BookThing #7: Tubes

I read Andrew Blum's Tubes for this month's Nebraska Learns 2.0 BookThing. The author decided to visit the Internet, offline. He went around the world, looking at routers, cables, Internet exchanges, and data centers. We may commonly think of the Internet as a "virtual" space, not physically real. However, Blum's journey vividly illustrates that the Internet is neither nowhere nor everywhere, but most definitely somewhere. The fiber optic lines follow real-world paths, aboveground, underground, and undersea. They converge in real-world nexuses, not unlike the hub system used for air travel. The data you store in the "cloud" is situated in a real, physical location, possibly in Oregon, where Blum visited data centers operated by Google and Facebook (and had very, very different experiences at the two places). Blum saw enough of the Internet's infrastructure that he became consciously aware of the exact geographic path traveled by his data when he sent an email. The Internet was built the same way roads and buildings were built--by people with tools and heavy equipment digging up the landscape--and this book lets you meet these people and see how they work.

I'll confess that while I was intellectually aware that the Internet was made up of physical cables and servers, I never gave much thought to actually where these were or how they worked. The Internet was, in my mind, an amorphous blob floating "out there." I've always imagined that the greatest threat to the Internet was from hackers, viruses, and other malicious nasties operating in the virtual arena. This book enlightened me to the ways earthquakes and catastrophic weather events could take out huge chunks of the Internet by severing major fiber lines or knocking out an exchange center. On a more prosaic level, the physicality of the Internet helps explain why one web page loads slowly and another quickly, or why a page that loads slowly for you loads quickly for your neighbor--and the next page loads quickly for you but slow for them--if you have different Internet service providers.

From a library standpoint, this knowledge could be useful for troubleshooting Internet troubles. Internet slow? Has your nearest Internet exchange been hit by a storm or quake? Want to store data in the cloud? Where is it, really? Which state? Which country? Whose servers? Is it secure, both physically and virtually? Good things to be aware of, and good things to help make library patrons aware of. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to look under the hood of the Internet.

BookThing #6: I Live in the Future and Here’s How it Works

In this month's NLC BookThing I Live in the Future & Here's How it Works, Nick Bilton describes the massive technological shift that is affecting all aspects of society, even down to the way people's brains process information. Even the casual observer can see that just about every traditional hardcopy media (print books and periodicals, music CDs, DVDs, etc.) is in sharp decline, and their digital counterparts are growing explosively. Bilton looks at how this affects the way we consume media, and how that in turns affects the way our brains process information. Instead of reading a long book or watching a long movie with undivided attention, people are increasingly multitasking. The reading of an ebook might be frequently interrupted by visits to various hyperlinked articles, videos, discussions, etc. The watching of a movie might be punctuated with status updates, text conversations, pausing to look things up, etc. This shift toward what some call attention deficit disorder and Bilton calls "richochet working" has implications for how young people about to enter the workforce will do their jobs. Likely, even industries that aren't involved with traditional media (books, music, etc.) will have to adapt to the changing workstyle of their employees.

Libraries are already shifting from physical resources to virtual. This book just reinforces that we have to, if anything, accelerate this process in order to satisfy the digital natives. Libraries will need to integrate better with the Internet to serve our users. Cloud-based integrated library systems might be one way of getting our services out where our users are.

Of course, we shouldn't neglect those patrons who are on the trailing end of this transition. A lot of people come to the library because they don't have access to the Internet at home, and many of them still need hardcopy resources. The book quoted William Gibson: "The future is already here--it is just unevenly distributed." Libraries have to bridge the gap, serving both users who are immersed in this new Net order and users who have never touched a computer. (Yes, people like that still exist, and they still deserve respect and high-quality service.) For librarians, reaching both ends of the spectrum and everything in between might seem like tightrope walking on razor wire.

Nebraska Library Leadership Institute Reunion

Yesterday, the 2010 Nebraska Library Leadership Institute Reunion was held at the St. Benedict Retreat Center near Schuyler, Nebraska. Jamie LaRue, director of the Douglas County Libraries in Colorado, spoke to the assembled NLLI group, telling us about how his library went from being one of the worst in the state to being one of the best in the nation.

His handouts are available on his website.

I took copious notes, typing away on my laptop as he spoke. If you'd like a copy of my full, raw notes (about ten pages, rife with uncorrected typos, questionable grammar, and incomplete sentences), email me at akroeger at unomaha dot edu.

Here's the condensed version. (Yes, I know, it's still tremendously long.) I tried to refrain from inserting my opinions, in favor of making this a summary of what he said.

LaRue started with three lessons from brain science.

1. We are not rational. He illustrated this with a story about a man who sustained brain damage and lost the ability to feel any emotions, the consequence of which was that he was unable to make any kind of decision. When we make decisions, we have a feeling about what's right, and then we arrange the evidence to justify our position.

He gave the following equation for happiness: H = S + C + V

Spelled out, that is:

Happiness = Set Point + Conditions of Your Life + Volunteerism

The set point is a person's baseline. Is someone generally cheerful, no matter what happens? Or always depressed, no matter what happens?

The conditions of life are factors such as whether one was abused as a child, whether or not one is married, etc. The big things that frame our lives.

And volunteer service improves one's happiness, because it has been scientifically proven that it is better to give than receive.

2. We lie to ourselves at a fundamental level. We make up stories to justify our behavior, and then we believe them.

3. Literacy is not natural. For example, reading Chinese triggers the parts of the brain used for images, whereas reading Finnish triggers the parts of the brain used for words. Literacy is one of the most profound innovations in human history. It helps us think smarter.

LaRue then went on to talk about his work with the Douglas County Libraries. He began with a "campaign of shame," telling voters, "We are the worst public library in Colorado. Shouldn't we do something about that?" People agreed. The library won the election by 51%, roughly the same percent of the population that held library cards.

LaRue checked library patron addresses against GIS data and determined that whether they won or lost a particular district correlated strongly with the percent of that district's population that had library cards.

Overall, only 30-50% of the population were library users, which was not enough to win the average election. So they needed to reach people outside the library. They consulted with a socially active women's group that promised they could get an additional 20% of the population to use the library. That group looked over everything the library had to offer and came back with suggestions for graphic design and marketing.

One of the most precious things to every library is its reputation. A library must present a consistent image to its community.

Excluding people who were raised as library-users from childhood, adults become new library users for few reasons, mostly involving major life changes such as a first pregnancy, loss of job, catastrophic illness, starting a business, etc. The main reason a library needs to be consistent in the image it presents is so that people see that image often enough for it to seep into their subconscious. Then, when that major life change strikes, people will remember that the library is an option for assistance.

