Goodreads

I just started using Goodreads on February 1st. Of course, I just recently learned that Library Thing is based in Portland, Maine, so I feel somewhat traitorous having chosen against it.

When comparing Library Thing, Shelfari, and Goodreads, I found that I preferred the layout of Goodreads, but the thing that really set it apart was that I simply knew more people who used it than any of the other services. Strangely enough, after just four weeks of use, I can pretty confidently say that was a silly reason because I have not used the social aspect of Goodreads at all. As you might imagine of someone who is studying to become a professional librarian, the majority of my friends and family love to read. Our conversations manage to come around to books just about every time, so I am not really lacking for recommendations or reviews or even just an outlet to discuss books I loved or hated.

The features I do like, though, which it has in common with Shelfari and Library Thing, are the ability to put a widget on my blog that shows the covers of my recently-read books and the ability to assign multiple tags to a book so I can have overlapping shelves, unlike in my physical library. I like that I can keep track of my books by genre, by year read, by whether or not they are in my personal library, etc.

And, since you might be wondering to yourself, "so what does she use it for, if not the social aspect," let me tell you: First and foremost, I am beginning to use it to keep track of my never-ending TBR (to be read) list. Right now, I've only entered 22 of them, but I assure you the number is in the hundreds and currently the list is made up of little slips of paper, scribbles in the margins of notebooks and planners, and an Excel spreadsheet. This list that is all in one place and that I can access from any internet-enabled device is going to be extremely helpful as I continue on my quest to read these hundreds of TBR books.

I also do like to review the books I read, though not, as I have said, for a social purpose. Someone once told me that he carried a little notebook around with him and always wrote down a few words about any movie he saw or book he read so that a) he'd take some time to actually digest and reflect upon it, rather than consuming, forgetting, and moving on and b) he'd actually remember the book or movie years later. The latter reason, in particular, resonated with me, as there are many books I know I've read but struggle to recall the contents of or my reactions to years later. So, I really review books to enrich my own reading experience, although if other people enjoy them, that's great, too.

Library Science vs. Information Studies

I don't really have a particularly strong philosophical standpoint on the issue of whether or not to keep the word "library" in the names of library schools and library degrees. I go to a School of Information; that's what it is now and that's what it was when I applied to graduate programs. The same goes for my degree, which is a Master of Science in Information Studies. Prior to starting graduate school, I was a total outsider to the library world. I had never worked in a library and honestly didn't know quite what to expect from "library school," but, obviously, I was undeterred by the lack of the word "library" in the school's name. I think the name, in the specific case of the University of Texas at Austin, reflects that the school trains not only librarians, but also information architects and archivists and conservators. And yes, in practical application, there does seem to be a divide between those studying "techie" stuff and those studying "library" stuff, so I can see why librarians like myself are feeling left out in the cold. However, there really shouldn't be a divide between the two, in my mind, so we should feel like the term "information professional" applies to us, too. Librarians in this day and age need to be tech-savvy.

My issues with the whole "library" versus "information" are more practical than philosophical. "Information" is such an abstract idea. I am constantly having to explain to people what I study at a School of Information in order to earn my Master of Science in Information Studies. In fact, I often refer to my program as "library school" and tell people I'm studying "library science" to make things easier on myself.

So, what is information? Is it books on the shelf? Is it the bits and bytes in my computer? Is it the arrangement of materials in my DNA that led to my having brown hair and brown eyes? We might all say yes to those questions, but then it gets more complicated. Is the food I just ate information? My body is going to break down the sugars differently from the proteins, so they must contain some kind of information that conveys the difference, right? Is the fact that my phone is pink information? Maybe not in and of itself, but now that I've typed that it's pink, it sure is, right?

My other practical concern is that people seem to be making the change to exclude the word "library" based on wanting to upgrade our image. Until we learn to market ourselves strongly and effectively, until we stop living up to the stereotype that librarians are afraid of technology, until we make our value known outside the profession, librarians are still going to have an image problem. Words won't change that, actions will.

RSS = Information Overload?

Does the use of RSS/RSS aggregators mitigate or aggravate the problem of Information Overload in today's society?

My personal experience with RSS and RSS aggregators has mitigated my information overload problem. Sure, I do still grapple with info overload, as you'll have noticed from my recent posts, but less so than I would without RSS feeds and a Google Reader account. I was checking several Web sites and blogs every day when a colleague said, "why don't you just subscribe to all of those feeds in Google Reader and save yourself some time?" I love that I don't have to check Web sites every day now; if there's something new, I'll know.

