Web 4.0, anyone?

I happened to listen (or sort of listen) to "In Business" on Radio 4 last night, and we are way behind - apparently business is two steps ahead of us, at Web 4.0 ...

Wordle

And here is my Wordle ...



It looked so much better full screen, but I don't know how to improve it in this blog. What does it say about my blog? That I used Flickr a lot, and appreciate the concept of Creative Commons, I suppose, that Google rules the world, and that I do quite a lot of speculating in my writing?

I never knew that Wordle existed - another first! It's fun. And before I started 23 Things, I'd never even used Paint (or realised that its canvas is larger than the screen - daft!), so didn't know how to embed an image in a blog post. I've learned a lot.

Final Thing(s), equations and horse-racing ...

Image by pepe50 (Paolo)
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

So I've reached Thing 23 at 23:25 - not quite one minute to midnight, but coming down to the end of August deadline. It has been an interesting experience, though I've felt that I haven't done some of the Things properly, and I can't pretend that it hasn't sometimes taken me quite a lot to motivate myself to get through to this point. Looking at so many things for which I don't have a natural affinity or particular need in my everyday life in a relatively short time has been more than a bit of a struggle at times, and some of them - perhaps most of them - have taken much more than the hour that was initially suggested. Perhaps this is because a lot of them were new, perhaps because I have tried to blog fully, perhaps because I have spent too much time on Flickr, looking for images ... ;o)

Image by fraumrau
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

Other 23 Thingers have said it, but perhaps what I have found most interesting has been reading other people's posts. I can't pretend that I have read even nearly all of them, but I've tried to read a selection. I have wondered at various points whether I should read other people's posts before I've blogged about the Thing myself, or whether I should come to it without preconceptions from other blogs. I guess that I have generally preferred to come to them without having read others' views, but where I have struggled particularly with a Thing, I've sometimes found insight in them which has helped me to get through them. I have appreciated the bits and pieces of technical help that I've received from others doing the programme, via comments on my blog. Since 3 August, when I finally managed to get around to installing Google Analytics, I've have 101 visits by 28 different people, which surprised me. It's hard to believe that many would find this blog of much interest. There does seem to have been an increase in traffic as others have finished the programme, but perhaps that is unrelated ... In retrospect, it might have been good to do the programme with others, but having missed the launch party, begun late, and slipped behind quite rapidly, I didn't link up with anyone.

Image by Leo Reynolds
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

So what do I think about Web 2.0? I've been fascinated by some of the language of the tools/Things, and cringed at times. Twitter has particularly awful terms - tweeple (or twerson?) anyone? - and followers make it sound as though you are/belong to a cult, to me anyway. And who came up with the name Zotero? But this is perhaps not the place for discussions about that ... I guess that I remain unconvinced that any of the Things are essential, and I definitely don't think that using as many of the tools as possible, and opening every channel of communication on offer will necessarily improve a library's services. Bombarding people with information via lots of different routes, however attractively packaged with Flickr images, can be counter-productive. Indeed bombarding people with too many messages via even one route can lead to them simply filtering them all out. This is where the horse-racing comes in, or rather the old "horses for courses" adage (not a failsafe tip for the 2.30 at Ascot, I'm afraid). Not all tools will suit all institutions, or all customers/clients/users - whatever the politically correct term is. Discernment is very necessary, and I think that there are situations (mine being close to being one of them) where perhaps none of the tools are particularly appropriate. You can't force people to sign away their souls to Google, or sign up for Facebook or Twitter, or even possess a computer/mobile phone (though those strange creatures - freaks, I sometimes feel, myself being one of them - who don't have a computer and mobile phone may be edging ever closer to extinction, in the first world at least). Maybe one day we will be issued with these things at birth, but for the moment I can't see myself stopping sending emails any time soon. That is still perhaps the most guaranteed way of reaching the majority of my users. The equations also come in here, too. In a large organisation, with one or more dedicated marketing and/or technical people, and a large customer base, the efforts involved in creating Facebook accounts, or blogs, or Slideshare presentations, or eye-catching posters and leaflets with Flickr images, or whatever will perhaps pay off with proportionate results. The more events and news items your organisation has, which people need to be made aware of quickly, the more useful some of the Web 2.0 tools will become. But there are core services which to me come first - getting the books into the library and onto the shelves, and circulating effectively, and being around to actually talk to users - guide them around the information world - are priorities. In libraries with few staff, time spent blogging may not be time best spent. I am still not sure that libraries and social networking go well together.

