Thing 23: Final Thoughts

Oh, where to begin? I gained several favorite new Things through 23 Things. I went from having no idea what Facebook was to using it daily to keep my long-distance social life on track. I didn't understand why people want to blog (why so many people want to blog!) and now I'm tentatively considering starting a personal blog once I sign off on 23 Distractions. And let's not even get into listing the online productivity tools--those are just plain fun (and useful--a win/win situation!). Plus there were the old Things I was already familiar with that I was happy to see during the program: seeing LibraryThing on the list made me feel like I was already being trendy and innovative on my own.

Naturally in a list of multiple options, some will be less attractive than others. The idea of doing much with my photos online just leaves me feeling exhausted, not creative. I keep forgetting I have a Delicious account, much less that I can use it. Second Life may have to wait until I put grad school behind me and get a faster Internet connection. But at least now I know that these Things are out there and I've tried them, rather than just hearing about them and idly meaning to look into them someday.

I liked that I knew people, usually coworkers or fellow students, who were also going through the 23 Things. It was always interesting to read their takes on stuff; often they picked up on aspects of something that I didn't consider important or vice versa. And yes, if you do a "23 More Things" or "Another 23 Things," I'm likely to sign up.

Thing 22: What Did I Learn Today?

I came into 23 Things wanting to learn more about the new stuff out there in Internet-world. I'm coming out of it knowing more and wanting to learn still yet more, so it looks like the program worked. Unlike a resolution to lose weight or break a bad habit, a resolution to keep poking around in Web 2.0 will probably be easier to keep because it promises to be interesting and often fun as well.

I've been hearing intriguing things about Lifehacker, so I'll probably get its RSS feed and try it out for a while. It sounds like it could keep me posted on useful Web 2.0 developments. I don't know how many Things I'll find a use for in our library, for all the reasons I've detailed over the past four months, but when I come upon someThing new, I'll give it a good onceover and see if we can use it. I anticipate far more success with Web 2.0 in my personal life because I can probably always find some justification for a new toy!

Thing 21: Beyond MySpace: Other Social Networks

Uh-oh. More of this here socializing with perfect strangers stuff. Eek!

In a way, Thing 20 was simple. Facebook or MySpace: choose one or the other (or both) and have at it, knowing you're tackling one (or both) of the largest social networking sites. With Thing 21, I feel like I'm overwhelmed by potential. Ning? WebJunction? Bake Space? The Wikipedia list left me feeling a bit lightheaded. My membership in Ravelry counts, right?

So I have dutifully joined the 23 Things on a Stick page on Ning, but like back in May when I first joined Ning for the Midwest Library Technology Conference, I can't think of anything to say (so much for socializing). I'm debating joining Bake Space--thank you for bringing it to my attention; even if I don't choose to play there, I know someone who should know about it. I'm not entirely sure how WebJunction works, so maybe it'll become clear if I join, and I dimly remember telling myself that I'd join LinkedIn when I got to Thing 21. But given what I said in the last post about not being all that interested in socializing unless I have a connection with people in the group, plus the fact that it's just going to take time to keep up with all these groups, I'm not sure how much use I'll make of any of these social networks.

Thing 20: Libraries and Social Networks

This Thing is practically anticlimactic, what with my having turned it into an in-between thing way back in June. It's good that I got three months head start on social networking before it came time to write about it, because it's taken that long to get the hang of Facebook.

At first, Facebook looked like it was in danger of drowning in inanity. The games I saw seemed silly. I'd had quite enough of posting photos after all those Flickr-related Things. It didn't look like many people I knew were on Facebook--I'm not in its biggest demographic, after all--so the social networking part wasn't working out too well.

I finally decided that Facebook's strength for me is its ability to keep one up-to-date on the minutiae in one's friends' lives. This isn't a big deal if the friends in question are local and you stay in close contact with them, but most of my friends live in different states. Even with email, we just don't stay in contact all that well, and so most communication degenerates down to birthday cards and holiday letters. And usually only the big events make it into those, so there's no context ("We're getting married!" "Married? I didn't know you were dating! Wait, who is this guy?"). Facebook encourages keeping your friends updated on anything from upcoming nuptials to whether or not you're having a bad day. Playing the online version of a board game with a friend of mine on the East Coast has resulted in more casual communication between us in a month than we've managed in the past two years.

