23 Things Number 7

With the immense amount of information available on the Web, we need tools that help us efficiently and effectively sort through that information so that we find what we need or want. RSS feeds are one such tool and have a number of practical applications in a library setting. My boss, the systems librarian here, uses RSS feeds in her work all the time. I think they would be helpful to many people, but especially to those who deal with large quantities of information like librarians and researchers.

23 Things Number 6

I am doing this a little out of order because I want to do Thing Number 5 from home where I have more photos at my disposal. I signed up for Google Reader and added the blogs of a few of my friends (in addition to the 23 Things blog). I didn't much care for Gmail when I tried it a few years ago and I don't really care for the Google reader. I guess I see the utility if you subscribe to like a million blogs but, for me, it is easier to bookmark the three or four I frequent. I am also having trouble loading "stuff". It is just a difficult to navigate system for me. Maybe I'll get used to it.

23 Things Number 4

Here is my Flickr mashup. I decided to do the David Hockney mashup. Pretty cool, actually.

23 Things Number 3

I finally added some photos to my Flickr account, all library related because that's what I have access to here at work. Flickr, like blogging, is suprisingly fun except that it makes me want to be a better photographer. I can see how this type of photosharing is useful for families and freinds trying to keep in touch. I do question its place in the library, though. How likely are users to log on the library's Flickr page? Can a library be that interesting to outside observers? And to use Flickr you need a digital camera and a jump drive so are low income users really going to use it at the library? They are the only users not likely to have home computers, right? Or am I missing something?

23 Things Numbers 1& 2

Since I was not sure if my any of my blog entries actually correlated to the 23 Things, I have decided to begin anew and label them properly. Clearly, I have been blogging for a while and I actually rather like it. I don't think I have much of an audience so it's kind of like talking to myself online but oh well. I took the oppurtunity to reread some of the Thing Number 2 articles in order to write this post. I, too, am a bit skeptical of "Library 2.0". The whole thing does seem the teensiest bit kitschy. However, I think that Mr. Blyberg is correct when he says that the advent of the Web and Google has quintessentially changed the nature of what we do and, if we are to survive and prosper, we must find ways to navigate this post-Google world. I question whether Library 2.0 is practical enough in it current incarnation but do believe that the basic, underlying concept is an important one.

Hello Yoga Students

Hi guys. To any of my yoga students who were reading this blog, I wanted you all to know that I have moved the yoga related content to a different blog. You can find it at www.trailingtathagata.blogspot.com. It just got too confusing for my tiny brain to have my 23 Things (library) stuff and my personal stuff (gotta love the uber specific "stuff") all in one place. Thus, if anyone would like to drop me a line about my yoga/Buddhism/loosely related content, please do it there. Maybe we could actually talk...and stuff.

More Web 2.0

So I am steadily (and at times grumpily) working my way through the 23 Things list. I have set up a flickr account which I am sure will make me lament my relative lack of photographic talent but which is kind of fun nonetheless. My flickr url is www.flickr.com/photos/littleelephant1 if anyone is interested. There are no photos yet but I'll work on that later from home. I already had a facebook account so I have been able to mark that one off the list. I don't check it all that often honestly but I did hear from a really lovely friend that I had lost touch with so I can't say it's useless. I was actually quite touched that she looked for me. She is a really cool and talented chick that makes me feel cool and talented (which I am really not) by association. I do feel a little exposed as I make more of an online presence for myself and I suppose that is why I never really got into the Web 2.0 thing in the first place. It is less a fear for security as a feeling of vulnerability. I guess deep down I worry about people knowing too much about me. There is power in knowing, right? I know that some of the other 23 Things participants have made up alter egos for themselves so that they wouldn't have an online presence, at least not as themselves. This approach is ultimately not for me, though. I think the act of constructing a facade sounds exhausting and perhaps a little eery. If I am going to be someone online, I would rather be myself.