Thing #18: Facebook and MySpace

COMMON CRAFT

Kudos once more to Lee and Sachi Lefever for a succinct and informative Common Craft Show presentation on social networking.

The more of these I see, the more I want to start communicating with others using stick figures on little scraps of paper and dry erase markers.

I very much appreciate the care and planning that has gone into these deceptively simple-seeming, ostensibly low-tech productions.

Communicating effectively is, in my book, the height of praiseworthy high tech.

EXPERT VILLAGE

The Expert Village tutorial on how to register for FaceBook was nicely done, clear, and short.  I also watched the Expert Village walkthrough of the FaceBook guided tour, which was the next video in the series.

Unfortunately, I didn't see how to proceed to the next video in the series, which was mentioned at the end of the guided tour video.  The video I wanted to watch next was on building a FaceBook profile--but I couldn't find it.

I found this lack of continuity frustrating.  Did I miss something?

These videos were obviously intended to be viewed in a logical sequence, but I couldn't locate a listing of all the videos.  Nor could I figure out how to proceed from one video to whichever one followed it.  Alas!

FACEBOOK REGISTRATION & PROFILE

Disappointed but undaunted, I just went ahead and registered for Facebook, using my work email on the advice of the first Expert Village video.  

Filling out my profile wasn't much fun, since I truly don't want people I don't know to be able to learn much about me without my knowledge.  I can't imagine who would--and yet, clearly, many people don't mind.  I sure do.

I'm downright averse to getting that friendly that quickly with people I don't even know.  It's one of the reasons I don't frequent bars.

Not interested in shallow.  Not interested in short-term.  Quality in relationships is important to me.

FACEBOOK WALL

Okay, enough tortured self-disclosure.  Moving right along, I go in quest of finding out what a Facebook wall is.

Since I couldn't locate the Expert Village video on Facebook walls, I went to Ask.com and typed in "What is a Facebook wall?"

The explanation I came across on Webopedia was the clearest.  It stated that in Facebook, the wall is a section of your profile where others can write (graffiti-like?) messages to you or leave you gifts in the form of small, icon-like images.

Okay.  Interesting.  I returned to Facebook and clicked on the Wall tab, then added a couple of messages with links to two of my favorite websites: Adventure Beach Bengals and Thormahlen Harps.

I didn't really have any photos or video that seemed suitable to share.  Hm.  I'll have to ponder that.  Maybe I should create some, like when I took photos of the cats. . . .

NEXT TASKS

Next tasks: joining groups and adding friends.  I'll try to work on this tomorrow.  Right now, it's 9:30 p.m., and I need to brush my teeth so I can read a chapter of Fire and Ice (book 2 in the Warriors saga by Erin Hunter) to Garrulous Unicorn.

This talkative colt is on spring break at the moment and will--as soon as I chase him there--be in bed productively regenerating lost brain cells.  An activity I intend to emulate.  I'll add more to this blogpost tomorrow.

MULTIPLE DETOURS

I sat down at the computer twice today hoping that I had perhaps 45 minutes to an hour to work on 23 Things.  Unfortunately, I spent most of both sessions helping others with their 23 Things questions.

No complaints.  These folks have generously helped me when I was stuck, so returning the favor is only just.  It seems people are having trouble with wikis and podcasts today.

One person I was able to help.  The other I made arrangements to work with tomorrow because neither of us could figure out over the phone what's going on with his podcast.  It was working earlier today.  I listened to it around noon and then posted a comment on his blog.

I don't know what happened between then and now.  We'll work on it tomorrow when we're both in the same room looking at the same computer.

ADDING FRIENDS & JOINING GROUPS

All I was able to accomplish this evening was asking several people if I could add them to my list of Facebook friends and joining two groups: the ALA Members Group and the Library 2.0 Interest Group.

Both procedures were simple and straightforward, but I'm afraid I was so distracted I wasn't able to absorb much.  I'll have to come back to this tomorrow and try to finish up.

FACEBOOK, DAY 3

Okay, I'm back after a night of rest and regeneration.  I successfully uploaded a picture to my profile.  Overnight, four generous people have consented to befriend me.

One of them recounted a story I had completely forgotten, about how I had saved him from raging rapids in 1986 using only my two floor harps and a length of rope.

He must have been about 12 years old at the time.