Marketing is not a survey that asks what the library can do for people. Most people don't know what they want the library to do. They've never even thought about it. A better approach is to ask what people are doing in their lives, or if they weren't doing those things, what they would prefer to be doing instead. Find out the lifestyle changes that are going on in your community, so you can adapt library services to meet the needs people don't consciously think about. For example, want to know when to switch your collection development from music CDs to downloadable audio? Ask about your patrons' internet connections, ability to download large files, and whether they have CD players in their cars.

"Coffee smells like community," LaRue said. Coffee shops in libraries draw patrons. Some people don't like the smell of books--books smell musty, moldy, and acidic. But the smell of coffee makes the library seem pleasant and inviting.

The third most prevalent use of libraries--after checking out books and checking in books--is as neutral ground to meet people. Every type of library serves as a social hub.

When the Douglas County Libraries switched to self-checkout, the circulation clerks were afraid of losing their jobs. The library didn't need a circulation department anymore. What actually happened was, although some circulation clerk positions were lost to attrition, those that remained were transformed into better paraprofessional jobs, complete with pay raises. The former circulation clerks were making displays, doing reader's advisory, and walking around the floor looking for distressed patrons and helping them at the point of need.

With the paras now wandering around answering reference questions, the reference librarians feared for their jobs. What actually happened was that they were freed up to work on larger questions. They went out to meet with business leaders and helped them build a better downtown area. They found the real reference questions that none of the business leaders would even think of taking to the library, and they provided mounds of information to answer those questions. They became indispensable to the business community.

With librarians doing what directors used to do, directors could likewise step up to doing the work the board used to do in the city. Then the board in turn could step up to work more on the state level.

There may be fewer people working in libraries over time, but if we follow this pattern, we should all have better jobs that require more skill, more professionalism, and more intellectual work.

LaRue spoke of the 80-20 rule: 80% of the use is for 20% of the collection. What if 80% of circulation was 80% of the collection? When books were ragged, they weeded them. Anything that hadn't circulated at least seven times in the last year was weeded. They weeded 33% of their collection, and circulation increased by 33%. They try to avoid having any books spine-out on the shelves. Rather, everything is faced out, to draw attention to each individual book. Displays are replenished several times a day (13 times a day at some branches), because that's how fast the books get checked out. At one of the smaller libraries, 60% of the collection is checked out. With such high circulation, they don't need as much shelf space. Effective marketing solves space problems, because a higher percentage of the materials are simply out of the building.

After all of these efforts, the people in the community having library cards went from 51% to 84% of the population. Unfortunately, even with that incredible increase in use, the library still lost the next election. (By only 210 votes!) The hard lesson learned was that use has nothing to do with support. Some users do not support the library. Some supporters do not use the library.

After lunch, LaRue discussed two trends that may transform libraries over the next decade.

The first is rising ebook sales. Ebooks will make up to 20-25% of the total book market by 2012. When 20-25% of the library's collection is electronic, what will you do with all that newly-freed physical space? LaRue had us split into small groups to discuss this question.

My group brainstormed nearly a page of ideas. Our main three were:

1) Diverse community spaces--spaces for large groups, small groups, and individual work--making community.
2) Multi-function kiosks--voter registration, vehicle license renewals, tax help, rapid charging for laptops, etc.--salvation for small libraries.
3) Shorter shelves, spaced further apart, with more faced-out books--improves both accessibility and marketing.

A sampling of ideas from other groups:
- Lease to retail.
- Make space available for public performances.
- Co-branding.
- Partnerships with museums.
- Art center.
- Quiet zones. No cell phone zones. Sanctuary space.
- Theatre room.
- Content creation.
- Realia, such as anatomical models.
- Tech petting zoo

The second big trend that LaRue believes could transform libraries is the self-publishing explosion. Authors are increasingly bypassing large, commercial publishers and publishing through Lulu, Amazon's CreateSpace, etc. Authors make more money per copy than through traditional publishers.

Self-published output is already over two-and-a-half times the mainstream commercial output. Most libraries have little or no self-published content in their collections. We have to change that, or we risk missing the majority of the content produced by our culture.

Libraries could become a part of the self-publishing industry by training writers and helping people create quality content. What if a person could sit down at the library workstation and start writing a book using a book-writing wizard? The book could be edited by members of the community who donate hours of their time. The review board could be made up of people who use the service. (Because libraries rarely buy books that have never been reviewed, having a review board would be important.)

Libraries could be digital repositories for self-published works. Locally self-published titles would be unique to the local library. Even as more libraries embrace shelf-ready processes for traditionally published, mainstream works, building a collection of self-published works would mean increased original cataloging--after all, you're not going to find copy in OCLC for a brand new self-published book by a local author. This could spell a revival for catalogers.

Libraries could network with the self-publishing community through outreach, perhaps even hosting conferences for self-published authors. Generation of quality content takes coaching. Finding a market takes someone savvy enough to increase traffic through the doors and to build an ecosystem in which epublishing can thrive.

After our last break, LaRue talked about the seasons.

Spring was after World War II, when we had the strongest consensus this country has ever known. Everyone was aligned behind common goals. As a culture, we were institution builders.

Summer was the Summer of Love. Institutions were questioned. Doubts were raised.

Fall is the season we're in right now. The challenges to institutions have unraveled them. Everything is 50-50, institutions versus individuals.

Throughout history, the next stage in this cycle has been Winter: War.

We are institution destroyers, but once we've destroyed them, we discover that we can't run society without them. The problem is that institutions don't work without a trustworthy public sector.

LaRue spoke of the need to find advocates--people who love the library, who are NOT librarians--to speak to their organizations and to articulate our messages in language their peers can hear. This is Colorado's Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG).

Lastly, LaRue delivered the presentation that his advocates give to their community and business groups. It was very powerful. Several of us were even moved to tears.

The key themes are:

Libraries change lives.

Libraries mean business.

Libraries build community.

Libraries are a smart investment.

----

I hope I have captured at least some of the ideas and flavor of Jamie LaRue's presentation to the Nebraska Library Leadership Reunion. It truly was an excellent seminar.

----

Addendum 7/8/2010: Even with ten pages of notes, I still missed some details. I received an email from Jamie LaRue, in part of which he gently pointed out my errors: "Incidentally, a few small corrections: there were two elections there. The campaign of shame won by 66%. A second campaign won by 51%. And the ladies who helped us with marketing were a two-woman private firm."

Thank you for the corrections. My apologies for the errors.

Flickr Revisited

You know, I had actually forgotten that Thing #36 was Flickr Revisited. It's just a coincidence that I happened to choose today to upload my first batch of photos.

So, after all this time, why did I decide to come back to Flickr? Today, I went to the zoo and took so many pictures that I filled the memory card. After deleting the blurry or otherwise low quality images, I still had 162 good pictures. Normally, I pick a couple of my favorites to share on Facebook or my blog, but this time I had so many good ones I wanted to share a larger batch. So naturally I thought of Flickr.

