Exercise #23: Reflections ... True Love Leaves No Traces

It's been an engaging exercise, for sure. Initially, I was a bit lethargic about pacing my entries and felt a certain disinterest in the blog format because I am not, typically, an individual who wants to post commentary that I'm not particularly passionate about. Sadly, readers, I was not passionate about Library 2.0 at the outset and I'm glad to report that I've learned quite a bit about a myriad of terms, technologies, and tools for which I'd previously had only the vaguest notion of beforehand.

I can recall a few months ago in November I attended this event with my wife in San Francisco. The event was the first annual "Vloggies" and it was an award ceremony for video bloggers. At the time we were marvelling at the fact that it was without a doubt the most filmed activity we had ever been to (think first day of kindergarten with 98% of parents documenting with digicams), but you know, they were all vloggers so what do you expect. Anyhow, what initially was an invitation to see something new and drink for free to live music at Cafe du Nord became kind of a learning experience as we quizzed each other "what exactly is del.ici.ous?" and "who the hell is Technorati?" I assure you these inquiries were bandied back and forth. So, long story short, I have benefitted from Learning 2.0 in being able to better understand and apply the power of these tools we have forced ourselves to investigate in these exercises.

Library Thing was a particularly fun exploration and the 2.0 awards list was endlessly entertaining. But again, even though most of the topics were familiar, I didn't really know del.ici.ous or Technorati and this discovery exercise enabled me to engage myself through the potential of how it may impact my life as a librarian. At times it seemed like too much all at once, but this intensive learning has it's benefits as well. I will say that the time committment was more than I anticipated but just like the Thigh Master it's always more work than you're lead to believe. I would definitely be open to more learning exercises such as Library 2.0 because in the end it was fun (at times), educational, and a great way to kill time when you'd had enough of the routine library existence. Yeah, well done to the Virtual Services Team one and all.

Exercise #22: ebooks

The day will come, most likely, when a technology will replace the physical book bound with paper, glue, thread, etc ... The book as we know it, however, will never go away just as lp's most likely won't ever be completely abandoned by passionate collectors. So ebooks are a natural progression and I'm sure lots of folks dig 'em, but ask for a person's preference and I'm pretty sure most would rather posess a physical specimen to hold on to and form a bond with. That being said, I don't have much of an opinion on ebooks only because I accept that they are the inevitable evolution of printed material and yet totally uninteresting to me on a personal level. If I can get a library patron happily on his/her way with an electronic copy of something they so desperately "need" then I'm all for the convenience. Most people presume librarians are book collectors and bibliophiles in general, but frankly I don't buy many books (that's what libraries are for!) and would not consider ebooks as being a replacement for an activity that is vital, simple, and personal. So I'll keep picking-up the occassional copy at the segunda, making requests through Link+, and hoping that I can always find what I desire in a glorious hard copy.

Exercise #21: podcasting

Well, everybody is trying to get you to listen to their podcasts and if I were constantly glued to my ipod or in front of my computer at home I'd be tempted to start developing some playlists of casts' that I'm interested in. Hell, even my friend the realtor sends out his newsletters in podcasting format. He'll never read my blog (like anybody does! HA HA HA HA) so I have to say that I've never listened to a one of them. Sorry, old chap. I did, however, download some from NPR and have them stored for future use. Also, I added this one particular show from WEVL, Memphis TN to my bloglines account because it's a great show with a highly underrated musician from years past playing versions of songs (mostly good) we all recognize ... and then followed up by the original version because, yup, they're all covers. Pretty amazing world we live in, huh.

Exercise #20: YouTube

I first got turned on to YouTube by friends who wanted to share soccer highlights. The emails would come in imploring one another to check out the goals by Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, the archived footage of George Best and Johan Cruyff ... etc. It seems positively old hat by now, but obviously the YouTube universe has done nothing but expand and it's incredible how vast the site has gotten with a seemingly endless supply of videos in spite of the regular cease and desist notices that YouTube receives from the predictable media giants. Could libraries use this technology? Yeah, I suppose we could make boring snippets showing how to use the self-check machines and the latest things that patrons need to be aware of, but we could also get more creative than we're accustomed to being by putting together mashup videos promoting our programs, events, and anything that can serve as creatively self-promotional or informational. As with many of the tools we've pondered through Library 2.0, the possibilities are limited only by our self-imposed boundaries.