While reading his vivid narrative, it all came flooding back to me.  (I used to tote those floor harps everywhere, especially while hiking in the woods.)

Well, it's a small world.  I'd always thought this fellow looked familiar somehow, but had chalked it up (absurdly) to the passing resemblance he bears to a historic American president.

Of course I confirmed all the details.

ALERTING NEFLIN

The instructions for this Thing say to "Be sure to let [NEFLIN] know when you join [Facebook] so we can 'friend' you."  I wasn't exactly sure how to do this.

I wasn't clear if logging it on the blog would sufficient, or if I'm supposed to use another method.

So, I searched Facebook for NEFLIN and saw Stephanie Race's Facebook account.  But she recently left NEFLIN for a job with the State Library and Archives of Florida, so I didn't think I should trouble her.

I also saw "Brad Neflin," but haven't seen Brad's name attached to any of the NEFLIN's 23 Things blogposts, so I held off approaching him.

There were several Jennifer O'Neills, so I thought I'd better try something else.  (There's probably some obvious method I'm overlooking here--but I'm new to Facebook.  I'm sure I'll learn more the more I use it.)

My next strategy was leaving a message via the Meebo widget located on the NEFLIN's 23 Things blog.  I was able to type a short message and edit my name, but I didn't see a control to allow me to "send" the message.  I'm not sure if it has reached NEFLIN or not.

Finally, I opted for email.  I'll check my email and Facebook account over the next week and see if I get a response.  Keeping my fingers crossed.

WHAT NEXT?

Well, I think I've exhausted Facebook for now.  I'm not quite sure how the groups work--perhaps by joining groups, I open up a wider circle of possible friends?  That's kind of a scary thought.

I think Facebook would be much more appealing to me if I were a lot more bored than I actually am (which is not very) and had a whole lot more unscripted time on my hands.

To call me fully engaged with my life and work would be an understatement.

I think there must others like me out there somewhere in the world.  Perhaps I should start an anti-social network called Camouflage for all us quiet, inwardly directed people who just want to be left alone.

What I need a whole lot more of at this busy juncture in my life is not friends but time to myself.

Onward!

Thing #17: Podcasts

MILLER ANALOGIES FOR DUMMIES

Remember the Miller Analogies Test?  Were you ever kidnapped, held at gunpoint and forced to take it?  You know the test I mean.  It's full of weird fill-in-the-blank comparison questions like:

1.  A toaster is to a PopTart as a certain character from the Harry Potter series named __________ is to an owl pellet.

Or, in case your belief-system forbids you to read Harry Potter, here is an alternative Miller-style analogy for you:

2.  A toaster is to a PopTart as a __________ is to a certain unfortunate Biblical character named Jonah.

Did you ever get any of those analogies?  I always just found them amazingly irrelevant and stupid.

FLASHBACK

And yet, here I am, many years later with the following analogy popping into my head:

3.  A podcast is to a radio broadcast as a __________ is to a movie playing at the local Cineplex.

I guess what this means is that podcasts let the listener control when to listen (and allows him or her to listen in private) in the same way a certain other media format that's been around longer than podcasting allows a viewer to choose when to view a movie (and to view it in private).

Okay, fair enough.

(Answers to the above three analogies, by the way, can be found at the end of this blogpost.)

THE COMMON CRAFT SHOW

Lee and Sachi LeFever's Common Craft Show episode, "Podcasting in Plain English" this time, was a model of brevity and clarity.  As always.

BOOK-RELATED PODCASTS

I went to Podcast.com and listened to several podcasts.  The March 19th, 2009, podcast of All About Books had a very polished, NPR quality to it.  Charles Stephen and Otis Young discuss several new books, leading with War as They Knew It by Michael Rosenberg, about the rivalry between two legendary football coaches: Woody Hayes of Ohio State and the University of Michigan's Bo Schembechler.

Denver Public Library's had podcasts (audio only) of children's books.  I listened to It's Quacking Time by Martin Waddell, read by a narrator identified only as Jeff, and "Frog," a fractured fairy tale from Tales from the Brothers Grimm and Sisters Weird by Vivian Vande Velde, read by Emily.  These reminded me inescapably of library storytime readalouds.

I also listened to Episode 12 of a publisher podcast series entitled Sweet and Sassy Summer of Girls Fiction from HarperCollins.  Laura Kasischke reads a spooky passage from her young adult novel entitled Boy Heaven.  This was a slicker, more commercial production, with music and an announcer introducing the author.

