Week 6, Thing 14: Explore Technorati and learn how tags work with blog posts.

It took awhile but I finally got through this exercise. Technorati, sounds like an Italian sports car. Well I test drove this one and was underwhelmed. Too much going on with this tool. But I must remember there are those out there who do a great deal of blogging and posting of pics etc. so for them this is probably a form of heaven. For me it plucked my last nerve. With Technorati there's
lots to see: I got to see a list of all the 11 Sept. 2001 victims and relive the horror. Oh and then Paris Hilton again. It's like reading the newspaper, all the depressing stuff gets reported. Top Searches is like looking at the CNN home page. Top Blogs was like sorting through junk email and Top Favorited Blogs was like searching through organized junk email. Bleeck! I have to say I do not like it, but at least I learned about it, yes? Ich habe erlernt.

Week 6, Thing 13: Learn about tagging and discover a Del.icio.us (a social bookmaking site)

Here's what I got for my first attempt at listening to the 12 minute tutorial:

ERROR: www.library2.0.ottergroup.com is temporarily unavailable or does not exist. Please check the address and try again.

Delays delays, nothing but delays! Phooey!

Anyway, my impressions: I took a good look around the site and I do see value in creating tags in this fashion. I opted to search out military items, and found wonderful tags for the Abrams Main Battle Tank and the M240B medium machine gun. Curiously enough, these tags also were tied in with people's Flick'r accounts with mad photos attached. For library purposes, one could create some reference links that could be located, say, on the desk top of the ref. desk computer (hmm, how would that work with mobile reference???). I don't think I would use this method for immediate reference, the "traditional" ways seem to work well for me, I feel my patrons leave quite satisfied with the information provided for the most part. But if one had some tags set up for commonly asked ref. questions, there could be a future for that. Interesting idea though, this Delicious (PS--I hate the name, very unmanly!!)

Week 5, Thing 12: Roll your own search tool with Rollyo.

"I am the Great Roll-holio, I need books for my librario!"








Here is my link:
http://www.rollyo.com/rpowell/rps_stuff/

This product will help organize frequently used sites for faster service, both for myself and FCPL patrons.

Week 5, Thing 11: Take a look at LibraryThing and catalog some of your favorite books.

Here's the link to my exclusive library:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rpowell1

Week 5, Thing 10: Play around with an online image generator.

Well here are 2 stabs at online image generation. The dude is from the Yahoo avatar generator:




Make your own at ProfilePitstop.com

Week 4, Thing 9: Explore MERLIN and a few useful library related-blogs and/or news feeds.

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? I liked using Bloglines to search for RSS feeds.
Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Copy and paste is my fav.
Which was more confusing? Feedster was most confusing for me, actually much of this stuff is still confusing!
What kind of unuseful feeds did you find in your travels? Some of the gaming ones were of interest.
Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? Well, on Boing Boing there is all manner of unusual stuff. I could post some here but I don't want to get fired!
What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds? I just looked at the main page for the RSS symbol or link and cut that into Bloglines to link it all up.

Week 4, Thing 8: Learn about RSS feeds and setup your own Bloglines newsreader account.

I set up 10 feeds:
http://www.bloglines.com/public/BogsThoughts