Image by Leo Reynolds
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

So, will I continue to use any of the Things? I like blogging - I've always enjoyed writing - but I'm not sure that I will continue once I finish this. I suppose that if I wanted to keep a diary (which I have at times), I wouldn't want it to be public. Maybe I could use this blog as a kind of portfolio for professional development ruminations, but without the impetus of the programme, I'm not sure that I will. I still feel odd about putting up my "homework" for the world to see each time I complete a Thing. I like decorating my posts with images, so Flickr has a fair chance of being used again, whether for personal things or my library, time will tell. The other tools ... well, time will tell there too. Personnel and situations change, and times and technologies move on, and I can easily imagine using some of the Things (or their successors) in the future if not now, even if I've more or less forgotten that I have an iGoogle page already (even with Audubon birds on it). Thanks to the 23 Things programme I now at least know what is out there, which is more than I did before. Yes, I'd heard of some of the tools, and sort of used one or two, but now I have a much better idea of their possibilities.

Image by bitzi (ion-bogdan dumitrescu)
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

Don't worry, there aren't 23 images of the number 23 (though I did consider it - there are plenty to choose from on Flickr).

Thanks to all who have been involved, in creating the programme, and in participating, and sharing your journeys! And for those of you who haven't quite finished yet - Bon courage! If I can do it, anyone can!

Zotero

What on earth does "Leveraging the long tail of scholarship" mean?? I am puzzled.

Is this the long tail of scholarship?

Image by Kookr (David Cook Wildlife Photography)
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)


Or perhaps this is it, being leveraged?

Image by Billyboy (Billy Lindblom)
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

I am also a bit confused by "The Web now has a wrangler".

Both of these things appeared under the Zotero logo at various times on its site, when I eventually worked out how to install it (I had to resort to the troubleshooting section, as it wouldn't automatically put up the download screen). Did they encourage me? Does the name? You have two guesses ...

I have found making myself look at this Thing really difficult. Luckily I do have Firefox on my work computer. Otherwise I would have been totally stymied, and would just have given up. I last created a bibliography (using no artificial aids) when I did my Library MA dissertation. This was some years ago, which perhaps says everything that needs to be said about how much use I can see for this tool in my personal life at the moment. My comments about Delicious are probably also relevant here - I don't bookmark much on the internet, and doubt that the things that I have bookmarked would be of much interest to others. I suppose that if I worked in a subject-specific library, creating bibliographies of resources via Zotero might work well, but working in a College library, and dealing with a multitude of subjects, I can only really direct students to more specific sources of information. If others have made Zotero work for them in these contexts, I am grateful!

I've never had a student ask for advice on how to create a bibliography. I could now suggest that they look at Zotero if they did, as one option, but I couldn't at the moment actively recommend it. I don't understand it well enough, and I am not really familiar with any alternatives. Maybe I should be, but it doesn't seem to be a burning priority. Girl in the Moon wrote a much more informative post about this than I have. Perhaps this is a Thing that I will endeavour to revisit, when the pressures of trying to get to the end of the 23 Things are over.

Which they almost are!

Only one more Thing to go, I think, and a Wordle, for some reason ...

Wikis

Simon Bolivar

Image by dbking
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

Image by Willie Lunchmeat

(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

Anyone like to guess the significance of today's offerings from Flickr???

I knew about Wikipedia before starting this Thing - but doesn't more or less everyone? I use it sometimes, though often by finding an entry for something through a Fastsearch, rather than going there direct, and with an appreciation that its content is very ... variable, and not to be trusted unreservedly. I've read in another Cam23 blog that it may be about to get more in the way of editorial activity, which I guess would be good. Depending on who the editors are, of course. Beyond that, I've come across wikis in the form of shared documents to be edited by members of an environmental group that I belong to. They seemed to work moderately well - when members bothered to edit them, which was not guaranteed - although there was always a need for someone to be in overall control of them, to arbitrate where there were disagreements, and to decide when sufficient time had been allowed for input. As with collaborative Google documents, I suppose, or perhaps more so.

