Thing 23: I'm Done!

That's it, I turned it in last week,a nd I'm done.

Thing 22: Looking Back and Forward Simultaneously Makes Me Dizzy.

So, it is here that I shall reflect upon my very first bog post. Seems like only 2 months ago. Ohh, wait, it was.

In the beginning of this adventure, I was skeptical, yet hopeful that I would draw some really useful ideas out of all these Things we were to look at, and hey, it worked out pretty well. As I scan my mental inventory of those Things, I remember that, and that, and oh yeah, defiantly that. Then there was that one Thing. Ahh, memories. In the end I think all my expectations were fulfilled. A few of these Things are really useful, and I am very glad to have be exposed to them. Many of these Things just really aren’t very useful, and that’s ok too. I can manage to ignore those in the future.

Which brings me to the future, which is now, and always will be, or at least just in a minute or so? Will I continue to blog? Probably not on this one. I created this for the use with this program, not as some official library representation. I could keep posting here, and keep adding all the weird stuff that pops into my mind from time to time, but why bother? Nobody is going to read it anyway. That seems like an immense waste of time. I am considering starting a different, more officially serious blog, but we will see if I really have anything to say. Maybe. I think creating a wiki would be more of benefit for me and my fellow Public Services Librarians here at the college. I think it would be of a greater assistance overall than me thinking anyone cares about my opinion. And that is all a blog really comes down to, an opinion.

So the Things that were presented on this Thing, I looked through most of them. A few of the blog links may be worth following. The news feeds are something I should take more time to pay attention to, for professional development and all. The directories, I only liked the one titled Go2Web, the other two I found to be less organized, are good to look at from time to time to keep abreast of all these new web services. Some I saw on there have real potential for use. Most are just more social garbage, you know as far as I am concerned. Opinions, remember?

So I had a lot of fun doing 23 Things with NEFLIN. I learned a lot and got to experience many different Things. I will recommend it to other people in the future if NEFLIN ever does it again, and suggest you do in a couple of year, with updates and additions of course.

Bye

U_T

Thing 21: Stuff for Students

So now this is a great resource. This is the kind of thing we need more of. And at the same time I think that students should just work harder and figure all this out on their own, why do they need everything spoon fed to them? Uhhhh, I’m not contradictory or anything am I?

So I looked fairly close at all three links, and yes I do realize that the second two go to the same place. The first I really liked. It gave that break down of time management which is so crucial to new research writer. They just think you can scratch a paper off over a couple of days and write it in a night. It takes practice to pull that off, trust me. You must get accustomed to writing before you can put things off to the last minute and still expect to get a good grade. Even once you’re proficient, the longer papers still take a couple of weeks at least to do well. So I really liked how it was laid out and encourages the long term usage of information through out the process.

The first link was kind of hodgepodge in where it took its pages from, which I respect. Why rewrite the world when soo much info is already produced and available through the internet. It’s not like the info was ganked from other sites and reproduced as their own. The simply linked many pages to the over all guide, with the subject specific stuff coming internally. Made sense to me.

The second link, the RPC was very nice, but I am a little confused as to why it bothers with two layers of the same content. It gives you the table with links, that all go to the exact same document with parallel links. Seems redundant. The ability to email the outline and to continue to email which step to take, and when, made good sense. It seemed to be focused on High School students, and I think needs to be tweaked a little for college, but I really do like it.

The last link, the teacher resources from the RPC, was very useful. I think some of our Comp instructors could benefit from these pages and hand outs. I can see how taking this overall structure and implementing it for our students could be very beneficial. So that leads me to thin, yes, this could very well be one of the most advantageous Things I have seen so far. I need to let it all role around in my head for a while and see what I can develop. At the very least, it should pick up some of the cobwebs and dirt and help clean that space out. Mwahahahahah

Thing 22, time for reflection, so let me get a mirror.

Thing 20: To Continue on with Books and Such…

So I continued with these topics, and the next interesting Thing are Kindles and all things Kindle like. Electronic books, not just ebooks, but complete hand held devices that allow one to read a book electronically. Without a computer monitor. Just a little hand held device. Kind of like a paperback book, on not made out of paper. Clear? So I don’t know about these yet. I haven’t read one, and in looking at the possibility of circulating them through the library, it appears that several titles can be available at a time. So is that a circulation of one item, or is there a way to track individual title usage within a loan period? I suppose these questions will go beyond speculation for many libraries soon. But as I have read through different opinions about these, they have some distinct drawbacks in comparison to their paper counter parts. Distinctions in function and design that will be thought out and overcome in time. So I can see the rise of the Kindle.