ACLD COULD DO SOMETHING SIMILAR

I can see the Library making use of all three formats (expert review, readaloud, and author-read excerpt).  A few others spring to mind as well:  What about kids reviewing their favorite books?  Or kids doing the reading aloud?  What about a contest where kids submit their own original stories?

ADDING AN RSS FEED

The RSS feed I added to my Bloglines account was BigStoryTime.com, which is a series of 75 charming readalouds by five-year-olds.  The kids' voices are delightfully expressive.  The works being read are published picturebooks.

Although the podcast is not still in production (last episode was created in July of 2007), it is still available via RSS feed, and I'm sure it will take me a while to get through all 75 episodes.  (Wolf's Chicken Stew was wonderful!)

PODCASTING VIA Gcast

I use this song in my storytimes for preschoolers, Kindergarteners, and even early elementary aged kids if they're well-behaved and / or sleepy.  As a lullaby, it makes a great lead-in to naptime.

I sang this into GarageBand on my Mac while sitting in the kitchen.  If you listen closely, you can hear the cats sneezing and walking on the stove.

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ALL FOR NOW

Pretty cool.  Podcasts are fun.

Okay, well, I guess that's it for now.  I'm looking forward to Thing #18.

Don't forget to look for the answers to the Miller-style analogies below.

ANSWERS TO MILLER-STYLE ANALOGIES

1.  Hedwig     2.  whale (okay, big fish, if you want to be literal)     3.  DVD

If you didn't get any of these, I recommend reading more British fantasy and / or Bible stories in conjunction with vacationing at the beach once a year so you can fry your brain on cable.

Thing #16: YouTube

FUNNIEST VIDEOS

I already had a passing familiarity with YouTube, having been introduced to it by friends and colleagues.

It's one of those great-idea sites I haven't had a chance to explore as fully as I'd like to, yet.  It reminds me a lot of those Funniest Video shows available on cable television.

THE PROBLEM WITH CABLE

We don't have cable at my house.  It's not available in our area (yes, that's how far out in the woods we live) and if it were, I still wouldn't have it.

Why should I pay huge amounts of money for way too many channels I'd never have time to watch anyway?  Not doing it.

I satisfy my pitifully weak cable-urge by vacationing at the beach once a year.  The cabin has cable.  We all sit around watching Animal Planet until our brains explode.

Here's a very silly YouTube video about cats.  My opinion is that most of them are possessed by demons.  Nothing a good exorcism wouldn't cure.

HSI FOR CHEAPSKATES

One thing we do have at my house, however, is high-speed Internet.  It's cheaper than paying a mental-health counselor to help us work our frustrations with dial-up.

With HSI, YouTube is easily accessible, loads quickly, and runs without seizing up.  High-speed Internet also costs less than cable.

In some ways, YouTube satisfies an unmet need I have with regard to cable.  If I could pick the cable channels I want and only pay for those channels, I might be tempted to explore cable further.

But the cable service providers would never stand for that.

POWER AND CONTROL

However, with YouTube, I can search for the type of videos I want to watch.  Most are home-movie-style amateur productions--many of them surprisingly well done, actually.  Some are informational or instructional.  A lot are humorous, and a few are basically commercials with professional production values.

It's actually quite a nice mix, and viewing is entirely voluntary, so the viewer is in control.  I like that.

WHAT DOES THE SUPERBOWL HAVE IN COMMON WITH FRANCE?

I read somewhere, many years ago, that in France, instead of being spread out throughout the day, all the TV commercials aired during a half-hour period from 7 - 7:30 p.m.

Supposedly, it was (or is) lots of people's favorite show.  Highest ratings share of any TV show in the country.  Advertisers pulled out all the stops and paid huge sums for a minute or two of time.  As far as on-air advertising went, it was the only game in town.

I have no idea if that was, or is, really true, but it's a nice concept.  Sort of like TV commercials in the U.S. during our annual broadcast of the Superbowl.  Advertisers go all out, design great, unique commercials that people anticipate with pleasure and actually tune in voluntarily to watch.

Hm.  YouTube seems to have tapped into the concept of voluntary viewing as well.

