It's My Life

Trying an experiment

This is the kind of experiment that can't be undone. So it's more like a change or a decision, I guess.

It involves FaceBook and something I learned at MLA. One of the sessions, about 23 Things on a Stick, contained a presentation by a Ramsey County librarian who joined FaceBook with six of her coworkers at other branches, as they could use this as a tool to communicate. The premise is to both build community and to tap into each other's knowledge when doing reference work and similar library tasks. Shortly after the presenter created her account, her family found and friended her - all 30 of them.

I found that a great story. I'm already a member of the MLA group on FaceBook, and used that to start friending the professional people I already know. I am exploring the friends' lists of library-involved people I already have friended, looking for those connections in the network. I had to think first about mixing my professional life with the rest of what I do, including the times I get whiney about working out, and decided that just about everything I do on FaceBook is mirrored on some other Web 2.0 venue. Anyone in the library community could have found my casual adventures in living via my blogs or my LiveJournal acccounts, or googled me, or looked for me on flick'r. And soon -  LibraryThing.

During these few days, however, it has changed my update postings. Already, I am more thoughtful as to what I tell people; I don't know how long that will last but I believe I will never be unaware of the entirety of my audience. But I've always been aware of the real people on the other side of the screen. The experiment comes from fully embracing the opportunity to network and build community - that's the advertising, isn't it? That my network intermingling with other people's networks and as snippets of information are shared, usefulness happens. People find jobs, find new friends, find answers.

The next step is to move the intellectual nature of my network to face-to-face meetings, to tap into web-based friendliness and support in real time. But maybe that is organic and impossible to predict. I will find out! See you online!

Crossposted to other blogs.

Eons: Lovin' life on the flip side...

This online community is taking off! Eons: Lovin' life on the flip side.... claims "We're the online community for BOOMers!" and I was directed to look at it today. I think they have some interesting things to offer. Going to categorize this as a 23 Things and then go see if it really is one...It's a nice alternative to an online community like livejournal, though.

Thing 6: Image Generators

I'm back to doing 23 Things on a Stick. So this one was about image generators! Fun things! I've been making motivator posters for years, love the silly things when they are well done. Adds an extra bit of fun to our world! But far too often, they are lame and not worth a second read. Even those that make it to LOLCats are not always re-readable.

My trading card

Thing 5: Motivate poster

I have just had a blast with these toys.  Motivators are always my favorite though so that's what I choose to do.

  It's small but click it to go to the larger picture.

http://www.webmonkey.com/06/08/index4a.html  has a ton of fun toys. I love the one where you draw a picture and then flick'r sends you back thumbnails of photos sorta matching your colors/shapes. Very odd results but entertaining.

Gone for the weekend. Everyone have fun!

Thing? No, maybe, haven't looked...

Tagging of flick'r pictures and similar social sites is covered in the 23 Things on a Stick, I think. Anyway, this is an activity in tagging pieces of art that may interest people. So I'm forwarding the letter:

Dear Friend,

The Metropolitan Museum of Art needs your help with a research project to improve access to our online collections. You are invited to access the Museum's collection on a special Website developed specifically for this research project, and add keywords—sometimes referred to as "tags" or user-contributed terminology—to describe works of art in the Museum's collection. To do this, you will simply view an object and type as many (or as few) tags as you feel describe the piece.

Please let us know what you see—in your own words. You may find yourself gazing upon art you haven't looked at before or viewing an object in a brand new way. The more you tag, the richer your experience will be, and ultimately, the more you will be helping the Museum continue to provide its public with the exceptional caliber of online programming it has come to expect and enjoy.

If you can help, please begin now by accessing the site here: http://steve.metmuseum.org/steve

In advance, thank you for your help. The Metropolitan Museum of Art remains ever grateful for your commitment to the Museum and your support of its new and exciting online initiatives.

Sincerely,

Subject Cataloguing Working Group
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
socialtagging@metmuseum.org

Thing 18: TED: Ideas worth spreading

Ben Dunlap: The story of a passionate life was my introduction to TED. He speaks of people with undaunted passion for living, tempered trust in the inherent goodness of people, of the life-paths of 'masters of the universe' including two whose presence in his world was so awesome that having the two of them in the same room was akin to having two Japanese giant-monsters facing each other over Tokyo - if they did not like each other and fought, they would trample the people beneath them without realizing it. He spoke of a Holocaust survivor whose wisdom and integrity guided the spirit of the small North Carolina college he had adopted.

This link will take you to the main list of talks. It's an inspiring, informative way to get short clips from some of our greatest thinkers. Here are 10 ways to tell people about TED.

David Macaulay has a nice talk in there. humm... I think this is a thing. Maybe I can take care of one of my 23 Things right here? I've enjoyed this talk about illustrating and drawing illustrations of his book Rome and I know his work is part of many library collections.

I hope you like TED. There's some really nice things to think about in here, so thought it would be a good thing to share.

I took the PEW Internet Typology Test just now

Where do you fit?

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Omnivores typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic.

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

http://www.pewinternet.org/quiz/index.asp 

LOL Omnivore. nom nom nom

Well-written definition of web 2.0

This is a viewpoint from the other side of the table - not so much of Library 2.0 and what we need to know to be motivated to learn so we can do our jobs more completely. But it is still useful to anyone who likes to know how something works.

Link: Web Dev'er Selco.

So what is Web 2.0? It's AJAX. In a nutshell AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. It takes some of the functionality that was provided by servers and moves it to the Web client, e.g. your Web browser.

I'm not allowed to comment...

on this blog until a certain coworker does so, but at least I can get a post put out there about it.

Yeah! Glad to see you on our journey, Linda! <makes faces at Aurora LOL!>

Great drills tonight, plus a funny link

OK, I updated the fighter drill page if you are following that. Also you HAVE to see what is on the SELCO Librarian's Blog. It's me!! We had a great time that afternoon. Sarah had put her desk on a stick and then Mel put a duck on a stick and then some of us took off with the impulsive humor. That was very fun.