i know that already because i saw it on your facebook

Oh, Facebook. As previously noted, I was quite determined not to become one of your minions. Er, I mean users. Social networking sites are a dime a dozen these days, and a girl could get a headache trying to keep up with them all. Or, just by trying to remember all those passwords.

But if there's one thing I learned from watching Star Trek (TNG all the way!), it's that resistance is futile. You tell yourself that you're just going to register to find out what all the hype is about and initially you are pretty unimpressed. Slowly though, you start to enjoy the constant string of information. Oh look, she is having pizza for dinner tonight! He is attending a rugby match! I bet I can answer more questions about The Goonies than him! Can thousands of Stephen Colbert fans really be wrong?

Almost without even realizing it, you are logging on a dozen of times of day, hoping desperately that someone has played a move in one of the ten Scrabulous games you have going. You find yourself thinking that crafting your profile is a good way to kill two hours. You upload pictures. You consider this a valid form of communication between friends. You feel like, gee, I bet we'd have a great time hanging out because Flixter says so and we have so much overlap in our iLike profiles.

And, it's like totally legit, because people are networked by their schools and employers and NPR did a story about it.

Maybe it's a facade. Maybe, probably it will fade.

But it hasn't yet, so feel free to look me up there. Especially if you play Scrabulous.

d.i.y.

To all my friends who may be feeling a little intimidated when it comes to adding to a wiki: may I suggest to you WikiHow? You don't need to register or log in if you aren't inclined and the topics are varied - some might even say inane - enough that surely you can find one that you can contribute to. Personally, I like that they're a little cheeky ...

I myself have shared tips on How to Color in a Coloring Book. Although the name is a bit of a misnomer, as it equally applies to coloring pages that are not bound together. I have said, more than once and only half kiddingly, that one of the perks of being a Children's Librarian is sometimes it is your responsibility to color. If I can pass on my expert knowledge to another, I'm happy to do so.

you're so fine you blow my mind

After stalling a bit here over the Library 2.0 assignment (which I suspect occurred because of the "too many options! too much to say!" conundrum that I have already mentioned) this lazy Sunday will find me - hopefully - working through a bit of my backlog. The fact that my cold returned just before thanksgiving and has been persistently lingering since then, thus rendering me totally homebound should help. Don't worry though. I'll take little breaks so the verbosity doesn't hit you all at once.

First off, then: Wikipedia. For which I am full of love. I have to say, reading some of the posts that my fellow participants have made on the subject has warmed the heart a bit. So much affection on display. I'm afraid that librarians, to make a sweeping generalization which I'm never keen on but is sometimes inevitable, have feared it for too long. Or at the very least, feared claiming it as their own. For ages, none of us professionals would admit to using Wikipedia. And then, when a few brave souls would raise their hand, they were certain to tag on: "of course, I always verify the information in another source." You know, just like we learned to do in library school. All well and good, but ...

I am here to admit to you that I use Wikipedia all the time. I love it. And, frequently, I do not verify the information I get there in another source. I do click on links galore - both to other Wikipedia articles, as well as to the bibliographies that are often included. Further, I don't think that confessing this makes me a bad librarian, although I'm sure that there are those who may want to scold me right now.

The caveat: most of my Wikipedia use is limited to my personal use and when answering reference questions and the like, it isn't my first stop. But I do use it at the library, especially when traditional sources don't cover the topic - either extensively or at all. One of the best things about the people's encyclopedia is how expansive it is and topics - especially people and places - that don't garner their own inclusion in a traditional encyclopedia are represented. Every youth librarian in the system has encountered - or will encounter, if they're still new - the infamous Queens Neighborhood assignment. And when they do, my hard-worn advice is to snuggle on up to Wikipedia. Those obscure mathematicians and inventors assignments too.

We all know that there just isn't a book on everything that people are interested in out there. The realities of the market just don't make it possible. But, there are lots of people who are interested in really obscure things and many of them are interested enough to create Wikipedia entries about their beloved topic. So why not use that to your advantage?

A final point I want to address on the topic is why one might prefer to use Wikipedia for a topic that might very well be covered in, say, World Book or a host of Gale databases. (And, for the record, I do use both of those things. A lot, actually and I constantly try to push them on my patrons as well, so maybe that fact that will redeem those to whom I lost points from above. Although I could be lying and just trying to get back into your good graces.) (Also, did you know that World Book was owned by the holding company that also owns Fruit of the Loom, Benjamin Moore and Dairy Queen? I didn't; thanks Wikipedia!) It's simply a matter of ease of use.

Even if you hate Wikipedia with a searing white hate that keeps you up at night, you have to give them props for this. The proprietary databases are a pain, especially if you happen to be using them from home and don't have your library card handy and aren't a librarian who happens to know exactly how to construct your search terms. And once you get in, there aren't embedded links that take you to other, related topics that you might find helpful to know about. So maybe, if you're really hardcore, you might go ahead and construct another search for said related topic. Only, oops, your session has timed out, so now you have to log on again and the server is slow so that takes a while and then you have to choose your database and aye, caramba this is giving me a headache so I'm just going to go use Wikipedia.

revolution, library style, now

So, reading all the different articles about Library 2.0, with the idea that I would be crafting some sort of response to it here, totally made me feel like I was back in grad school. And because I was always good at being a student, that made me oh so happy. I suspect this means I should consider another degree. Or, more realistically perhaps, try to get into that library management class the next time it comes around.

