Anyway, I’m going to be starting school back up again within a week or so and will probably use this to blog every once and a while about the haps in Librarianism. But I think I’ve exhausted the usefulness of the 23 Things… thing. I’m very familiar with a lot, most or all of the Internet doohickeys which librarians are starting to see the merits of. I think it’s only really helpful for me to write about the things I use online if I can garner some sort of discussion. And, face it, my site’s pretty barren.

Micro-blogging is a concept new to the web, it’s an interesting concept to want to limit ones thoughts to a mere 140 characters. It’s definitely a challenge and, of course, some miss the point and post one cohesive thought throughout multiple Tweets! Some, for example- news outlets like @cnn, use Twitter to post snippets of a story then lead you via link to a larger post. Many blogs have a twitter feed to alert followers to when a new post is up like @wootblog. Some just post quotes like @tinybuddha. There are plenty of actors on Twitter like @rainnwilson, or even more popular: @aplusk. You can find anyone and any interest on Twitter from a former astronaut: @Astro_Mike to a house cat: @sockington (you can see the top Twits here).

There’s also the “trending topics” that you can see in the right module of your home site (ever wonder what they mean!?).  If you click on any one of them, they automatically search all Tweets that mention that word or words, or you can search anything else using the search field.

One of the drawbacks is the level of spam. It’s unfortunate but not unexpected when a site is that popular and the search function is so powerful. One way to avoid spam is to lock your updates which can be done in the account options, but I find that to be needlessly restrictive (but then, like I mentioned when discussing Facebook, that I feel if you’re worried about someone reading what you put on the Internet, you shouldn’t put it up at all!), blocking spambots can be done with a simple click of the mouse on your “followers” page.

Another unique functionality is the ability for Tweets to go directly to your phone via text, not only that- but you can select who’s Tweets you want to be sent that way so you aren’t overwhelmed! Say, for example, you have a pregnant friend: it’s simple for her to create a Twitter account to alert everyone who chooses to follow at once when she goes into labor or if she needs anything. This method could be used among offices to alert people of meetings, deadlines or any other manner of possibilities. Libraries can use Twitter to post reminders of programs, to alert patrons to new hardbacks available, or to point people in the direction of a good article. I’m thrilled with all that Twitter can do, all that it can link you to, even with its simple interface and even more simplistic purpose, there is so much it can be used for, and I’m thrilled to see it growing exponentially.

At work, we use AIM to keep in contact with one another. It’s not necessary for us to use any other program, since we’re all on the same service with a name set up specifically for work, so plain ole AIM does us just fine. With a quick glance, you can see who’s at their desk or away, and you can ask questions or give updates without breaking stride from your own computer work. I can’t see the need for instant messaging programs in the near future diminishing, but potentially evolving further. I wish that more companies and organizations would realize the value of them without automatically assuming that all their employees will do is chat incessantly with friends and coworkers.

Well! This is me. You’ll notice if you click on the link to go to my profile, you won’t see much. I’m not an advocate of Internet privacy, per se, as I like to adhere to the rule that if you don’t want your mom or boss to read it, you shouldn’t put it on the Internet. But ultimately, I like to know who’s going to be privy to my personal information, Facebook makes that fairly easy (albeit with some obvious concerns about their storage methods along the way).

Since I expect, or rather: hope, that Facebook is an aggregate of all my friends’ information, I put as much on my profile as I would like to find in others’. Putting my address up would be silly, but putting my birth date up is informative for my friends. I do have my phone number up, but I’m able to limit who can see that since a friend who hasn’t talked to me since fifth grade has no real reason to call me without asking first. As for Facebook storing my information, I have not yet encountered a problem with that, but then I haven’t put any information up that a really determined person would not be able to find out anyway.