Of course, I realized that few people would care to take the time to view all 162, so I winnowed it down to 50 really good pictures. But when I tried to upload them, Flickr told me that they would put me WAY over my monthly limit. So I canceled out and did two things. First, I weeded even more aggressively, getting it down to the 35 best photos. Then I shrank every one of those 35 images down to 1024 x 768 pixels. When I uploaded the smaller images, the total consumed only about a quarter of my monthly limit.

So the key to managing Flickr seems to be twofold: be choosy about which photos you share (only the cream of the crop), and be attentive to file size.

How could the library use Flickr? The most obvious way is to post photos of the library building and library events. A public library might host a photo contest for their patrons, centralizing the submitted images to one gallery. The Criss Library, where I work, is posting digitized images from the University Archives on Flickr. It's an easy-to-use service with an enormous user base (which hopefully means it's unlikely to disappear), so it could be useful for any person or organization that wishes to make a photo album available to the public.

Thing 34: Online Answer Sites

January and February sort of slipped away from me, but I'm back for Thing #34: Online Answer Sites.

Why do many people go to answer sites rather than the library's online reference service?

One possibility is that people are looking for consensus. Perhaps they think that if they ask a librarian, they will only get that individual librarian's opinion, but if they ask a crowd of strangers, and five or forty people all say the same thing, then that thing is probably the answer.

I can see the appeal of this. When I search Google or Bing, I don't trust the answer I get from the first hit. I check several pages, and if they all say roughly the same thing, then I assume it's "probably" right.

I put "probably" in quotes, of course, because I recognize the possibility that a popular belief may be false. If it were a matter of life and death, I would prefer to consult an expert, perhaps several. I would look for authoritative sources, rather than whatever comes up on the first two pages of search results. But for a general day-to-day question, like "What are QR codes?" (my information quest today), the sum of several websites provides an adequate, satisfactory, good-enough answer.

Some people are more social than others. While I personally prefer to use a search engine and read things that people have already written--without having to log in, create an account, leave a comment, or otherwise interact with the source of the answer--I can easily imagine a more extroverted person wanting to engage in a conversation. They find a forum or answer site or some other venue where they can ask a question or start a discussion. (Note: before you call me on mixing singular and plural in the same sentence, know that I consciously embrace "they" as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun.)

The replies to these questions aren't just information tossed out on the web--they are thoughts, ideas, and information directed specifically at the person who asked the question. So there exists a relationship, or at least the illusion of one, between the asker and the responders. And the more people respond to the question, the more exciting it becomes, because the asker has hit upon something that people want to talk about. They have brought together a community.

So why NOT ask a librarian via IM, text, email, or whatever? Well, when I personally have a question I think I need a librarian or subject specialist for, it's generally a research question, often involving primary sources and other things that aren't easily found in a web search. However, even working in a library and knowing how fun-loving and wacky some librarians are, I would NEVER think to use an ask-a-librarian service for questions like, "What neat things might I do with 31 bowling balls?" or "What's the difference between Solitude and Loneliness?" And if a patron asked me questions like those, I would probably be too stunned to come up with a worthwhile response, witty or serious. (Although after a few moments, I would hopefully regain the presence of mind to help them find some psychology and philosophy resources for the second question, and I'd probably gravitate toward art with the first one.) But on these answer sites, it looks like anything goes. So people aren't afraid to ask something really off the wall.

Yes, I saw a lot of questions on those sites that could benefit from a librarian's knowledgeable answer. However, for any number of reasons, people are asking their questions on these other sites. Perhaps these are people who've had negative experiences with librarians (yeah, it happens) or who simply have never been library users and so don't even think about libraries.

For those cases, I think the Slam the Boards movement is great. With ask-a-librarian services, we're still making patrons come to us, virtually if not physically. The Slam the Boards participants are going out into the world. Librarians who provide quality answers on non-library sites not only help the people asking the questions, they also help the whole library community by making librarians more visible. So people who have discounted (or perhaps simply not considered) libraries will realize that librarians are useful and valuable after all.

Thoughts on Purchasing Magazines and Books

I woke up this morning thinking about ownership versus access, with regard to magazines and books, both in my personal collection and in libraries. If this is of interest to you, read this post on my other blog. Cheers!

Thing 31: What is the Future of Libraries and Librarians?

I watched the presentation on New Librarianship by R. David Lankes.

Mr. Lankes made so many good points, I can't possibly address them all. I took three and a half pages of notes while I listened, and I can barely decide what to focus on.

He turns the conversation away from the future of libraries to the future of librarians, reminding us that it is the people, not the buildings or the resources, that make libraries and librarianship valuable to society. He suggests that we do not discover the future; we create it.

I really liked his rock illustration. "The geologist did not discover the knowledge in the rock. They brought the knowledge to the rock. . . . Knowledge is dynamic, it's living, it's human, it's how we understand stuff . . . we can not put knowledge on a stack." He went on to talk about how when one reads a book, one has a conversation, not with the book, nor with the author, but with the self.

That really gave me a lightbulb moment. I've thought of librarians as collectors and curators of knowledge, who provide access to information so people can learn independently. (Collection development, acquisitions, and cataloging.) And I've thought of librarians as guides who lead people to knowledge, who teach them to find and use information, if they are unable to do so on their own. (Reference and public services.) The underlying assumption is that knowledge is a thing--intangible, but still a thing--that people can get. But knowledge isn't in the books or the databases. Knowledge is in the minds of living people.

Lankes said, "The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities." That is a mighty tall order, but it's nobler than simply providing access to resources and directions on how to use them. I will try to keep that in the back of my mind, always, as I progress through life. How does my work improve society? How can I make my work improve society?

What does it mean to improve society? Society is made up of people, so improving society is improving people. What does that mean? I feel that my mind has been improved by listening to Mr. Lankes' presentation. So he has improved me, and thus improved society. So if I improve the knowledge of one person through a conversation (face to face or through my writing or catalog records), then I will have improved society. (That is in itself a major mind-shift for me--the idea that catalog records are not directional signs but conversations between librarians and users. Thinking of it that way really highlights just how bad our catalogs suck, even in the best libraries.)

It goes both ways. In the process of improving society, librarians must in turn be improved by society. Librarians are a part of society, after all. We are part of the community. (Forgive me for including myself in the "we" even though I'm not technically a librarian. But I do believe paraprofessionals practice librarianship, too.)

Lankes stressed that we need a deeper sense of why we do what we do. It's fine to know what you do and how you do it, but it's just as important to know why. This reminds me of the quote by Martha Watson, "I really like to know the reasons for what I do!" (This quote is used as the signature of John G. Marr, a frequent poster on the Autocat discussion list, so I see it often.) It's true. If you don't know why you're doing something, then you can't see if there is a better way to do it. And I've long considered process improvement an integral part of my job, so I'm often asking why things are done a particular way.