The next Thing I looked at was reading a book through your phone. Hmmmm, nope this has zero appeal to me. Way too much scrolling and futzing around with the text to get into a good reading groove. I suppose it would be better on something like an iPhone, with a larger screen, but it’s still not large enough for me to consider it. I suppose that if you were interested in portability and needed to study while traveling it might have some purpose, but then again so does a paper book. I looked at BooksinMyPhone and txt2ph, and that was enough to help me form an opinion.

The next Thing was the Readers’ Advisory. I actually found this quite interesting. The first two, Reading Trails and Bookamp were pretty cool, but I liked to former better. It is really interconnected and can lead you into some surprising paths. I am interested in spending more time in there. BookStupmers was very cool, but less useful as a guide in the labyrinth of which authors you might like to try reading. But really cool none the less. There is an old story I remember reading in grade school that I can’t find an original copy of, and am interested in maybe putting in a stumper myself.

Online Book Communities. These I have less of an interest in. The discussion of books amongst readers is not something I am very interested in perusing; it kind of falls into the “why I don’t tend to read blogs” category. Lots of people think they are experts on subjects, but really just like to talk and sound impressive. It’s not for me. I will say that as an ebook tool, BookGlutton and the Unbound Reader are really cool. I dig the format they both provide. I can just do without other people's comments.

Book clubs, well I know lots of people like them, and that is cool. I do sort of place book clubs into the above topic, so it goes without saying that they are not for me.

Online Audiobook sites, now these are really cool. I love the idea behind Libivox. Power to the people! I guess I need to spend some more time in there. Are the files available to download and burn to CD. I’m not inclined to sit there and listen to a book at a computer, but I would be interested in listen while driving.

Book Reviews, this Thing does very little for me, since I very rarely do any reading based off of book reviews. But it is a good thing to know where it is in case a patron is interested.

Book Rental, well as a librarian, I like the idea that you can get a book you want to read, and then when you are done you can give it back, so you aren’t cluttering up your house with a bunch of books you probably will never read again, but I hate to point out the obvious: That is kind of the point of a library. Why not just borrow a book from the library? It’s free!

In the facebook Thing, I added Worldcat to my account/profile. That’s enough for me. I don’t feel a need to project what I like to read all over my facebook page.

Book Swap, now this is really cool. It’s like the library without walls. As much as I love libraries, I love this idea too. And the Book Crossing site is wild. It’s like the idea that you draw something (which of course you wouldn’t because it’s defacing government property) on a dollar bill and see if you come across it again. Only this way you get to track the life of the item. I may just have to try this out.

For the last Thing listed, I did look at the online Children’s Book sites, and I do like them. In fact I think tonight I’ll haul the old computer up to the kid’s room and set it up in my son’s bed and we’ll curl up and read a nice goodnight story, by the flickering warmth of my monitor. Or maybe not. They are cool sites though.

So in conclusion of all these Things that make up this one Thing, and that is a lot of things we are talking about, it is very interesting to see all the creative productions of and around books that are going on in the greater World Wide Web. So Thing 21 beckons me from a distance, and we all know not to ignore these things, so here I go…

Thing 20: Books, or Not Quite Books as We have known Them But Will Possibly Know Them Better in the Near Future, Or Not

So the age old issue of the future of the printed page rears its head. And by age old I mean in the last ten years or so. There was strong push towards digitalization, which is still happening. But it does seem that some of the earlier predictions that seemed so dire are not really coming around as fast as originally thought. In my best estimation, books in the print form still have some life left as a viable medium. I wouldn’t bother with a prediction on this, it could be 20 years, it could be 100. I was under the impression that the up and coming generation would little use for such things, but I just spent some time talking to a high school student this week, and said student still prefers to read off of a page than a screen. My 10 year old daughter prefers to read a paper book over the computer screen, so I think the medium of the paper book will hold on for a while yet.

Research books and text books on the other hand, I can totally see better electronic implications in how one transverses the info. It is a faster medium to gain precise location of subjects with an item, as well as faster cross reference capability. I do see the appeal in this arena of information. It is the pleasure reading that will help maintain the print world. Considering the amount of paper used though, in time the need to use less will become more of an issue.

Ok, so on to the articles we read. The 4 pager on how and what we read is interesting. There is validity to the thought that internet reading does form some level of cognitive development, and should be considered in how we evaluate what a young person is reading. Yes, the skill set that internet users are developing will be increasingly more and more influential in the work place of the future. The internet has been born, and now has a life of its own. It changes, grows, morphs and reproduces. It consumes. In many ways this highway of information it alive, and how we interact with it will and use it will be a determining factor in the future success of the work place. Yes the internet is a tool, and in my personal opinion should remain in that capacity. But as it stands, that is just my opinion and many people are already allowing how they interact with this tool to influence their lives. It’s like when the network goes down here at the college, everything grinds to a halt because most of what we do now in the library is so inter driven. Out catalog is online, in the Community College arena our LMS is online and we lose access when the internet goes down. It is a tool, but a central one that directly dictates how productive we can be at any given time. So what happens when we have given over to using the internet to live our lives?