I haven't been all that interested in the groups. I've joined a few, on topics I'm interested in, but I never remember to visit them. This lack of interest doesn't surprise me, though: I'm in groups on LibraryThing and Ravelry, and I never take the time to visit them either. I need a more personal connection than just mutual interest in a single topic. So I've joined the Library 2.0 Interest Group, but have only visited it once since then.

I looked at MySpace's homepage this morning, in the spirit of investigation. The spirit of investigation can only take one so far, however. While I appreciated that MySpace offers a rudimentary tour (Facebook apparently believes people should sign up sight unseen), advertisements for some sort of sorority program and news about Jessica Simpson left me cold. And when I ran a test-search on a name, I realized I could see much more about the people in the results than I wanted to. (After my adventure with my representative, I've got privacy issues on the brain.)

This is still yet another Thing I'm not seeing our library making much use of. Again, generational issues are a factor. I don't see a lot of teenagers or twenty-somethings having much interest in law libraries, and pushing a page or a group under their noses isn't likely to change that.

Thing 19: Podcasts

Right off the bat, I can tell you that my favorite discovery about podcasts is that they can be downloaded. My connectivity issues haven't improved noticeably in the past twenty-four hours, so I was picturing staying after work trying to find very short podcasts to listen to so that I could go home at a reasonable hour. And then I learned that they could be saved to disk and the light bulb went on. This is what large capacity flash drives are for. A bit of post-work downloading and I headed home laden with podcasts to sample at my leisure.

I haven't bonded with the podcast directory sites yet. Yahoo Podcasts just seemed to be an open search box, fine if I knew what I was interested in listening to, but not much help for someone who needed a few suggestions. Podcast.net never came up when I clicked on it. Podcast.com was more promising, but when I clicked on interesting-looking titles, I repeatedly got warnings that there might be explicit content in my selection. Either I have an undiscovered instinct for homing in on naughty podcasts, Podcast.com has way too many of them, or they err on the side of overcaution in their warnings. Whatever the case, after about four of these warnings in a row, I moved on to other things (since I was downloading off my work computer, I couldn't take the risk that these really were offensive podcasts).

For my first baby steps into the world of podcasts though, I didn't really need a directory. I've been told about a variety of podcasts just in the normal course of life, and so I went off and visited them. I listened to a couple of Grammar Grater podcasts from Minnesota Public Radio plus an interview with the Yarn Harlot from the KnitPicks site, and I have plans to delve into PodCastle.net ("the fantasy fiction podcast") when I have more time. (Which may not be for a while. Must pass classes. Must get MLIS. Must not set up RSS feeds to constant sources of distraction. 23 distractions are more than sufficient.)

in-between thing: youtube

Oops. I just realized that the "see alsos" at the end of YouTube videos change constantly. Between that and the fact that there are multiple videos on backwards Continental knitting (or is that Continental backwards knitting?) on YouTube, it might not be clear what video I was referring to. I meant this psychedelically-colored one:

Thing 18: YouTube & Other Online Video

I dunno...you're asking a woman who has the bare minimum Netflix subscription and hasn't watched TV in months to check out online video sites?

I think YouTube is a fine idea. It's one Thing, though, that highlights a digital divide: online video might as well not exist if you have a dial-up connection. So with my home computer not even in the running and with my laptop having a few connectivity issues, I'm doing Thing 18 off my work computer and am making sure to view only Very Inoffensive Videos.

That said, I love the "Introducing the Book" video--I'd've put it in this blog, but that would probably come across as a mite unoriginal on my part. So instead, readers of this blog (all three of you) will be treated to an instructional video on backwards knitting. I want to learn to knit backwards, so you get to learn to knit backwards. And I liked the 'see also' feature. The videos this "Backwards Knitting" video refers to include another video on the same topic but done by a Continental knitter (really, that last comment makes sense if you knit). This is a good video instruction-wise, even if it's grainy: it clearly shows how to perform the technique. What more can you ask of an instructional video?



I'm almost scared to get a fast Internet connection simply because I can see myself spending far too much time looking for interesting videos. I don't feel much urge to make videos, though. Of course, maybe that's because I haven't been exposed to enough amateur video yet.

in-between thing: facebook

A few days ago, I got a friend request on Facebook from my state representative. I've been procrastinating on responding to it, mostly because I'm in denial that I got it in the first place. Not that I have anything against my representative--indeed, I'm oblivious enough about politics that it took me a while to figure out who this person was who was friending me--but I'm mystified as to how they found me. Since I didn't put my home address in Facebook and I don't think our mutual friend sold me out, I'm left imagining that some poor souls on the representative's staff have been assigned to go through the entire list of registered voters in my district and friend any of us they happen to find on Facebook (and possibly MySpace, but I'm not in a position to check that).