COMMERCIALS & MUSIC VIDEOS

I took a look at the links to be found under the instructions for completing Thing #16.  Google Video looks to be a functional clone of YouTube.  That there are now over 60 similar Internet video providers just goes to show that this is a concept whose time has come.

It was fun watching some of the old TV commercials I remember from my childhood.  Kind of embarassing, too.  I can't believe we were that unsophisticated.

The video of the man caterpillar-breakdancing across the intersection was amusing, but it was followed by something even funnier--I don't know if I accidentally clicked on a link or if it just started playing spontaneously--a commercial for TripAdvisor which bills itself as a way to avoid infested hotel rooms with lamentable housekeeping and severe plumbing problems.

Nadine Velasquez in her femme fatale persona writhing around on satin sheets and warning us to beware of "dirty, dirty, dirty hotel rooms" was a stitch.

LIBRARY RELATED VIDEOS

Library Dominoes was interesting, but they should have had a much longer and more complex domino trail.  I've seen a similar video done with VHS videocases that went on and on.  It was amazing.

The WSU Library Tour was a great example of how a good soundtrack and rapid-cut editing can make even the most pedestrian subject (welcome to the library--yawn) engaging.

The OCPL Library Commercial was nicely conceived but didn't go quite far enough.  After the buff young history student leaped over the furniture into an imaginary trench to avoid enemy fire, he should have found somebody else crouching there, perhaps an attractive

literature major hiding from zombies or musketeers.

LIBRARY JOKES

I had heard about the video in which the clueless young woman attempts to order fast food in the library, but had never seen it.

The Bible verses following the actors seem tacked on, not well integrated with the first part of the video.  Perhaps the video was shot by a faith-based outfit promoting education?  I couldn't tell.

If only the video had come back to the actors at the very end for a brief, live-action zinger.  Perhaps library staff could have handed the patron a religious tract promoting wisdom and told her, "Here's the menu."  We needed something to tie together the two halves of the piece.

Conan the Librarian was another YouTube I'd had recounted to me on several occasions but never before seen.  It was a hoot.

MUSICALS AND COMEDY

Prankstgrup's High School Musical spoof entitled "Reading on a Dream" was pretty funny.

The actors' hyper-earnest portrayals of two sad and lonely people who find personal fulfillment and one another through singing and dancing hammily in front of dozens of other (rule-abiding) library goers was spot-on.

Even better was the spontaneous, embarrassed snickering of the nonmusical after the two protagonists clasp hands and run joyously from the premises.

IT versus Librarian was elegantly simple and wittily low-key.

I had seen Introducing the Book before and found it as funny the second time around as I did the first time.

The fact that the actors are speaking a language I don't (Dutch?) and I have to decipher it by the subtitles just makes it funnier somehow.

The main character is clearly a monk.  I'm wondering if the man who arrives from the helpdesk is supposed to be Gutenberg.  I love it how they play it absolutely straight.

It reminded me eerily of an old Saturday Night Live sketch with Steve Martin and Bill Murray entitled Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber.

I couldn't find it on YouTube, so I had to go to Fancast.

I hope you enjoy these three videos.  I had fun with them.  Now on to Thing #17!

Thing #15: Rollyo

A FASCINATING CONCEPT

I found the idea of limiting a search to a select list of websites a wonderful one, since I am often frustrated by the deluge of results returned by search engines such as Google or HotBot that search the entire web.

On  the Public Domain e-Books Search serachroll, I was able to bring up eBooks for Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan without difficulty.

The Rare Book Library Search serachroll was a bit more problematical.  I couldn't find any listings for either William the Dragon by Polly Donnison or The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The first is quite rare, the second not rare at all, although I assume there are rare editions.  Perhaps the book dealers whose sites compose the list just don't have any copies of these items available right now.

The Quick Quotes serachroll easily brought up Shakespeare's "We are such stuff as dreams are made on."

Again, a good idea to search multiple quotation indexes in aggregate, while excluding those same quotes scattered across random websites.

JOINING UP

I routinely run searches for obscure items (such as 44-string pedal harps) with only limited success.

I can usually increase my odds of a relevant hit by searching promising sites individually rather than googling the Web as a whole.  But it's tedious having to search each site individually.

So I was eager to sign up for a Rollyo account and try my hand at creating a custom Rollyo list.