Wikis are probably useful for large(ish) collaborative projects where people can't easily get together but have the right software and expertise to use it, and the time and enthsusiasm for the project to do so. Also enough spirit of co-operation to compromise or accept someone else's decision, or alternatively strong enough leadership to give a ruling on controversial points. This might be true of some libraries, it might not. In my small library, with its small number of staff, several of whom do not use computers, they are a bit of a non-starter. Apart from that, I'm struggling to think of many kinds of documents that this organisation produces where this kind of co-operation is generally required. And if there are some, which couldn't be done better by sitting down with someone.

Are these wikis more useful? ;o)

Image by Ross Mayfield (from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

Go(o)[g]gle-eyed and Go(o)[g]gle-brained

Image of a wood frog by telemudcat (Kevin Chodzinski)
(from Flickr, under Creative Commons)
NB telemudcat does not in any way endorse this blog

Yikes. As though finding a witty and attractive Flickr image for each post is not enough, now I have to dream up a Google document ... My brain hurts! (but probably serves me right for getting behind with my Things, and having to do them all at once).

And yes, I know that the Flickr images are not compulsory! (just one of the more enjoyable parts of my homework for each Thing).

I'm sure that Google documents can work well in the right situation (the broken record cracks out once again), but by now my faithful readers will know that my colleagues are either right on (or inside) my doorstep, or don't 'do' computers. Real-time joint editing no doubt has its place (though I imagine that it could get quite confusing trying to track changes, and time-consuming having to type out all the messages making suggestions, the confusion increasing with the numbers of people involved).

I could store documents in the great interweb cloud cuckoo land of Google to edit from any of the many unlinked computers that I use - if I had them. Which of course some people do, though don't they use memory sticks (if they aren't intending to share the document via Google Docs, of course)? Perhaps Google documents are more secure, and you can't forget where you put it, as you might a memory stick. I don't know.

I started to create a Library survey. Yes, this is completely unoriginal, but I have perhaps proved that I can fill in boxes with this tool. It is easy enough to do, and I understand that I could email the link to our customer base, and/or embed it into a website/this post if I completed it. Whether they would then bother to go and fill it in is the $64 question ...

I'm not going to ask anyone to fill it in. There's a relief for you all!

Sorry, sharing a Google document was part of my homework, but I couldn't think of anything constructive to do that wouldn't waste people's time. And Web 2.0 should not involve that, should it?


Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Marketing

Image by Pondskipper (from Flickr, under Creative Commons)
NB Pondskipper does not in any way endorse this blog.

Errr ... I am going to struggle to do what this Thing requires. I have to nominate a Web 2.0 tool (or tools) which I am going to use to promote my library.

I spoke to my College Librarian about my doing this programme, and suggested some of the tools that I'd looked at (Facebook, and Twitter particularly). The response? "That's all for social networking, and we don't want the library to be associated with that. It's not appropriate." I am not entirely in disagreement with this response, I must confess, and the numbers of users signed up for Facebook at other libraries seems at the moment to suggest that this is also the view of their users. Whether this is because they don't know about the pages - a need for marketing - or because they are not interested, it is difficult to judge. However, we are looking at re-designing our webpages, which I suppose is a start. Perhaps eventually they will have some images from Flickr on them, or something from Slideshare (if I can find anything apposite). Or a Google calendar with the dates that are important (though as said elsewhere, they are so few as to make it unlikely that the students will bother to go and look). Or possibly some RSS feeds to other sites of interest, or sources of information.

I suppose that by our very nature we have a limited and clearly defined user base - we are not trying to attract more users from outside in order to justify our existence. In that sense, marketing is not particularly relevant, though getting more of that base to make more use of the library would of course be good. With the staff and financial resources that we have we are also somewhat limited in the services that we can offer. There are perhaps more important improvements that could be made to the library at the moment than its marketing strategies, fairly basic though they are, and I doubt that any of the tools explored so far would greatly benefit us in addressing them. But I don't feel that this is really the forum for discussing these issues.

