Thing 10: Apparently Eight Ate My RSS Because It Was Delicious.

So I explored the Thing that is just soo tantalizingly Delicious, that millions of users are doing it too. And as I suspected, I don’t really find this to be very useful. I’m just not going to login to something just to see the few websites that I already go to anyway. I don’t spend that much time on the internet when I’m not at work.

As for applications at work, again I don’t see it as really useful. I guess that I could create a cloud (that’s correct, right?) based on some topic the students are interested in, but the truth is the students already know how to get to all the time wasting stuff they want to know about anyway. When it comes to research and finding legitimate websites, there are better ways then me sitting here trying to find those sites on any given subject that the students can utilize in preexisting tools. I can’t know every subject that will have a paper written on it ahead of time, nor should I collect that kind of information for the students. That’s kind of the point of research and learning how to research. If I do it all, then they don’t learn what they are supposed to be learning. Much too many a student’s chagrin, I don’t think making things easier for them is doing them any favors. I am all for extending the utility and function of databases and making our OPACs more accessible, but I still think that having the students learn to be self sufficient in the pursuit of reliable/factual information is a far better service than hand feeding them.

A big part of this Web 2.0 craze that has taken on the library world is the widespread access to lots of info. I don’t agree with all of it, and this particular Thing I find to be useless; at least in my situation. Personally, I find it an utter waste of time. I don’t see the appeal to this type of website. I am also not into being social on the web, so that might be the disconnect for me. As a way for individuals to show their likes and dislikes to other individuals, I suppose it makes sense, but why would you? I guess I just don’t get it.

Well enough of my ranting, so I was not impressed with this Thing. I did try to make a Delicious Badge, but the code it gave me created the same errors that I was getting when I tried to put the slide show on my widget bar. So I kept removing code until it stopped giving the error, and all I have left is the little message directly under the Meebo box. Maybe some one who might read this would know how to properly place the Badge on the blog. I keep trying to put it in with the widgets so it will appear with everything else. I am not sure what language the widget script is written in, but this Badge script was in JavaScript, but I was getting an xml error. Should I try to put it out side of the frame for the widgets?

Anyway, I am quite over Thing 10, so lets see what Thing 11 is like.