I registered for an account and created a list entitled Harps for Sale.  On it I placed 24 sites I regularly search for listings of folk harps and pedal harps (either new or used).

I entered 24 harp sites I search either regularly or occasionally for harps or related items (strings, sheet music, CDs, etc.).

My category was Arts & Humanities.  My tags were: harps, musical instruments, pedal harps, and folk harps.  I chose to make this list public.

HARPS FOR SALE

Now when I log into Rollyo, I see Harps for Sale as one of my searchrolls.  How cool!

I typed in Lyon Healy Style 85 GP (a type of 44-string pedal harp manufactured by Lyon & Healy) and clicked on Search.  The results were highly relevant.  Much more so than when I search the Web at large using Google.  Neat!

Here's the link:  Virtual Unicorn's Harps for Sale searchroll on Rollyo.

I suggest you try the following search term: Camac Clio, Salvi Daphne, Dusty Strings FH36B, and Thormahlen Swan.  These are all popular harp models.  The first two are pedal harps, the second two, folk harps.

Searching these will give you an idea of who on my list is currently carrying which models of harp.  Now you know the sort of things I look at on the Web for fun.  Happy searching!

Thing #14: Online Productivity Tools

FOUR FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

I have to say, I'm really getting tired of multiple Things masquerading under the aegis of a single numeral.

Is 23 Things You Should Know about Web 2.0 really still 43 Things that have just been consolidated so as to appear to be fewer in number?

I'd have found the 23 Things experience a lot more straightforward if each Thing had represented a single Web 2.0 tool and participants had been asked to do just one a week for however many weeks it took.

Artificially compressing the experience has only created stress for me and many of my fellow participants.

23 Things was billed--over-optimistically, in my opinion--as compact and time-efficient.  It simply isn't.

It takes quite a bit of time to absorb even a surface understanding of these brave new tools.  If we're serious about taking all this in in a meaningful way, we should allow ourselves sufficient time to process the experience.  Speed-dating really isn't my thing.

Not much time left till deadline.  I am determined to finish 23 Things.  It was, after all, one of my New Year's resolutions.

I am also very, very tired.

Perhaps this handy countdown widget will spur me on.  I intend to refer to it often, in ever rising panic as the deadline nears.

Created by OnePlusYou

iGOOGLE

I took a look at iGoogle and chose Gainesville, News, Humor, Business, Technology, and Entertainment as my selected interests.

My background theme is called Sweet Dreams (an evening sky with a crescent moon).  My Country / Region are, of course, the U.S., with my zipcode as 32667.

It really didn't take much longer than the 30 seconds claimed, and created a very nice, compartmentalized, personalized start page. 

Features included the weather forecast for Micanopy, Gmail, NYTimes top stories, Google Finance Portfolios, ETonline Breaking News, Date & Time, CNN.com, Joke of the Day, The Wall Street Journal, Movies, YouTube, UF News, Go Comics, CNET News, and TV Guide.

It seems to have lifted all my personal information directly from my Google Account without me having to do anything.

Now every time I log into Google, I should be able to reach my personalized iGoogle startpage just by clicking the iGoogle link in the upper righthand corner of the screen.

Pretty cool.

I decided to add a few gadgets just to spiff things up.  The gadgets I chose were Google Calendar, Hangman (word game), Current Moon Phase, ToDo, Free iTumes Downloads, Google Translate, Dictionary, Spanish Word a Day, Funny Cat Photos, Movies Trailer of the Day. . . .

By this time, I'd gone through 20 pages of gadgets, and there seemed to be no end in sight, so I stopped there.

GOOGLE CALENDAR

After reading the recommended article entitled "The Web's Best Calendars," I chose Google Calendar for its drag-and-drop editing and color-coded layout.

Scrybe looked interesting because of its to-do list and ability to sync changes made offline, but I decided Google Calendar would work well enough for a start.

I filled in some projects and appointments for the next few days.  It was pretty painless.

TA DA LIST

I chose Ta Da List to be my online to-do list.  Signup was quick and easy.

I then created a list of various Cat Tasks: buy more bacon-flavored ferret treats, investigate kitty exercise wheels online, etc.

Not difficult at all.

I thought it was interesting that signup for a Ta Da List account issued me a private webpage rather than a login from a centralized page.

BACKPACK

Backpack bills itself as "An Intranet in 30 Seconds," and includes a lot of interesting features like info-sharing pages, messageboards, and to-do lists.

