First off, you'll notice the avatar is gone. Her withering, unblinking gaze proved to be too much for me.

Then you'll notice the picture cube of Eldest and I playing at the beach. Now, this is perhaps a bad sign--why do all the additional page elements seem to freak me out?--but this cube eeringly reminds me of the crystal prison cube used to hold General Zod and his partners in crime, Non and Ursa (what in the world did we do before Wikipedia?) in Superman II. So it doesn't seem very auspicious to me to have Eldest and I imprisoned in some intergalactic space cube. It just seems like begging the Gods for trouble.

So, in order to meet the requirements of this Thing (it's Thing #7) I'll just comment long enough to say that I can think of cool uses for this in a library webpage setting, primarily as a way to display bookcovers. Snazzy.

But here's something else: while fufilling this Thing, I set up a free account at Thumbstacks.com which is a tool to display a slide presentation (think PowerPoint) on a blog or webpage. During the registration I was required to answer a few innocuous questions--age, zip code, etc. After registering, to get to the tools, I needed to click through a number of ads with offers for free samples and such. The ads were for asthma medicine and some kind of house cleaning product. Huh. Once into the section where the tools were, there was a sidebar with ads for businesses in my city. I tell you, it felt oddly like I was being stalked. And also insulted. Asthma meds and cleaning spray? That's what I rate? Not sexy shoes, rave drugs or subscriptions to The New Yorker?


A few weeks ago I went to a SLA (Special Library Association) discussion on ethics. (As a side note, I think people outside the library world would be amazed with how obsessed librarians are with ethics, particularly in regards to patron privacy. Don't yell the phrase "patron privacy" in a movie theater crowded with librarians as there'll be a stampede of librarians running to fall on the sword. Librarians are all secretly dying to go to prison for defending patron privacy. Defying a subpoena or what have you. They're a nutty bunch that way. I guess I'm guilty of it, too. People in my (corporate, business) library who are looking for a book will occasionally, when they find out it's checked out, casually ask who has it. What they're thinking is, "Oh, I'll just go up and ask whoever it is to give it to me when they're done". You'd think they asked me to sell state secrets to the communists or something. "Absolutely not!" I bark. Really, it's a bit much. But I can't help it. I'm a professional. I have the degree and everything.) So of course these ads targeted quite specifically to me, a housecleaning-challenged asthma sufferer in Minneapolis (that's actually not true, I don't have asthma), make me think of privacy, and that makes me think of ethics. Which is what made me think of the SLA discussion.


This ethics discussion became inevitably concerned with how Google now basically knows everything about us. Do our users understand that? And, further, do we have an obligation to make sure they do? Because conventional wisdom says our users are throwing away their privacy willy-nilly. The simple answer is no. Just as it's not our responsibility to inform the patron that checks out all the books on how to make a bomb (this is the classic library school example) that actually making a bomb and detonating it is illegal, it is not our job to make sure everyone understands that they leave a pretty wide swath of personal information behind them as they travel through virtual space.


I say that the simple answer, because in truth, I'm not even sure if this issue still exists. I think web 2.0 has perhaps altered our whole conception of privacy. I don't think people actually have any expectation of privacy once they start using some of the tools we have available now. Or if they do, they wager it's worth the trade. This is when (I hate to say it but) older librarians start huffing and puffing about "kids these days" but I'm not convinced it's just a matter of how stupid our younger users are. Because I don't think they're stupid at all.


Now, at the end of the day, librarians are professionally commited to protecting privacy. Which means we're not the ones pointing the authorites {cough Nazis cough cough} to user information or circulation histories. But perhaps we should spend a little more time mulling over our patrons changing relationship with the concept of privacy before we dismiss them as fools.

And now with new kung-fu moves!

I'm back, better than ever [shadow boxing like Rocky, then alternating to a series of faux kung-fu moves] and ready to rock the world with my 23 Thing-ness.

I had skulked off into the virtual darkness after kind of petering out after an initial burst of enthusiasm. Basically, I had started to feel a little overwhelmed by the 23 things. Setting up the blog was as easy as pie, but then I started to come up against things that actually necessitated coherent thought which is not always my strong suit. So I wimped out.

But I had regrets, yes I did. I had let myself down. And I had proved myself as a slacker web 2.0 maven. (Topic for another day: how I truly am the epitome of the Gen X stereotypes. It's my generation, people! For real! I just look at those hardworking Millenials and think: man, am I glad they're motivated because someone has to be and this way it doesn't have to be me.) So I bashfully revisited the scene of the crime--the 23 Things blog, that states the steps (http://23thingsonastick.blogspot.com/) and found out that another round of the 23 Things is being planned, with registration to start May 15th. And all of a sudden, I'm not a slacker, I'm actually way ahead of schedule as I've already started the project. I'm the Hermione Granger of library 2.0 initiatives. Take that, Millenials! Eat my dust!