I was tempted to post "Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill, but my musical tastes are more than 2 minutes longer than the blurb I chose.
You know where I represent when it comes to baseball ...

Exercise #19: Library Thing

For years I use to keep a battered little notebook with titles of books I had read and what they meant to me at the time. I stopped cataloging years ago but always felt a pang of guilt knowing that the last book I read wouldn't be included in "the list." The insignificantly odiferous titles never made it anyway. Library Thing is giving me the insane desire to transfer yet more data into an online existence so I can refer back to all of those titles that formulate the basis of who I am through what I read (and have read). Thank God I am not tempted to do this with music other than a simple iTunes collection. Library Thing is a fun tool, functional in many ways for libraries and literacy advocacy and just pretty cool all around. My books are not the most popular in anybody's collection, but they all kick ass. How's that for a recommendation?

Exercise#18: Online Productivity (not an oxymoron this time)

Great flippin' tool. Who would have anything negative to say about it? Granted there will be those who are devoted to using their preferred suites of services, but for convenience and simplicity this is a great tool for anyone who has a need to produce documents and such. I am finding it a little stickier to publish directly from Zoho Writer or Google Docs than I anticipated, though, for something seemingly simple. Hmm, I'll have to get back to that and play around. In any case, if you are using these "Online Productivity Tools" (high hopes there with the P word) then you have to be impressed that they are so readily available and excited that you'll never be worrying about competing platforms and carrying storage devices and such. During the course of the past 6 months or more I have shared the tool with a few patrons here at the branch in an effort to turn 'em on to the possibilities and they were duly impressed if a little dubious at first. How are you not gonna like the potential of something so practical? In the words of Bill & Ted ... "excellent!"

Exercise #17: Sandbox wiki

I added my blog to the fave's list ... picked a favorite restaurant, too. I was too verbose with the dining suggestion. I will not be here.

Exercise #16: wikid wikis

Yeah, so what wouldn't work for libraries employing the use of wikis? Seems to be so practical on so many levels as evidenced in the many examples throughout the exercise. As a collaborative exercise with the public we have peer-generated ratings for reading materials instead of just the "voice of the librarian," and also community wikis developing to share a myriad of info and links found by informed individuals. As a tool for staff purposes we have a replacement for an intranet structure where the gatekeepers write in code and need to be directed to post simple additions meant to share and facilitate a learning process. Lots of examples to ponder the benefits of utilizing multiple wikis, but let's not bore each other with the details and the obvious challenges to maintaining a strong wiki. Let's empower the willing and start creating more avenues to actually utilize the potential.

Exercise 15: Library 2.0

I am particular to the ideas expressed by Michael Stephens in his essay "Into a New World of Librarianship" as it seems to present a rational approach to the adoption of a mindset and the skills necessary to build a believable 2.0 existence. Specifically, I appreciate how he uses key phrases of simplicity addressing how libraries need to embrace web 2.0 tools to "... further the mission of the library ..." and how the technology must meets the needs of the users in a beneficial way and NOT for the sake of trends or status. The arguments he presents are lucid, practical, and present a groundwork on which one can easily relate to the promotion of all of the tools necessary to make 2.0 (and further) more than an idealization of concepts and models of service for the library of the future.

My feeling about the 2.0 future is, to say the least, ambivalent or at the least shrouded in a haze of uncertainty. I want to believe that the libraries of tomorrow will in fact adapt to technological trends and employ them in a manner which is functionally sound and benefits everyone involved. Do libraries need to evolve to fit into an ever-expanding technologically advanced world? Of course they do, but the traditions that have made libraries the valued institutions that educated societies recognize them to be probably shouldn't aspire to abandon those basic tenents and properties in a rush to fit in to the virtual future and beyond. Nobody, well at least nobody that I know, wants to be viewed as some outdated Luddite when it comes to adapting to technology and it's place in our world, but to presume that libraries need to rapidly adapt to 2.0 existences is a stretch that just isn't ready to happen on a large scale basis. But it's like the man said ... one boat at a time.

