Thing 5 - Flickr

Ever since the fire in '59 I've been a little camera shy.


So I don't know about creating my own Flickr account. I'll think about it.

But in the meantime, I did the required reading and exploring and found some amazing images.
Phil Nesmith http://www.flickr.com/photos/visualadventure/
This is what I'm talking about!

Sexecutioner's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/sexecutioner/

jim_moore's photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/filtre/

[Fruit bat claws - Sri Lanka]

While blogs might not have helped me learn more about the care and feeding of bats, Flickr has certainly kept me entertained. Obsessed, almost.

How might I use Flickr in my library?

Sometimes I come across some disturbing stains in the library. I know I'm not the only one bothered. Other staff are. I see them wrinkle their noses as they descend the stairs to the Circ. desk before opening. They've spotted the mark just to the left of the landing. It's been there for some time now. But it still disturbs.

A member of the Board of Trustees just the other night commented on a dark, slippery area in the alcove. We put up a safety cone.

And the spot in front of the PlayAway display - - it never dries.

I think we could use Flickr to document these stains. We could post them on the staff Intranet to alert other, less observant staff.

Or, because the young adults who visit us often seem to be looking for something to do, perhaps we could create a Stain Scavenger Hunt.

Teams of Youth Flickr Groups, wielding digital cameras, would be formed to search out various areas of the library that have been violated. As the group came upon a spot described on the list, they would snap a picture. At a predetermined time all teams would meet in front of the Reference desk to upload their photos to their Flickr accounts and share them amongst the teams. The team with the most stains correctly documented would win. Pizza and Coke would then be served.

Boy, this 23 Things has certainly gotten me thinking outside the box.
Your friend ferd

Thing 4 – RSS and Newsreaders

I set up an aggregator account using Google Reader and added the blogs of some of my fellow participants. I also added several news sites such as the New York Times and CNN, favorite author blogs, and feeds from favorite book stores. In a couple of instances, I noticed that the feed was not as current as the posts on the websites. Does anyone know why that is? I tried refreshing and resubscribing, but neither helped.

I think that setting up an RSS feed would be useful to some of our patrons (and to staff). I looked at the Hennepin County Library feed which informs patrons about library programs, services, changes in hours, etc. I found http://www.kegliography.blogspot.com/ by Jay Kegley to be an interesting mix of library and general technology news. Our library subscribes to BookLetters which has a feed. Patrons can sign up for a large number of newsletters (booklists, author bios, etc.) via our website and receive updates through their reader.

Your friend ferd

Thing 3 - Blog Search Tools

I explored Technorati and Google Blog Search. I’ve always been interested in raising bats, but when Mom was alive, she wouldn’t hear of it. Now that she’s “out of the picture,” I think it’s time for me to start living.

Anyway, I tried the search “raising bats” in both search engines. Technorati returned 586 hits and Google returned 25,376. When I re-searched using the “advanced” feature and on the exact phrase, Technorati returned two hits, Google returned eight (nine when I turned “safe search” off).

Neither of the two Technorati results was helpful, but one did take me to an interesting blog, Journal of a Marginalized White Male, that described a fight between neighbors Ozzie Ozbourne and Alice Cooper over some bats that Alice was raising in his backyard. I think the account might have been fictional.

The nine Google results weren’t much help either in my quest to learn more about raising bats. One blog contained a thread about washing bats in a washing machine. I just couldn’t follow the instructions. “Kairunlove” had a bat in her house, but chose not to make her profile available to me. “Harrington” owns three bats as pets. That's all he would share, except that his current mood is horny.

Several of the Google results were about raising baseball bats, which I have no interest in.

Comparing the two sites, I preferred the added features of Technorati such as the “Top 100 Blogs,” the blog directory, and “favorites.” Google invited me to create an email alert, add a blog search gadget, and subscribe to a blog search feed for “raising bats,” but somehow I felt I was going to be disappointed.

Ann Smarty (do you think that’s her real name?), in the Search Engine Journal blog, finds higher relevance and more useful results using Google Blog Search than using Technorati. While I got more result from Google, neither search engine gave me what I was looking for: a vibrant community of bat raising bloggers willing to share with me the highs and lows of their unique hobby.
Your friend ferd

Thing 2 - What is Web 2.0?

The readings took hours (again, who took my glasses?), but what I learned was that Web 2.0 is just a name given to the web now (really since 2006 which is 1,000,000 years in web years), to indicate that it differs from Web 1.0 where only the Department of Defense and a bunch of freeneters had email and engineers, pioneering Nerds, and MLIS students (some crossover), wrote web pages in HTML.
Now anyone can have a MySpace page, blog (I’m proof), twitter, post to YouTube, comment on anything. You don’t need to understand the structure of how it works, you just have to figure out how to set it up. And when it crashes, because you’re visiting too many porno and illegal download sites, your elderly father (the last living programmer), will patiently wipe your “hard drive” (See: Wikipedia), and re-install the 650 programs…
Library 2.0 is about providing access to Web 2.0. When libraries realized that they had provided access to L2, they thought they probably should have some staff on hand who’d ever heard of it, and they hired a bunch of young Librarians who they hoped knew enough to provide training to patrons. (L2 is just a part of what libraries do. More to follow later, no doubt.)
Interesting Fact: “Early adopters of the automobile had to understand in finite detail the workings of their machines, as Sears (Roebuck & Co. ) had no service centers and was still selling mules for transportation purposes.” (Wikipedia : History of the Automobile)
What are you looking forward to in 23 Things @ NEFLIN?
I’m 68 years old and sill working the circulation desk at a busy, urban PL in a large metropolis (more to follow). What am I looking forward to in 23 Things @ NEFLIN? I need a MySpace page. I’m hoping to make a “love connection.” Don’t judge me.
Your friend ferd

Thing 1 - Blogging

I was a little apprehensive about setting up a blog. I still can't program the coffeemaker I got for Christmas and wake up at 2AM to the smell of Viennese Roast. But younger co-workers assured me that the process only took minutes, so I was feeling pretty good.


It took me about an hour to create my blog. A lot of that time was spent looking for my reading glasses. And coming up with a strong password. I think my strong password says a lot about who I want to be. I wish I could share it with you, but I guess that would defeat the purpose of a password. Maybe someday. When we become BFsF.


It's funny. Now that I have my own blog I feel kind of powerful. Like Walter Cronkite but with neater eyebrows. And I feel like I'm way more popular than I used to be. I want to go outside and look for news to post! And if there is no news, I will make some up.


Please stay tuned. Our close friendship means the world to me. Sometimes I think it's the only thing that keeps me going.


Your friend ferd.