I also, this time, will actually register and hopefully the accountability will make a difference.

So. My legions of readers, by which I mean my friend Fresca, will notice I have added a Yahoo avatar which is actually a requirement of part of the first Thing. I created her awhile back, but didn't want to add the image because there's no way I look like that (except in a very roundabout way, as she has pale skin, brown hair, and is in what looks like a library) and apparently I'm a very literal minded person as this fact--that she doesn't really look like me--bothered me so much I couldn't bear to add it as a side element. However, in light of my renewed enthusiasm, here she is. Here's a thought: someone should do a study on what kind of people create what kind of avatars (in say, Second Life). Like I said, I'm a literal gal but I do admire people that create themselves as big robots with wings or what have you. So what personality type creates what kind of avatars? Scholars, get to work.

Frankly, my avatar kind of scares me, so I'm not sure how long she'll stay. A psychologist would have a field day with this.

Here are some of my goals for round 2 of the project:

1. Actually do it.

That about covers it right there. Succinctness, I am the esssence of you. Or is that: succinctness, of you I am the essence?

I Stubbed My Toe On The Technology

Oh, I should forge on ahead and explore the next Thing--it's something really snazzy and techy: eFolios--online portfolios to be used as a career enhancer or some such thing. It had these action steps to take before starting:

Reflect: Reflect on what you’ve accomplished in school and in your career, and how it fits with your goals.
Collect: Collect the information for your electronic portfolio. To learn more about what to include, read below.
Select: Select those documents that are most pertinent to your goals and keep them handy as you work on your electronic portfolio.
Build: Build your site using the electronic portfolio tool. For ideas on what you can do with your electronic portfolio, see Gallery.
Publish: Publish your portfolio. You can let others read all, or parts of, your site. Targeting is helpful if you have multiple skills and are open to a number of different employment options.

Frankly, I read this and I became very sleepy. And I just had a mocha. That's a bad sign. I mean, I don't even want to think about action step 1. Does anyone out there really have an overwhelming desire to reflect on what they've accomplished in their careers? Apart from the masochists, I mean. And the show-offs. Don't get me wrong--I'm actually quite happy with my quote unquote career, I just don't have a desire to dwell on it, the way I lately have a desire to dwell on the logistics of homeschooling, the gathering of fiddleheads, the winning of lotteries and the cuteness of my children.

The other thing that made me sleepy, or I should say lethargic, is my library bud's blog http://23sticketc.blogspot.com/. It was so cool. She makes it look so effortless, this Stick stuff. So I looked at her blog and thought: what the hell is a screed? Am I supposed to know that? Did I skip that part? Did I miss something? Could I possibly be more fuzzy brained? And I became very tired.

Ditto my virtual bud (can I call her that? I feel like we're friends, although I have no idea who she is or where she is or even what her name is--funny, isn't it, the nature of these virtual relationships...) Anyway, my virtual bud Cara Mama http://caramamamia.blogspot.com/ who writes these really sweet and sharp entries about her daughter and here I am and you'd hardly even know I have kids, truthfully, I threw in the reference above about their cuteness just so I wouldn't feel like a horrible mother. A mother who has a blog and never even talks about her kids. How messed up is that?

Topping it all off is the ever-brilliant Well Dressed Librarian http://welldressedlibrarian.blogspot.com/ and his ridiculously over-the-top funny post which slyly compares reference assistance to unspeakable sex acts and/or prostitution (it's funnier than it sounds) and I should just crawl into bed, pull the covers over my head, and call it a day. Wake me up in the next millenium.

Wow! Have you heard of this thing called "The Internet"?

I'm not so jazzed about the next of the 23 Things--IMing. Are people still doing that? It seems IM reference services were what everyone (if everyone is a librarian) was talking about three years ago. To my jaundiced eye it appears that--obviously--we need to offer IM reference along with all the other ways we need to offer reference assistance. Which is to say, if people are out there using [blank] as a way to communicate, then we need to be figuring it out. Any resistance is soooo 2003.

Does anyone else remember the very first time they accessed the Internet? I sure do. It was through the Gopher service run by the University of Minnesota, way back in 1994. And it wasn't even "the Internet" as we now know it, that's for sure. The first thing I saw was, I believe, a precursor to a Word doc, and it was some government communication (looked like a text file) out of Israel. And it Blew. My. Mind.

Nowadays, everything in the online world is so pliable, and the interface is so friendly. I'm fascinated, for example, by the layout capabilities of this blog. There are so many bells and whistles available and--most amazing--they can be utilized by a person like me with absolutely no programming experience.