I am also reminded of an anecdote my friend Rev. Michael Burgess told in a sermon years ago. A woman always cut off the ends of the ham and laid them along the sides of the roasting pan. One day, someone asked her why. She didn't know, but her mother had always done it that way, and she'd picked up the habit. So she went and asked her mother. Her mother said she didn't know either, but grandma always did it that way. So they went and asked grandma, who said that she had such a small roasting pan in those days that a whole ham was too long. The only way to make it fit was to cut off the ends and squeeze them in along the sides. Two generations after her continued the practice, even though their pans were big enough for the uncut ham.

I’m sure libraries are full of cut-off ends of hams. What do we keep doing out of tradition, that is no longer really necessary because our tools have changed so much?

The future of librarianship is wonderful, so long as we choose the path and take each step with conscious awareness.

The Webbies: 1000 Awesome Things

We're up to Thing #30, a lovely round number. And for this, we get to pick anything off the Webby list, anything that strikes our fancy?

I started with the idea of picking something practical, maybe something from the art section that might be of value to the KANEKO-UNO Library. But my internet connection is too slow to get any of those art sites to load properly. I had particularly high hopes for the Color Chart, and what I saw of it was beautiful. I'd love to explore it sometime when I have access to a higher speed connection. But I had to abandon it for now in favor of something a little more friendly to low-end DSL.

While there's a lot of potentially valuable stuff for libraries, I found myself drawn to the 1000 Awesome Things blog. I don’t necessarily see a strong library application for it, but I like it. Everyone needs a break from the nastiness and misery and meanness that permeates our world. This blog is like an antidote. It's upbeat and uplifting (without being saccharine or glurgy), reminding us to take joy in the simple pleasures life has to offer, like sleeping in our own bed after an exhausting trip or finding something you lost so long ago you gave up on it. I had my own experience with the latter this summer, when I found a turquoise and silver ring I'd lost over a year earlier. It was under the seat of my old car, which I was cleaning out to sell. I wore the ring every day until I lost it again last month. But I'm not worried. If it's meant to be, it'll find its way back to me.

The posts on 1000 Awesome Things are kind of rambling, rather like the above paragraph. They remind me of The Tick's monologues, and starting about halfway through the third post, every word I read, my mind heard spoken in Patrick Warburton's voice. Go on, pick any post, and imagine Patrick Warburton standing by the bus stop coffee vending machine and telling you these things. Bonus points if you imagine him in a blue superhero suit with emotive antennae.

And that just makes me smile. I think that's the whole point of the blog. To cheer you up no matter what kind of day you're having. And who doesn't need that?

FTC Disclosure

Since now the Federal Trade Commission requires all bloggers to disclose whether they received any payment or perks of any kind for reviewing products, this is my disclosure/disclaimer to apply to all of my previous reviews on this blog. It also applies to all of my future posts related to the Nebraska Learns 2.0 program.

None of the web services explored during the Nebraska Learns 2.0 exercises provided any compensation to the participants in the program. None provided me with something complementary for the explicit purpose of reviewing it. The only people who asked me to blog about these services are the Nebraska Library Commission staff members who select and moderate the exercises. I am under no obligation to complete the exercises. My opinions about the services are my honest impressions based on my experiences using them.

I would be eligible for continuing education credits for completing these exercises, but my library does not require them, so I have not filled out any of the forms necessary to receive them. My only benefits from blogging about these services have been knowledge and experience.

Early in the Nebraska Learns 2.0 program, during the original 23 Things, I had permission from my supervisor to do the exercises on work time, if other duties permitted, because this was considered professional development. These days, I do these exercises at home, on my own time, not because permission was revoked but because we are simply far too busy at work to spare any time for this. I expect to continue to do the exercises on my own time for as long as I continue to participate in the program.

I work for the Criss Library at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. My opinions here are my own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer.

For that matter, no one asked me to write this disclosure. But I'm not entirely clear about how the FTC expects bloggers to comply with their exceedingly confusing rules, so I figured, better safe than sorry.

Visual Bookshelf

Oops, I kinda let Thing #29: Book-Based Social Networks slip by me. I did sign up for Visual Bookshelf on Facebook, but so far I've only added five books (and they were from the same series, so they really should only count as one). I just never had time to really get into it this month, and I had trouble working up enthusiasm because this thing seemed like a combination of two things I'd already done, LibraryThing and Facebook.

I might go back later and try to fill out my Visual Bookshelf. I'm more likely to use it than LibraryThing, because it's integrated into Facebook, so it's in a place I already go instead of another site I have to remember to visit. But since October is over, I'm afraid I flubbed this lesson.

Nebraska Library Camp II

I had a great time at Nebraska Library Camp II today. If you've never been to an unconference before, the idea is that you gather with no pre-planned topics. Then you talk about what you'd like to talk about, and then you break into smaller groups based on those topics.

Why? Well, whenever we get together for a conference, the greatest exchange of ideas usually seems to be between sessions, in those hallway and lunchtime discussions where you talk about what your library is doing and hear about what everyone else's libraries are doing. The unconference tries to take that kind of passionate exchange into a slightly more structured setting. I think it worked out pretty well.

I participated in three breakout sessions: the future of cataloging, the future of ILL, and Google Books. If you're interested, you can read my notes on the Nebraska Library Camp II wiki. Remember, these notes are not my ideas, just a record of what the group as a whole discussed. I wish I had so many good ideas myself.

Looking forward to the NLA/NEMA Fall Conference tomorrow and Friday. Should be awesome!

Google Reader

Well, I've been dissatisfied with the instability of Bloglines for a while now, so the switch to Google Reader seemed like the perfect thing for me. I'm glad this lesson came along to give me the nudge to quit procrastinating.

Likes:

Items are not marked as read until you actually scroll down to view them. This is especially wonderful when my browser hangs up and I have to relaunch. With Bloglines, every time that happened, any items which had loaded, but which I had not yet actually looked at, were lost forever. With Google Reader, they're still there waiting for me. This alone guarantees that I will stick with Google Reader and leave Bloglines behind.

I love the hotkeys, especially j and k. It's nice to have an alternative to scrolling.

I like the presence of links to open articles in a new tab. (Just after the title--look for the two arrows in a little circle, resembling a fast forward button.) That saves me the trouble of right-clicking and selecting "open in new tab" every time I want to look at the comments for a post.

Dislikes:

Google Reader loads very slowly, even on DSL. It's not as bad as Google Maps, which is almost unusable on my home connection, but it's still a little troublesome at times.