However Representative X or their staff found me, I'm not happy about this. This in and of itself isn't going to drive me off Facebook--I believe my representative is relatively harmless and I'm capable of ignoring unwanted friend requests--but it does leave me musing on those privacy issues that keep popping up around Web 2.0.

Thing 17: ELM Productivity Tools

I knew about the Electronic Library for Minnesota before I started the 23 Things. It's been very useful now that I'm back in student mode--I love being able to get journal articles without having to take the time to go over to a library and I really don't miss trying to make photocopies from bound journals. However, I didn't know that the databases came with extras before playing with Thing 17.

I think EBSCO's Personal Folder feature will be really useful. It was a lot easier to save the articles for my current class to this folder instead of downloading them to a flash drive. After all, I never remember which flash drive I used and when you save an article to a computer, the file name is a meaningless string of letters and numbers--saved to the Folder, the file name is the article title. Although my high hopes for getting all my articles neatly organized and available from any computer crashed when I realized that one of the assigned articles was from another company's database. Oh well.

The Search Alert feature was less successful. Having dinked around with it for a few days, it looks like I can set up a successful RSS feed through IE7 or Outlook, which is fine when I'm at work. But I use Firefox 3 and Thunderbird at home, and I just couldn't get the RSS feed set up on either of them successfully. Oh, it looked like it was set up in Thunderbird (Firefox couldn't "see" the RSS feed at all), but whenever a new article came in and I clicked on its link, I was sent to a login page that wanted a username and password that I didn't have. If I tried, perhaps I could get this working on Google Reader, but like I said back at Thing 3, I don't want to use Google Reader. And it wasn't clear where I should go for help. My library? EBSCO?

I've had mixed feelings about NetLibrary for years. It's a great idea, but the books included seem to mostly be a random mixture of this and that. And once I've chosen a book, the layout strikes me as odd. Maybe I'm just wired for print books more than electronic ones! But I love the idea of being able to run keyword searches on books, not just journal and magazine articles, so I hope NetLibrary (and other variants of electronic books) continue to improve.

Thing 16: Student 2.0 Tools

Oh, great timing. Here I am: a Student 2.0.

I first encountered the Assignment Calculator about a year ago, although I can't remember what brought it to my attention. I tried it for a paper that was due shortly after Thanksgiving. I suppose I can't blame the Assignment Calculator for the fact that I let myself get distracted by eating turkey and baking holiday cookies and ended up staying up the night before the paper was due, writing it at the last moment just like when I was in college. Plus, the Assignment Calculator is more organized than I am, period. It talks about creating an outline and a thesis statement before starting the first draft--I've tended to skip outlining altogether and my thesis statement is often about the last thing I come up with. If the U didn't create an Assignment Calculator for grad students because they thought grad students had matured and had their acts together...well, not necessarily.

The Research Project Calculator looks like an excellent idea. If you can keep any students from developing my procrastination habits while they're still young, their future professors will thank you. However, I can't imagine us getting any students here except law students, and most of them probably hang out at their school libraries. So I don't see us using the Assignment Calculator, much less the RPC. I suppose what we need (or what our pro se patrons need, rather) is a calculator that will walk them through the steps to file an appeal on schedule, including getting a brief written. The Appeals Calculator--doesn't that sound useful?

Well, for me, another semester starts next week, bringing more opportunities to use the Assignment Calculator. I really am trying to be better about outlining and sometimes I know what my thesis is before the end of the paper, so maybe I can get more practical use out of the Assignment Calculator.

in-between thing: newsvine

I said I would try this for a while, and I have. I like that Newsvine doesn't make you create an account to get anything useful out of it. But I find it irritating that when I see a story I'm interested in, clicking on the link just takes me to the comments on the story, not the story itself. I have to click a second link to go to the story. Without a context, what good are the comments?

Thing 15: Online Games and Libraries

When I first looked over this Thing, I thought, Oh, something completely out of my experience. After all, I'd never heard of Puzzle Pirates and while yes, I know of Second Life, having a dial-up connection on my home computer pretty much prevented ever playing with it. But then it occurred to me that I am playing a couple of games online, albeit through Facebook. I admit I haven't done much with Knighthood other than build several buildings, but I'm still fairly new at it. And while playing a Scrabble-clone with friends is maybe not what the point of this Thing is, it's a game and it's online--I'm going to call it an online game.

