Exercise 8 - SNS

Now, I'm pretty familiar already with social networking sites. I have both a Facebook and a MySpace account. Admittedly, I don't check them as much as I did when I first signed up. They can become kind of time consuming. There's all sorts of places to put information about yourself. You have to keep updating your favorites, you profile photo, your blog, etc. It can get tiring! I do, however, check both of them occasionally just to keep up. SNS's have gotten a lot of flack in some of my classes for being too impersonal. You can have 200 friends on Facebook, but honestly, how many of them are actually your friends? On the positive side, I do think they are handy for people with out of state friends. A lot of my theatre friends moved to New York after graduation and honestly, these sites make it easier for me to keep up with what they're doing. I guess there's ups and downs to everything.

I decided to sign up for a Shelfari account to see if it will help me expand my reading list. The jury is still out on this site...

I think it's a really great idea that libraries have begun to incorporate aspects of Web 2.0, such as MySpace into their libraries. While they require extra effort to keep updated, I feel that they're a great way to reach out to the younger populations who are incredibly adept at these technologies.

Exercise 6 - Podcasts

I went to npr.org and clicked on Arts and Entertainment because I like to think that I'm artsy fartsy most of the time. I found a cool podcast called "The Play's the Thing" by L.A. Theatre Works. It's a weekly radio show that covers the best of American as well as World drama. The plays are recorded in front of a live audience and range from Shakespeare to Miller and beyond. I think that it would be a good thing to listen to on a long drive or something where you'd be able to have a long attention span. This week's podcast was "Atomic Bombers" by Russell Vandenbrook. It was part of L.A. Theatre Works' Relativity Series for their scientific plays month. Not necessarily my cup of tea. But I'd definitely revisit them.

Then I went to our Library on Demand and got on the waiting list for "Holidays on Ice" by David Sedaris. I also downloaded "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by the same author. The best part is that David Sedaris is the one reading his stories. I saw him recently at a book talk at Playhouse Square. He can tell stories better than anyone. He's very entertaining. I highly recommend listening to him read "The Santaland Diaries". Genius.

Exercise 7 - Wikis

I laughed out loud a little when I saw our next exercise. Ironically, one of my grad school assignments was to contribute to the Kent State Library Science wiki. Here's the URL:

http://ksulis60003.pbwiki.com/

Our assignment was to find a relevant site in one of the catagories and contribute it to the wiki. I chose Library Blogs and found one called the Twilight Librarian, which is librarian Jim Rettig's musings on library life. There are some really neat blogs on the wiki to explore if I ever find the time.

I am also a frequenter of the site lostpedia.com. I'm a HUGE fan of the tv show Lost. This site is basically a wiki all about the show. You can contribute facts and theories about the various characters and situations in the show. Or you can just sit back and read about what other people have to say.

Exercise 5 - RSS feeds

I hadn't really ever thought about that blinking orange button at the top of my web browser. Once in awhile, in a fleeting moment, I would wonder what it was. But then something flashy would distract me and I'd forget all about it. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Exercise 5 was about these orange things and that they're called RSS feeds.

About a week ago, I looked around at all of my favorite sites in anticipation of seeing that orange button light up. But alas, no luck. So I went to some other sites I like, such as www.ew.com, and added them to my feeds list. I also added "Imogen Heap News" and "Netflix Top 10" just for fun.

Unfortunately, I would check my feeds every day, and it didn't seem like there were that many updates. Ew.com had some, but that's about it. I don't think I'll be using this option again any time soon.

Exercise 4 - Play Day (Pandora)

I went to Pandora.com today to explore what it's all about. I was really excited about this one from the get-go because I'm such a music buff!

First of all, what a cool website! I set up my account and tried typing in "John Mayer" to see what it would do. It started me off with a John Mayer song then moved on to similiar artists, such as Maroon 5. So then I created 2 more stations: one with Imogen Heap and one with Coldplay. I liked that it let me say yay or boo to a song. If I said boo, like I did with the Dave Matthews song (I hate Dave Matthews!), it told me it would never play the song again. You can choose to retire a song for a month if it's been played too much lately. You can also click Quick Mix and it'll shuffle all of your stations for you. Then I went ahead and invited some friends to check it out.

I love this site!

Exercise 4 - Play Day (Image Generators)

Today was all about image generators. Seeing as I'm such a bakery nut, it was natural that I gravitated toward the cookie generator first. Above is the product of my exploration.

I also liked the post it note generator:

Some of the sites were really fun, but some that I was really interested in, like the mosaic generator, were defunct. :(

All in all, this was a fun exercise.

Exercise 4 - Play Day (Readers Advisory)

Today I visited some Readers Advisory sites. I started with ShelfAwareness, which is a good site, but I opted not to subscribe to the daily newsletter. I have a hard enough time keeping my inbox cleaned out without adding more to it! I visited the Webrary, which is a good tool, but I think I'll need a LOT more exploring time just to see half of it. I liked that GoodReads was included on the list, seeing as I am already a member. I love how I add a ton of books to my To-Read list just by looking at what my friends have read. I checked out OverBooked and somehow wound up at Rocky River Public Library's page. I even checked out Nancy Pearl's recommendations for 2008. I found a book there that I'm going to add to my To-Read list. And of course, I LOVE Fantastic Fiction, seeing as how I have to use it just about every day to answer patrons' questions. Thinking about how many books I want to read now is making my head swim...

...TBC...