In Bloglines, I could order the feeds within a folder, and I could get all new items from site A, then all new items from site B, etc. So I could have a gradual and carefully planned transition from serious to silly, or vice versa. In Google Reader, it's always newest item first, so clicking on one of my folders gives me a mess like D, B, A, C, C, A, A, B, D, A. That drives me nuts. I'm going to have to create a lot of new folders and reorganize everything so that blogs of dissimilar tone don't get all mixed together.

Overall, though, the pros outweigh the cons. A good feed reader has become an absolutely indispensable tool in my day-to-day life, both at work and at home, and there's a lot to like with Google Reader.

Facebook

Ugh. I’ve been dreading Thing #27: Facebook, Networking and You.

Over the last couple of years, an increasing number of friends and family members (coworkers, not so much) have asked me to join Facebook. I’ve been avoiding it because, frankly, it never appealed to me. I'm afraid it will be just another thing that I will have to remember to check periodically, and that I will end up neglecting, like my blogs, Twitter, and four of my five email accounts.

But now it’s an assignment. Now I have to do it.

I chose Facebook over the other options because it seems to be most popular (and thus, to have the greatest market penetration), and more people I personally know are already members. Also, my library is on Facebook, so it just seems like it will be the most useful all around.

I somehow became a fan of Criss Library's page without actually doing anything. As soon as I finished creating my profile, I looked at my library's page, and I was already there listed as a fan. So weird! I also made myself a fan of the Kaneko-UNO Library, and I joined the groups for the Nebraska Library Association and Nebraska Library Leadership Institute Alumni. I put out several friend requests, including the four Nebraska Learns 2.0 leaders. Michael Sauers responded instantly, before I even finished searching the next friend's name.

One thing that really amazed me was how many people I know on Facebook. So many friends I haven't seen or interacted with in months or years, many family members, coworkers, and professional contacts. Is there Facebook etiquette? If I send a friend request to one colleague but not another, is that considered a snub to the one who didn't get a request? I sent some friend requests before I figured out how to join a network, then canceled them (they had not yet been accepted) after I joined the UNO network. Is that considered a snub? I hope not. These are folks I like working with. I genuinely lost sleep over this, and then I apologized to them in person the next day.

Also, I had trouble figuring out how to join a network. Finding useful help files on Facebook seems to be impossible. I had better luck searching Google for help. In general, Facebook's interface seems to clunky, cluttered, and unintuitive.

I'm also underwhelmed by their categorizing of their applications. "Sports Bets" and "What Kind of Tractor Are You?" are listed under Business? Really? "Send Cute Animals" is under Education? Really? It makes it hard for me to take Facebook seriously as a potential business tool. The personal, silly stuff overwhelms the serious, business stuff very quickly. I guess if I really wanted to use a social networking account for work, I would probably not use Facebook. I haven't looked at LinkedIn yet, but it at least has the reputation of being professionally-oriented.

With Bloglines and Delicious, I created two separate accounts for each, so I could keep my personal feeds and bookmarks separate from my professional ones. But I use those services so intensively, this division works effectively. However, with Facebook, there's really no way to keep them separate. So work and personal get all mixed up, which makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Okay, it makes me feel a lot uncomfortable. I couldn't even bring myself to log into Facebook at work to finish this exercise. For me, Facebook will be for home use only.

I think the biggest problem with Facebook is that it is trying to be everything to everyone. It is this enormous, sprawling, messy blob. It kind of sucks me in and makes me want to run away at the same time. I can see how it could become an enormous time-waster. ("Social not-working," as one of my coworkers described it.)

I think the most useful aspect of Facebook is its enormous user base, which lets you treat it kind of like a giant non-regional phone book. Also, the status updates seem very much like Twitter, except with Twitter you're tweeting predominantly to strangers and anyone in the world can read it, and with Facebook you're "tweeting" at people you actually know. Depending on your goal, either is legitimate, but personally I think I will find Facebook more satisfying than Twitter.

I do find some of the privacy concerns about Facebook rather alarming, and I'm not talking about what people might see in an indiscreet user's profile. The ACLU is presently going after Facebook because many of the quiz apps not only allow the quiz's developer access to a user's personal info, even if their profile is supposedly private, but they often allow the developer access to all the user's friends' personal data. That's pretty scary stuff.

I plan to actually keep using Facebook (though I'll probably avoid the quizzes), because it has allowed me to get back in touch with some friends that I'd lost contact with. But I plan to only use it at home for personal stuff, so if you're one of my Nebraska library contacts and you want to unfriend me because you're successfully using Facebook for purely professional reasons, I won't be offended, and I will still be thrilled to see you at NLA or any other library event.

WorldCat.org

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WorldCat.org >>

I’ve been a fan of WorldCat.org pretty much since OCLC unveiled it. I’ve had a WorldCat.org search box in the side bar since I first set up this blog, and on my other blog since November 2006. When I do book reviews on my personal blog, I typically provide links to WorldCat instead of Amazon. Way back when, I even added a review to the WorldCat record for one of my favorite books, Kamikaze Girls. And I routinely use it to look up any book I'm interested in reading, to figure out if any of the libraries in Omaha have it.

Of course, it had been so long since I actually logged into my WorldCat.org account that I couldn’t remember either my account name or my password. Oops. Well, once I got that straightened out, I got logged in and tried the new stuff from this lesson, Thing #26: Getting Social with WorldCat.org.

I’d never bothered creating a profile before. So I had a little fun getting one set up. (My username is akroeger, if you care to look me up.) I added the Criss Library and the Omaha Public Library as favorites. Then I added a review to another of my favorite books, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

I haven’t created any lists yet, but I definitely see the utility. I especially like that you can export your list to CSV, which should be compatible with RefWorks. We can export citations to RefWorks from our catalog, but it’s a bear to do. Perhaps WorldCat would offer an easier way for someone to compile the bibliography for their research paper. They could create one CSV file with not only the books from our catalog, but also any books they had to get through interlibrary loan. That’s a nice plus.

I kind of like being able to create links for search results. Check out my subject search for medieval bestiaries. If you’re interested in this topic, Ann Payne’s Medieval Beasts is a great book to start with. So sad there’s no cover image for it. Even sadder that my library seems to no longer have it. I know we used to, because I read it here before I bought it.

My library already uses WorldCat.org. We have a WorldCat search box on our home page, neatly integrated into our Find box. Right now, as I type this, our catalog is offline for a software upgrade. During this catalog outage, we are using WorldCat.org to search our holdings, obtain call numbers, etc.

Both professionally and personally, I rely on WorldCat.org a lot.

Google Maps

It took me forever to get around to doing the actual exercises for Thing #25: See the world and be seen using Google Maps, because I use Google Maps all the time anyway. I like the ability to switch between map view and satellite view, because map view makes a cleaner printout, while satellite view makes it easier for me to make a mental map of landmarks to guide me. When street view is available, that's better still. After looking at the satellite and street views, I know what the building looks like, which side of the road it's on, and what's around it, so even a place I've never visited before looks familiar.

