Tuesday, May 20, 2008

AHAHAHAHA. Found on del.icio.us.

I really, really could have used this a couple months ago, to send to my junk-forwarding uncle and my mom's junk-forwarding friend. Mom's friend tends toward the treacly and religious. The uncle has a friend whose real-estate company actually *purchases* junk links from an internet aggregator and sends it all on to him. He wanted to share.

It was for my mom, of course, but she refuses to touch the computer. 25 pages a day of printed-out internet-humor emails isn't the same as getting it yourself.

Thanks, But No

I am glad to say they've mostly quit when I never replied to the junk. But I got a good laugh out of this, so del.icio.us has already done something good for me.

To be fair, there's internet humor I like. Some of it's absolutely hilarious, like the "relieve your shyness and social phobia -- ask your doctor for Tequila," but I usually get it from people who know me.

Tagging, Del.icio.us

I am a tagging virgin.

No, wait, I think I put in some tags on Flickr.

I wasn't about to go back through years of journal entries to do it, which has some drawbacks, to be sure. But I did link my photography and writing in my Memories.

Now I really want to read the Guy Kawasaki blog entry that Kathleen Gilroy refers to in "Learning 2.0 and Del.icio.us." The one that features, 'Don't Worry, Be Crappy.' Except, of course, that I can't find it on his blog. Cause, you know, he doesn't tag, and what tag would he slap on that, anyway? And I'm sure not looking up her del.icio.us account to find out if it's really listed there.

I have never used del.icio.us, although I have lots of friends who do. They use del.icio.us for fannish links, and if I wanted people to know what I was reading, I'd put it in my journal. When I was thinking about a laptop, one pal even urged me to buy a Mac so I could scan in the barcodes of my books to LibraryThing [which is not del.icio.us, of course, but bookily related]. Unfortunately, I'm the only librarian in the Known World who doesn't collect books.

The Magic Middle for people who can filter information for you . . . hmm. There's an interesting concept all by itself. Like the rest of life, it's all about choosing your filters.

10, which is a Thing: Library Wikis, Library Blogs

Library wikis seem pretty useful for those who want to brush up on their reference techniques. I was thrilled with our Reference Newsletter and its easily-found compendium of info that I'd formerly been saving up in backlogs on my email. I do want the tags in alphabetical order -- I thought that sort of thing was automatic. I don't remember ever seeing a journal or blog without tags arranged alphabetically.

Yes, I can search it by plugging in a word, but that's what tags are FOR.

From the Blogging Libraries Wiki list, I note that Fairfax County Library does have a moderated blog. Fortunately for whoever moderates, there isn't any discussion. I didn't see any blogs with discussion, and some of them had comments turned off. This seems like marginal use in the magical 2.0 interactive universe. Okay, wait, Ann Arbor had one comment.

Book blogs are voted most likely to be kept updated. Cincy's reminded me of a non-fiction book that I want for our collection. There were libraries on the list that were noted as "not updated since . . .", and other dead ones that had yet to be noted. This leads me to suspect a lack of staff and lack of response as culprits.

The Gold Coast Public Library's blog had useful information in it, like a post about Economic Stimulus Refund email scam and the fact that firewalls need to be disabled for Reference USA and Morningstar access. Plus! "The Free Web vs. Library Databases." There's a post that should be on every library's page. Yay for Gold Coast!