Sorry: I'm just not feeling motivated to tackle Puzzle Pirates. I saw Pirates of the Caribbean and it was a fun movie, but that's the extent of my interest in piracy.

I was all ready to plunge into Second Life (if I could find a fast-enough connection) until I watched the video tour of Info Island. It was so jerky and pixelated that I decided that Second Life itself must be a really unpleasant experience. If I had to watch my avatar twitching walking like that, I was going to get a headache (it was so much better when the avatar finally took off and flew). This is maybe not the best video to promote this Thing with! I then watched Ohio University's video and realized that this was probably a more accurate picture of what Second Life is like. So while I've been beset with technical difficulties lately for getting a fast connection, I think I will take a closer look at Second Life, maybe even create an avatar and fly around a bit.

This is definitely one of those Things that looks to have more application for a public library or an academic library than a law library. Not that you couldn't build a law library on Info Island and stock it with the finest in brown books with red and black stripes on the spine. But I don't know how many law library patrons would want to go through Second Life to visit one. For the most part, the law is just not Fun. Maybe when today's teenage virtual reality devotees have become tomorrow's law clerks, this will be more feasible, but right now it doesn't seem worth the effort to establish a presence in Second Life.

Thing 14: LibraryThing

LibraryThing. Again, whee!

I joined LibraryThing a little over two years ago. It was meant to be: I'd kept my own little card catalog since childhood, which I'd eventually migrated to an Access database, but Access was merely adequate for this purpose. LibraryThing and Book Collector (library catalog software which I'd bought just before learning about LibraryThing) were much better.

I haven't been all that social on LT. I mostly use it for the cataloging feature, although now that a couple of friends of mine have joined, I'm getting a tenuous social network going. I've joined several groups, but I just don't have time to check in on them.

While I have about 888 books in my LT catalog as of this writing, I'm not comfortable with opening my entire library to strangers. So I have created a second account for 23 Things on a Stick and dropped in about 200 books. It should at least give a taste of my collection, and if it looks a bit sparse tag-wise, well, I assure you my master collection is tagged, filled with LC call numbers, and generally maintained to the best of my abilities.

Thing 13: Online Productivity Tools

Toys! Whee!

I tackled the start page first. It's not that that sort of start page is new to me: my ISP (EarthLink) has had one like that for years. But there are lots of gadgets on it that I don't like that are hard to get rid of and the look is generally cluttered, so I was willing to try another one. I went with iGoogle's page because it had a nice clean look, figuring that I can always go back to EarthLink's if iGoogle starts to annoy me. It's a bit odd getting a peek into my Gmail account instead of my EarthLink email though, since Gmail is only one of my backups.

I would get a lot more out of these tools if I didn't already have a PDA. It takes only a few seconds to turn on the PDA and three minutes bare minimum to get a computer up and running. These online tools aren't much use for reminding me to do stuff that isn't computer-based (set the rice to soaking, return the library books). The PDA has problems in this area too--it doesn't really remind me of much if I forget to check it in the first place--although I can set it to sound an alarm as a reminder, which has been helpful.

That aside, many of these things looked useful. Google's calendar was more than adequate for the events I typed in to test it with. Remember the Milk seems to be getting lots of good reviews, but when I try to enter a task, it locks up. I'll try it from another computer, but how much use will it be if I can only use it on certain computers? Backpack was probably useful as all get-out, but it was overkill. Actually Backpack looks like it might be an equivalent to Microsoft's SharePoint Server, in which case, Backpack does a much better job of explaining itself than SharePoint does. We could probably use it at work except that we've already got SharePoint.

The sticky note programs look like they have potential. But because they need to be downloaded, I'm going to try them out at home first; our IT department frets about unapproved software being installed on our work computers.

Thing 12: Do You Digg?

No.

So let me get this straight: once upon a time, librarians kept abreast of the news so that they'd know what their patrons were talking about when those patrons came in wanting to know more about what was in the headlines. And now, librarians can use Digg or Mixx or Newsvine to funnel all those news stories to them instead of taking the time to skim several newspapers and glance at CNN.

This sounds like a great idea, except that I don't see Digg and its siblings fulfilling the function that scanning newspaper headlines does. The patrons of way back when had already heard the news and wanted to know more. It looks like Digg, et al. are there to give you the news for the first time. Do libraries often get patrons in asking reference librarians what's going on? If so, wouldn't it just be simpler to point them toward the newspapers?