Podcasts and YouTube

I know, this is out of order ... But I'm struggling to find time to try to get to grips with Zotero, and so I'm skipping ahead to something that I find a little easier to assess, in the hope that I can still finish this programme by 27 August. I am finding it harder and harder to motivate myself to look at yet another Thing, especially as I have yet to find one about which I can be wholeheartedly positive, but having got myself this far, I would like to finish.

Podcasting? [my caption]

Image by Darwin Bell (from Flickr, under Creative Commons)

I guess that if I had my own computer or an iPod or MP3 player, I would make some use of podcasts in a leisure context. I listen to quite a lot of Radio 4, and am sometimes frustrated by missing programmes that are also available as a podcast at their scheduled time on air. But I soon forget about them, and if it was really an issue for me, I would probably acquire the relevant equipment. I very occasionally use the public library computers to listen to something that has been trailed, and sounds particularly interesting. Not having the relevant equipment is a bar to successful usage, and assuming that everyone will have it, a trap to be avoided.

I rarely use YouTube, not having my own computer, and the one that I have got access to at work having no sound. The times that I have tried to find things on it, I've got very frustrated by the multitude of hits that I've received, and the poor quality of many of the results, even when they have appeared to be relevant. Amateur filming, grainy and jerky, quite often. As with Flickr and Slideshare, sifting through the sand for the diamonds is something which has to be factored in. I wouldn't have thought to look for library-related videos on YouTube, though I now know that there are some.

I have struggled to do some of this Thing properly, as I have no sound on my work computer, and I simply don't have time to go to the public library and try to find a computer with headphones. Podcasts with no visuals are impossible, though I am sure that some of them were interesting (I couldn't get the British Library ones - they seemed to be mis-linked to the University of Aberdeen?). Watching videos with no sound is not the best way of assessing quality. Or perhaps it is? You notice more how hammy the acting is that way. I'm afraid that I found quite a lot of the library YouTube videos that I watched (but didn't hear) a bit cringeworthy, and patronising. Those two being pushed around on the trolley, one of them waving an endless supply of mugs (do you really want your users to think that riding on the trolleys or drinking coffee in the library is OK?) ... I think that I was glad to have no sound for the Gaga librarians. That seemed especially embarrassing. Of course, I am not the target audience - students maybe find them more appealing - but I wouldn't want some of them advertising my library services, and I suspect that my Libraries Committee would agree. Then again, maybe I'm just far too serious and square.

I started to write a tongue-in-cheek piece about what I could have learned from watching some of these videos, but I wasn't sure that it would be to the point.

I could see a well-judged, and well-produced video or podcast on a library website being a good way to get information to users who can't make live tours or get into the library when it is staffed, and actually talk to the staff. However, producing such a thing would be beyond my resources and talents, I fear, and I think that it is better not to have them than have bad ones. I would not associate a library video with YouTube, which, as with a number of other Things, still seems to have largely social uses and connections, not professional ones.

I know, I know, libraries are supposed to be breaking into the social networking revolution and using it to promote themselves, and I should be joining in.

Not Linkedin

Clout or ball and chain? [my caption]

Image by 'the justified sinner' (from Flickr under Creative Commons)

I could basically sum this up in two words. No thanks.

But I'd better try to say a bit more!

I'm not a joiner of this kind of thing. No surprise there for any readers of this blog. Not into social networking. Without signing up, it's a bit difficult to explore this Thing in much detail, but reading a selection of other Cam23 people's blogs tells me more or less all I need to know - there doesn't seem to be too much librarian activity, even via the CILIP group, so there doesn't seem to be a great deal of point in filling in yet more boxes. There were no real library jobs in the job search. From the outside, it doesn't really seem to be a tool for libraries, but for individuals. Prepared to be proved wrong, though ...

