Monday, March 31, 2008

Thing Fifteen, Gaming

I have obviously slowed down on my 23 Things. Puzzle Pirates was, however, a nice way to ease back into Blogging.

I must admit to not enjoying video games and cannot say I was terribly impressed with my gaming experience on- line, either. The conversation with other pirates was a bit stilted (I am sure that I had a lot to so with that) and I just knew that more experienced players had to be frustrated with my slow uptake. In a more optimal situation I am sure that the conversation is an added level of enjoyment, much the way that playing board or card games is enriched because of the company, but I cannot say that I will be jumping on the gaming band wagon any time soon.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Thing Fourteen, LibraryThing

I first experimented with LibraryThing some time ago and had added several books when I made the big switch and headed over to GoodReads. I migrated because I had friends using one interface and not the other; I wanted this to be a social, sharing experience and the move made that possible. Additionally, GoodReads has a Facebook function that I use on my profile page and that connects me to more friends via this social networking tool.

In the end I am happier with GoodReads; it allows me the same cataloging functionalities and tagging and includes the same links to reviews and ratings with the added benefit of my being able to create multiple bookshelves. My shelves can be as straight forward as "to-read" and "reading" or as specific as genre or author. I am a huge fan of this site and enjoy all the little bunny trails it leads me on. I've followed many a book trail and have stumbled upon some great reads for myself and my book club already. I look forward to plenty of fun in the future and am quite convinced that if one is willing this can be a fun and useful reader's advisory tool.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Thing Twelve, Social Media Sites

Of all the on-line activities I have experienced I had the hardest time getting excited about the social media sites. While I can understand their popularity and can see how people would be excited about being a "part of" the action and having their "say" in the matter I found most of them difficult to navigate, unattractive in layout, and lacking in valuable information. My hesitation, however, has not stopped this digital discussion, as proven by the fact that Yahoo! now has their own program, buzz, in beta.

I may just be a librarian fuddy duddy, less concerned with what others are thinking (some of the top stories I ran across were American Idol or celebrity focused) and more interested in quality news representation or challenging articles. I've found sites that I prefer, Newsmap or Arts and Letters Daily, for example, and will stick to those. As for the social sites, I found them highly distracting and can only imagine the bunny trails I could get on if I spent any time at all on them.

Thing Thirteen, On-line Productivity Tools

This post, by nature of the task, will be a bit disjointed, just a few comments on my initial reactions to a few of the sites I visited...


I have been using My Yahoo! for sometime now as a means of consolidating some of the information I tend to use on a regular basis. In all honesty, however, I rarely use the site. I prefer Bloglines' interface and like having Minnesota Public Radio as my home page so that I can start my day with a little news and a bit of music.

Scrybe impressed me immensely because of its ability to transcend format, delivery or information types and uniformly create a single place with self-selected information relevant to the my life. Although I hesitate registering for many on-line tools I was disappointed to find that Scrybe has closed registration for the time being; it seems like a wonderful tool. I will definitely want to revisit this site in the future.

Research application came to my mind immediately upon my first visit to My Stickies. What a fantastic tool for distance reference; if I could send e-mail sources to a user and let them know very clearly why I thought they could use the site. I did not sign-up, but am interested to know if there are collaborative possibilities or if the sites are "shareable." It is closest in my mind to the "social annotation" site Diigo that I find wildly interesting but have yet to integrate into any reference interaction.


Above all else, this exercise left me feeling like my life is very calm and manageable. Looking at all of these tools and calendars and widgets and add-ons tired me out. My resolution post "Thing 13" is to maintain a sense of sanity about my life and be thankful for the fact that I don't have to rely on "Remember the Milk" to get through my day!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Thing Eleven, Tagging

My favorite thing about tagging is its availability to both the tagger of the information as well as to other users who may have an interest in that same topic.

As an academic library we create web resource lists for popular needs or recurrent classes. I can see this easily translating from our web site to a tagging program. The added benefit of moving our resources to a tagging site like Del.icio.us is that professors and students could add to our selected sites those sites they find useful as well. Since the resources are for the users it makes since to offer each of them the opportunity to strengthen our offerings with those sites they feel are tried and true.

The drawbacks, of course, include random or unhelpful sites working their way into the list as well as "tags" that do not coordinate or make no sense to other users.

Another issue in transferring information to a tagging site is that we would be creating yet another place to look for information. One of my personal professional concerns with the constant and always expanding profusion of information is the increase in the sheer number of places a person need search in order to get a wide and deep look at the information available.