I understand that in a time-crunched world, people would appreciate a service that would push them just the most crucial news stories. It takes time to skim a newspaper and you can't really fast-forward through a current TV news broadcast. But I don't see that letting the masses determine what I should see is any less unbiased than leaving that judgment to editors; it's just different criteria and a different number of people that are involved.

It looks like you could get these "social news" sites customized to your preferences eventually, but they mostly seem designed for you to try to get people to validate your taste in news. I'm going to give Newsvine a try--it seems more oriented to news rather than entertainment. But I think this is going to be another Web 2.0 innovation that I can't find much use for personally and none professionally.

Thing 11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

Or, as they're calling themselves now: delicious. That will be easier to type, anyway.

I was first introduced to tagging via LibraryThing when I joined a couple of years ago. I took to it almost instantly: it was do-it-yourself subject cataloging without the barriers thrown up by LCSH. Not that I want to trash LCSH--I see the advantages of a controlled vocabulary--but that controlled vocabulary could be improved, and overall LCSH...well, let's not get into that right now. Suffice it to say, tags are much more useful for an individual and usually more fun as well. I've been tagging these posts as I've written them. Tagging works best for grouping similar things, so I've found tagging posts to be a bit of a challenge. I've tagged this one "LibraryThing" knowing that there's a LibraryThing Thing coming up so I'll have at least two posts with the tag, but I haven't peeked ahead enough to know if the "tagging" or "Delicious" tags I'm using will ever be used again.

I joined Delicious a couple of years ago as well. I don't know why I don't use Delicious more, since if nothing else, the idea of saving bookmarks to a website where you can access them from any computer makes so much sense. But I've memorized the addresses to the sites I visit the most and I just never think to go to Delicious. Maybe I'm just not adventurous enough: obviously I should be going out, finding new sites faster than I can memorize them, and seeing more of the Internet!

Since I barely use Delicious for its most fundamental purpose, as you may guess, I haven't been using the social networking aspect at all. I think some of my friends must have Delicious accounts, but we never talk about them, I have no idea what their account names are, and if I had an interesting link I wanted them to see, I'd just email it to them. Nor have I felt much urge to poke around in strangers' bookmarks. I just popped over to Delicious and looked at the popular tags...no, nothing called.

Despite my lack of personal enthusiasm for Delicious, I think it would be a good tool at work. Saving a collection of work-related bookmarks to an account that anyone on staff could access would be useful, and it would also be nice to browse Delicious for other potential bookmarks relating to law libraries, to see things we would probably otherwise miss.

Thing 10: Wikis

So now I've worked with both Google Docs and the wiki we're developing here at work. It's a matter of scale, isn't it? If only a few people need to contribute to a document, use Google Docs or a similar service. But if you want input from anywhere from several people to the world, you'd be better served by a wiki.

I don't think I'm enough of a free spirit to truly enjoy a wiki. I like a little uniformity in my documents (note that possessive pronoun). The wiki at work is intended to replace our procedures manual(s) and several people are contributing.This is excellent for many reasons: the person who understands her/his job best is the one writing it up, the work is shared with everyone and not just dumped on the hapless soul who couldn't get away fast enough, and if we remember to keep it up, the wiki will be reasonably current. But no two people have the same writing style, so each entry is organized differently--heck, no two people really agree on layout. And yes, I'm a perfectionist, but that touch of chaos irritates me. Other wikis out there look like they have more uniformity--perhaps someone lightly edits the whole thing, or they have templates to work from?

My obsessive-compulsive tendencies aside, wikis have a lot of potential. Wikipedia has been on my mind recently because of the reference class I'm in. The professor has not wanted us to use Wikipedia, and I haven't been sure if that's simply because it's the easy answer (and in a reference class, understandably, you want students to familiarize themselves with several sources) or because of Wikipedia's slightly unsavory reputation. When I've looked up a subject on Wikipedia that I know enough about to catch errors, the articles have been accurate, so I think of it as a good place to find a "good-enough" answer. Perhaps Wikipedia just needs a little more time to gain acceptance. After all, a co-worker told me that when she went through library school, in the pre-Wikipedia days, the reference professors wouldn't let them use Google to look anything up--it wasn't seen as being as reputable as Yahoo.

Thing 9: Online Collaboration Tools

[I've asked for editing rights to the test documents for this Thing. But it looks like some people have had trouble accessing the documents even with permission, and I'm not sure when the permission will come through, so I'm going ahead with what I already know.]