I guess that the 'lack of activity' argument is perhaps self-perpetuating. Maybe we Cam23 participants should be active in making it vibrant? (If it would be the right tool to do so - I know too little about Linkedin to judge).

Still not sure that I want to sign up, though.

The new Face(book) of libraries?

Library Facebook?
[my caption]

Image by _Max-B (Massimo Barbieri) from Flickr, under Creative Commons

I've never 'done' Facebook.

There's a surprise ... ;o)

But everyone else 'does' Facebook, from the Barack Obama to the Cambridge Corn Exchange. Should I, therefore, and should my library?

Me? No, I see no need for me to do this. I run my life quite well without it, and I'm not anxious to acquire lots of 'friends' through a social network like Facebook. I don't have lots of photos to share, or lots of relatives with pages.

What about my library? My concerns are that it takes time to create a profile, and even more time to keep it interesting and active. If it stagnates, those people who do sign up will rapidly lose interest. If you have plenty to report, perhaps a Facebook page is a good idea, though, as with Twitter, there is so much information being spread about out there, and both Twitter and Facebook are primarily for social interaction (at the moment, at least) that I can see the less trendy, professional pages being ignored. I don't see many people wanting to belong to the friends of their College library. I mean, How sad is that? None of the libraries I've looked at have huge numbers of 'friends'.

A website gives more opportunity to make a statement than a Facebook page, as far as I can see - there is a certain sameness to the appearance of all of the library Facebook pages that I've looked at, and none of them are particularly attractive, which I suspect is the fault (limitation) of Facebook, rather than the lack of input from the institutions. The "walls" are particularly hard to read, I find, especially when they aren't weeded.

LibraryThing (another uninspired and uninspiring but accurately descriptive post title)

Another "two for the price of one" post! A relief to see that Things 14 and 15 are related, and therefore can be covered in just one post. If I have any chance of finishing before the party, I need this kind of help!

Reading the articles about LibraryThing and libraries, particularly the sections on embedding LibraryThing widgets into OPACs, raised several questions for me:

1) What is a library catalogue actually for?

2) Do my users want more than the current catalogue is offering? If so, is it the library's job to provide it (with or without LibraryThing)?

3) If they do, it is, and it is reviews and user-defined tags that they want, who is writing the reviews and creating the tags in LibraryThing, and are they to be trusted?

4) What are the implications of providing the kind of features that LibraryThing offers?

I guess that I basically believe that a library catalogue is first and foremost there to allow users to quickly and efficiently establish whether or not the collection contains an item, and then find it on the shelves. Or possibly whether it provides access to an e-resource. Do reviews help with this? I don't, personally, think so - they are perhaps a distraction, and unless they can be vetted, potentially misleading, though perhaps they give users a sense of being involved in the library service if they are user-created. And of course they are only of any use if people actually create them. If not, it's a dead feature. My experience of reviews on Amazon are very mixed. Some are informed and well-written, others are ... well, frankly not. Do recommendations of similar books help with accessing items in the collection more effectively? Possibly, but that very much depends on the quality of the information on which the recommendations are being made. Anyone who has read my blog thus far will know that I have reservations about tagging by all and sundry. Perhaps it would work better if library-controlled to a greater or lesser extent.

My general impression is that undergraduates (our main users) generally come in with their reading lists, find what they can from them via the OPAC, borrow them, and go away. I may be maligning students here, but my experience as an Oxford arts undergraduate was that it was frequently all that I could do to read the reading lists, let alone anything not recommended, and I don't think that I was particularly unusual in this. Maybe following the lists does nothing for their research skills, and independent thought, and as a library we should be encouraging these. On the other hand, my library only really has the resources to provide reading list books anyway. Given that books in my library are bought on the recommendation of the department or faculty, and the teaching staff, do they need any further recommendation or review? If there is a good classification scheme in place, shelf-browsing can sometimes be as quick as computer searching in a small library (depending on the subject - if very multi-disciplinary, perhaps not so much so). Other kinds of library may have different needs, though. In a public library, reviews, and recommendations of similar books could be of more use, I think. In libraries with a great many books, which are used by researchers following less directed courses of study, there might also be benefits to linking other books to catalogue records. Speaking for myself, though, if I'm looking for something specific in a library, I don't want "fancy extras" - I want an uncluttered record that tells me that I've got the right book, and where it is located.