I think Facebook has a lot of applications within the business world. As you have probably seen, there are “pages” for companies or organizations as well as “groups” that form a conglomeration of like-minded people. Both can be used to encourage participation within a library or business setting. The restaurant I waited tables at created a Facebook page and offers weekly coupons. The visibility has increased business for them, and the coupons have encouraged new people to stop by and try something. For libraries, you could post events and get a good idea of the level of participation- who would be interested and what days and times are the best. You could run a book club group and hold discussions on the board. Facebook is a great way to encourage participation from a demographic that is either too busy or too uninspired to come to the library in person, I definitely feel it’s under-utilized much like I do about many of these “things”!

I feel it’s more important to understand the function before you start subscribing. RSS feeds are merely a simplified mirror of a web page, typically a blog. My own feed can be found here. The NT blog hit the nail on the head when they said “The bottom line: you don’t have to know how RSS feeds are formatted, or how they are transmitted—you just have to know how to find them and add them to your reader.” However, you can find more technical information here, which is actually very interesting however useless it may be for those of us who will never set up an RSS feed!

Blog Readers (Thing 6)

Google really has revolutionized the web. For those of you who don’t use gmail as your primary email account, I urge you to look into it. Google Reader is the epitome of what seems to be Google’s main goal- aggregation of information. Nevertheless, I’m a big Google Reader fan- and the RSS links in the URL field of Firefox makes subscribing easier than ever, which is of incredible use to those of us who are voracious readers in this time of prolific blogging.

The “reader” I use most often is actually through my social networking blog site of choice: LiveJournal. LJ is where I have my personal blog as do many of my friends. Having their blogs fed onto my friends page as well as the other RSS feeds I read makes life a little easier for me. With the click of a button, you can “friend” anyone’s personal journal or watch the feed of an outside site or blog. Though I visit LJ every day- for reading without needing to comment, Google Reader is my first choice.

Some of my sites of interest:
Neil Gaiman’s Journal
Snopes.com
Urban Word of the Day
National Geographic News
Psychology Today

More Flickr

The North Texas blog gives a good run down of many of the other Flickr applications. One of my favorite has been the Colr Pickr. I’m a very visual person, and it’s really groovy clicking on the colors and scrolling through the images, but I do find it to be relatively limited in scope, ultimately, it’s an excellent example of what can be done with Flickr images beyond the obvious cataloging by tags.

Image Generators

Outlined again on the NT blog, image generators have been around since the early Internet colonizers discovered new, fun ways to use photo editing software. They’re humorous and easy, but as an application for libraries? I’m not positive if they have much merit. From a design standpoint, it’s easy to generate one of these to put on fliers or pamphlets, but they’re so hackneyed and overused on the web that the people you may be trying to reach out to could take it as a joke.

Truly, all things in moderation, and I certainly feel that way about Thing 4 and Thing 5. Fun toys for those new on the web or new to graphic design, but definitely not the end goal.

Flickr, to me, is like MySpace- though there were sites like it that came before, they were not nearly as successful for various reasons. Photobucket and Picasa (via Google) are similar sites, but just don’t offer the simplicity that Flickr does. Part of Flickr’s success is the simplicity of tagging and searching through tags and descriptions. The sheer ease of cataloging a mass of photography has been beneficial to the web as a whole and is definitely a boon to librarians.

My Flickr page can be found here, and ranges from iPhone uploads (sent via email from my phone that are automatically tagged as “iPhone”) to attempts at actual photography to share with my friends and family.

Groups are an interesting aspect of Flickr- they compile similar photos together. Moderators will often search diligently for new photos to request adding to their group. One of my favorite groups is Dallas Urban History, which I have nothing to add to, but love browsing through the photos of Dallas from years past. However, the group I probably have the most to contribute to is Cats photographed with your iPhone, and I’m not sure if I care that it makes me a crazy cat lady.

Wikipedia caught the fake quote, which had to be posted repeatedly, fairly soon after, acting within hours at max. However, the journalists, who we’d be more likely to trust, made it clear that they did not check their sources.

What does this mean for the future of information? It seems obvious that this small study reflects the need to stress proper search techniques. No doubt a journalist would classes dedicated to just that. What can we do as librarians to encourage good information seeking behaviors?