My experience with online collaboration has been recent, but positive. I'm in a class this summer, and last week we had a group paper and presentation due. What with jobs, family commitments, school, etc., my group of four was finding it almost impossible to find a time when we could all meet. I was not looking forward to emailing a document back and forth. And then another group member suggested we do the project on Google Docs. It was easy to get all of us editing rights. We worked on our sections of the paper separately, uploaded them to Google Docs, and then one of us pulled the whole thing together and made it hand-in-able. In addition, we also used the Presentation module (Google's equivalent to PowerPoint) to make slides for the presentation. While we didn't take the time to use Presentation's templates so our presentation was a bit on the bare bones side, the basics were there and it worked smoothly on the classroom computer, which doesn't always happen when you're trying to run a PowerPoint presentation off your flash drive.

Collaborative documents is a Web 2.0 innovation that I can see many uses for and which could make life easier. And it seems to be taking off: I got an email from Microsoft inviting me to try Microsoft Office Live Workspace, which I gather is their attempt to catch up in this area.

Thing 8: Share Your Creations

I take it PictureTrail's target audience is teenage girls? The default templates for their various Flicks are laden with sparkly stars, butterflies, pink and silver swirls, and so on. But I have slogged through the sugary collection and found a frame that at least doesn't twinkle, and a way of displaying the photos that won't make me seasick. Apparently continually moving pictures are not my forte.

Of course the Internet is a visual medium. But I find myself working through all these photo-oriented Things thinking, Yes, more ways to share photos. Been there, done that. Isn't there anything else one can do with Library 2.0? Not fair, I know: blogging (Thing 1), after all, is primarily verbal, and all those activities on Thing 7 weren't about photo-sharing.

I thought PictureTrail itself was easy enough to navigate, and I'm relieved to see that they'll delete my account if I never upgrade it--one fewer unused account cluttering up the Internet. Boy, they're not subtle about the advertising. I don't see myself using PictureTrail either personally or professionally (sparkly hearts and swirls just say LAW LIBRARY, now don't they?). But I might be able to come up with a use for the shared database or possibly eFolio.

Thing 7: Web 2.0 Communication Tools

Oh and doesn't this Thing cover a lot of territory? Jumping right in...

I don't feel as if email is draining away all my time and energy, but I think that's because I don't get much email in the first place. Most of my coworkers, if they go away for even a day or two, spend much of their first day back slogging through their inboxes. Me, I have to be gone for a week before that becomes a noticeable problem. I don't feel out of touch; it's just that my work-related mailing lists don't generate much email. I think email has slightly improved my productivity, although more in terms of quality than quantity. I'm much more likely to fire off an email to someone than to try to call that person--I find it easier to express myself in writing, and there's that ability to attach files (better than having to print out a file and mail it).

We have begun experimenting with instant messaging. We're considering offering IM as a way for patrons to ask reference questions, although we're going to thoroughly test the system first and see if we have enough staff to handle this. We're using Google Talk for these first tests because many people on staff already have Google accounts and because it's web-based so we don't have to get permission from our IT department to use it, but we're thinking about using Meebo if we decide to IM with the public. I must admit that the two of us who tried it yesterday were less than impressed. We couldn't see much difference between using Google Talk and using email, except that at least we know when we get new emails, and the web form of Google Talk didn't let you know when the other party said anything. You had to be staring right at the box to know, which meant you pretty much couldn't get anything else done.

Of course, an IM conversation between two coworkers might not be anything like a reference interaction between a librarian and a patron. Although this may not make things easier. One of the readings describes IM reference as "a sped-up email transaction." Fine, but some answers will take time to research, no matter which medium is used to ask the question. How patient will an IMing patron be if the librarian needs ten minutes or so to go track down the answer? If the librarian comes up with the answer only to come back to the desk and find that the the patron is offline, will the librarian feel as if she's wasted her time? If it had been an email transaction, she could just send the answer along anyway, but as I understand IM, both parties need to be present. "Speed is important but don't feel rushed," burbled that same article. Yeah, right.

Text messaging? One thing at a time. It's not a priority for our library at this time.

We've been participating in web conferencing for years now. It's definitely an improvement over driving all over the Twin Cities (or Minnesota) for meetings that only take an hour or so. The only problem I've experienced with web conferencing is that if you're in a cubicle instead of an office, it's difficult to participate without bothering your neighbors.

in-between thing: blog lists

Blogger has been highlighting their new Blog List feature for some time; I've only just now gotten around to checking it out. I'm playing with it partially for the experience, partially to make it really easy to find the blogs I've chosen to list, and partially just because I can. Find my blog, find my co-workers'.

