Wiki what? (Thing 18)

Before doing this thing, I had limited experience with wikis. I had heard of them (thanks most in part to the most famous wiki of all, wikipedia) but never really got hands on with one. I got some experience with the wiki that is used by the library although I was still only good at losing pages. At first, when I used the one designated for this activity, I had some difficulty getting it to accept my typing but then I went to another computer that had IE7 and that took care of the problem. After that, it was much easier to make and edit the pages.

Before I added those pages, I did go to wikipedia to look around. I had never paid attention to the tabs at the top that show you the history and discussion, etc. I usually just read the content on wikipedia, then usually would start clicking on the other links which would lead to reading way more than I needed to. Good times, yes; good use of time, no way!

Ewww...a Libworm! (Thing 17)

Actually using Libworm was not an ewww situation at all. I really like the concept of this Thing. The first time I went to the page I didn't have an exact idea of what I wanted to look for so ended up staring at the home page for a few seconds (ok it was minutes but I totally didn't want to admit that I drew a blank for that long). After that, I just decided to click around and see what happened. I had better results using it when I went to the feed categories menu and then whittled it down from there. I am sure I would have had great results if there had been something specific on my mind. It was interesting reading. The broad subject headings really helped me get a start on my own search. I will definitely have to spend some more time going through things so that I can find more RSS feeds that can help me at work!

It's a Library Thing. (Thing 16)

I had no idea that Librarything.com existed and my life has been the poorer for it! Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating but I am glad I know about it now. This is going to be a Thing that I'm going to keep once this is all over. I really want to set aside a good amount of time so I can go through all the stuff on there. I've tried numerous ways to keep track of the books I've read and I do always seem to either forget some or forget to write them down (although a lot of the time I have the book so I can just look at my bookshelf). This website, in my humble opinion, is a much better way to keep track of books. I spent a little time exploring the groups and the other functions, but ran out of time. I will try to get on there at home so I can spend some time browsing around.

Do you Digg it? (Thing 15)

I definitely dig Digg. The concept of stories being submitted by people then voted on to be on the front page is pretty awesome. The most awesome aspect of Digg? You can connect it to your facebook page and when you dig a story, you can publish it on your page so that your friends can see it. Ok, so I realize that the above sentence makes me an Uber nerd but digg has some really funny stuff on it that I know the people I know would enjoy. The link to Facebook makes it easier for me to share it with people. Plus, if I'm already signed into Facebook, all I have to do is click one button and I'm logged into Digg. I had an enjoyable time going through the stories on Digg and also playing with the filters so that I would just see things that I wanted to see. I could go on and on about how much I like Digg but I think I've made that abundantly clear.

Mmmmm, Delicious (Thing 14)

The Delicious website totally gets two thumbs up from me. I am glad I signed up for an account instead of just looking through the site. Not only do I have all the library websites that I look for in one place, I've shared it with coworkers and they have added more that I didn't even know about! It has now become a useful tool for all of us here that work at the reference desk. I even have a story about it!

Once I set up the account, I sent out the info to my coworkers. One of the bookmarks I added was for the National Library Services for the Blind. One coworker in particular happened to browse through the bookmarks and noticed the aforementioned bookmark. Not even an hour later, someone called wanting information on acquiring library materials for a blind person. Thanks to the delicious account, she knew exactly where to find the info. She shot me an email and I was super stoked that it had already helped someone out.

Tagging is not a crime (Thing 13)

Well, at least not in this application! To be honest, I've never really paid much attention to tags. I looked at the tags on delicious and flickr and I can see how they would be helpful for those websites. I'm really not sure about incorporating that into a library catalogue. I really think that since there are so many words for all subjects, people's associations are very different and some people are just malicious jerks, it would just cause a lot of unnecessary problems. This next statement is probably going to anger some people but I'm going to write it anyway. In my opinion, there's a reason the people that work in libraries have to go to school. They are there to make sure that things are put in order, whether by number or subject or whatever. Just letting the general public have at the catalogue is just not acceptable to me. Call me old fashioned or call me whatever, I just think there are some things that should be left to professionals. The catalogue should be one of those things. Outside of that, rock on with the tagging.

Twitter (Thing 12)

I'm just going to say that I don't like using Twitter. I do like reading some people's tweets (?) because they are generally witty people and are good under 140 characters. I am not one of those people. Plus, I think my life is interesting but I doubt anyone else would. Also, what I find interesting and what others find interesting is VERY different! I can see why celebrities, comedians and tabloids love Twitter. It puts their stuff out there and gives the public what they want, namely knowing what is going on every minute of the day in other people's lives. I give kudos to people that have made Twitter entertaining and interesting. I know mine won't last long.

Here's my Twitter address: https://twitter.com/librarybombshel

One of the suggestions was to write about the last time we heard about Twitter. Well, on the radio this morning, I heard a story that was called Twitter Kills! Apparently, a girl was tweeting (?) in the bathtub (???) and decided to plug in her laptop while in still in the bathtub. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. In case you want to read about it, here's the link to the story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/twitter-death-romanian-te_n_219032.html

Oh dear!