Library Thang

Well, I just signed up for that Library Thang... At All Staff Day, we were advised to keep a list of the books we read for a year, and this venue is just perfect for it. Library Thang is a great on line collaborative effort. I might pay more attention to its reviews because I think librarians and/or people who would go to a place called Librarything have a better handle on books than the public at large.

The more I go through this training, the more I realize how relevant it is for the future (and, I guess, for the present). This training takes me, kicking and screaming, into the virtual world of the young. I remember starting my Master's program way back when, and hearing that no papers would be accepted unless they came off a computer. PCs were brand new, and the college decided to"move" its students into that technological reality as it became the standard. I bought my first computer - a XP clone with a 40 Mb hard drive, two 5 1/4" floppy drives, and a whopping 4 Mb of RAM - cutting edge technology for that time.

Interestingly enough, the PC era advocated personal privacy, not social networking. I see a tension between social networking and privacy - just as I see that tension between the Patriot Act and personal privacy. I like on line collaboration as a personal opinion type of forum, but hold a certain amount of concern that the public quality of social networking will open many up to abuse of personal information.

Ahhhhh, Flickr

Thank goodness for Flickr - something that makes sense after the mystery RSS feeds... I love the map of the world!! Must say, though, I wonder why there aren't more people using that feature - hey, maybe I'll give it a try!

I also am impressed by the tagging and clusters of tags. There are sets, groups - all sorts of ways to tag photos. Given the number out there, tagging would seem essential for this site to stay up and running, or a person would never find anything on it.

Given photos are considered copyrighted once printed or published, I wonder what happens when others download and print those out in Flickrland... Or maybe you can't just download - wait - let me try... Oh yes, you can download and print photos from this site - if they are available for all to see.

A very interesting site...

This is getting worse...

Well, I just managed to post on the Sirsi Blog - and I can't tell you how I got there or what happened.

Managed to post a few pictures on my own blog.

Thanks to b.c I saw that I did subscribe to a few feeds - but I don't "get" any of it.

I read other blogs and feel so far behind and so ignorant that it makes me want to quit.

Amen.

RSS and my confusion

I don't know if I have been successful at any of the assignment this week. I set up an account with Bloglines, found blog URLs that I think I subscribed to, but do not know how to verify it, and then tried to set up the "atom posts" thing at the bottom of my blog.

Frankly, I have no idea what is happening here - where the information is going, whether or not I am indeed signed up, whether or not there is supposed to be some kind of listing on my blog - maybe you set that up by editing links?

Can anyone tell me where the results of this stuff shows up? How do you find out if you did 'right"? Where is the verification, and oh my, this is not at all intuitive for me.

A great use for tagging

Well, folks, before I begin the struggle with RSS, I wanted to state a fabulous use for tagging - tagging an entire library collection for use on the catalog by patrons.

I wish I could take credit for this, but Kathleen Wilson and I were chatting about blogging and tagging when she told me about this use. Now there's something to help people navigate the catalog.

Simply mahvelous, dahlin!