i'm a twit? twitterer? (#12)

twitter seems like a streamlined version of facebook. personally, i don't need to know what everyone (or for instance, the library) is doing at any given point in time. and i sure as hell don't want the play-by-play texted to my phone! ugh. would people really subscribe to the library's twitterings and be kept updated that regularly? i had a hard time finding people and apparently ran out of searches i was allowed to do at once. seems ill-advised to limit the number of searches, but as i won't continue to use twitter, i guess i don't really care. as i mentioned when i ranted about facebook, it's yet another place to spend time with updates. both for the person conveying the updates and the person looking for the information. i suppose as we move away from printing everything on paper, these sites will be more and more useful. however, not everyone has high-speed internet access in their homes or mobile devices, so it may be a while before we have to rely on twitter. on the other hand, some people LOVE that constant messaging and practically live on the internet, so they would probably really enjoy seeing a library twitter page. i suppose it can't hurt to utilize all our options, so maybe it's just a matter of time before we try to sucker -- sorry, i meant before we choose an AMAZING and INCREDIBLY INTELLIGENT person on the staff to take up the task...

face the facebook (#21)

i had no interest in joining facebook and after signing up a couple of months ago for this project, i am confirmed in my belief that this is not for me. especially since i was most emphatic about not wanting to be found by anyone who might want to get in touch with me. sort of defeats the purpose of this entire exercise. i mean, it's interesting up to a point as far as getting a quick glance at what your friends are up to, but i just have no inclination to keep everyone updated on what i'm doing or to spend that much time keeping in touch with everyone i know or HAVE EVER KNOWN. for instance, both my brother and sister have between 100-150 friends listed on their facebook pages. i can see how this can cut down on time spent staying in touch with them individually, but you still have to check your page and read their input and all their millions of friends' responses and make responses of your own, etc. so are you saving time or spending more time at yet another site you have to remember to log in to? and while a library facebook page might be useful (for however long facebook stays in favor), it is all very time consuming (both for the library and the patrons looking at the library page). i know it's important to try to reach people every way we can, but how universal can it be kept? will patrons have to go to several different websites (for example, the newsletter, the library homepage, facebook, twitter) to find out all the things that are going on at the library?

(#15) which wiki would work?

wikis seem to be used like blogs, only they're better organized. it's easier to find past "posts" or to contribute to a particular subject within the wiki than it is to comment on and find older blog entries. i like the book review wiki and the library success wiki -- the latter one was like going to a roundtable without having to get lost on the way to the host library. might be good for a summer reading program or maybe even a troubleshooting manual? maybe the millions of emails you get if you subscribe to the clc or conntech(?) lists can be replaced by a wiki somehow. or is there one already?

Podcasts (#10)

Not sure when i'd sit around and listen to these. i tried both podcastalley and podfeed and they seemed about the same to me. i tried wreckless media radio, vegan 101, and the movie bandits but found them all too annoying to listen to for longer than a few minutes. i'm sure there are a GREAT MANY podcasts that fall under this category. i was excited to see a vegan review podcast where they talk about different vegan product on the market but while not as annoying as the other ones, i had a hard time accessing anything other than the first episode or the last one. i guess you could listen to these when you're just surfing the web or doing housework (that isn't too noisy), but i can't see just sitting around listening to podcasts unless you can figure out a way to play them while you're driving. i'm sure i would get frustrated and give up long before i ever found a podcast i'd go through the trouble to listen to.

favorites wiki extravaganza! (#16)

working on the pages was pretty easy, since it's so similar to microsoft word -- however, that same similarity made it a little frustrating when it didn't have all the functionality i'm used to. i added my blog to the "favorite blogs" page, and a category for food and cooking, with my favorite blog on that subject (vegan of course!). wasn't sure what exactly we were supposed to do, so i also added a page i listed as "favorites on the loose" with some non-blog-related categories. the whole thing reminded me of slam books that people passed around in junior high school -- does anyone remember those? it was a notebook filled with questions that you anwswered and then passed it on. i've also seen some some emails that went around with a similar theme. as far as work-related uses (oh yeah, this is work-related...), i like the ease of use and universal access aspects of it. seems a lot better than a printout or email in every mailbox and then having someone bring all the input together again. i skipped #15, so i'm sure more wiki-things will become clear momentarily.