I'll admit I've never really used terrain view, but this is Nebraska, and most of the places I go are relatively flat, so it hasn't seemed as useful. Now, when I called up the terrain view around Mount Fuji, Japan, there was something worth looking at.

The traffic view was new to me. I guess I just never noticed it before. It could be useful in helping to find the main streets in a strange city. I had also never explored the "more" options before. While there are lots of photos downtown, there are none in my neighborhood. There is one photo of a statue pinned to the wrong part of the city. (I know, because I recognize the statue, and the marker is about 20 blocks away from the actual location.) However, that does not seem to be editable data, so the error will have to stand. The Wikipedia flags are pretty cool. There's an article for a church about a block and a half from my home. It was kind of fun seeing what other historic buildings are around my neighborhood.

"Explore this area" was also new to me, and enabled me to watch a video of a police chase through my city three years ago. Seems like Google Maps is littered with fun and interesting Easter eggs.

Assignment Part 1. The state capitol building is at 1445 K St. 68509. It looks pretty cool in satellite view. You can see the Golden Sower, even if you can't make out any details. Even at maximum zoom, the cars are tiny. However, just a guess, but it looks as though on the day the picture was taken, there was a white car parked illegally on H Street, just in front of the capitol entrance on that side. I can't guess why; there were plenty of open parking spaces mere yards away.

The street view of the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, was pretty cool. I love that you can shift the camera angle upward to see the tower. The random street in Japan was fun. Love the Hello Kitty billboard. Because I wanted to see if other areas were as well defined, I checked out a street view over in Akihabara, Tokyo, and found it to be likewise clear and detailed, although not as entertaining, because I ended up looking at the underside of an overpass. But much of Japan is not rendered in great detail. When I tried to look at the town of Nemuro, I couldn't even get a decent, clear satellite view. It would not be very helpful if I were traveling there.

Regarding the kangaroos in Australia (which were cool to look at), how did the lesson planners find this place? Searching "kangaroos in Australia" didn't lead me to the same location.

By the way, since this lesson mentioned the satellite view of Carhenge, did you notice that there's a street view from the nearby highway? You can see a nice, if a little blurry, landscape view of Carhenge that way, too. It's also fun to back off from Carhenge a little to look at the crop circles. No, not the "unexplained mystery" kind, but the center-pivot irrigation patterns, our polka-dotted Nebraska landscape.

Assignment Part 2. Our library comes up with a basic name search, without needing the city, state, or university info. That's nice. The marker for the Criss Library pointed to the middle of a parking lot south of the UNO bell tower. However, I could not edit the map to move the marker to the actual library, because the listing had been claimed by someone else. Oh well. At least it's reasonably close. If someone gets to that parking lot, they can see the library easily. And one of my coworkers put a second marker directly on the library building, so that also helps.

All the other information on our marker is complete and correct. Looks good!

Assignment Part 3.

I was unable to do anything with regards to my library's listing, as it had already been claimed, but whoever did all the work did it well and was fairly thorough. We already have a Google Map embedded on our library website.

I did not try creating a customized map, because I have nothing to map at the moment. But if the Paraprofessional Section is able to continue broadcasting its spring meetings to remote sites in the future, it might be useful to create a map of all the confirmed meeting sites across Nebraska. I may think of other uses as need arises.

I use Google Maps more than other mapping services primarily because of ease of use and familiarity. I have never had a mapping failure from it yet. However, other mapping services also have satellite views, and when I look at the satellite view of my apartment complex in MapQuest, the image is considerably newer than the view in Google Maps. Google Maps shows a garage that was torn town years ago, and some half-completed roof construction. The MapQuest image shows the completed roof as well as the parking lot that replaced the garage. Likewise, when I check on the Midwest Crossing construction site, Google Maps shows the old buildings that no longer exist, while MapQuest shows an early stage of the construction. (What's really funny is that the Google Maps street view is considerably newer than either site's satellite view, although still far from current.) So while Google Maps has more bells and whistles, it may not always be the best mapping service if you are looking at an area that may have undergone some recent construction.

Twitter Search and Google Alerts

For Thing #24: Feed Your (Library’s) Ego, I started with Twitter Search and searched "Criss Library." Most of the tweets were actually from the library or the university, but there was one from a student saying our women's restroom contains "the most flattering mirror in the world." Who knew? They all seem like rather ordinary mirrors to me.

I subscribed to the feed for that query. Over the course of the next several days, watching the Twitter Search feed for mentions of my library made me start to like Twitter a little.

Then I went over to Google Alerts and set up a comprehensive search for "Criss Library" to be performed once a day. (Including the quotation marks turned out to be important, as proximity does not seem to be weighted in Google searches. Without the quotation marks, the top hits included multiple articles which happened to include the words "criss-crossing" and "library," not particularly near one another.)

Before I could finish setting up Google Alerts, however, Google went down. (5/14/2009, shortly before 10:15 am CST.) Boom. I couldn't load Google, Blogger, Bloglines, or any other site associated with Google, including sites that had nothing more than a Google ad on them. But I could get non-Google sites to load. I searched Yahoo news for "Google," but I only got links to Google sites and services, no actual news about Google being down. So I went over to Twitter Search and searched Google. I immediately saw a passel of tweets about Google acting funky, taking a dive, etc. The hash tag #googlefail was already beginning to show up. Refreshing the page every few seconds provided more information, in many languages.

My respect for Twitter jumped enormously. It turned out to be the only useful news source on the Google outage. Even if I have nothing to tweet, I can envision myself using Twitter Search often from now on, whenever things go "weird." (Watch, now that I've said that, Twitter will be the next thing to go down.)

Google was back up in a few minutes, but still, it was truly astonishing how many things were inaccessible during that brief outage.

After Google was operating again, I went back and changed my Google Alert to a feed and added it to my Bloglines subscriptions.

Then as long as I was in Bloglines, I decided to try the Bloglines Citation Search. I did it exactly as described in the exercise, and I got NO citations for the Criss Library website.

To ensure that I wasn't just doing something wrong, I tried a citation search for UNO's website. That brought in quite a few hits.

So now I know, no one is citing our site. How sad.

Interestingly, however, when I did a citation search for my library's catalog (a different URL than our website), I actually got one hit. Woo-hoo! Unfortunately, it was from one of my own blog posts, which had a link to a catalog record.

One thing I learned, though, is that the citation search does not include the open web. If it did, the Wikipedia entry for my library would have come up, because it contains a link to my library's website.

I did subscribe to the feeds for the searches for my library's website and catalog, however, just in case anyone ever decides to cite us.