Exercise 14: Technorati and tags

Exploring Technorati at the least has given me some additional insight into the reality that as print and network news sources struggle to maintain readers and viewers, the blogosphere just continues to expand at an astounding exponential rate. Hard to believe that so many people want to be connected so much of the time, but then again we're talking about those denizens of the globe who are entrenched in an online existence and define themselves as such. While there still exists a very clear "digital divide," I believe that another separation is becoming quite prominent and that relates to how and what people are accessing online. How bloggers and the virtually connected utilize the web is still by and large vastly different from those still contentedly putzing around the web in more rudimentary (not meant as an insult) ways. Technorati is a great tool for searching the blogosphere and happening upon information that resides somewhere in the world between search engines like Google and traditional news sources and combined with del.icio.us it offers a simple combination of information gathering through the options of social bookmarking and tagging. My only problem with tags, however, is that the user driven definition of a tag can be almost anything according to the individual's preferences. There is no uniform terminology and thus it seems that searching by tags can be as random as can be expected by that lack of uniformity. This, I imagine, is where del.icio.us and folksonomies come into play in an attempt to create connections and group consensus or aggregations of info. At times, I'm not even sure I understand what I'm trying to communicate, and I apologize for that, but that's what is making this whole 2.0 exercise intriguing.

Exercise #13: del.icio.us ... the yellow haze of the sun

Social bookmarking. Hmmmph. After trying to grasp the basics of del.icio.us I've come to the conclusion that the way people use tags and bookmarking is purely for personal reasons first and foremost. So if the value of these tools is to build networks of shared information, is it really rational to think that this is in fact how the tools are initially used? I mean, I think that the majority of del.icio.us users probably are keen on the facility of personalized bookmarking that is free-roaming and not tied to a particular computer, but unless directed to utilize as an aggregated collection of tags and bookmarks, is everybody going to potentially use it as such. Hell, I don't know, but I plead ignorance because I'm not on the vanguard of tech tools and only with time and applied use will I understand the enormity (or proposed enormity) of utilizing this in our profession. One can see the possibilities of guiding library users to shared lists of recommended sites related to books, bookclubs, information of all stripes basically, but until I'm using it regularly it will remain an amorphous idea that will take shape slowly and , hopefully, surely.

exercise #12: Rollyo

I see the appeal of adding a Rollyo searchroll to a site seeking to limit searches. This, however, removes the potential for accessing new and unknown sources. Even though a general keyword search on Google can produce far too many results, the burden of collecting specific sites to add to a Rollyo searchroll can presume an authority that maybe is not comprehensive enough ... but maybe it shouldn't be. I guess that's the whole point, sites that you use most or trust most, but I'm not completely sold that it's a tool I would employ frequently if at all. The example of SJLearning Reference Rollyo does provide a simple and functional method for limited searching within a defined parameter. And it works like it should ... whatever. Oh yeah, here's the link to my searchroll, but don't bother unless you want to read about fúrgol and most of it will be in spanish or italian ... vamos: http://rollyo.com/chicoescuela/my_boixosbadalona/

exercise # 11: Web 2.0 awards

I have to say that the possibilities are infinitesimal and, frankly, too damn much to peruse in a short amount of time. I chose to investigate the "mashups & more" link and came across a site that really does a helluva job of visually presenting you with material related to your search for music or movie preferences. Frankly it did a pretty good job trying to connect you to films that may be similar in style (not so much in music, but it's all subjective). In other words, it gives suggestions for consumption that may be of interest based on the data entered and could be replicated as a rather cool and updated form of 2.0 readers advisory for the literary minded. What librarian wouldn't dig that?
The site: http://liveplasma.com Check it!

Exercise #10: Image Generators

Awright, more activities that I'm sure my son would love to spend hours playing around with. To that end, I certainly won't turn him on to the array of image generators, and besides, Club Penguin takes up all his online time anyhow. Ah, to be young and innocent again. I got my image through the Generator Blog and it's countless list of possibilities. Specifically, the link to the cassette generator as it plays on my old skool leanings: http://www.says-it.com/cassette/index.php

Exercise # 9: library blogs and newsfeeds

This post could be an almost identical sentiment as the previous on RSS in that the potential for locating blogs, feeds, etc. is tremendous and seemingly unlimited. Came across plenty of library/librarian oriented blogs and feeds, but nothing that merits mentioning here and now. In terms of search tools I tended to prefer Technorati and Feedster because they allow you to tailor your searches a bit more specifically and Topix.net I liked for the sheer volume of news related possibilities. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood or exhausted by then, but Syndic8 just seemed like alot of open source confusion that I would not be inclined to investigate unless given a very good reason or lots of money. I'll keep looking for unusual and worthwhile stuff, but the unuseful and uninteresting are rampant and dominating the frontier.