The feature that intrigued me most, however, was the group calendar.  I'm in charge of my department's shared calendar, comprising daily work schedules, meetings, training sessions, and presentations.

The calendar we use now is a clunky Excel document on a shared server.  It's not very elegant, easy to read, or easy to use.  I'd love to find something better with which to replace it!

Having taken video tours of both how to compose a Backpack page and how to use the Backpack Calendar, I'm not sure the calendar can handle the complexity of my department's schedule--but the basic Backpack page looks intriguing.

I decided to sign up for a free account so that I could check out the features, and that's when I realized Backpack costs between $7 and $100 per month, depending on the number of users, pages, and storage space needed.

Oh, well!  I will have to give it a pass.

CHECKING OUT THE SITES

I scanned the recommended resources, all lists of online productivity tools.  Some of the same tools pop up over and over again.

Remember the Milk (to-do lists), Bloglines (RSS feed manager), My Stickies (sticky notes webpage markup), Del.icio.us (bookmarks), Meebo (IM aggregator), Google Calendar (online scheduling), iGoogle (personalized startpage), and PBwiki are the ones I noted.

That these sites are listed by multiple recommenders likely indicates that they are both well-designed and popular.  Those I don't already use, I'll keep in mind for the future.

Despite my fatigue, I am definitely finding 23 Things an eye-opening experience.  I had no idea all this stuff was available on the web--and much of it for free.

Thing #13: Library Thing

NIGHT OF THE LIVING LIBRARIANS

All right.  I confess.  When I first read about LibraryThing in the 23 Things at NEFLIN blog, I found the concept intriguing--followed quickly by pangs of conscience.

Thoughts flitted through my mind about handing the asylum keys over to the inmates.

Allow actual readers / patrons / laypeople to catalog their own libraries?  What about Library of Congress subject headings?  Uniform titles?  Authority control?

My old cataloguing professor, may she rest in peace, returned briefly from the grave to haunt me.

COMING AROUND TO THE CONCEPT

But then I actually went to the site and read a little more, took the tour (exquisitely done), read the FAQs (informative, clear), and I abandoned all loyalty to the past.  I like LibraryThing.

There.  I've said it.  I have only myself to blame.

The death warrant will be issued within moments of my publishing this blogpost.  Hit squads from the Cataloguing Department will now ambush me in the back hallway.  My only hope lies in anonymity / disguise.

Maybe I could put on Groucho Marx glasses and pass myself off as narwhale.  One with really long flippers that terminate in cloven hooves.  But Virtual Unicorn digresses.

SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR BOOK LOVERS

"Reframing" is a favorite phrase of one of my library system's Division Directors.  It means looking at things in a new way in order to free oneself from knee-jerk (usually negative) responses.

I find that if I look on LibraryThing as a social networking site for book lovers, not a torch-bearing, pitchfork-wielding mob of iconoclasts out to burn down the sacred temple of Cataloguing and put all the holy people out of a job, I'm much more comfortable with the concept.

It's more like a book lovers' club or a book discussion group, rather than a traditional library.  (But, of course, who says libraries have any intention of remaining "traditional"?)

And it's certainly not a books-by-mail service or bookstore.  I love the quote in the FAQs: "LibraryThing cares about books, not about SELLING books."

MY NEFARIOUS PAST

I love books.  I love talking about books and reading about books and hanging out with other people who appreciate books.

That's why I've worked at my library for 22 years, worked in bookstores for 7 years before that, have been known to write a book from time to time and once, many years ago when I first went to college, was a card-carrying English major.

These days, I think they call it language arts.  But what it really means is books.

Yes, I admit it.  I'm a book lover.  I've been a book lover all my life.  I know it's habit-forming, but I don't care.  Long live the printed word!  I intend to depart this life with book in hand.

A LITTLE FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Just because I don't hold hooves on the first date--I'm not that kind of unicorn--I decided to do a tad more investigation before making a commitment to join.

BROWARD COUNTY YA LIBRARIAN

I really liked what the Broward County YA Librarian was doing with her LibraryThing account: keeping up with her library school classwork (reading lists of YA books) and providing a forum for her teen volunteers.

I can see immediate application for my department's newly created position of YA librarian.  This sounds like a great way to keep a core of interested teen library supporters in touch with one another, even when they don't have transportation to come to the library for, say, book club discussions.