If the State Law Library had a blog, I suspect we could list other blogs we thought patrons might find useful. What those would be, I have no idea, but I bet there are some good ones out there somewhere.

Thing 6: Online Image Generators

I will resist the urge to name this post Flickr III, but playing around with the online image generators was a lot like playing around with the Flickr toys. But this time I'm getting glimmers of ideas of ways that we could use these at work. For example, the State Law Library hosts the occasional series of lunchtime showcases. It may be possible to use some of these images when we advertise these.

As requested, one trading card:



I don't think I'm going to get very far with Toon Doo. I clicked on the link and managed to look at their page for all of about ten seconds before the chaotic layout drove me away. I thought Image Chef was more fun (more navigable, anyway), and came up with these images:

(from our motto First Rung on the Ladder of Justice)

We're a library. These are books. It had to be done.

:)

Thing 5: Flickr (II)

Yes, the Flickr toys were fun to play with. I think I may be able to find a use for Palette Generator (from Big Huge Labs). Palette Generator analyzes a photo and then generates color swatches from that photo. If I could just get an accurate-ish color printout of those swatches, I could hie off to a yarn store and see if I really could make a sweater using the colors of a gorgeous landscape. I can't figure out how to put a sample picture and its swatches into this blog, but I'll toss in a jigsaw puzzle instead (also fun; even fewer ideas for how to use it practically).















But I digress.

I'm not bubbling over with job-related applications for these toys. It's the nature of our library, in part. Most of our patrons don't come to us for entertainment or even casual learning. For those in the Judiciary, their visits are probably work-related; for the general public, I'm guessing a mood of desperation is more likely. We do host the occasional library event; perhaps by the time the next one rolls around, I'll have played more with Flickr and its accessories and may have ideas of how to incorporate something.

Thing 4: Flickr (I)

It is not that I am completely ignorant of the features of Web 2.0. In some cases, I have played around with them and found them not to my taste. Flickr would be one of these cases, hence the delay in tackling Thing 4.

One of the "Things" I play with in the Web 2.0 world is Ravelry, a sort of LibraryThing for knitters and crocheters. Ravelry doesn't have a photos feature of its own; it piggybacks off of Flickr. So that's mainly why I have a Flickr account: it holds the photos themselves, and then I describe and tag and comment on those photos through Ravelry, which is much better suited to that purpose.

I haven't figured out what else I would do with Flickr personally. I suppose I could put vacation photos up (note to self: must take a vacation sometime). This would probably be the socially acceptable way to show vacation photos: interested friends could go look, while the uninterested wouldn't have to tell me to my face that they didn't want to--they could just not look. Hmm. Okay, okay, that has possibilities. But I'm still not convinced I'm a Flickr devotee!

That said, how to use Flickr in a library context? Some time ago, a former coworker of mine had the idea of putting together a tour for our library using Flickr, which we did. For the sake of this exercise, a current coworker who's doing the 23 Things as well had the idea of freshening up that tour. So, a new photo here, a revised comment there, and our refashioned tour is ready for visitors.

in-between thing: facebook

Make that 23 Things Not Necessarily in Any Particular Order on a Stick. Well before Thing 20 appeared on the horizon, I joined Facebook. Blame peer pressure for this one. One minute, it looked like I could ignore Facebook indefinitely and not miss a thing by doing so. Then within the space of a week, I learned that several members of a mailing list I'm on had joined, that a close friend had just joined, that another close friend had been a member for months...finally curiosity won out.

Does it live up to the hype? I'm not sure yet. Getting constant updates on the status of people I'm not all that close to feels pretty unnecessary. But then, those same updates on my friends' statuses let me feel a little closer. Some of the applications amuse me--many seem like complete wastes of time and of my profile page space. It's probably good that I signed on early. By the time Thing 20 rolls around, I may have a much better sense of how Facebook and I will relate.

Thing 3: RSS

Finally: something 2.0-ish that I was already familiar with. My first foray into the world of RSS was with Sage, a Firefox add-on. I suppose it worked decently enough--I used it for months and I still haven't uninstalled it--but I never really was all that fond of it either. Sage mostly just gives you the text of whatever it is you've linked to, and after a while I missed the bells and whistles of people's sites. And it wasn't much use at all for keeping up with a webcomic!

