my individual page.

4) It's very helpful to have someone personally show you how to use MySpace. I'll bet even most teens learn the basics of MySpace from one another, rather than puzzling it out on their own.

5) I now realize that my experience with Google Blogger has spoiled me. It turns out that not all popular 2.0 tools are as well-designed and user-friendly (at least for me) as Blogger, with freedom of choice regarding advertisements.

Social Networks

I thought the comments at Librarian in Black , and elsewhere, regarding the pros and cons of libraries' creating a profile on MySpace and other social networks were very interesting.

Cons ranged from the practical (e.g., who's responsible, privacy concerns, links to questionable content on "friends'" pages) to the more philosophical (e.g., we may think it's cool for the library to be on MySpace, but will the kids see us as authority figures invading their domain with unwelcome clutter?) I thought these were valid points for consideration.

On the pro side, users of MySpace can choose to be "friends" of the library, or ignore us if they really do find us intrusive. And I liked some of the ideas on how we could use a library MySpace page: a blog/feed for upcoming library programs, YouTube videos of library events, and podcasts of new teen books. Looking at our own YAAB page on MySpace, it also seems worth noting that the library's presence there gives teens who love reading a ready place to plug into. We can be there for the already book-oriented, regardless of how many young adults can be persuaded to consider us cool.

Instant Messaging

So far, IM is the only item in our 2.0 tutorial that I had previously used. (Exodus is on the computer at my desk).

New technologies eventually seem to settle into their own niches, and over time those niches can shift. Isn't this true of everything from horses to radio to computers? And a new technology may not supplant an old one exactly as expected. For instance, IM hasn't functioned all that well as a substitute for phone contact in our department, partly because a phone can be answered by anyone who hears it, while IM (at least as we have set it up), must be directed to a single individual. And that individual may not be the one available to answer queries.

However, I've found IM to be ideal for directing a quick question to a specific person, when you don't want to interrupt with a phone call, or when you'd like to transmit a URL or other info best suited to text form. I like IM in this context. For me, IM is finding its own place in my work routines and serving a different purpose than phone or email.

A fellow blogger notes that teens and young adults generally opt for text messaging, rather than IM. This should be an important consideration in implementing instant online ready reference. Chat reference seems to be yet another alternative, though according to one of the IM articles, chat is prone to technical difficulties. As a consumer, I've had mostly good experiences in getting customer assistance via the chat links on company websites.