FLASH-MOBS: NO TORCHES, NO PITCHFORKS

I also checked out the LibraryThing Blog, where each month's Early Reviewer books are posted.  That feature holds a lot of interest for me.  Reading prepublication review copies and writing reviews looks like tons of fun!

I also read with fascination about flash-mob cataloguing parties, where a group of volunteer descend upon an organization's small, unorganized library.  Using wireless laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, they catalog the collection using LibraryThing.

This reminds me of the inventory companies that used to come once a year to the bookstore where I worked to inventory the stock after hours between the time we closed the doors in the evening and opened them on the morning of the following day.

The difference here, of course, is that the flash-mob cataloguers are paid only in free pizza and good fellowship.  Sounds like another dynamite project for teen volunteers!

SIGNING UP

By this time, I was sold, so I decided to sign up for a free account.  I found the price-break (first 200 books free, $15 per year thereafter or $25 for a lifetime membership) entirely reasonable.

Signing up was quick and easy.  I edited my profile to include an image and geographic location.

Next step was to enter some books.  I decided to go with some recent reads.  The process was simple.  LibraryThing takes care of the grunt work of supplying the bibliographic info so I was able to concentrate on short, punchy reviews.

WIDGETS THAT WEREN'T

I decided to add two widgets to my blog: a standard blog widget, which shows random books from my LibraryThing library and a search widget, which enables readers to search my library directly from the blog.

Alas, nothing I did could get them to show up.  The code pasted in fine, but Preview never revealed the widgets.

I scared myself silly at least twice when, having pasted in the code, all the other text of my blogpost seemingly disappeared.

Luckily, the first time Blogger had autosaved just before I did the paste.  After that, I saved manually before every paste attempt--but still to no avail.

Alas, I must content myself with pasting in a link to VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing profile and VirtualUnicorn's LibraryThing library page.

Sigh.  This is not as fancy as I would have liked it to have been, but I need to get on to Thing #14.

FEATURES OF INTEREST

Just as a last word, I thought I'd quickly run over those features I found of greatest interest about LibraryThing.

I was not terribly interested in any of the group features right at the moment.  I think I'd like to watch (old-style listserves used to call it "lurking") for a while before joining.

The Early Reviewer program did look interesting to me, although I see there is a lot of competition for the review copies: 5 to 30 times more requests that there are books to go around.

I did, however, put my name down for The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato, The New 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth by Sophie Javna Earthworks Group, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire b C.M. Mayo, The Survival Handbook by Collin Towell, The Moon & the Sun by Vonda McIntyre, Mom's Guide to Growing Your Family Green by Terra Wellington, and The Manual of Deception by Jedediah Berry.

I'll just have to wait and see.

The Members Book Giveaway Program also looks interesting.  I intend to investigate further at a later time.

I also took a look at LibraryThing local, listing my area as the 50-mile radius around Gainesville, Florida.  I was astonished to find nothing listed.  So I added Comics for Everyone, a featured ACLD event to take place on March 19th.

ENOUGH

Good heavens, look at the time.  It's 2:30 in the afternoon.  All for now.  I haven't even had breakfast.

Thing #12: Wikis

WIKIS I ALREADY USE

I feel more confident about wikis than I have about any of the other Web 2.0 tools we've studied so far in 23 Things because I've recently created a wiki and I belong to two more.

The wiki I administer (take care of housekeeping for) is The ACLD Storytime Wiki, created for use by our library district's Youth Services Planning Group.  It's all about programming for children and teens.

The other two wikis I belong to are the Sunshine State Library Leadership Institute's Alumni Wiki (a closed wiki for SSLLI participants and their mentors, alumni, and instructors) and The Youth Services @ ACLD Wiki (created for the YS Department to keep track of group projects).

All three are PBwikis.

WHY I CHOSE PBwiki

Before I set up the ACLD Storytime Wiki, I used WikiMatrix to compare features of the various wiki engines available.  It was quite comprehensive and easy to use.

I ultimately chose PBwiki because the basic service is free and has plenty of room.  It can also be upgraded for a modest cost, is entirely WYSIWYG and requires no knowledge of coding.  Best of all, it supports multimedia content such as clipart, photos, and videoclips with sound.