Reading all that also made my head swim a little. There's so many opinions out there, about what 2.0 means, if it's necessary, if it's really all that different from what libraries have always done, whether it should be embraced or scorned. I suspect that most people fall, like me, somewhere in that shady grey middle. I do feel that, philosophically at least, Library 2.0 isn't really revolutionary. Libraries, and especially public libraries, have always espoused equality and the centrality of the user and have adapted and evolved to fit the needs of their communities. I've never really seen us as gatekeepers or viewed library service as a one-way process. Maybe it's just me though. Or at least related to when I came of age and the life philosophies I bring to the table.

And if Library 2.0 isn't a revolution, per se, I do think that I'm okay with deeming it an evolution of practices. Which means it's more than just a collection of tools that some may be tempted to reduce it to. The question to ask is how do you incorporate the technologies that characterize our time in order to offer the best library services to your users? And to do that, you have to first and foremost know who your users are and then take a look at the questions that naturally follow: what are their needs, which of those needs should the library be filling and how is the best way to go about that and the like.

In doing that, it's entirely possible that you'll realize that they don't need library blogs or rss feeds. This article was a good anecdotal representation of that. Another: when I told a friend of mine that I was participating in this project, she commented something along the lines of "Argh! I'm so tired of hearing about Library 2.0!" I was a little taken aback, but she went on to explain that her system had just unveiled a new website, full of widgets and wonders. Turns out the only ones who noticed were other libraries, who oohed and ahhed and maybe even included their url on a presentation slide. But from the community she works in? Deafening silence.

Which makes me wonder, just how do you measure the success of these things. Is there a rubric? Everyone knows that a bureaucracy loves a statistic, so which ones to use? Hits? Comments? Links? Subscriptions? And what's the magic number? How few makes for "wasting time/money/effort"? And if people keep not coming, do you keep throwing it out there? I don't have any answers. Thoughts and opinions, yes, but answers no. But then, I don't think anyone else really does either. The Annoyed Librarian can pooh-pooh it all they want (and really, what doesn't the Annoyed Librarian pooh-pooh?), but I don't think perpetual beta is a bad thing.

Of course, implicit in that is the idea of change. And there's so many places to go with that one. But if I got into it now, we'd be here all night and nobody wants that.

observations:

Technorati is way less annoying and overwhelming when you are signed in as a member.

Claiming your blog is really easy.

I need more authority. But how does one do this without trolling for links? Guess I'll have to make myself witty and insightful and learn the art of self-promotion.

You definitely get different results depending on how you search Technorati.

The popularity rankings indicate that the geeks (and I say that totally considering myself one of them) have certainly inherited the earth. Or at least the internet. Or maybe it just goes to show that even though everyone and my mother is using the internet, the people who get excited enough about it to be a presence and join things like Technorati are still the geekily inclined.

People really like cats, especially when they talk funny.

Also people really like gossip and politics and gossip about politics.

No matter how many articles New York Magazine writes about them, Gawker Media is doing a-ok.

take a bite, you know you want to

In thinking about technology and all of these applications we are busy using and experimenting with here, it's funny to think about just how many of them when, upon first hearing about them, my initial thought was "Eh, not for me." I can remember when the popularity of Myspace was on the rise and people had just begun to ask the question, "Hey are you on Myspace." And my answer was always no, because, duh, I wasn't. And I really didn't intend to join. I had been on Friendster and other precursors, and I'd quickly found them frustrating. But suddenly lots of my friends were on Myspace and using it pretty extensively to communicate with one another. I felt very out-of-the-loop because I hadn't received a bulletin notice or a message, so I reluctantly joined and became all about it.

And then, Facebook started to become popular. And I thought, "Hey, I have a Myspace. Isn't that enough? Do I really have to join another social networking site?" So I didn't and resisted as long as I could. But then a really good friend who wasn't on Myspace at the time sent me a Facebook invite. And I joined because I wanted to keep in touch with him. And these days, even though I know more people on Myspace than on Facebook, I find myself on the latter more often. Although I suspect that this has way more to do with the fact that I can play Scrabulous on there than anything else.

Anyhow, my whole point to that story is to illustrate how very frequently we initially might dismiss technology that might someday, perhaps someday very shortly, come to play a significant role in our lives. And that's certainly the case with del.icio.us. Known about it for ages and had no interest in it at all. Yes, the idea that all my bookmarks might be in one place was appealing, but not appealing enough to tip me over into membership. Besides, I tend to only use two computers - the one I have at home and the one I use at work. And for the most part, the sites that I frequent in each place are different, without a lot of overlap. I'm all about compartmentalization.