In regarding the rest of the article, yes I do see why some people would argue that internet reading is as good as reading a structured book, such as literature. I don’t agree that it should be a replacement for most people. Instead I think that both should be utilized, but reading formal prose is very important. Disregarding a proper structure devalues the reading experience. Students are not going to get a good feel for how to write well by reading poorly written prose. What you read will affect how you write, how you read, and how you process information. Not everything needs to be in tiny snippets. People are becoming impatient enough in society with furthering the cause by reinforcing not reading well structured text. Part of why I think many young people don’t read books as much as they could is because so much-the internet is a big part of this-is so instant gratification oriented these days. Books take time and investment, it’s not an in and out thing.

Then we come to the argument that print is the back bone of information gathering, and many of the newer info storage mediums are flimsy or unreliable. I can see this, but when you start to think about how much info is in bare electronic form at this point, then you start to think about the file sharing that is going on with much of it. For every copy made, there could be thousands of copes remade and remade without the loss of quality that used to accompany that sort of transfer. If digitalization is being done on certain items, and no distribution is happening, they are being horded, then we see the very possible need of paper backup, in the case of file corruption. It comes down to the need for wide spread distribution of texts for a wider spectrum of coverage. If the ideas are held close, then they stand a better chance of being lost. That is where time and public domain will be the ultimate keepers of these ideas. Copyright and idea control will be the barriers. I understand the need for copyright and agree with it. Intellectual property is a huge issue, and the continuation of literature depends on it. Great writers don’t get to be as good at their craft when they only do it on the weekends after the kids are in bed. Authors and artists need to be able to create to be creative. Copyright provides that.

We’ll call this part 1. Next I will examine all the sites I checked out.

Thing 19: More Social Things, Yeahhh.

So more social things. I guess there just aren’t enough out there.

I do have to say that I really liked WebJunction. That is a great resource. I have known about it for some time, but hadn’t ventured in yet. I think I will be spending more time reading through content now. It defiantly creates spring boards for thought, and answers for other thoughts. Excellent professional resource.

Ning I found less uses for, but I could spend some time poking around. Did you get that, I used a “ing” word when talking about Ning. Ohh, I did it again. Anyway, this does not strike me as a real productive tool. I like how you use it to create specialized groups, and I liked how everything was presented. In fact, I liked it much better than the following site, Gather.

After reading the article about Gather, it seemed like it might shape up to be interesting, but the article was written in 2005, and I have a feeling that the site has change a good deal since its original inception. I really found it rather sloppy and haphazard. The groups I looked through really didn’t strike me as something I would want to read on any regular sort of basis. I poked around on a few of the other possible sites listed below the articles, and most of those I also found to be kind of, well not interesting. Ok, but not interesting. I have spent some time on Last FM before and had some fun with that site, but my tastes in music tend to lead me back to the Live Music Archive on Archive.org. I find more of what I want to listen to there than anywhere else.

Reading the second article, I can see how an effort into these tools can be a positive presence for a library, but maybe not in these Things as much as, say Facebook or even possibly Myspace. It is good to play around with new stuff though.

So I will look at Thing 20, say that’s getting pretty close to 23 Things, isn’t it?

Thing 18: MyFaceSpaceBook, So Now I am Virtually Connected, Virtually.

So I have gone and done it and am now apart of the social web. I created a Facebook account.I even found two of my oldest friends in there and asked them if we could be friends, which we already are, but I need friends so I begged my friends to be those friends. No, not that kind of friend, the other kind. I hope they will be my friends. Kind of like the whale that falls to that planet in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy because he was pulled from his real existence by the probability drive on the Heat of Gold. Yeah, like that.

I am not going to create a Myspace page though. One social website presence is enough for me in this life time. I have seen Myspace before, and I think I can draw distinctions between the two mega social sites.

Myspace is a very put yourself out there and see who you can meet in the ether kind of a place. Facebook is more controlled and requires a level of agreement in the socail connecting that goes on. Myspace is wild and woolly, a free for all romp. Face book is much more cold and calculated, and the background is always white, very sterile.

I can see how Facebook could be used in a professional capacity, much more so than Myspace. It is also less likely to be a stalking ground for under aged children than Myspace. Somewhat more control.

In the end, I see no real attraction to either in my personal life. As for professionally, well I can see some applications that could pan out.

Thing 19 is what, the alternative to these? Ok, lets go explore.