I didn't bother trying out Flickr Comments, because I have no photos uploaded to Flickr. However, on a whim, I went to Flickr and searched "Criss Library," and I was rewarded with a lot of nice photos of my library. I decided to see if there was any way I could subscribe to a feed of that search. After exploring a bit, I determined that it was not possible. From various posts on the Flickr forums, it seems like quite a few people would like to have feeds of search results. I wonder if in the future, Flickr will decide to add that feature. That would be very useful. (Note that feeds based on tags are possible. However, I didn't find that useful because the photos of my library were not tagged consistently).

After reading the description of FairShare, I decided to give it a pass for now. If no one is citing my library's website, then it's unlikely that anyone is reposting the content from any of our RSS feeds. Even if they are, since the feeds are mostly lists of new library materials for various collections, I don't think we'd care if anyone passed that info along. However, FairShare sounds like a cool service, and I might explore it later when I have more time.

Now, part 2 of this assignment. "Respond to at least one of the results you found. Wait a few days to see if they respond back." This is the hard part for me. I enjoy using technology, but I am not by nature a social person. I like to read discussions, not participate in them.

Darn these exercises, forcing me to overcome my fears.

Well, the most recent thing to come though the Twitter Search feed was from heatha_bee, who had "Library-envy" for our single-service desk and Kaneko sculpture. That made me smile. Of course, I had no idea what to say back to her. Eventually, I responded, "You envy our single-service desk and Kaneko? What library are you at? I'm a cataloger at Criss Library." That's excruciatingly lame, I know, but it's the best I could come up with.

Not long after, she responded that she was the head of ILL at UNMC, and had been at my library for a meeting. I responded with something even more lame than my first tweet, and I never heard back from her, presumably because she left for Alaska. I know if I went on an exciting trip, I wouldn't be tweeting about anything remotely work related, so I can't blame her.

In other news, just this morning, Google Alerts alerted me to a post on the California Oregon blog, which reposted the text of the Wikipedia article for the Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library. Looking over other posts on that blog, I can find no pattern whatsoever. I can discern neither theme nor purpose for the blog. The only common thread is that all of the content seems to be reposted from other sources. I can't tell who is creating this blog, nor who the intended audience might be. And so I can't figure out the reason for their interest in the Criss Library, nor why they would simply reproduce a Wikipedia article with no context or comments. The about page for the California Oregon blog is just a spiel about Wordpress. It is very weird. The sheer randomness of the reposted entries and the lack of original content makes me suspect it may be run by a process rather than a person, but I can't tell for sure. It seems harmless, but also useless.

Anyway, out of this exercise, I plan to keep following the feeds for Twitter Search and Google Alerts related to "Criss Library." If I see anyone ranting or questioning something about my library, I will have an opportunity to open a conversation or refer something to one of my colleagues. Maybe this could help us to solve problems we may not be aware of. That's not necessarily what I think of as "marketing," but it is public relations.

The 23 Things Revisited

Nebraska Learns 2.0 is starting up again. Hooray!

Before I get into the new exercises, I'd like to take a moment to review the original 23 Things and how they have or have not become part of my life.

Thing #1: Discovery has never been so much fun! And it remains fun. I always enjoy learning about new things.

Thing #2: Lifelong Learning. Ditto Thing #1.

Thing #3: Grab yourself a blog in 3 steps. I love blogging. I'm just not very good about posting on any kind of regular basis. But I think it's a fantastic tool, and I enjoy it.

As vice-chair of the NLA Paraprofessional Section, one of my duties is to gather topics for fall conference. As an experiment, I used a blog for this. (Blogs are easy and fast, and it required virtually no effort on my part to set it up.) It worked, but not as effectively as I would have liked. I feel as though I used a hammer to drive a screw. A wiki might have been a better choice. So, much as I love blogs, I have discovered that they are not necessarily the best platform for collaborative communication.

Thing #4: Register your blog and join the party. I think I will reuse this same blog for the new round of Nebraska Learns 2.0, rather than starting fresh. Although I will probably have to change the name to something other than "Anj's 23 Things," since I don't even know how many lessons the new program will contain.

Thing #5: Instant Messaging. Other than using Meebo on the public service desk, I don't really IM. It's not my preferred mode of communication, but it's handy to have around.

Thing #6: Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader. This one really has changed my life. I would never want to go back to checking all those blogs and sites manually. I have some specific technical issues with Bloglines, but Google Reader gave me some fits when I tried it out, too. But even though the readers all have flaws, they are still incredibly useful. I have two accounts, one for work and one for home. (I don't want to be reading comics at work, nor do I particularly want to be reading about the latest OCLC initiatives at home.) This is a technology that has become as fully integrated into my life as email and telephones. (And significantly more integrated than my cell phone.)

Thing #7: Finding Feeds. I've ditched a lot of the feeds I picked up during the original exercise, and I have discovered several more. My collection of feeds is organic, changing as my needs and interests change. That's one of the wonderful things about this technology.

Thing #8: Discover Flickr, Thing #9: More Flickr Fun, and Thing #10: Play around with Image Generators. Much as I loved Flickr and image generators during the original exercises, I honestly have not gone back to them. They're good services and it's nice to know they're there if I need them, but I don't have much use for them at this time.

Thing #11: Blog about Technology. I totally stand by everything in my original essay.

Thing #12: A thing about LibraryThing. As with Flickr, I liked LibraryThing when I tried it, and have not gone back to it since. I'm glad it's there, and I am a fan of Tim Spalding as the self-appointed watchdog against OCLC. I think LibraryThing is changing the library world and will continue to do so. So even though it hasn't become an integral part of my personal life, it is an integral player in my professional life.

Thing #13: What are you doing? I tried. I really did. I just can't bring myself to give a tweet about Twitter. It doesn't fill any needs in my life.

This doesn't mean I don't see Twitter's impact on society, though. Twitter is even better than blogging for spreading information quickly. Witness the Amazonfail wildfire. Twitterers are already a force to be reckoned with. What the future holds, who knows?

Thing #14: Tagging & social bookmarking in Delicious. Delicious has become an indispensable part of my life. As with RSS readers, I set up two accounts, one for work and one for home. If I happen to stumble across a website or blog post in one place that I want to send to the other, I use the for: tags to send it to my other mailbox. In this way, I can access my home and work bookmarks from anywhere, send selected bookmarks back and forth between them easily, yet still keep my professional and personal bookmarks largely separate. It works well for me. I did not blindly port all of my browser bookmarks into Delicious, though. I took the time to open each link so I could better tag and describe it. This also allowed me to discard dead or no-longer-relevant links. With the exception of the few daily-use bookmarks I keep on the browser's toolbar for one-click access, I have deleted all of my static bookmarks. Delicious is just that much easier to use and maintain.

Thing #15: Presentations go social. SlideShare is another one I've never gone back to, but I still think it's quite useful.

