(Electronic) tagging

Is this so that people can stalk me more effectively? But no, I did not have to enter CILIP as a tag for people working there to locate my blog and post comments about one of my posts. CILIP was just in the text of one of my posts. Given that people are finding my blog without my necessarily having given the posts a relevant tag, I ask myself "Why I should bother?" (the answer being, I suppose, that it is possible that I will have been talking about concepts which haven't been spelled out). At least one of my tags is a bit misleading - my iGoogle page has Audubon birds at the top, which I mentioned in the post, so I entered his name as a tag, but anyone hoping to find information about him, and finding my blog will be pretty disappointed. Indeed, I wonder whether I should leave Audubon as a tag (though as it is in the text of a post, it is, it appears, findable without it).

I have been tagging my posts as I go along (a number of years' cataloguing having trained me beyond help via LC subject headings??). I can't pretend that I have been particularly creative in the tagging, but I guess that I tend towards the practical and functional, in tagging and LC subject headings, and my posts are not particularly wide-ranging, mostly concentrating on the Thing in question.

The theory of classification in the article in the Thing was interesting. It seemed to equate tagging with classification schemes, which have one place where a book will physically sit, but to me they are more like LC subject headings (other subject heading systems are available ...). Granted, tagging doesn't have the constraints of a set system, but you can add more than one subject heading to reflect a book's containing a number of subjects, unlike a classification mark, where only one can be used. I guess that every attempt to categorise will have its faults. Tags allow the user to apply exactly what they want to use, but unless the searcher happens to light on what they have used, their blog (or whatever) may be lost. Subject headings and classification schemes may be more limited, in that someone else has to have decided that the subject is important, and all schemes have biases, but you do at least have the option of going to the source and finding out what has been used (wading through the cross-references, maybe). The spelling of words always has the potential to cause problems. The American wanting articles on colour may not find the English ones when searching on color (unless they are tagged with both spellings, or some other scheme of mapping the variations is used), with tagging and more traditional systems.

(T)wittering and tweeting

I've now logged into Twitter twice. I had one reply to my first tweet, and posted a thank you. I was absolutely amazed that CILIP are now following me. Surely they must get swamped with tweets if they follow anyone who follows them in return. Can they possibly read them all? They generate quite enough tweets by themselves. Is it a binding rule (unwritten or not) that if someone follows you, you must follow them back, even if you have no interest in them?

If the tweets from CILIP came as full emails, I might read them. However, I don't have the time or patience to navigate to and from lots of different webpages. That's where the 140 character thing lets Twitter down. Often there isn't enough in the tweet to even let me know if I want to visit the link.

Twittering

Do Audubon birds twitter, I wonder (or is that tweet?).

I must confess that I have to date actively decided not to sign up for Twitter - or Facebook, which I believe is coming up later in the Things programme. I don't like having to sign up to all of these different sites, and give out certain personal details, even if I don't use my real name. I still have to give a working email address, which I don't like doing, even if I uncheck every box that I can find to stop getting "newsletters", updates - or whatever. From a personal point of view, I don't want to be part of the social networking revolution. I don't like instant communciation. I think that it does little for depth of communication in general usage, though maybe it could be used to better effect in a professional context, in the dissemination of a piece of factual information. Having 140 characters to "play" with does not inspire me to think that tweeting will do much to really say anything. Perhaps the limit focusses the mind, in some circumstances. Essentially, I don't really have any desire to broadcast the mundanities of my life to others in this way. I've posted a Tweet, to say that I've just joined Twitter. Who cares? I searched for #cam23 messages, but didn't really see anything that seemed to need a reply from me. I don't really want to have to log into it regularly to see if anyone has tweeted back. I've decided to follow just one Twerson (how awful, if that is the correct term) for the moment - the CILIP one - to see how useful it is from a CPD point of view, how much I may learn compared to how much junk it generates. It's too soon to tell.

