Thing 15

I boarded the library boat with Rick Anderson and had an enlightening journey. I loved his idea of the "just in case" collection. It reminded me of the jeans I keep in my closet "just in case" I lose those 5 pounds. Well, you know what? Get over it. It ain't happening! (At least I didn't purchase the jeans anticipating I would lose those 5 pounds. I guess my scenario is more of a weeding issue. I'll hold that thought for a future Thing!)

I couldn't help but have Lew's voice in my head as I read the Five Perspectives. He seems to be right on target with our Strong Foundations, Enduring Success. Thanks, Lew!

One point that I found fascinating was "..if our services can't be used without training, then it's the services that need to be fixed - not our patrons." This really goes hand-in-hand with what do our patrons use already and how can we incorporate that into our library services.

Thing 14

Wow, what an experience this has been.....
I did not claim my blog, since I have privacy issues and I am so glad that I didn't because I didn't care for Technorati at all. I couldn't come up with anything relevant for "library accounting", unless you consider a Malaysian student stressing about her upcoming business exam, where you can find CFO jobs, or purchase Quicken relevant. I didn't. It seemed that no matter if I searched the blog posts, tags or blog directory, it was all worthless information to me.

Moving on to Exercise #2 - exploring Technorati top favorited blog, top searches and top blogs - what I learned is that there are scams out there, just like everywhere else. "Make money writing blogs". I hear you now, believe you later. As for top searches, I didn't see the advantage of their list over say AOL's. One disadvantage with Technorati's list, is that you shouldn't click on a foreign word that you don't know, unless you don't mind being brought to a porn sight. Seriously, I have to go take a shower and will not come back to this Thing again.

Thing #13

Del.icio.us can certainly be that when I use it to tag recipes to try, but for right now, I set up a travel itinerary. This will come in very handy as I plan for vacations. I certainly love being able to use numerous tags for a particular site. That was always my problem with bookmarks, too many categories and too few words to use. Thanks Del.icio.us! (And by the way, I hate the name and the spelling. Talk about typos. Yikes!)

Thing #12

At first I really wasn't getting the difference between Rollyo and a Feed Reader, but once I created one and did a search...WOW...was I amazed!! Talk about a time saver. I created one for genealogy and absolutely LOVE being able to search on multiply web sites at one time. I even found pedigree charts that I can help fill in. Won't there be happy customers out there in cyber-land?!

Select...los genealogy 101Search The Web

Thing #11

I can see how this Thing would be useful for book clubs and others that want to talk about books, but I'm not into that. I could possibly use it for my genealogy references. Currently, I keep a hand written log for my genealogy references and this Thing could be helpful for genealogists who share information with other family members or researchers.

Thing #10

I've been hearing so much about Pattie Boyd recently, that I've been wondering what it would be like to have someone famous write a song about me. Well, with the Bob Dylan Message Generator, I could wonder no more! But in the end, is it his song to me or my song to him?! Hmmm, I'll just ponder on that for a bit, while I reminisce about the very first concert I ever went to - Dylan at the Garden 1974 - can't get any better than that. Welcome to Columbia this weekend, Bob. Miss you.

Thing #9

Well, I've heard the term "merlin" mentioned so often at work, that I'm glad I finally know what it is! I subscribed to MERLIN and was happy to see Beth's entry on the site. (Thanks for representing, Beth!) I look forward to hearing from "behind the scenes staff" and more specifically from accounting personnel, to learn how their departments function/operate in a library setting.

I explored all of the search tools listed for this exercise and found Bloglines to be the easiest and most helpful for me. (I even subscribed to a few more feeds, but when do I find the time to go through them all!?) The Feedster and Topix results came up with way too many unrelated hits for my search. There's that darn Boolean searching for you. I'm not sure why blogs kept being pulled, even though I would limit my search to podcasts. I really don't want to read an average Joe's opinion on my topic. I discovered that I'm starting to get lazy with my feeds and enjoy the podcasts more than the print media. Is it quicker to go through? Possibly. I can turn away from the screen and continue to hear the news, so I can do something else (ie. iron clothes) while I go though the feeds. In that sense, I feel like I'm being more efficient with my time. Oh the life of a Type A.......