I also like that RSS and RSS aggregators help sift through the news for me, which certainly helps prevent IO and saves me time. For example, I can just subscribe to a few select NY Times feeds, rather than going to the NY Times Web site and clicking through several pages to find what I am looking for.

On the other hand, an RSS feed from something like Delicious, let's say, that draws your attention to Web sites you might not have ever heard of otherwise based on tags of your choosing, might aggravate the problem of information overload. Suddenly you are looking at everything tagged library and Texas and it's possible that sifting through all of that does not produce enough useful results to really make it worth the time and energy to do so.

There's also the little fact that RSS itself has led to the production of several RSS management tools like those we've learned about in class (FeedBurner, FeedDigest, etc.). So, indeed, it has increased the information flow in that respect. It's like when you have to start writing a manual about the manual for a copy machine!

I think I'm going to reserve making an overall "aggravate or mitigate" statement when it comes to society at large. Certainly, in terms of bits and bytes, RSS has led to the creation of more information, but I think whether or not it mitigates or aggravates the problem of information overload will vary widely between users.

LibGuides

LibGuides is a "web 2.0 content management system" for libraries that is totally new to me; I've never even heard of it, much less actually visited the site and poked around.

It's basically a way of creating library Web sites that can have loads of features, both in the interface and the back end. It allows libraries to create dynamic Web sites that take advantage of 2.0 tools like blogs and social bookmarking sites (it even has a partnership with Delicious) and integrate those tools seamlessly into the Web site. This allows libraries to increase their resource sharing capabilities, among other things, which benefits librarians and patrons alike.

Some odds 'n' ends re: technology

First, an interesting realization I had this morning that is directly related to our recent study of RSS:

I read this passage in Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction by Paul Dourish (MIT, 2001)

Traditional textual interaction took place at teletype machines or serial terminals, where information appeared at the bottom of the screen and scrolled up to disappear off the top.

and only realized that it said information appeared at the bottom on the second reading. That makes sense, computer text read from top to bottom, just as a book does. However, I'm so used to having information fed to me through RSS feeds, that I'm used to the most recent information being at the top of the screen. On the first read-through my brain just processed that sentence in such a way that it made it seem that as an interaction progressed, information would disappear from the bottom of the screen.

Next, a link to my other blog:
Anyone Can Be a Blogger: Siftables

Rustic Overtones

Something I am extremely passionate about is my favorite band, Rustic Overtones. They are a rock band from my home-state, Maine.

I first saw Rustic live when I was a sophomore in high school. They were giving a free show on the patio of a local radio station, WCYY. I didn't become an uber-fan until college, though, when I saw them upwards of 20 times. I was at one of their shows in Boston, at the Paradise Rock Club, in 2002 when they announced they were breaking up. I was actually devastated. In 2007, though, my dreams came true and Rustic re-united and put on several shows in Maine right before I moved to Texas. It was so great to get to see them live a few more times (okay, four times nine days) before heading out west.

In case if the concert tally alone doesn't accurately express my passion about them to you, I'll tell you why I realized they were the perfect subject for this "something I'm passionate about" post. I was struggling with thinking of an appropriate title when I looked up and saw a playlist from one of their shows on my bulletin board, then noticed a signed case for their latest CD on my desk and realized I was wearing my Rustic t-shirt. Yeah, I'd say passionate is putting it mildly.

It's always hard for me to describe exactly why I like Rustic. Sometimes taste just is, y'know? Some things, though, that do stand out about their music are the horn line (they've got two saxophonists and a trombonist; as a former brass player myself, I always love a band with a horn line); the lead singer, Dave Gutter's, voice; and the lyrics in songs like "Hardest Way Possible" and "Iron Boots." They also put on one heck of a show; it's pure entertainment for hours!

If you need more convincing to check them out, let me tell you they are also endorsed by Ken Jenkins. Yes, Ken Jenkins the Jeopardy guy. :)

Can you Digg it?

I have a confession to make: Digg is actually a totally new-to-me 2.0 Web site. I have never even visited the site, despite the fact that I see the little "Digg it" chicklet everywhere. I admit, I start to become overwhelmed with all of these 2.0 tools. Every day, I check Facebook, Google Reader, e-mail, etc. I've got a Goodreads account and a Delicious account. Now, for this class, I've added checking the wiki for updates and looking at my Twitter page. Eventually, the tools you use to make information more manageable begin to require a lot of management themselves. So, I just kept ignoring Digg. And, after checking it out, I still don't feel like I was missing out on anything, so I'm going to go back to ignoring it.