Thing #16: On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0. I still agree with my thoughts on this one, as well.

Thing #17: So what’s in a wiki? and Thing #18: Playing around with PBwiki. Not much new on this one for me. I still use Wikipedia almost daily, although I edit very infrequently. I use a Confluence wiki at work, and I edit procedures, code lists, and other core departmental documents as needed. I haven't really gone back to PBwiki in particular, but I haven't had a need for a new wiki. Wikis occupy a basically stable position in my life right now.

Thing #19 : Apps, They're not just for desktops any more. I haven't created many files in Google Documents, but boy-oh-boy am I ever grateful for the ability to view Microsoft PowerPoint presentations at home on my Mac, where I do not have PowerPoint installed. So I've found it to be a very handy utility.

Thing #20: Discovering Web 2.0 tools. I looked at several different web 2.0 tools back then, and I haven't revisited a single one of them.

Thing #21: You too can YouTube. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube. A couple weeks ago, I even created my own YouTube account and uploaded a video. (A brief video capture from the Spore computer game I've recently become addicted to.) So this is another service that has found a stable niche in my life.

Thing #22: Podcasts. I have never found a particularly stable or routine use for podcasts. I still sometimes listen to the NET Radio news podcasts while I fix breakfast, but that's about it. Perhaps someday I'll get into it, but for now, it's enough to simply be aware of the technology.

Thing #23: Is this really the end? Or just the beginning? Obviously, it's not the end. Thing #24 was posted today, and I hope to participate in this new round of Nebraska Learns 2.0 for as long as it runs. I expect I will have a similar experience--finding a few services I don't like, many I do like but have no immediate use for, and one or two that will become essential tools in my life.

Onward!

Thing #23: Game Over! Continue?

Gooooooooooooooooooal! I made it to the end!

Thing #23: Is this really the end? Or just the beginning?

Yeah, of course it's not really the end. It may be the end of this particular set of exercises. It may or may not be the end of my posts on this particular blog. However, it's definitely not the end of my learning and growth. That will continue for as long as I live.

* What were your favorite discoveries or exercises on this learning journey?

Google Documents is at the top of the list. Even if I can't access it at home (*cough* Firefox 1.0 *cough*), I'm finding it incredibly useful. It's replaced the flash drive in my pocket for documents I need to work on both in my cubicle and at the service desk.

I'm also liking YouTube quite a lot. Sure, there's a lot of junk, but there's also plenty of useful, informative content. Plus, if not for YouTube, I would never have gotten to see President Obama's inauguration and the various associated speeches and ceremonies. I am so glad this service exists.

* How has this program assisted or affected your lifelong learning goals?

Even though my supervisor gave me permission to do these exercises at work, I discovered that I really didn't have time. There is simply too much work to do at work, and I couldn't shoehorn these exercises in. Once I started doing the majority of them at home, I developed the homework mentality. (Yes, even though this wasn't technically a class, I actually referred to each of the things as "homework.") It's gotten me thinking about going back to school and getting an MLS. I don't know for certain that I'm ready to make that leap yet, but I feel much closer to it than ever before.

* Were there any take-aways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

I'm not sure I'd call this unexpected, but I've had to face my essentially asocial online behavior. I love cool web 2.0 toys and tools I can play with on my own, but I'm not big into interacting with others. I love Delicious, and I tag all of my bookmarks for my own use, but I never think to look at other people's bookmarks. I love Google Documents for making my documents more portable, but I haven't shared any of them with anyone else. That's just part and parcel with my introverted nature. I need to be more conscious of the social part of the social web.

* What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or concept?

Not sure. I thought it was pretty well organized and most of the things seemed to flow fairly naturally into one another.

* If we offered another discovery program like this in the future, would you again choose to participate?

You bet! This was great!

Thing #13 Revisited: I'm Just Not That Into Twitter

Well, I've given it two full weeks now, and I'm still not twitterpated with Twitter. Following only ten people, I receive so many tweets that every time I visit Twitter I have to go back multiple pages to see what I missed. I wish I could set it to show me the most recent tweet from everyone I'm following, so the people who tweet a lot don't crowd out the people who tweet only once a day or so. I honestly don't know how hard-core users who follow hundreds or thousands of people keep up with any of the threads. And I don't tweet much myself, because my life is just not that interesting. I dislike Twitter less than I imagined, but I just can't seem to really get into it.

Thing #22: Podcasts

Thing #22: Podcasts is one of the things I was dreading when I started this program, but by the time I reached it, I was enthusiastic. I'd had so many good experiences during Nebraska Learns 2.0 exercises that I was hyped and ready to go.

Unfortunately, my enthusiasm died quickly. Searching for podcasts was much less fun than searching for YouTube videos or blogs to follow. After more than two hours sifting through several different podcast directories, I still hadn't found anything to keep my interest. I'd listened to the beginnings of several podcasts on a variety of subjects, but hadn't made it to the end of any of them. They all bored me to tears. If they couldn't hook me within the first few minutes, I moved on. Don't waste my time.

I realize that, for me, the main problem with podcasts is that they're just like radio programs. When I listen to the radio, the instant I hear a DJ talking, I change stations until I hit one that's playing music. I can't stand talk radio.

Rather than sifting endlessly through directories of stuff trying to find one gemstone in an endless beach of common sand, I decided to check out blogs and comics I was already following to see if they had podcasts. That way, I stood a better chance of finding something to my liking. But even the podcast by the creators of one of my favorite webcomics bored me. It was still just like a radio show, with more random, tedious banter than interesting content. While the podcast was playing, I found myself reading unrelated blogs, just to keep myself from leaving the computer altogether.

I finally found some decent, non-chattering podcasts from NET. These were informative and enjoyable. Finally, I'd found podcasts produced by people who valued the listener's time! Not one word was wasted. Even so, I'd still rather read news than listen to it.

I added a couple of the NET podcasts to my Bloglines account--News & Features from NET Radio (audio) and Arts in Nebraska from NET Television (video). I'll follow them for a while to see if they grow on me, but right now I'm suspecting that I'll eventually drop them in favor of blogs and text-based news. The video podcast will probably be the first to go, because the .mp4 files take too long to download, even with DSL. YouTube is much faster.

For Library-related podcasts, I really enjoyed Uncontrolled Vocabulary. It was nice to hear the voices of people I follow in the blogosphere, like Michael Sauers and Tim Spalding. The podcast was focused, organized, and informative. However, I'm not sure I heard much info there that I hadn't also read on various blogs and mailing lists.

I'm not saying I dislike the concept of podcasts. Many people do prefer to get their input through audio-visual channels rather than reading. Podcasts are undoubtedly valued and valuable tools for many people, and I completely understand that. However, I just don't think they're for me.