Sort of tasty...could be promising

Status: 63% zombie, 37% perk


Working hard to get caught up - seems that life is amazingly busy these days, both at work and at home! Good thing they're giving us a few extra weeks to finish the Web 2.0 assignments...

Soooo - what's on the plate today? No, not that pile of sheer gluttony that you see above. And yes, I did eat a small bit of that cholesterol bomb, and promptly had a heart attack after the last bite - but I'm fine now. Much better cooking to be had these days!

But I digress - my tired mind is having a focus problem today but I really want to get this done.



Where was I? Oh yes - del.icio.us (I always have trouble remembering where the dots go). Del.icio.us is a handy way to keep track of your favorite sites on the internet. I've used it off and on for the last couple of years, but have never gotten terribly wrapped up in using it. Again, this is mostly due to the amount of time I'm willing to put into any of these various tools. But that is what it really is - a tool that can be used to ORGANIZE. Goodness knows I could use a little bit of help in that department...sometimes.

The truth is, however, that I only go back to my list every now and then. I just took a quick look at the bookmarks on my personal del.icio.us site, Librarianguish, and found it kind of amusing - but there are some things there I had forgotten about. I definitely go in spurts of bookmarking activity.

It would probably be more useful if I could somehow directly bookmark my memory - then I would remember what I wanted to remember, and might use the list more often! Ha.

I do use the the silweb bookmarks when working at the reference desk - I like the bundling of tags into different categories like consumer information or government...it can really save a lot of wading around the muck of the web. I also started oakteen just for my teen librarian information, and I expect to use that much more as I start getting swamped with information. But it's just a baby list at the moment...

One thing I DO NOT have time for at the moment is surfing the tags to see what other people have posted - TOO DISTRACTING!!! Though I did find this interesting book review and a fun catalog card generator. Make your own before you forget what they are!


Well...that's all for this installment of my Web 2.0 life. Tune in again soon for another thrilling episode!

Wiki wiki - not icky!

Status: 9% zombie, 91% perk

Time. Time, time, time. Who has any? Not me. Finally catching up - or trying to anyhow - with my web 2.0 assignments. Seems the last few weeks have been so busy I haven't had a chance to sneak these in. So here I am today, checking out wikis while I have a bit of time.

And I have to admit - they are pretty darn nifty. Since most of my wiki experience so far has been with the librarian's enigma, Wikipedia, I found it nice to get a broader look at some different wiki applications.

I do like the idea of centralizing information. The example in the video - a small group of friends planning a camping trip - helped drive home the point that wikis are about efficiency. I like efficient things, and I can see the value of such a site for planning and exchanging information. I tend to think of wikis as very large creations (blame Wikipedia!), but they don't need to be. They can be very simple, even temporary stores of information.

Wikis seem like very useful tools for libraries, especially for internal communication purposes. For example, the teen librarians could create a wiki of programming ideas. Even though there are already some larger-scale wikis for teen librarians, having one specific to our needs at Sno-Isle could be quite useful.

One downfall of wikis is that they do vary in quality quite a bit. I did a quick search for wikis on sustainable living, and found one from Olympia that looks all right, but has very little content associated with it. I found another from Bellingham that looks sparse, but actually has quite a lot of good local information.

But back to the time issue...or lack thereof. I just don't see myself having a lot of time to sit and fiddle with a wiki, at least not right now. Maybe in the future, or for a very specific purpose. But not now...too much life to be lived!

YouTube yes, but no boob tube for me thanks...

Status: 523% perk

Goodness gracious I have been busy! No time for this, but thought I'd better get last week's exercise finished real quick-like.

I took a quick look at Hulu and Fancast - and frankly, I can't stand watching television on television so I have absolutely no use for these sites. I watched a quick Saturday Night Live skit to test it out, and was very impressed with the video quality. However - thanks, but no thanks. I don't really see how these two particular sites could be of use to libraries - they seem to be nothing more than online television channels.

YouTube, on the other hand, can be a lot of fun - but also time consuming. I generally stay away from it other than to watch something somebody else has recommended. Again - I don't really have time to sit around watching videos all day...

Sometimes it's fun to watch funny kitten videos. I am however, most likely to watch music videos - and if you haven't figured out I like music yet, well...

YouTube is useful to libraries, especially for reaching out to and engaging the younger users. Sno-Isle recently had a book trailer contest, and entrants uploaded their works to YouTube for sharing. Very handy indeed - and if you want to see the entries, check HERE.

So - I thought I'd share a recent music video I have enjoyed - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds doing Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!