I have no way of finding out at the moment how many of my library clientele are signed up for Twitter (it's the Long Vacation), or how many of them would actually choose to follow a library Twitter feed (is that the correct terminology? I get lost in all the different lingos) if I set one up. I could easily imagine that they have dozens of friends tweeting, and that anything that I created would be passed over in the queue in search of something more interesting/personal from a real friend (do you have Friends on Twitter? Or Followers, like on blogger.com?). I email. They all have a University email account. Whether they use it or not is another unknown. And if they do, whether they hit delete as soon as they see the subject heading or sender. I sometimes think that texts to mobile phones (always on - even in the library ...) would be the most reliable way of sending out notices.

Hmm ... Not a very positive post, but it is getting late, and I need to get home (I'm in the office late in an attempt to catch up with this programme - I'm on Thing 7, and it is on ... Thing 16???)

Google calendar

Right, I've now been introduced to Google calendar, and this is what I set up initially, on the site:




I've managed to add two slightly different versions of it to my iGoogle page:

Not sure why I've ended up with two different formats. The one on the left was added by creating a web link, I think - the page asked me to follow some steps to do this. I can add extra items to the calendar in slightly different ways in each. There seem to be pros and cons to each version. I perhaps like the look of the right-hand one better, but it is maybe easier to add new events on the left-hand one. I don't need both ... Perhaps I could tinker with both, to combine the best features of each, but not now.

I manage my life, work and non-work, via paper diaries, and my Outlook calendar. I find my Outlook calendar easier than the Google one, as I'm in the program anyway. As previously stated, two out of three of my bosses (also 25% of the Libraries Committee) don't use computers, so from a staff point of view, the Google calendar won't be much use. I suppose that I could, Computer Office allowing, embed a Google calendar into the Library webpage, with details of end of term arrangements, and similar. Whether it would be worth the effort, I don't know. It isn't very complicated, but would the students bother to go and look? I send emails in advance of "events" happening, which I suspect is as far in advance as they are likely to think about them (am I being unfair to students?). The days of term when things happen are also always the same (last Wednesday, last Thursday, and so on). There aren't many "events" which aren't regular. In other libraries, where there is a constantly changing programme of events, I can see that this could have a lot more relevance.

Success!

OH, Look! I've managed to add an image which isn't a minute square in the top left-hand corner of a white "page"! Thanks are due to Girl in the Moon, and Suzan for technical assistance. It's my Google page (again), which isn't terribly exciting, but does have Audubon birds of prey (they change periodically), which is a Good Thing.

Long time ...

I am put to shame by some of the blogs that I have signed up to follow. Yes, I've signed up to follow some of them, and they appear on my dashboard reading list (if that is what it is called ...). I don't have a huge amount of time to read them all, but when I do dip in, I find them very interesting.

I am way, way behind in doing the Things in time. I must catch up! Well, my blog is registered, but unsurprisingly, no-one is bothering to follow it. It is not very interesting. I actually find this exercise of creating a blog that no-one is interested in quite depressing. I suppose that I am gathering a few skills by doing it, but otherwise it is one of a thousand thousand other blogs that are mostly read by none, or only a few. I actually enjoy writing, but I don't have time to put into making this more interesting. Or perhaps I should be more honest in saying that I don't find it worthwhile enough to find the time to put into it? I find the concept of broadcasting my little world to anyone who happens to light upon the blog ... well, something egocentric which I would never have started on if 23 Things Cambridge hadn't come along, and I'd thought that maybe it would enhance my CV. I take a bit of comfort from some of the other blogs being untouched for longer than mine.

So Thing 5 is Doodle. I'm so behind with my Things that I am too embarrassed to try to schedule a peer support meeting about 23 Things. So I created a Doodle for me and all my other aliases to come and remove the tree stumps from my garden. I bet that none of them can do any of the sessions - it has been that way for quite a while ... ;o). I've uploaded a screen shot above. I have no idea why these always come out so small. I am clearly doing something wrong. Anyway, Doodle is simple to create, and I've responded to one poll (bit of a strange term for it) created by another 23 Thinger (much more practical than mine, inviting people to set - sorry vote or poll on - a time for the College librarians' monthly lunch). Will I use it in the future? I doubt it. I don't tend to have to organise many meetings that require lots of people to be there. My Libraries Committee? 25% don't use email, let alone Doodle. It's there. I may well have forgotten about it by the time I come to need it.

Next I apparently have to create a Google calendar, to let everyone know about all those events that so many people need to know about ...