RSS

I set up my RSS reader with Google instead of Bloglines as instructed. I hope that is OK.

I just didnt want to create yet another account when it was not necessary.

I added three sites to my RSS reader, Heretical Librarian blog, the SIL Coll. Dev. blog, and The Onion.

I don't really foresee myself using this feature very much. There are only a handful of websites that I visit regularly and none of them will work the way I want them to.....as near as I can tell.

For example, I like to read Christopher Hitchens column at Slate.com. It will come as no surprise to any who knows me that I like to read this contrarian.

However, he does not post regularly. Slate has a RSS feed option but as near as I can tell it wont let me limit it to a particular contributor. The best it does is allow you to limit it by "department". So it doesnt really save me any time in checking to see if he has a new column up.

RSS feeds don't seem to be too much of a time saver. It would just become another thing that i need to check everyday to make sure it doesnt start overflowing and become unmanagable.

I guess I am just a browser at heart.

Ways that SIL could use this technology?
It might be interesting if our patrons could create "reading interest profiles" such as political science, fantasy, or Iraq. Then whenever SIL purchases a book that falls within this profile a patron would get a "feed" sent to them, informing them fo the purchase.
Maybe even include a direct link to the catalog so a hold can be placed quickly?

For all i know SIL is already doing this!

I'm IMing

Set up my Google Talk account. I have yet to use it but I have a few invites out.

I do have a pretty long experience with chat interfaces like this, mostly through mmorpg. (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) My long sordid history includes: NWN on AOL, Asheron's Call, and EQ2. (With a few brief stops along the way in AC2, DAOC, and POTBS)

Additionally, I have been doing chat reference for a number of years.

I am a bit torn on this medium of communication.

I don't think it is a very good for "professional communication", it is far too limiting and the potential for miscommunication is too great.
I believe one of the arguements for incorporating this type of communication is because our patrons are using it and we want to make ourselves available to them. There is a certain level of truth to this and this medium does give us a great tool for remote instruction in catalog and database use.
However, truth be told, when i am doing "virtual reference" catalog and database instruction is only a small percentage of the transactions. (Although, they are the most productive and impactful.)

I think my biggest criticism of chat is that it is too "flippant". When a patron asks me for help I take their request very seriously and in turn expect them to as well. This medium of communication is rife with the internet equivalent of "prank calls".

However, i do think the informal nature of this communication could have its advantages. A potential use for this technology that I envision could be the following:

Librarians at reference desks around the sytem are all logged into a single "chat room".

A librarian somewhere has brain-lock and can't remember the series name for the "Jack and Annie" books.

They throw this question out into the chat room for all the other librarians to see and anyone who sees the question can help out with "Magic Tree House".

Anyone who has worked on a Information Desk with another librarian knows how helpful it can be to "bounce ideas of each other" or to just help out with those "brain locks" we all get.

A librarian might feel silly and reluctant to call another library to do this, but the informal nature of "chat" is more conducive to this kind of communication.

In many ways this form of communication would work better than a phone call. One nevers knows which library to call where you will get a live person and not voicemail. With a chat room you can fire the question out to everyone at the same time.

PS. I IM'ed with Dlyn. Objective complete.

What would you do?

This is scary on so many levels.

http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080314/NEWS01/803140331

Blogs, Blogging and SnoIsle 20 for 2.0

20 for 2.0

I think I have had a slight attitude adjustment from my initial views on blogging and Sno-Isle's 20 for 2.0 training.

It will come as no surprise to those who work with me my first impression was a negative one! 8^)

I must admit that I initially thought this training was not very grounded in what I do day-to-day in the library.

As I will address later on, I think in many ways the world is obsessesed with communication, sharing, and all the new whiz-bang ways we can do it. This training seemed to be unnecesarily feeding that frenzy.

However, after getting into it and visiting other peoples blogs I realized this training has a number of benefits.

• With a minimal investment of time (that staff can fit in around other activities) Sno-Isle is exposing a large number of staff members to a variety of technologies and internet features.
• Even if these are not tools that will help us do our jobs, they are tools that we should at least have a conceptual understanding of, so we can help our patrons who are involved in using these tools.
• I have often thought Sno-Isle should have a virtual photo album that contains every employee. The system has gotten large enough that it would be nice to have a anonymous tool for putting faces to names and vice versa. This photo album would be on the Intranet and organized by department/branch. Individuals could be given the option of giving biographical information about themselves, reading interests, special skills, etc.
  These blogs provide some of that functionality. Although, I still think we need the photo album!

