The End...?

Last things first - yea, I'm going to keep doing this, I'm thinking of setting up a wiki for my Blackboard class for online resources. I'd love to teach more 2.0 stuff. Let the fun begin!
Of course, it has already, cuz I've found online sources that will make my class much better.

I think the most exciting part that I've seen is Beinecke (Yale) using wordpress for promoting unprocessed collections. Not traditional, but traditional is going the way of Marc and Endevour and other broken programs and processes. It's scary to be a new grad and watch all you learned go away - but it's also very liberating. I thought Marc was broken (or at least the Opac was) years ago.

http://beineckejwj.wordpress.com/

Of course, I could go to SAA this week and hear it live but ......I can get all the sessions I want on cd without going, and tap into the blogs...so why go? Why not stick with MAC, where I can meet regional people? Cuz I'm not going to cross paths with Harvard people anywhere else - except online.

I need much more time - so many toys, so little time! Use Zotero, or CiteULike? delicious or Googlemarks? And more importantly, can I import them if I change my mind?

So we live in ineresting times, in the Chinese curse sense. Librarians may get totally repurposed in the next decade. I've been repurposed before. Not always fun, but challenges are growth things, not fun things. If I hadn't been who I was before, I wouldn't be where I am, and in the words of my father - no knowledge is lost, what you have in your head, no one can take away.

Facebook

Yech. Boring. Selfindulgent. Juvenile.
Getalife.
Ok, it's as boring as Second Life, maybe getabrain.
Maybe it's a sign of my advanced age, but ego-driven social sites don't turn me on, and I can't see much use for them in any library. Add them to the whack-a-mole collection - amusing for 30 seconds or less, if it's a slow day.

Number 19

I don't think we've looked at this one before. Eventful is an events bulletin board, with a fairly wide scope (Vienna, Belpre, etc). Events are listed in categories - books, pets, performing arts, etc. I can see this being a useful PR tool, if you get the word out about it. Unlike Yahoo's version, it doesn't have an RSS feed, or at least not an intuitive one.
Still, an RSS feed would do the same and keep the focus on YOUR event - though this one does link to some good stuff.

http://eventful.com/

MySpace, the penultimate thing

I can see the possibilities - virtual study groups, virtual bookclubs, etc - but Facebook and MySpace are also overgrown with groups, so you can't see the forest for the trees, unless you're one of the In Crowd. If the In Crowd is incoming freshmen and you are emailed the link, it's useful. If you're just trying to find something useful, well, there's a lot of drek to go through.

Or am I just getting jaded? Thinking that something that's been around for 5 years is just so...yesterday?

New Technology

There aren't many YouTube videos that I like, but I do like this one. There are so many psychological blocks to dealing with ONE MORE NEW THING!

And, of course, the SO MANY NEW THINGS to look at! I spent two hours looking for one good thing (well, my favorite was taken - The Machine is Us/ing Us - which will be in my next class..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUczKPXWLAM

Google docs

Love it! Love it!

I've been using it to summarize readings, make notes to myself for work, keep to-do lists, all the things I've emailed myself (okay, I'm an archivist, I email myself too. And copy to my thumb drive. Redundancy all over - the LOCKSS theory - Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe).

I'll be using it to collaborate on a session for MAC next year - we can work even though we're hundreds of miles away. How much fun is that! We've had a little experience at this - we were classmates, and did "group" presentations by emailing each other before class, and winging it from there. Or flinging it - previous presenters had flung candy at the class to keep their interest. We threw antique media - Duck! 8 track coming!

The one problem is it's all pc based, so I can't work while the spousal unit is playing games, so I hope I win the laptop!