Tweet! Tweet!

I am showing my age, but I don't get it!! I find Twitter useful to share a quick bit of information, but beyond that I think it's a sign of the information age that the universal attention span is 140 characters. Of course, I don't text either. I don't know how my kids carry on a meaningful conversation by texting.

I have used our Humanities Twitter account to publicize my programs and the Travel blog.

Library Thing

Library Thing seems to be very easy to navigate and use. I signed in and entered a couple of titles into my library. The Cellist of Sarajevo had loads of reviews.

This could be a fun site to use. It is always the same problem - time, time time. I don't seem to have the time to spend exploring all these wonderful sites. Maybe when I retire?

I do think that this could be a fun site to point out to customers when doing a Readers' Advisory interview, to help them find reads that they will enjoy.

Google Calendar and Google Documents

I took a tour of both of these applications and found them very straight-forward. I created a family budget spreadsheet using a template in Google Documents, and then, shared it with myself through my hotmail account.

I don't think that I would use either of these on a regular basis. As far as the Google Calendar is concerned, I use a paper daytimer to keep track of my appointments, one that is small enough to use both at home and at work. If I had an iPhone or a Blackberry, it might be a different story.

As for using Google Documents, I find Microsoft Office Products meet my needs at this point in time.

In both cases, I have an inherent distrust of putting my personal information in the hands of Google. Despite their privacy policy, I always have a feeling that Big Brother is watching. Too much power in the hands of one big company! And, yes, I know that I am showing my age!!

Flickr and Youtube

Flickr has some great pictures on it. I don't think I will ever use it as a photo sharing site or for social networking. I have enough trouble keeping up with my email and Facebook. I do, however, use flickr Creative Commons for pictures for my Travel Talk blog on a regular basis. These are photographs that the owners have designated as ones that can be used under certain conditions which are clearly set out e.g. attribution.

Youtube is fun to look at, but again, I rarely seem to find the time to browse. I sometimes listen to music when I am working on the computer. I have also used it to find a particular artist or song in which I am interested. The funny videos that I see are usually ones that my children or friends have pointed out to me.

RSS Feeds

Well, that was exciting! I managed to set up RSS Feeds to the suggested blogs listed under 'libraries' on Bloglines. I then went to the Lonely Planet blog and had no trouble adding it to my list. I tried to subscribe to the Fodor's blog from their webpage but got hung-up and couldn't figure out how to add it from their page. I did manage to add it from the Bloglines page and pasting in the URL.

What I found exciting was that I went to my Travel Talk blog on the library homepage and set up an RSS Feed for it. I believe that it had been mentioned that this could be done but I hadn't ever tried to do it!

I think this can be a very useful tool for me as I write the Travel Talk blog to see what is going on in the world of travel by setting up RSS feeds for some of the more common travel blogs.

Google Universe

I decided to take a look at Google Scholar and Blogs.

I tried a couple of searches in Google Scholar and didn't see anything that would make me try it instead of our online databases when doing reference work. Doing a simple search for "global warming" in both Ebsco and Google Scholar, I could find many more full-text articles in Ebsco than in Google Scholar. I also tried L.M. Montgomery and seemed to come up with either books, citation or unrelated articles in Google Scholar. As well, I find the Advanced Search options more useful in Ebsco. I might try Google Scholar as a last resort, but it certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

Using the Blogs search to look for travel blogs was much more rewarding. I think that this is a sight that I could use to take a look at what other people are writing about in their travel blogs as a good way to get ideas for the CPL Travel Talk blog. Very interesting!

Facebooking Fool

I would like to be a Facebooking fool and spend all my time there, but don't seem to ever find a lot of free time. I use Facebook primarily to see what's going on with my nieces and nephews and to see pictures of them and my cute little grand kiddies.

Facebook is a great site for seeing what is going on with various friends and family. We have started a Facebooking group as a networking tool for ex-humsters but it so far it hasn't seen a lot of traffic.

Wikipedia Whiz

Well, I am truly not a Wikipedia Whiz, but I did manage to edit an article on my home town in Ontario. Someone had already posted information on the town of Minden Hills and I didn't find any grammar or factual mistakes, so I added information on the Minden Hills Cultural Centre with its museum and historical buildings. I even managed to add an External Link. Woo-hoo!!

I did look through a few articles and didn't see any glaring mistakes.

My co-worker Mia and I have just been discussing that we didn't find editing easy. I am not great with the language of technology, so Wikipedia lost me when they started talking about my IP address. I found the same thing applied in their "How to Edit" instructions.

Mia has just explained what an IP address is, so I have learned something new today! CPL 2.0 is working!!

Pat

It's De-e-e-licious!!

Delicious provides a great way for us to share internet sites that we feel are useful and reliable with other branches and with the public. These are sites that we would bookmark for ourselves. It is wonderful that Jerry Fawcett and the 3rd Floor staff found this way of rescuing our Best Web Sites! It may not be perfect but it works!!

I am still getting used to the art/science of adding tags. Is more better? Is there an optimum number? I think when we first added our Travel and Geography sites, we didn't add enough tags. I'm still not totally comfortable with finding things on Delicious, but I am getting better. Initially, I was trying to keyword search in the tags search box. So the site can be a little confusing at first.

CPL 2.0

I hope to become more familiar with the new technologies. I have a Facebook account, post on Twitter for Humanities, and blog on the Travel Talk blog for CPL. But for all that, I am not really comfortable with online communication. I am not very bold about experimenting and do not seem to find the time for exploring on-line.

The first exercise of checking out other blogs led me to other travel blogs of different types, something I've been meaning to check out. It's been on my 'get around to it' list for a while.

Something I would like to learn more about, but which I'm not sure falls within this training, is the difference between writing for on-line communication and other types of writing.

Pat