That's not to say that Digg doesn't seem like a neat site. I love the whole "by the people, for the people" thing it's got going on. For those of you who may also be new to Digg, it allows people to rate Web sites and news items so users can find the most popular articles about a given topic. Items that receive an exceptional amount of "diggs" appear on the front page. I see now why people include "Digg it" links on their pages, this can really help raise their visibility.

Still, I don't see much use for it in libraries. Sure, it can lead you to "popular" news articles, but popular is relative. It also isn't necessarily an indicator of accuracy or quality. Just because something is of interest to a subsect of the population that uses Digg, doesn't necessarily mean it has widespread appeal.

Google Reader vs. Bloglines

• I notice that Bloglines has a "notifier" option that allows you to choose among several means of notification that there are new posts for you to read. I poked around and I don't think Google Reader has any "notifier" function, much less several means to choose from (on Bloglines these include a Firefox add-on and a cell-phone notification).
• I notice that both have pre-selected recommended subscriptions to help you get started.
• Bloglines "clip blog," where you are able to post a clip from one of your feeds and comment on it caught my attention so I poked around a little on Google Reader and not only do they have the option of sharing posts with friends (though I think these friends must also be on Google) but they also allow you to post a clip to your blog. I'm going to start taking advantage of that!
• As with any Google product, I like the Google Reader links to all of my other Google tools.
• I was actually coming around to Bloglines and thinking to myself "wow, I might prefer something to a Google product" when I clicked on my SCILS folder and that automatically marked every post by every student as read. I couldn't figure out how to mark them as unread and once I clicked out of that screen I could not figure out how to go back and read old posts. That's easy to do with just one click on Google Reader. Now, I'm going to have to go to each student's blog individually to catch up on those posts and know that in the future I can click on just one feed at a time. Annoying.
  

LiveJournal vs. Blogger

I've been using LiveJournal since 2001, I think? Maybe 2002... And I've been using Blogger since 2007. I've made 105 posts in LiveJournal (almost all memes) and 157 posts in Blogger (almost all actual posts), so I guess my preference is clear. Here's my bulleted comparison:

• The number one reason I prefer Blogger to LiveJournal is that I access it through my Google account, so, with one login and password I'm able to access my e-mail, my blogs, my iGoogle page with widgets selected by and useful to me, and my Google Reader page.
• The number two reason I prefer Blogger is also related to the fact that it's a Google product: I love the Google look. The clean, white space. Love it.
• Because I needed to use Blogger help today, one thing I noticed that the services have in common is the community help centers. A lot of the tech support is provided by fellow users. Does that not just epitomize 2.0 technologies? I love it. A lot of time help pages are written by the designers to go along with how they envisioned their product being used. We all know that what a designer intends and what a user actually does often differ.
• One thing in LiveJournal's favor is the ability to create a number of icons (the exact number depends on the status of your account: paid, unpaid, etc.) or avatars. With Blogger, you've got just the one. Obviously, you could just insert a new picture every time, but I like how LJ allows you to frame a post with the "mood" link, an individual icon, and even what music you are listening to.
• Another thing I like about LiveJournal, and the reason I keep using it, is that it's so easy to set varying privacy levels to posts; of course, a drawback is that users must be on LiveJournal to have access to private posts.
• A final plus in the LiveJournal column that also keeps me coming back is the LiveJournal community concept. You can create or join a LiveJournal community around just about any interest you can imagine and anyone who is a member can post, comment, etc. It's really neat.

I know I pointed out more plusses for LiveJournal, but the fact of the matter is I prefer the look and the ease of use of Blogger for my blog.

Blogging Assignment 1: Library Blog Example

It just so happens that one of my favorite libraries, the Georgetown (TX) Public Library, also has one of my favorite library Web sites (look no further than the Peeps-guided library tour to find out why). You can visit the Georgetown library's online branch (terminology stolen from Farkas; I love it) at http://www.georgetowntex.org/ and what you might notice is that the front page is almost entirely populated with feeds from the library's various blogs. Or, better yet, you might not have noticed that at all because the blogs are so well integrated into the site. The fact that the blogs are all there embedded on the front page make the page really dynamic: it's updated all the time! It also makes it easy for people to find news in the area they are interested in: News, Library Happenings, Teen Space @ GPL, etc. Having blogs for different audiences and interests is the way to go; that way people don't get bogged down in information they don't want and start avoiding your site or missing out on info they do want or need.

Hello, SCILS 598!

I'm switching gears ever-so-slightly with this blog. The subject will continue to be 2.0 technologies and libraries. Now, however, rather than tracking my progress with the 23 Things, I'll be tracking my progress in a social software literacy course I'm taking online from Rutgers through the WISE consortium. So, CTLS readers, please feel free to continue reading and welcome to my SCILS598 classmates!