Photosharing and Editing: Things Four, Five and Six

The timing was great for this since I got a new phone that lets me email photos. Getting a library photo onto my Flickr account was quick and easy, and I didn’t have to remember to bring my camera to work. I had trouble with the tags not being able to pull up my photo in a search though. After fiddling with it way too much, I set it aside and tried the tags again after my vacation. It still won’t pull up my photo using my tags to search all photos. Maybe tomorrow it will come up. If not, I’m moving on anyway. I looked at some of the other tools through Flickr and used Spell with flickr to add a thought to my blog. Too much time spent on #4 so I’m going to look at the next step.

Somehow I deleted the original blog entry for things 4-6. I've had trouble with this part all along so I think I will look for something appealing to work on next and not go through things in numerical order.

Thing Three: Keeping Up

I set up my aggregator account using Bloglines and it was quite simple. The only time consuming piece was deciding what feeds to include. I can see that it should be a continual process of adding interesting things as they are discovered, and deleting those that are no longer of interest. I added 12 feeds the first day, which I found by using Bloglines search tool, their most popular feeds list, and just looking for the feed icon on websites I routinely access already. Some of them had quite a large number of posts the next time I checked in and I’ve already removed a feed. It can easily be time wasting if I’m not able to readily sort what is worth a read; especially since I am easily side-tracked. I tried the clippings feature and that may be useful. Now that I know how to use this tool, I’ll be able to add useful feeds as I come across them.

Thing Two: What is Web 2.0 and Why Should I Care?

In the Stephen Abrams video, he discussed finding the time to complete these 23 things. Boy, has that been an issue for me in this activity. I was able to watch the video last week by carving out some time away from the reference desk, but have been reading bits and pieces of the articles at the desk over a four day period. It has to be a common thing among librarians to feel the absence of time to consider the big picture, when we’re always focusing on the details in front of us.

In the introduction to Thing 2, Library 2.0 is described as embracing constant change, rather than traditional periodic upgrades. When I look at the way we view change in my workplace, I worry. I wonder if an atmosphere of constant change will be any less threatening to some. Like desensitizing.

I loved Lev Grossman’s thought that the new Web is “a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.” It is the making it matter that we need to strive for.

Thing 1: Getting Started

Ok, now I have a blog. There were way too many choices to play with in creating my avatar, and it was so absorbing, I forgot to go on break. What next?