We have one OPAC terminal in my library, and that is all that there is space for. We currently don't put records for e-books into the catalogue that we use for circulation because we don't want users monopolising that one computer by reading e-books or e-journals at it. If users were offered the option to read reviews, and spend time clicking on tags, and following links, the same monopolisation could happen. Perhaps it is possible to offer the LibraryThing widget on some computers but not others, but it sounds as though it is embedded into the library software somehow, so would appear everywhere. I can't help feeling that, as with some of the other Things we've looked at, there is potential for distraction from the task in hand.

Paper LibraryThing? [my caption]

Photograph by Skokie Public Library (from Flickr under Creative Commons)


So, how about LibraryThing for my own books? Are librarians supposed to have so many books that they have to catalogue them? Do they have to want to catalogue their books because they have them, even if they are doing this as part of their job? I do have books, but not so many that I've ever felt the need to catalogue them. Yes, it's a nice idea to have a catalogue, and might be useful if anything ever happened to the collection, but they are well-organised on the shelves (when not in boxes, as they are at the moment - I've been gradually decorating my new(ish) house, not helped by a leak that damaged some of the new papering and painting ...), so I can find them. I read many more books than I actually have, but ... I use libraries! I love books, but don't buy them unless I feel that I will read them more than once - I love the environment as well! I have a collection of choral scores, which would make quite a nice small, discrete catalogue. I'm not sure how many music score records LibraryThing contains. I got a few results for the one search that I did, but I couldn't remember the edition, so it wasn't a very rigorous test. Alternatively, I could catalogue my poetry books. Problem is, they are all in boxes ... Must I sign up for an account and catalogue something? Yes, I've just checked the Thing details, and it seems that it is part of the exercise, so I have. Luckily signing up is incredibly easy - apart from trying to choose a username not already taken - and only requires two bits of information. I've added a book that I know is in my collection (without being able to check the complete details):



I wanted to use the Library of Congress rather than Amazon to get the record, but it didn't appear to have the right edition. I gather that I can use options to change the cover, etc. once a record has been downloaded, but as I don't have time for editing now, I just took the record from Amazon. I would trust the Library of Congress' cataloguing more than Amazon's ... I really don't care how many other people have got this book, or what they thought about it, though I have this information from the site. I guess that the list of similar titles is moderately interesting, though I don't have any immediate plans to buy or borrow anything on this subject. The recommendations attached to this title are all more or less relevant, though some are more specific than others, dealing with particular illuminated manuscripts, rather than illuminated manuscripts in general. I would think that some books with less well-defined subjects could throw up a very random selection of recommendations, a number of which could well be irrelevant, particularly if a great many tags have been added to a title, covering even very minor aspects of it.

Libraries which can't afford library software could no doubt benefit from using LibraryThing, as a start to making their collection accessible, though the catalgoue might look a bit like Amazon ... Whether it is the best product available for little money, I don't know - I am not aware of any competitors. Would I use it in my library, as an extra tool, rather than as a widget in the library software? Probably not - I can create most lists via our library software much more quickly, if necessary (even if they won't necessarily have lots of pictures and reviews attached).

Reflection

This fabulous image is by Ecstasist (Evan Leeson), downloaded from Flickr (under Creative Commons).

It makes me think of Alice in Wonderland, which is perhaps a little how I feel about Web 2.0 to date. There are many wonders in the toyshop, and many aisles down which one could go, but how much is lights and mirrors, and how much is of real worth?