So all in all, kudos to the 20 for 2.0 team and to Sno-Isle for this training!

Blogs and Blogging

I am often struck by the people who seem to be constantly on their cell-phone, texting, or checking email. Is all that communication actually necessary? Is it possible they suffering from some kind of ADD where being disconnected and alone is an uncomfortable to them?

I recently read a book about the United Nations which for me was a peak into my own personal version of hell. It portrayed the UN as a massive self feeding feedback loop of meetings and focus groups that created memos to be sent to other committees, who then create a final document that had no bearing or impact on the world outside of the UN. Only to be read and argued over by others within the UN. As if the greatest virtue was good intentions and not actually improving something in the world.

Is it possible that blogging is the "common man's" version of the UN hell? Only self inflicted? I update my blog, check yours, make comments, you respond to my comments, check my blog, make comments, I respond to your comments. I add a link to the news story of the day. And pretty soon it is time for me to update my blog again..and the cycle continues.

All this massive amount of communication but to what purpose? What is scary is the communication becomes the work and nothing ever gets done.

The author Robin Hobb has an interesting article on this topic.
She writes much better than I do. Imagine that!
http://robinhobb.com/rant.html

In my first blog I made the statement that if a blog is a diary then it is exhibitionism and if it is an opinion column than it is egotism.

I have never had the desire to keep a diary so I think I am free from calling myself an exhibitionist.

On the other hand, I have never caught myself without an opinion on something and humility is a virtue that I am constantly reminding myself that i need to adopt.

So I freely adopt the label as egotist.

My great hope is that if i can use this blog as an outlet for those comments that I find so clever, (but for some reason nobody else does) perhaps I wont feel the need to express them out loud.

ARGGGHHHHH!!!

I am a wreak without speall cheke!

Tolkienian boat names

I am pleasantly surprised by the number of votes I have gathered so far. I had thrown the survey up just as a way to explore the capabilities of this blog service.

I thought I would put up an explanation of the names.

Winged Balrog
This is kind of an inside joke for anyone who has delved into the geekdom that is Tolkien literary criticism. There is a great debate about Balrogs and whether or not they have wings.

For those of you that have seen the movies, a Balrog is the creature that Gandalf fought on the bridge, when he fell to his death (and later rebirth).
In the books it is described:
"the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings"
and then later:
"suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall...".

Another key passage in the debate appears in another work that Tolkien wrote about the Elder Days. In this passage he writes about the Balrogs:
"'Swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, and they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire.'

Sounds like they have wings, but then the question arises.
If they had wings why did it fall with Gandalf?
Perhaps it has wings but they don't function as wings?

There is much more to the arguement and it is so overwhelmingly geeky that I can't stop looking at it. Like some kind of terrible literary car wreck.

If you doubt the volume and veracity of this debate. Take a gander at these websites.
http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/b/balrogs.html
http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/TAB6.html
http://www.xenite.org/tolkien/do-balrogs-have-wings.html

Earendil
Known as The Mariner. He is one of the most famous figures of Tolkien's First Age. He sailed to the Valar (the gods) to beg for their help in fighting Morgoth (If you thought Sauron in the movie was bad. Morgoth was his boss.)
The name of his ship was Vingilot which in High Elven means "Foam Flower".
Now that might be a name for my boat!
http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/e/earendil.html

Tar-Aldarion
Sixth King of Numenor. Known as the Mariner King or the Great Captain. His story is a tragic one, he basically loved sailing and exploring more than his family.
On second thought this is probaby not a great name for my boat!

An interesting start

Not sure exactly how i feel about "blogging". Is it a diary or an opinion column?

If it is a diary then it feels a bit like exibitionism.
If it is a opinion column then it feels like egotism.

Perhaps I will explore that idea in a later blog.

In researching my name for this blog ( I couldn't figure out if it was Hobbesian or Hobbessian ) I stumbled across something too synchronous to ignore.

A Google search on "Hobbesian" retrieves a Wikipedia entry as the very first result.

Beneath the link to the wikipedia article is this brief disclaimer:

"Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled until March 7, 2008 (UTC) due to vandalism."

In a nutshell that pretty much sums up Hobbes' view of man and my view of Wikipedia.

Cheers

PS. I decided to go with Hobbesian because it just looks better next to Librarian. I have no idea if that is correct or not. However, the lack of "authority" seemed to go with the freespirited nature of Web 2.oh.