These features struck me as perfect for creating a powerful but very user-friendly wiki dedicated to youth programming.

SAINT JOSEPH COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM WIKI

The Subject Guides portion of the SJCPL website looked quite straightforward.  It reminded me of ACLD's staff bookmarks and Great Links public bookmarks.  The layout resembles Wikipedia's.

I took a peek at the homepage, which isn't part of the wiki, and noticed a few points of interest: Encore catalog searcing, IM reference service, audiobooks on iPod, a GameBlog, and a dedicated teen page.  ACLD doesn't offer any of these services--yet.

The entire website is very, very spare.  A little too spare for my taste.  A purely white background just isn't engaging to my eye.  I'd recommend some sort of (subtle) background image to offset the plain-and-simple text, thus lending interest to the page.

BOOK LOVERS WIKI

Princeton Public Library's Book Lovers Wiki was created for their 2007 summer reading program and apparently featured prizes for those who contributed content in the form of book reviews.

The wiki comprises about 200 reviews in all, and the wiki notes that the wiki has been discontinued (it remains accessible solely as an archive) because library patrons are now able to enter their reviews directly into PPL's online catalog.

The wiki is pleasingly crafted in pale shades of green, and each review contains both an image of the book's jacket and rating in the form of stars.  Reviewers may be identified by name or choose to remain anonymous.

I like the design flair that went into this functional / minimalist yet aesthetic wiki.

LIBRARY SUCCESS

Meredith Farkas's "Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki" is another that resembles the look and feel of Wikipedia.  It looks well organized and comprehensive, a sort of central clearinghouse for all sorts of useful information about running a library.

In my opinion, the Alachua County Library District could learn a thing or two from this wiki about how to organize information employees need to access easily and often in order to do their jobs.

Right now, our forms, policies and procedures are chaotically scattered over several servers.  Employees often spend more time searching for a form than they do filling it out.  It's remarkably inefficient.

It's rumored that all these forms, etc., are about to be moved from their disparate servers to our staff-only intranet.  If that's the case, I hope whoever is in charge of the move will organize the information as thoughtfully as Ms. Farkas has her best practices wiki.

LIBRARY STAFF WIKI

The Albany County Public Library's staff wiki is obviously a PBwiki.  It has that distinctive look.

Having a centralized, easily accessible place to store communal information (such as library procedures) has long been a dream of mine.  Apparently others consider such a place a worthy enterprise as well.

I feel mildly cheered.  At least I'm not the only one on the planet who thinks a half-way decently organized procedures manual a goal worth prioritizing.

Now if only  such a thing could become a reality at ACLD.

BLOGGING LIBRARIES WIKI

Blogging Libraries Wiki, like The Library Success Wiki, is powered by MediaWiki.  It looks a lot like the SJCPL Subject Guides Wiki, which is to say, it follows the Wikipedia model of being bare-bones, spare, and texty rather than visually arresting.

Though it contains no images other than a very simple logo, it's a nice idea: create a wiki to collect links to library blogs.  Librarians will find this a useful tool, even if the workmanlike design fails to excite much emotional response.  (Fun to look at this wiki is not.)

Though the lack of images is most likely a constraint of the wiki's service level--probably basic and therefore free--I hope the wiki's creators will eventually opt to upgrade to a level of service that allows greater use of images, preferably photos.

ADDING TO MY WIKIS

During the last couple of weeks, I've added pages to all three of the wikis to which I belong.

As a class assignment, I uploaded my class project's "Charge" (formal statement of purpose and delineation of roles and responsibilities for those involved) and Gantt chart (timeline for the project) to the SSLLI Alumni Wiki.

(I wish I could show them to you, but it's a closed wiki.)

I created a quick-and-dirty booklist entitled "Some Good Teen Reads" to the booklists area of the YS @ ACLD Wiki.  Because it's an open wiki, this page is available for all to see.

Finally, I created a couple of new folders (Information and Notes), added 60 new users to the wiki, performed various edits to existing pages, and fashioned 27 new pages for the wiki.

Here are a couple of my favorites: "FAQ: Reasons to Contribute" and "Fingerplay: Ten Little Candles."

BUSY BUSY

Virtual Unicorn has been a busy beast.  Just one of many reasons I am so far behind in doing my 23 Things!

But that is why the Powers that Be created weekends, and I am busily using this one to get caught up.