I guess that I started out with little knowledge about most of the Web 2.0 tools, and less enthusiasm (or perhaps interest is a better word?). I'd posted on a few forums, and used a photo site to create e-cards, but that was it. Not really because I lack confidence in my ability to use such tools (I'm not scared of computers), but because I wasn't interested in the instant and 24 hour communication world. This programme has forced me to look at some of them (with more to come). It has been easy to follow, and I have acquired a general idea of how the various tools work, and what they might offer, though I would not claim to have an in-depth knowledge of any of them yet, as that would take more time for exploring than I have been able to put in, with a new Thing always on the horizon (or several, given that I've never managed to keep up ...). My problem with the programme so far is that neither my work nor my personal situation really have much use for the tools, as far as I can see. Or rather, my personal situation (through my being intentionally computerless at home, and my nature) does not have much use for them, and my work situation might, but only with rather more resources and time than we have (and some personnel changes, maybe). I suspect that the audience for Twitter feeds, blogs, or fancy images and slideshare in my library would be limited in comparison to the time that it would take to set them up properly, and keep them current. Though I could be wrong.

I have stopped looking at Twitter. I only followed one Twitterer - CILIP - but so many tweets came up each day just from that, that I got overwhelmed. There was no way that I had time to sort through all the messages and follow the links forward and back to the pages with the full story. I certainly couldn't deal with any more people's messages, if I decided to follow more people (tweeple - ugh). I did not find that I had anything that I needed to say via this medium. If I want to communicate with a friend or acquaintance, I will send an email, not restricted to 140 characters. I don't have much need to blanket tweet information to a number of recipients, and anyway I can send emails to more than one person at a time. If my friends are on Twitter, they haven't advertised it (though this may be because they don't think that I would use it ...). I can see the use of Google calendar and Doodle in the right set-up. Mine just isn't that. I must confess that the designer in me is quite enjoying finding images to decorate my posts with since looking at Flickr, though it can take up spectacular amounts of time if you aren't disciplined about it. That is true of several of the tools so far, though, in my opinion at least. You can spend all day tweeting, all day looking for photos or videos or images, and create wonderful, well-organised lists of hundreds of bookmarks, which you will then either never find the time to look at again, or spend far too much time pursuing. Or pursuing links on the Delicious site to other sites that you would otherwise never have thought to look for. I can easily see why internet addiction has been a growing problem. And there is a certain anarchy about all of this. Tagging is great if done with care, consideration, and consistency, but there are so many times where it is misleading, inconsistent, or subject to the vagaries of spelling and/or typing.

Delicious PS

As I remarked in a comment to the main post, I also find the Delicious site unattractive, as well as very distracting - too many options for wandering off the point, which I don't think is necessarily a good option for students ...

I didn't even attempt to create an account. The idea of subscribing to Yahoo as well as Google put me off.

Delicious

... Even with indigestion? My fourth Thing in three days, I think, and galloping through to try to get to the end is making me feel that I'm not looking at things (Things) as fully as I might.

So ... I can have all of my bookmarks in one place, wherever I am with a computer. Sounds great. Except that I only really use one computer (or account, I suppose) with any regularity, and I don't really have that many bookmarks that are related to urls which I can't remember, or rapidly find doing a quick search via Fastsearch (other search engines are available) if I happen to be outside my main account. I could spend endless time on Delicious browsing through selections of bookmarks made by other people, and creating unwieldy lists of things that I will very likely never look at again. How does librariangoddess use 678 bookmarks, I wonder? Even if they are beautifully tagged and put into tag bundles. I only ever regularly use about 25% of my current list of bookmarks, and have the most popular up as tabs in Firefox (saved from session to session), so don't have to go into the bookmark list at all. At least 25% of my bookmark list were not looked at in the last year. We are talking about just over 50 bookmarks, and a quick look at the list just now has reminded me of several which I could delete straight away if I wasn't writing this blog. Yes, if I used Delicious, I could tag and organise my bookmarks, but they are all sensibly named and arranged alphabetically. If I regularly used lots of computers that weren't linked, perhaps I would sign up for this. But I don't need it.

I can see that it would perhaps be useful for libraries to make a portfolio of resources available to their users, though I don't know that it is any easier to use Delicious than a well-ordered and categorised list of URLs on a webpage, accessible from the library's pages, and Delicious is far more distracting. Perhaps I am missing something.

Photo courtesy of bunchofpants (from Flickr).

Yes, it's a hamburger cake, the concept of which is quite indigestible ...