A number of months ago, I created a Google Reader account. The problem here was that even though I have a link to Google Reader in Firefox's Bookmarks toolbar, which is about as much in my face as you can get, I never get around to actually clicking on the link.

Lately, I've been doing RSS through my various email programs. Both Outlook and Thunderbird can handle RSS feeds. This is proving to be the most satisfactory solution yet. Every time I go online I check my email, and both programs just check RSS feeds automatically while looking for new mail. And once I see that there's something new to read, I'm usually curious enough to go and read it.

I mostly just happen upon RSS feeds that I want to pursue. Funny: in the end, there just aren't that many sites I need to be constantly on top of.

Thing 2: Perspectives on Library 2.0

Okay, Library 2.0 sounds fun. I mean, this entry has been delayed because when I figured out that all I'd be doing for Thing 2 was reading articles and blogs and watching a video, my motivation just drained away. I wanted to be actively doing things, not just sitting around reading. And there are so many things one can be doing: creating content, sharing content, forming community online...it's going to be a wonderful time to be a user.

I don't know how I'm supposed to fit into the brave new world as a librarian.

Once upon a time, librarians helped patrons navigate the arcana of call numbers and subject headings to find books. They guided patrons through indexes to get them half-hidden journal articles. If a patron had enjoyed all the books of Author A and wanted to read more, a librarian could suggest Author B as a good next read. Through all of this, for the most part, the patrons had questions and the librarians either had answers or had an idea of how to find answers.

We were helping the patrons learn. Well, they (we) have. Now what? Patrons with questions are becoming users who can create their own answers. It seems to me that the commentators were more focused on explaining Library 2.0 than really speculating on the nitty-gritty details of how Libraries 2.0 will really function on a day-to-day basis. It's understandable: so far we're all just speculating on what will happen. But I find myself thinking that there are probably far fewer bank tellers nowadays than before ATMs became ubiquitous and that maybe that's what's going to happen to librarians. People who can do their own banking are probably more than ready to do their own librarianship. Yes, there are still bank tellers--there are still things best done in person at your local bank. There will still be librarians--there will still be things that need the personal touch at libraries. It simply sounds like there won't be as many of those librarians.

You did catch the part at the beginning of this post where I said Library 2.0 and Web 2.0 sound like fun, right? But I would've liked it if some of those commentators had speculated for a moment or two on what roles are left for tech services staff who have fewer books and serials to process, reference librarians who won't be seeing as much of patrons who can now look up their answers from their own computers, and circ staff who can be replaced by self-service check-out machines. But at the same time, I've checked out my own materials without serious injury, researched issues on the Internet and felt proud for finding answers, and have been happy not to have needed to lug home books for my papers--I don't want to go back to the way things were!

in-between thing: ning

Going straight from Thing 1 to Thing 21 was not my idea. But as it happens, I'm attending the Midwest Library Technology Conference this week, and they asked us to join Ning. So after a bit of clicking about--how much of my real identity do I want for this account, what privacy policy, click where?--I now seem to be successfully Ninged. I even managed to work my brand-new avatar into Ning, although I ended up downloading the file and then cropping it. If Ning says what they're looking for in photo sizes, I haven't seen that yet.

So all that effort, and then it looks like not much is happening on the conference site. Something to check back on before the conference, I suppose.

Thing 1: Beginning Blogging

Or Beginning Blogging and Avatars to be more accurate. I think most of my energy went into trying to create the avatar. Who would have thought a casual outfit of jeans and a plain sweatshirt, or shorts and a t-shirt (the kind of clothes I envisioned my avatar wearing) would be so hard to pull together? I can feel the cataloging instinct kicking in: I was dismayed to realize that I was going to have to click through 60-odd pages to see all the possible outfits for my avatar--doesn't this just cry out for a better system of organization? Any organization at all would be an improvement. Tagging, maybe.

Blogging? Well, I'll get back to y'all about whether I like it or not. At the moment, it feels like writing a letter to a vast mass of strangers, and that feels unnatural as all get-out. Heck, if I'm going to write letters, I have friends who'd love to hear from me.

23 Things on a Stick? Sounds like a good idea. I've already tried some of the things on the list (LibraryThing = yay! Del.icio.us = uh, whatever), but I could've drifted for years more without trying blogging and who knows if I'd've ever gotten around to sampling Facebook or MySpace. (Did I just commit myself to making it that far through this program? Uh-oh).