Number Nine

Twitter.
Boy, this one really had a high Huh? factor for me. I can see where it would be useful for groups working together on a particular project from remote locations but the lure of day-to-day use, I must confess, escaped me. For some reason I got an IE error message every single time I tried to do anything in Twitter so that made it fairly frustrating. JB tried to help me get rid of it but no luck.

Number Eight

The Facebook assignment is actually fairly problematic for me, or would have been if we had actually been required to have a profile. This is the area of social networking where I have the most concerns about "sharing" and the least interest in doing so. I realize that taking the "tour" probably doesn't do it as far as familiarizing oneself with the site but, if that's all that's available without signing up, then the tour will have to suffice. I became aware of the "Beacon" snafu via a televised news item several weeks ago, before I knew exactly what this assignment would entail, and was, quite frankly, appalled. So now Facebook has admitted that it was a big mistake but the fact that they even came up with this idea in the first place tells me that their idea of online privacy is in a completely different stratosphere from mine--and I don't have any wish to rocket ship into theirs any time soon.
As far as the utility of library profiles on Facebook or MySpace, I was interested in comments by Meredith Farkas in her article that "the more links you provide to valuable library services the better." Sure, if an important segment of your public spends a lot time there, have a presence, but as she says, make it useful, an extension of your web site, not just a profile concocted in an effort to be "cool".

Number Seven

Part I.
Wikis. Interesting concept. In visiting the various examples listed on the Krl2pt0 page I was interested, for example, that one of the remedies to cure boredom for the citizens of Rochester, NY, was to "take a drive down Lyell Ave at 1am and count the hookers." I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce just loves the idea of anyone and everyone adding their own major points of interest. I was interested in the Wiktionary idea, being a fan of dictionaries, but found that the link from Krl2pt0 was actually to the article on the Wiktionary in Wikipedia, rather than the dictionary itself. I gather that the two are not really related. Since my office mate, JR, is the "go to" gal for the wiki pages, I reported this major snafu and she walked me through changing the the link so it actually takes you to the Wiktionary. So all is now as it should be. (P.S. I wasn't all that impressed with the Wiktionary.)
Part II.
Added my small contribution to the Sylvan Way wiki, the branch hours (whoopee!) only to be told today that I had left off Friday. Oh, well, I never wanted to work on Fridays anyway.

Number Six

YouTube. Ah, yes. Since my computer here has no sound, watching most of the videos was like watching television with the sound off. Even the infamous KRL fish caper lost most of its appeal without sound. My favorite of the examples was "Library Dominoes". No sound needed. I definitely think we should try that, although whatever library that was filmed in had shelves and shelves of large books that are all the same size. Since our selection varies widely, I'm not sure we'd get the same result.

Number Five

Created an account in Library Thing and added a few titles. If a person had a whole lot of time I can see where it might be fun to add your whole library. I notice that some people are using it as a list of possibly interesting books to be read in the future. One of my books had a tag of "tbr". It might be interesting to incorporate the library version into an OPAC.

Number Four

Visited Flikr.com. Lots and lots of beautiful photos of the Scottish Borders, including St. Mary's Loch in the winter with snow on the ground http://www.flickr.com/photos/waldmark/399629759 and an autumn sunset on the River Teviot at Kelso http://www.flickr.com/photos/borderglider/1885567627. I was there in January, so even though it is missing some of the lushness of spring and summer, it is still very beautiful.

Number Three

RSS feeds--done. Setting up the account in Bloglines and adding the feeds wasn't all that difficult. But then I kept wondering where my posts/messages were from the ones I signed up for. Somehow, I got the idea they were supposed to be showing up in my gmail account and nothing did! So, once I figured out I actually had to find them in my Bloglines account (what a surprise!), things went just swimmingly.