You know, we talk and talk about how the relationship between people and information has changed--that there is this infinite amount of information out there and where do librarians fit in, do they at all, and oh my goodness what if people no longer need us? Of course they do. They do now, they did then, and they always will. People don't just need information, they need useful information. The University of Buffalo YouTube bit (which I will try to locate and post here) where they demonstrate their IM reference service is a perfect example: "Hey, overwhelmed undergrad--let me know what your paper is on and I will show you the way." Any student with an ounce of common sense will immediately see the value here. So you can place me in the camp of people who think this "information revolution" is all for the good in terms of librarianship.

I'm very impressed that I somehow managed to yank the content of this post somehow back to IMing.

Stick-y thing 6: Online Image Generators

To your left, check out a trading card I created at Big Huge Labs (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/). Now, this, I can see the potential of. Or is that: Of this, I can see potential? In any case, this website rocks with tons of fun ways to manipulate your digital images. Now, I'm sad to say it's a well-known secret that librarians are horrible horrible horrible at marketing. It's just not a skill-set that comes with the job. Librarians are great at doing. They are not so great at telling people what it is, exactly, that they do. Case in point: years ago I worked on a family literacy project collaboration between my library school and a local branch. Oh, we were amazing. We had Head Start involved, ECFE, crafts, themes, in-depth analysis of the targeted demographic--the pedagological stars were all aligned. I was dazzled by our program. Session arrives and we're all beyond excited. And what happened? No one came. That's right, friends. We had forgotten, for the most part, to tell anyone about it. Oh, there were other issues there--a last minute change of venue and such, but in all our excitement we had left out marketing. And this is how I learned that all library schools should include a "Marketing Your Library Services" among its core curriculum. My point, in retelling this sad little tale, is that Big Huge Labs makes marketing SO easy for graphic design-challenged librarians, of which there are many. There are no longer any excuses. I created this trading card in 5 minutes. Imagine one for each of your staff (like Carleton College, bless their hearts). Imagine one for each of your work-study. Oh! You could do trading cards for staff picks of books. At the site you can also make movie posters (I'm definitely going to fool around with that), mosiacs, magazine covers. Tons of fun stuff. And, unlike Flickr, which I saw as only useful for certain types of libraries, I see image generating tools as being useful for all libraries, regardless of type. They make it easy. It's really fun! Go on, try it. I double-dog dare you.

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Another thing librarians are horrible at, apparently, is creating really catchy titles for their blog posts.

Flickr'd

Very cool possibilities with Flickr. What immediately strikes me is its potential as a storage space for images--we recently bought a secondary hard drive for this purpose, but in the case of a fire we'd still need to rescue THAT. Using Flickr, the images really are "safe". And we can upload in batches, which would make the process pretty fast. As for the sharing--I think we're going to see a theme here--I think that's cool for people that are computerheads, i.e., people who are online ALL THE TIME. Me, I have two little kids and where I'm at in my life, I'm not going to spend hours--or even minutes, truthfully--randomly surfing Flickr images. On the other hand, if I did need to find an image of penguins or something, I think I would go to Flickr.

I'm not entirely sure how a library would use Flickr. The Clemens & Alcuin Libraries' example--that's cool and all, but do they get a lot of circulation that way? It's seems like a long and winding road to the library and its materials to me.

I feel like I'm coming across as a naysayer, and that's not my intent. I guess I do just fear that--as was discussed in the initial Library 2.0 subject--that we sacrifice something real and good for the mere idea of the usefulness of technology. I may accept a business case for the use of Flickr in a high school or academic library (because of the user demographic) but no way for a public library. I just don't think the average public library user is at that level. No offense to the average public library user--but when I think of one of my favorite branches, the Rondo Community Outreach library of St. Paul, I feel fairly sure that their service to the local Somali and Hmong populations needs to be a little more direct than posting images of their collection on a Web 2.0 tool like Flickr.

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Off topic, and on the subject of RSS feeds, I suddenly recalled the other day that a couple of years ago I was using a service that was clearly a precursor to RSS--the service I used, I'm sure there were others, but the service I used was Furl. You marked your websites and then the URLs were stored at the Furl site. It was like storing your bookmarks at that location, so that no matter what computer you were on you had access to all your favorite sites. It was cool, and convenient. It was lacking the update feature--just held the static URL--but I can see that it was a similar concept. I think I need to go back to Google Reader and fool around with that some more. Maybe it was just the interface that was turning me off.

RSS feeds serve lazy bloggers like me

Of course, now that I'm offically on the blogger side of things, I can see the usefulness of a RSS feed--it would alert my legions of devoted readers to my sporadic posts.

Coming up: more Things On A Stick.