Exercise #8: RSS

RSS exercise has proven to be quite educational in the sense that while fully aware of newsfeeds and the scope of "really simple syndication," I came away with a Bloglines account and a newfound appreciation for the promotion of existing (at least partially) in the blogosphere. It's easy to see the potential for RSS feeds benefitting libraries and their patron base by annoucing policy changes, new materials (our branch continually gets feedback saying "tell us when you get new dvd's!"), and related forms of communiqués. To that end, yeah, I like what is offered on a personal and professional level but on another level one could argue that RSS is also an acronym for Really Severe Saturation. Information overload might just be the silent killer of our era. Either that or oat bran.

Exercise #7: Make my funk the P-funk

Technology. Right. Just when you think you're thrilled by some fabulous new development which will surely make our lives inherently more interesting, it likely becomes outdated and irrelevant faster than you can pick your nose and flick it. Let's be honest. With the deluge of products and developments arriving virtually non-stop there comes a moment when it's all insanely too much and I, for one, can sometimes give an Aylesbury duck about the topic. That being said, to keep the conversation decidedly tech-lite, doncha just love the new iKaraoke device that enables you to plug a little microphone into your ipod in order to cancel out the vocal tracks and give you absolute reign over all of those songs you just know you can belt out better than anyone (except, of course, the Barry White songs). So there you have it. Just when I'm about to give up on the tech-laden life I get an itchin' to croon "Yama Yama Pretty Mama" at the top of my 3rd rate lungs and I'm a sucker once again.

Exercise #6 flickr mashup

My READ exercise
Originally uploaded by boixos.

All right, I didn't favor the librarian trading card and I'm continually frustrated by the personalities chosen by ALA for their promotional posters. Perhaps this will create an underground network of wisenheimer literacy advocates interested in exaggeratingly poor taste graphic design! And then again, perhaps not.

(Image courtesy of Voodoo Rhythm Records)

what I wouldn't give to see this on Lincoln Ave.

Pet hyenas and baboons
Originally uploaded by Joi.

So I wanted to post a very nice photo of a baboon, i don't know why exactly, but instead I came across this image which made me think of all those labradoodles and puggles and things you encounter on the mean streets of Willow Glen. Imagine navigating this scene for a weekly bag of Peets coffee. It might be fun.

shamelessly ignored blog & Thang #5

aw'right, so i haven't entered anything for the past 3(?) weeks or so. Furthermore, I seem to have a lacking ability to clearly define the exercises or "things" we're required to be completing, so let's clear it up here by stating that to this point I have completed through step number 4 by registering my blog and all. This post shall address the flickr exercise and i assure you that I have explored it like mad. May as well go to "thing 6" and play with some flickr tools or mashups or whatever we want to call 'em. So hang on to your hats ... I know I'm exicted.

Thing 1 and Thing 2? Dr. Seuss turns in his grave ...

I neglected to complete Thing 2 in identifying the easiest and most challenging of the 7½ habits. So here we go. The most challenging for me would be the first, "Begin with the end in mind." Maybe it's just the syntax, but personally I wish to leave "the end" open-ended, as it were. You never know what lay between the here and now and, well, what awaits us forevermore, so I'm always willing to allow for fluctuating forms of reality. If that sounds too hippie, please forgive me because it's making me nauseous as well.

The easiest I'd have to say would be to accept responsibility for your own learning. Nobody will ultimately infuse you with an intellectual curiosity that is ongoing and if you're not gonna do it for yourself then who will?

Only the Beginning

Where to start? What can possibly be said to further the content of too many bloggers with vastly too many opinions on everything under the sun? Gimme time, and I may yet come up with an entirely unoriginal litany of comments and commentary.