CCLS 23 Things #11: Library Thing

I set up a Library Thing account and added eight books. I deliberately chose a variety of titles, which probably makes it less likely that certain features on the site—the recommendations and similar libraries functions—will be able to figure me out.

I always have more than enough titles on my "must read" list, so I doubt I would go to Library Thing for suggestions. However, I might use the site to keep track of my current and future reading, especially books borrowed from the library. I don't see much point in duplicating my home library in an online version, but I would like to have a list of things that I've read that I don't own. The tags and comments could be useful for reminding me what a book was about—these days it seems I can't remember anything about the books I've read except whether I liked them or not!

CCLS 23 Things #7

OK so it's a little out of order.

Something about technology... I'll throw some thoughts out there about the Web, in particular. There's no question that fast, easy Internet access has changed the way I get information. And I'm sure I'm not alone in this experience. I find that I collect information from a wide variety of sources, but just a little from each. The search-engine experience does not tend to facilitate deep thinking or careful reflection, at least not for me.

My expectations have also changed over the last, say, ten years. I expect to be able to find anything on the web, if I search long enough and smart enough. And I expect—or at least want—everything to be free. If I'm clicking on links from a news digest, even having to log in to a site is enough to deter me. I'll just go on to the next link.

Since I have worked in the publishing business, and there are several professional musicians in my family, I am acutely aware of copyright issues. I know that writers, editors, composers, performers, sound engineers, etc. have to be compensated for their work. I know that I value the editorial standards of the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Review of Books, the London Times, the Manchester Guardian, etc. and I happily read occasional articles from all of them online. But I'm not currently supporting any of them with subscription dollars.

It's clear that the whole financial support structure for both journalism and creative works needs to be restructured, but it's also clear that no on is quite sure how this can or should be accomplished. The best thing I have read recently on the subject is Cory Doctorow's essay in the November issue of Locus Magazine. (Of course I don't subscribe to that, either—the article link was sent to me in an online digest.)

CCLS 23 Things #10

Here's a fun one:



I could easily spend all day playing with image generators.
As it was, I spent about an hour and barely scratched the surface of the list at the left side of The Generator Blog.

I made a Magic 8 Ball with the ultimate answer:



And a Seussian commentary on our project:


















There's even a choice of generators to see what the offspring of two particular people would look like:

http://makemebabies.com/
http://www.vw.com/vwhype/babymaker/en/us/

gotta try that when I have more time...


And finally, a preview of what we might look like after the proposed budget cuts...

CCLS 23 Things #9: Finding Feeds

Bloglines is not exactly winning my affection today -- the search function worked for a couple of searches, but then seemed to forget how to display search results. There would be some tiny text saying "showing 1 of 1 feeds" but no result displayed. Then on the right, there would be a list headed "Related Results" but clicking on any of these just produced the same blank page -- albeit with a different list of Related Results!

Next I went to Topix and plugged in my zip code. I immediately discovered that I live in a very boring area -- the "breaking news" was mostly obituaries from towns in the surrounding area. I can see using this site to search for news on a very specific topic. But it isn't very valuable for general searches, as the search engine doesn't seem to be very sophisticated. A fair number of the hits appear to be irrelevant to the topic-- maybe the search term appears somewhere in the text of the article, but that doesn't mean the article has anything to do with the subject being researched! Also, I was kind of bothered by the prominence given to advertising on the results page.

My first experience with Syndic8 was pretty disasterous. I searched for a feed, went to the "feed URL" provided in the results, and found myself at a site called newsisfree.com (http://xml.newsisfree.com/feeds/29/2029.xml). Every link I clicked on this page returned an error message "The Link You Followed Has Expired." The page provides a list of possible reasons for this problem, but it seems much simpler just to go to the site of the newspaper itself and look for the RSS feed.

Technorati looks different and interesting. I've been there before, but never really explored the site. I don't have time to do so now, either! Maybe next time...

CCLS 23 Things Project #8: RSS feeds

I'm not sure whether RSS feeds really simplify my life or whether they make me try to keep up with news sources that I otherwise wouldn't even worry about. I look at a page full of feeds and see either a whole slew of distractions from the work I really should be doing, or a whole slew of guilt-inducing "must reads" to add to my to-do list.

On a more practical level, I doubt I will make use of Bloglines because I have already taken advantage of the super simple RSS additions to my Google homepage. Having feeds on this page—for BBC News, Literary Quote of the Day, local weather, Arts and Letters Daily, Tredyffrin's Staff Blog, and XKCD web comic—gives me access to these resources, along with my email, blogs, photos, and online documents, with just one login.

Something new that I learned from this exercise was that I can subscribe to online photo accounts. I have added my daughter's Photobucket account, in case she forgets to tell me when she adds new photos of the grandkids!

CCLS 23 Things Project #5 & #6

I used Flickr for some time after they merged with Yahoo photos (where I originally kept my photos online). However, I recently "defected" to Pikasa because Flickr won't let me arrange my photos into albums -- Flickr has a limit of three albums in free accounts.

However, I had never tried the mashups associated with Flickr, and I had fun playing with some of these toys. I made "trading card" of my grandson (Cute kids! Collect them all!)

Fortunately Flickr kept the albums I had made in Yahoo photos. Here's one of Jordan Sonnenblick at the Collingswood Book Festival.