As such, I dismissed del.icio.us, thinking it was simply online bookmarking. And, at it's very essence that is what it is. But using it for this exercise, I've come to see how it can be much more dynamic than that, if you want it to be. For me, the big use I see of it will be as a place to bookmark not just sites that I might visit regularly, but individual articles and posts and really, that's huge! So frequently do I read stuff online and I'll think it's interesting. But it's not so interesting that I want to bookmark it, especially because I know it's not something I'm going to find myself frequently consulting. I tend to trust my memory too much and think "Hey, I found it once, I should be able to find it again." Only, sometimes I can't. But now I'm able to use del.icio.us as a way to keep track of those things. Very handy. I think that means I'm a convert.

totally not feeling it

I have to say, I've been avoiding a post for a little while, because I really wasn't so keen on Rollyo. I kept hoping that if I used it a bit more, I might learn to find some good things to say. Maybe I just wasn't getting it, or didn't give it enough of a chance to win me over.

But, even with lots of experimentation, it's just not working. Like, at all. Sorry, Rollyo, I just don't like you.

Why not? Some of these observations have been made by others, but let me lay my objections out here anyway.

1) It's redundant. I could get the same results by using and advanced search in a general search engine that I already employ - and which gives results on a much cleaner interface - or by just going to the sites in my lists and searching them individually. Which, yes, might be a wee bit more effort, but would be worth it, since I wouldn't be ...

2) wading through a lot of sponsored links. TOO MUCH ADVERTISING, y'all. And yes, I did just shout on purpose. Maybe it's just the part of me that used to go to indie rock shows and scorn the man, but I don't like a lot of advertising when I wander the 'net. I deal with it, because I know that money makes the world go round, but I like to pretend that the internet exists for more esoteric purposes than making some fat cat richer. On each results page for my Rollyo search, there were six sponsored links for ten non-sponsored ones. Plus, two bigger-picture ads along the side. No, thanks.

3) If there's enough demand for it, an aggregator site probably already exists that would do this better.

4) If you include large sites, it will search the entire domain and not let you specify smaller segments. Er, that was badly worded, so let me explain: the first search I made was for home decor/hipster homemaking sites and I included the website for Blueprint Magazine, which I happen to adore in physical form. But, it's a Martha Stewart production and as such is hosted on Marthastewart.com. So when a search is done, I get results from the entire website, including aspects of it I might not care about, like the weddings magazine or from the tv show.

5) As such, if you include large domains (marthastewart.com, cnn.com, wikipedia, amazon) and small domains (random blog), the results from the large domains will dominate. When I removed Blueprint, Apartment Therapy results dominated my results, because it, too, is very expansive. Why is there no option (that I can find) to weight, filter or prioritize the results?

Anyway, those are my objections off the top of my head. Overall, I just don't think I would ever use this. I can think of situations when other people might - many of which my fellow 2.0ers have noted - so, I'm glad it exists for them, but I cannot conceive of a situation in which I am a regular.

a long time ago, we used to be friends but I, haven't thought of you lately at all

Confession: I tend to be obsessive about things I'm keen on. I can't recall, but I think maybe I've indicated as much in some of these posts. But if not, it's good to just get it out there. Thus, if I like something, chances are I'm going to want to immerse myself in it completely. At least until some other obsession replaces it. It's probably not the healthiest thing in the world, at least not always, but it is what it is.

And, about a year and a half ago, I came across LibraryThing. And I liked it a lot. So much so that I thought it would be a really good idea to catalog every single book that I own. Or, at least every single book that I own that was sitting in my apartment at the time. There's still a few gigantic boxes sitting in my mom's garage in Ohio which I hope to someday be reunited with, when apartment space allows. Probably I do not really have the space for the 2000+ books crammed into this Queens studio. Certainly if I didn't have so many, furnishing options would be greater and I wouldn't have to worry about the leaning towers of books collapsing and causing dire injury if I shut the closet door to hard.

But, let's get back to LibraryThing, shall we? I shifted piles and I squinted at copyright pages and I made long lists if isbns and when the entire process was said and I shelled out ten bucks so I could catalog more than 200. And when all was said and done, I had a very complete LibraryThing, felt ever-so accomplished, loved looking at my LibraryThing and, well, proceeded to completely forget about it. Not right away. I was good about updating it for a little while.

But then gradually, it just slipped my mind. Maybe if I acquired books at a normal rate - one or two every now and then. But I'm a librarian who is fortunate enough to get the occassional ARC. Especially when I'd go to conferences and events like Book Expo. And, I have a boyfriend who works at an indie bookstore, so he's always bringing things home. Add to that the fact that no one on staff at said bookstore has the slightest interest in children's or YA books, so every now and then the manager just boxes up dozens of advances and sends them to me. Things have a way of spiraling out of control. Which is why, a year or so later, I find myself realizing that I can't remember the last time I logged books onto LibraryThing. And if I want to do some more, I'm going to have to cough up more cash and endure some major headaches as I try to figure out what's already in the library and what isn't. Somehow, I don't think it's going to happen. The moment has passed and until I get that cataloging itch again (which, I admit could totally happen), I'll be content to observe from the outside.

In the meantime, just last week I finally joined Good Reads ...