PS on Slideshare

It occurred to me after submitting the last post just before going home that if there is no sound attached to the slideshow, then some of the presentations might be a bit under-explained, lacking in commentary and therefore without crucial links?

Slideshare

Almost halfway through ... Light at the end of the tunnel (or the proverbial approaching train??).

I have once again decided not to sign up to a Thing. I don't at the moment create presentations in the course of my work, and even if I did, I'm not sure that I would have a lot of time for entering material in this site. There do, however, seem to be some possibly relevant presentations that I might embed into my library's webpages (if allowed by my institution). Whether students would go and view them, I don't know.

Here is an (American) view on libraries and social networking:

Friending Libraries: Why libraries can become nodes in people’s social networks

View more presentations from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

It's quite long, but it is interesting, defining different groups according to their skills and knowledge, age, etc., and relating them to what a library might offer.

Once again, as with Flickr, I would say that you need quite a lot of time to use this site to find material. It is hard to do searches which don't generate hundreds of hits, and many hits will not really be relevant (tagging again ...). It seems, from a search on one of my leisure interests, that quite a lot of the documents are basically advertisements for books, DVDs, etc. In addition to the number of hits, assessing quality is also very time-consuming. It is quite a lengthy process with Flickr, where you are only viewing a selection of single images. With Slideshare you are frequently considering a number of screens/pages for each hit, and it is difficult to be sure of the quality of the presentation without reading (viewing?) each offering in its entirety. Obviously, it will rapidly become clear that some hits are not what you are looking for, but others will take longer to evaluate, maybe looking promising at first, but then disappointing, and you may also be faced with a number which do some or all of what you want, and have to spend time choosing the most suitable. I guess that the creator of the presentation might give some indication of whether it is worth looking at, though I must confess that I wasn't entirely convinced by some of the ones in the Thing list. I have no idea if any of the presentations have sound, as I don't have speakers on my work computer.

As with Flickr, I applaud those who are willing to share their work with others.

PS on tagging

It occurred to me after I posted my main post on tagging that tagging may also be done for those who limit searches to tags, rather than doing full text searches.

Statistics

I have just attempted to set up Google Analytics ... I haven't wrecked my blog's appearance in doing so, but I guess that only time will tell if it has actually embedded itself and is active ...

Flick(e)ring

I must confess that I am struggling to keep up with this programme. My initial enthusiasm is definitely flickering. I am so far behind the current Thing. Luckily Things 9 and 10 come as a pair, so I can take two steps towards the goal of Thing 23 at once.

I have come across one or two other sites where people can load and store images, though Flickr is perhaps a bit more professionally set up, and to some extent deals with the licensing of images, which others haven't. Flickr has many lovely images, and many that are amateurish, and I can't imagine are of much interest to any but the posters and their circle. Sifting through the mix takes time. The searches that I tried turned up quantities of results, even though they seemed fairly narrowly defined, and tagging very definitely raises its head again here. I put the name of my library into the search box, and came up with some pictures that were relevant, but many that were not. One person seemed to have tagged an entire album of photographs of a holiday, only partly involving Cambridge, with the same list of tags for each image, relevant or not, so I turned up dozens of images of other places, and only one or two of my institution. Spelling also came into play again here - some of my mis-results were due to that.

As my screen name is Lotusflower, I found a lotus:




It was uploaded by fung1981, and thanks are due to him or her (I don't know which) for a beautiful image.

It is very good of people to allow others to use images without the usual copyright limits. I am not entirely sure how much trust goes into putting images on a site like this, whether there is much of a risk that people will abuse the permissions level, and what can be done about it if so. I must confess that I am amazed at what some people make publicly available on photo sites, particularly images of their children. Whether they do this through ignorance about privacy settings, or the possible risks, I don't know.

Would I use a site like this? I am not much of a photographer, and don't have a digital camera. I have not signed up for the site at present. For my library ... Well, we like to have our images firmly under control, so use a private storage system. If I produced posters, leaflets, etc. regularly, it would perhaps be a useful resource, but I don't. Maybe I will decorate my blog for the time that it is active. I will see how inspired I am! The only use I have to date made of a photo site is for creating e-cards (the site in question has a facility to do this).