Thing 4 Flickr

I've been using Flickr for awhile and think it's kind of fun. I use it for family pictures - haven't taken many lately (lots of the kittens, of course!) but also have some I scanned from a powerpoint show my family did awhile ago. I took a picture of one of our displays and of one of my co-workers. (No, my co-worker is not the penguin.)

I also use the photo utility in Facebook and I do miss the ability in Facebook pictures to tag the elements/people in a picture. There, you can tag each person so that when you hover over someone with the mouse, that person is identified. It doesn't seem that you can do that with Flickr or Picasa.

Libraries have really started using Flickr - posting pictures of programs, winners of contests, their buildings, etc. The library system where I work has been doing that for some time.

So far I've kept my photos public because I tend not to use my entire name. Someone has to know my "alias" or, be able to guess that it's me if they come across it. If they know me well enough to guess from my alias, it's probably fine that they see the pictures. It's possible to set them to private if I wished to. I haven't posted anything that's going to damage my reputation!

I loaded some photos in Picasa to see what's different. So far, not enough to make me prefer one over the other, but that's another post. (The "Challenge" you know!)

Thing 3

This one was easy - I set up a Bloglines account some time ago. I have so many feeds that I may have to invent some way to RSS my RSS. :-) I even use it to keep on on Comic strips that the Strib doesn't run. I set one up for my husband for the comics, too. It's easy to categorize the feeds, and if you open the folders you can read selected feeds within a category. It lets you know which feeds have been updated, so you don't waste time checking those.
It certainly would be handy for a teacher to set up (or have students set up) feeds for sites they want students to monitor. It could even be used instead of reserve reading lists, in some cases.
I just now set up a Google Reader for the heck of it too. My first impression - so far I prefer Bloglines. One big difference, to me, anyway, is the scarcity of blogs that are found on a keyword search in GR. If I do a keyword search on Bloglines - librarian, wine, music; I end up with many, many feeds to check out. I generally will just search for feeds - it's a fast and easy way to find new blogs I may not have seen. Google Reader, on the other hand, brought back a limited number of results when I searched. I find the search a little easier to use on Bloglines, too. I like the dropdown to limit the search to posts, feeds, etc. The search on top of GR seems to be just searching within your sunscriptions, which threw me at first. Reading the posts on each is different - I haven't decided yet if I have a preference.
In GR's favor, though, I did find editing the feeds to be a bit easier. I chose different feeds in GR, so I'll use both of them for the time being. I did notice the option to export feeds to GR from another reader, which could be very handy if someone preferred GR.

Thing 2.0

It took me awhile to even decide on my opening sentence for this post. There are a lot of interesting ways that "library 2.0" can be used in libraries, but really, what is "Library 2.0?" It's hard to even really define "Library 1.0." I think each library needs to define what it means to THEM, and go with that. Not all libraries need a blog. I don't seen any need for Second Life in libraries, except of course if people use library computers to get there. I really like Facebook - I use it every day. I use Library Thing, also, although I tend to use IRead more frequently. Flickr, etc is great to share photos easily with family and friends.
Many of the proponents of Library 2.0 make it sound as if it's a "Do or die" situation for libraries. Blyberg said that "it's obvious millennials have little interest" in libraries. Except- oops- another recent study entirely contradicts that. In my experience you can find research to back up nearly any point you wish to make, so perhaps we need to take some of this with a grain of salt. San Francisco's new "state of the art" library has been redesigned twice in twelve years because, in spite of their former director's opinion, books aren't going anywhere any time soon.
Meredith Farkas believes that Library 2.0 caused some librarians to lose their way. I think in a sense that's correct - it's a lot of fun to play around with much of this technology, but trying to make it work for your library may not be as much fun. Blyberg himself just recently posted that L2 has been co-opted to some extent by those who want change merely for change's sake, rather than looking at problems that may exist and working to solve them. Voila - a wiki will solve everything!
What is fun, I think, is getting involved with how customers are using technology and building on the strengths we already have, then, incorporating what we can use into what we already do so well.

More Thing One

I finally decided on a template and played around with how I wanted it to look. I've added a few blogs and websites, and added a picture of Fermata and Fantasia. I made sure to use XML templates to retain the functionality of "drop and drag" widgets, since I don't have the time or motivation to go back and review all the coding stuff I forgot. :-) I may eventually add tagging and things like that but at the moment I don't need it.

First Things Still

Boy - there are a lot of templates/layouts/skins out there. Some are really neat, some not so much. If I do end up changing mine, I'd better do it before I post and customize much more, or I'll have to do it all over. I'm having fun plotting what else to add to my blogrolls, links, and other features.

First Things First

Setting up the blog is the first thing in 23 Things on a Stick. Setting up the basic blog was easy, but of course I'm never satisfied with the "standard" layouts, so I'm off to see if I can find something I like better.