Eye Dunnett

Number Nine

2008-02-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

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

2008-01-23T15:28:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-12-10T17:40:00.001-08:00

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

2007-11-28T13:26:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-14T12:47:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Number Two

2007-10-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

Wow, two people (including significant others) reading or about to read Dunnett. Welcome to the adventure! Don’t be put off by Lymond trying to burn down his brother’s castle while his mother and her friends are inside. Things will eventually make sense, although in typical Dunnett style it will probably be later rather than sooner.

Well, got the del.icio.us account open and sites added. Had a few problems in the beginning but with Jeannie’s help we figured it out. So I get the usefulness of del.icio.us as a “more useful” list of favorites and how it could be used for reference work, etc. The part I am clueless about is the “social” part of social bookmarking. Not how it works, but why in the world anyone would want to do it. So I have a nice list of interesting (to me) sites in my account, but none of them are “shared.” If, all of a sudden, I have a “social” revelation and decide I must foist my particular interests on the world, I’ll change them. BTW, this is pretty much how I feel about blogs as well.

Number One

2007-10-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Eye Dunnett
By P. Somerville

I too have been keeping a log of all the books I’ve read since sometime in 1982. The notebook I’ve written them in lists about 20 titles per page and it’s getting about three quarters full now! Somewhere around that time, or perhaps even before, I discovered Dorothy Dunnett and she quickly became my absolute favorite author ever, and still is. Her death a few years ago from pancreatic cancer left those of us who are Dunnett fans bereft. There will be no more new books.

Luckily, when I first read Game of Kings, all the books in the Lymond series had been finished, so I could read straight through the three or four thousand pages of those six books without stopping. That wasn’t the case with the Niccolo series and waiting for each new book was such a drag.

I have always loved history and historical novels that are detailed and make you feel like you are there, but Dunnett’s books are incomparable. On one level they are swashbuckling historical romance (in the tradition of Walter Scott, not necessarily modern historical romance), but they are also intelligent, literate, funny and can make you cry at the same time. The live chess match in Pawn in Frankincense was breathtaking and had me in tears before it was over. I know that Dunnett’s critics think that her books are pretentious, over-written melodrama. All I can say is, if this is melodrama, then bring it on.

In 1992 I was lucky enough to be able to go to Scotland and visit many of the places Dunnett writes about in the Lymond books, including the High Street/Canongate and St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh and St. Mary’s Loch and the Vale of Yarrow in the Borders. It was just about off-the-charts thrilling for a Lymond fan.

Well, as part of the assignment I am supposed to mention a couple of the articles I read on Library 2.0.:
1. “We Asked for 2.0 Libraries and We got 2.0 Librarians.” Interesting notes on author’s experiences with Library 2.0 in his library, at least I assume that’s where he is talking about. Having not followed the blog previously, it takes a little reading of the other information there to figure out who the author is and what the “Other Librarian” is about. I was particularly struck by something in one of the replies to the effect that “It is a very (very!) tiny segment of our half-million people who know/care about blogs, RSS, social software, etc.”
2. “20 reasons why learning emerging technologies is part of every librarian’s job.” A thoughtful list. I especially liked the Manifesto at the end. Intriguing mention of something called Skype in one of the comments. I’ll have to investigate further.