Thing Three

As part of Thing #3, I set up my Google Reader account. The first blog I subscribed to was Margaret's, because she is acting as our mentor. Looking around for PLS users, I started randomly adding PLS libraries. I was at a workshop at MLA a couple of years ago that featured the shifted librarian - I think she was there herself. So I added her blog. So far, that makes six.

I've always heard about RSS, but didn't realize how easy it is to use. I haven't been a big fan of blogs; honestly, do we all really have that much to say? But in the spirit of cooperation, I pledge to lay aside my curmudgeon ways and join in.

Just for fun, I joined the PLS user group. Not much action there. :)

Thing Two

My goodness, that was a lot of reading. I found myself waffling back and forth between “Wow! We could do this!” While asking, “what about privacy and confidentiality?”

I’m not ready to really live my life “out there,” but I did post a picture of myself in my profile. It’s a start.

Finding time to do this is difficult. Our supervisor offered us one hour per week to work on it at the library; I find myself working on this at night, sometimes after everyone else is in bed, to minimize distraction and get some time on a shared computer.

To tell the truth, I’m doing the 23 things because our supervisor said we should do them. I looked at them the first round and decided that I just didn’t have time to do them justice. I still don’t.

I am an Internet Junkie in recovery. Virtual life fascinated me for awhile; I even helped moderate a couple of bulletin boards. My real life has become more complicated, and I’m not all that interested in spending more time online.

BUT…….

While doing some prep work for story hour, I happened on an illustrator’s website, which included links to his blog, his My Space page, his Facebook page, the pages he created for characters from his books, and links to pictures posted at flickr. He welcomes pictures and comments from children. This is quite a contrast from the old days of trying to reach a beloved author or illustrator by writing to a publisher. Not surprising, this artist is 25 years younger than I. There is a definite correlation there.

The proverbial old dog learning new tricks comes to mind. It is possible to teach the old dog new tricks, but it takes time, consistency, and some kind of tangible reward. Is knowledge really its own reward?

Thing One: First post, fresh start

After a workshop on library 2.0, we tried setting up a blog for our library. We ran into all kinds of silly difficulties, couldn't think of anything to say, and gave up.

This blog was extremely easy to set up, seems to be very easy to use, etc. but I still don't really have anything to say.

It looks like I've finished all of Thing One. Blog is set up, played with the template, font, set up an avatar, etc. BTW, Yahoo no longer displays my avatar when I sign in, so now it's preserved here.

I registered the blog with the program, and that's all I'm doing for today.