Monday 31 May 2010

New Addition

I forgot to mention, as of last week, we officially have a new addition to the family:


Yrrsss, KitKat is officially in his new houses! All your sinks are now belong to me. K thnks bye.

Thing 1 Revisited

In my eager desire to get cracking on the Cam23 23 Things Programme, a screenshot of my igoogle page is currently missing from the consciousness of my blog. After a privacy issue that was kindly brought to my attention, here is the current igoogle page:


There are some features of igoogle that I really like: the word of the day, the date and clock, the weather and the news. I prefer to read my rss feeds in a browser and I admit, the amount of time spent deciding on a theme for my igoogle probably outweighs any time saving inherent in grouping all my information together in one place. And now I know that each tab can have a different theme, the possibilities are endless...
So that others are aware, do check in your screenshots if your gmail address it visible and you don't want it to be there!

Thing 3

As the proud owner of this blog, I feel that it is within the rules and the spirit of Cam23 if, instead of creating a new blog for the project, I experiment a bit more with the one that I have. This blog began several years ago during my graduate library traineeship and as such originally focused on professional matters and library events attended. It has since evolved into a mix of personal, professional and general news-worthy posts but one key factor has remained the same - the posts continually reflect on the experiences which they describe. Whether it is a film I've seen or a conference attended, the reflective element for me has always been the most crucial and helpful aspect of blogging. Through the blog, I become a better person (professionally and personally) as I reflect on experiences.

So, blogging. Web logging. Blogs, blogger - what's it all about anyway? People with nothing better to do sitting down and typing their meaningless drivel into the void, forcing the whole world's population to consume their unwanted opinions. I admit, when I first heard about blogs and blogging, I jumped to this conclusion. Why does the world need more unsubstantiated 'facts', opinions from people no one cares about, or bizarre conspiracy theories? Who has the time to blog let alone read the thoughts of these oddballs? It was through my profession that I started to read library blogs such as The Vampire Librarian and Librarian in Black . Once I realised what blogs were for, my opinion turned around quicker than Lewis Hamilton going the wrong way into the gravel pit.

Aha, I realised, blogs don't always have to be about the unsubstantiated opinions of others about tedious and random subjects. Sure, there's enough of that out there, but that doesn't have to be it. Really, what is tedious dross to one person can become interesting information about a vital part of a particular sub-culture. If we all selectively decide which blogs to follow based on our own interests, and similarly when we blog we will naturally be drawn to write about similar topics, then we create a live dynamic interchange of information between individuals. The power of the news returns to the people from the hands of the media. No longer are the newspaper conglomerates the only people to decide which news events get into print and what is, for whatever reason, shunted aside. Bloggers report and reflect on news, aspects of various professions, films, music, gadgets, technology - and if you're not interested in a particular topic, then don't
read that particular blog!

Blogs are powerful. I have spent time today redeveloping my blog. I've changed the layout to a more visually enticing format (although, my librarian lady had to stay!) I've managed to add a 'follow me' twitter button which actually links through to my twitter profile! I've added a blog roll which I hope will expand throughout the Cam23 process. I have also learnt how to link to other sites within my blog. To be fair, my online blogging presence reflects my physical presence when it comes to diaries of any kind; I do have an unfortunate habit of simply not finding the time to write. The Cam23 process is really helping me there as well. Having a concrete purpose to write makes it easier to sit down and share my thoughts with the world (well, the small part of the world that reads this blog, anyway.)

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Things 1 and 2: igoogle

After attending the launch party for the Cam23 project last night, I felt inspired to really take on the first Thing. I am one of those people who already uses igoogle, so setting up a personalised page was not a new concept for me. I instead began by looking at pageflakes and netvibes, and was particularly impressed by the latter. Like all these tools, I feel that their usefulness has more to do with the ability of the individual to design and maintain a page rather than the innate usefulness of the tool in itself. Even when personalising a page with these tools, I find that there is always something that looked useful at the start but then clutters up the page, but I only realise how useful it really is after I remove it. Perhaps this says something about my psyche rather than the tools involved!

I did learn something new about igoogle despite already using it: I had no idea that it was possible to set up tabs in the igoogle menu bar in order to separate personalised pages into different groups of useful gadgets. This is such a fantastic idea in theory: something like the COPAC widget may be wonderfully useful whilst cataloguing but then redundant whilst browsing personal things like horoscopes or the weather. It is the perfect solution for people who like to compartmentalise their lives; one tab for work, one for home, one for weekends etc. However, whilst I am glad that I found out about the tabbing potential of igoogle, I do not enjoy segragation of life spheres. For me, web 2 technology and the developing way in which we connect and work leads to our work and personal lives merging. This is no bad thing; in fact, it allows us to see ourselves and each other as rounded people. Obviously, a degree of professionalism needs to be maintained, but surely that is also the case when people exercise restraint when  posting personal content. As information professionals, it is a positive thing that these web 2 tools inform our professional lives, and inevitable that they impact on our personal spheres.

I did add an rss feed to my igoogle and was impressed with the box that comes up to contain the feed and the ease of adding the feed. However, personally I prefer to use a reader and already use bloglines. The thought of moving my feeds across fills me with a type of dread akin to repackaging all my books for a house move. I also quite enjoy the fact that I do not have everything that I need to look at in one place; the concept of giving igoogle or netvibes access to my twitter feeds, my rss feeds, my email and everything else is one that I find slightly worrying. I need very much to stay in control and not to place too much information in the hands of one provider. Already, I do not like the fact that, if I am logged into igoogle or gmail, my ID is remembered if I use google as a search engine. I fear personalisation of results and the resulting commercial exploitation of my data. Therefore I prefer to keep things in a variety of places, under different logins and passwords. But the main reason for my need to keep some information separate is simple: I love that feeling when I log in to a particular tool - be it gmail, igoogle, twitter or bloglines - and see the notifications or feed numbers or new messages. Having everything in one place would diminish that slightly.

Looking at how libraries use netvibes was really interesting and I was impressed with how so many libraries are designing pages that pull together their electronic resources and content to one place which looks and feels fresh and current. It is important when looking at these types of tools to remember their relevance to library users as well as to librarians.

Monday 10 May 2010

23 things

I note with excitement that the 23 Things concept is coming to Cambridge! This is such an interesting way of developing knowledge of web 2 and becoming more of a reflexive practitioner. I can't wait to get started!