The 20th Thing: Books 2.0

“What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation,” he wrote, confessing that he now found it difficult to read long books

-Nicholas Carr.

The blog exercise asked what we witness at our library. Relating to the above quotation, I witness a stream of teenagers who spend their afterschool time on the internet with no purpose other than to look at booty shots and social network sites. I am not sure exactly what set of skills is being acquired by their doing this. I have another story to tell....for several years two middle schoolers skipped school to spend their time on computers at the library. They spent the whole day playing games and chatting. A call to their school brought absolutely no concern. Now they have returned as young adults....they never finished high school and the only jobs they can get are flipping burgers. All the time they spent on the internet.....what good has it done them??? I see too many kids who are rudderless wasting their time on seedy websites. I see too many adults who don't have the basic skills necesary to fill out a job application.

I've watched library checkout skew to DVD's over books. It's now close to 50 per cent. Many people utilize the library as a free video store. They never check out a book...not for themselves and not for their kids. I've watched kids be turned loose in the library for entire days while their parents are glued to social networking sites, and get irritated when the kids start crying or want something to eat. How sad.

The many sites mentioned in Books 2.0 are worth a look and offer opportunity for those who still read books to gather together in their name online. Bless them. In a few years they will probably be regarded as cultists for appreciating the written word in ancient book form. Some of the sites seem to duplicate info found in the library press with regard to book reviews.

The articles mentioned were interesting. It remains to be seen what will evolve with the future of the book and of public libraries as we presently know them.

The 19th thing: More Social networks

If you would like to join the herd, wherever it is headed, you can find a social network that will appeal. No doubt about it...from baking to bonding, it's all there....most with way too much self-important sounding commentary and way too little information.

Yep, that's the herd factor.....not much direction, but hey, let's all go anyway, there might be something there.

Munch and moo and a whole lot of cow patties down on the virtual farms.

The 18th Thing: MySpace and Facebook

Libraries are finding their way to social networking sites to play to the demographics they represent. An example is Jax Public Library teen page. The thinking is that teens already using social networking will find their library info accessible on these sites and perhaps be more participatory.
The challenge for libraries outside of content is site maintainance, if it has to be paid staff doing it.
Personally, I have tried both sites mentioned but do not care to have a presence on these type of sites at this time. But for those who like to have a door open to their personal and professional lives at all times and invite people in, good for them. I do think it was a comedown for Facebook to drop their edu requirement. It was a better site with only college membership.
And as for My Space....I can't say how many times I have witnessed 15 year olds pretending to be 23 on My Space and 14 year olds looking at booty shots on Urban Chat, thanks to the library.
You better be careful who you choose as friends.

The 17th Thing: Pod casts

I looked in the podcast directories that were presented. I'm not sure how useful many of these are, outside of the news casts, assuming you want to eternally be in the newsloop, but some are mildly entertaining with varying quality. Once again, this seems to be dominated by commercial and professional producers, and CNN, PBS and sports seem to dominate the "most viewed category"
I suppose if you were out on a trail like the one pictured here, and really had a desire to get your newsfix, you might be able to be podicated on your Ipod or MP3 player. But why would one even want that? If however, you were in some boring and purposeless staff meeting, a podcast might be just the thing to transport you to a better place more deserving of your attention.
Ill try to get a podcast here later. Before I download any additional software, I need to query some knowledgeable sources about what would be best.

Thing 16 You Tube

I chose Matt Dancing because a coworker sent it to me and I thought it shows how a clever person can get a dream job by imaginatively using YouTube

The 15th: Rollyo

Tho I tried out some of the search rolls featured on the site, none came close to giving superior results to Google. I guess my world is still small enough and the queries I deal with simple enough that I don't feel the need for such power searching. Perhaps if I were a reporter on Frontline and needed to use multiple search engines to cover salient topics, or if I were an expert in some field...let's say Geology...it might be worth the effort to commit to making searchrolls that were limited to that field.

I tried to access a library resource searchroll, but it was "private". I accessed one on a topic that I have a lot of experience searching, and I wasn't impressed with the results, certainly not enough to create my own searchroll or link to that one. Sorry, but this "thing" is just not high enough on my list of priorities to spend any more time on, because the return is just not worth the investment. It's not inherently useless; it just isn't something that I need in my worklife at present.

The 14th Thing: Productivity Tools

The online productivity tools are useful life/project organizers, particularly for those who need to collaborate in working groups across professional lines, or for volunteer organizations. They can function as a kind of intranet which all members can access thru the net without being limited to inhouse office applications for sharing files, and ideas and tracking progress on a particular project. This is good. Tools like Backpack do have portability...also a functional feature if you have a meeting where data needs to be shared beforehand, but people may not always have access to their real office.

The personalized pages/calenders available thru Google, Yahoo and other providers are useful in providing a single access/departure point for whatever one feels is useful to keep current; however it is important to remember that all these "preferences" are being tracked, analyzed, filed and marketed ...the more you show, the more they know and it is wise to keep that in mind with anything offered "free" by ISP's or others.

"In the middle of the journey of our life

I found myself astray in a dark wood

where the straight road had been lost sight of."

-Dante Alighieri