Procrastinating

I know social networking sites are the next assignment but why no LJ? I've had a profile there for 3 years now, I've been neglegent on posting as of late as I have been posting here instead. Can one "cheat" on their blog by starting another? I personally do not have any interest in joining any other social networking sites especially MySpace or Facebook. I do have to confess to listening at the Dancing Ferret discs label MySpace page for what's new as the do quite a bit of marketing there. FYI The Cruxshadows are represented by Dancing Ferret discs.
In the meantime while I get over myself here's a link to a blog about mixed drinks that includes links to other blogs about mixed drinks.
Blogging Tales of the Cocktail 2008

Thoughts on Flikr

I've been using Flikr for several years now and found it very easy to use throughout it's various incarnations. The last year I worked at the Fine Arts Library, a major remodel was done on the main floor. I found the process by which entire rows of stacks were lifted up and wheeled around so as to facilitate replacement of the carpeting facinating. This was the company that did the work.

Here's some pictures of the process.

My thoughts on streaming music

This part of the 20 for 2.0 really brought home how much music-sharing has changed in my lifetime. Back in the day, junior high through undergrad years for me, the most popular way to share music was to make mix tapes or tape shows off the radio. (When I say tape I mean cassette tapes.) Nearly 4 years ago I got a 40G MP3 player as a Christmas present and at about 1500 songs have hardly made a dent in the amount of memory available.

For this assignment I chose Last.fm as they had the most full-length versions of songs by my favorite band The Cruxshadows. Take a listen to the Last.fm widget on my blog's sidebar. When I created my playlist I made sure to include only full-length versions of songs, some songs I really like were either not listed or only had 30 second samples. I like there is the option to upload your own tracks to Last.fm

I have been listening to streaming music from smaller radio stations for a while now. It's a great way to keep up with what's popular in other places. My favorite themed radio show for when I'm feeling all emo and self-indulgent is Ear Candy, which broadcasts Saturday afternoons on KOOP, an independant radio station affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin.

My thoughts on RSS

I've been aware of RSS for a while now but not had the motive/urge/need to try it out until this assignment.
Onto the Q&A portion of this assignment.

What do you like about RSS and feed readers?
I like the idea of being able to quickly keep up with all the blogs I've gotten into reading over the past few years. I will need to explore this technology more in order to form a strong opinion for or against it.

How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?
RSS feeds would be an efficient way to keep up with current events local and worldwide.

How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
It seems to me RSS feeds could be used by library staff and patrons as a high-tech version of a clipping service. (Are my academic library roots are showing?) As a librarian RSS feeds would be an efficent way to keep up with the onslaught of library literature.

Which one do you use? Do you find it useful to get posts right when they are published?
I chose Bloglines and while it has been nice to be able to see which of my subscribed feeds has updated recently I don't have an opinion yet of it's usefulness. I need more time to get a better feel for it. Supposedly my bloglines feed should be showing up in my blog, I can see it in the preview but not when I try to look at my blog while logged out.

Thougts on IM

I have previously done chat reference at my former library jobs in Austin. University of Texas used Questionpoint and eventually so did Austin Community College. Because of the timing of most of my work shifts, evenings into nights I had several interactions that left a bad taste in my mouth about the whole chat thing. No, you don't need to know what I'm wearing!
Until this assignment I have been avoiding personal IMing because it reminds me too much of work and potential unpleasantness coming from the other party.

I realize how IM can be useful in the library, especially for short, ready reference type questions and for electronically available articles, books and websites. For longer and more challenging reference questions IM could be a good place to start by finding out from the patron what they are looking for, format preference, date needed by and how to get back to them. Basically a virtual reference interview.

Communicating between library staff members is another good use for IM as well. Not just reference staff referring questions to other branches but between staff in one building. Circ staff could notify reference staff that a potentially hostile, aggresssive or overly-talkative with library employees type of patron has entered the library and vice versa.

Stil not sure if or when I will ever IM for fun and profit.