This week's exercises (especially reading Web 2.0: Where will the next generation of the web take libraries? and its comment on how nearly everything we do will be able to be done via computer) has given me a chilling view of a possible future (rather like that featured in many sci-fi novels) where people will spend their lives in blogland, living in isolated rooms, rather than conversing over coffee with friends, or dinner with family, or writing texts, emails, letters, or making phonecalls to people they know and love.

I hope my colleague's comment to me the other day proves to be true in this case - that usually the pendulum swings too far - into blogland this time - and then eventually settles back into a happy middle place, where it has its uses but doesn't overwhelm.

However blogs do have an obvious relevance for small businesses as a way of getting their message out there quickly and cheaply.

I can also see that for libraries - management and staff - web 2.0 can be an exciting networking tool for sharing ideas and information worldwide.

As far as a specific library's patrons are concerned, though, my feeling is that face-to-face communication in the library is more relevant. I like the idea of a physical 'blog' on a huge scroll around the library walls where patrons can write their thoughts and ideas and perhaps get together to bring these ideas together with library staff and do some more brainstorming.

I think Technorati's too much for me! Life today is so busy and so much information comes at you from all directions - for me it's already a matter of limiting it, not searching for more! It was interesting to have a look at what people are doing and looking at, though, and to explore what came up under 'Learning 2.0' as a keyword.

Week 4 #8
Tagging seems to me to be useful as a personal tool to bookmark everything of interest to you under tags that are meaningful to you, that you can access from anywhere.

I think the idea of social bookmarking and sharing the wealth of knowledge and experience 'out there' is great, with the huge reservation that the reader needs to think and consider it all, not just accept it as valid.

In my own exploration I found that almost every subject I looked into wasn't sufficiently well-defined by its tags to be a useful research tool for me, perhaps because each individual's choice of tags is just that - highly individual. If I wanted to research a topic this is not the way I would go about it, unless I particularly wanted more of other people's views rather than substantiated information, and maybe that's where it comes into its own.

Setting up the bloglines account and finding feeds was really easy in all the sites I visited, not confusing. The little icons are very visible once you know what you're looking for, or there's something to say click here for a newsfeed. Or if you copy and paste the URL it either works or it doesn't, and if the latter you just go back and look carefully on the page for the place to click. I just went to either a link from the Learning 2.0 page or chose my own topic and explored the site that came up to find how to subscribe. The Bloglines Search tool and the others listed are great in that you can put in your preferred topic and subscribe to that, but I preferred to do my own very specific searches for websites really and feel I own those feeds more, if you see what I mean.

I like the Unshelved library cartoon suggested in the programme. I love The Oxford English Dictionary's Word of the Day feed, and a food feed called Chocolate and Zucchini! Another I'm keen on is from the local newspaper from Ely in England, the closest town to the village my sister lives in - so I can find out what's going on there.

What I like about RSS and newsreaders.

It's all so simple to set up - both the bloglines account itself and the feeds. So you have whatever in the world you have an interest in coming through to you without searching each time. It would be worth taking time to set up only the best for you personally as otherwise you might suffer overload of info you don't really want.

New slants on things both in my personal and work life could come through having access to this info. Recipes and/or ideas for poster designs respectively maybe!

In praise of technology

It IS pretty amazing what you can do using technology these days. I'm fancying a flashy mobile phone with picture capability and even a x3 zoom, plus all the usual other 'extras' like internet access, music! Everything in one compact little package.

Although I haven't joined any online photo-sharing site my daughter sends links to her published photos, which is great. She puts them on really soon after any trip or visit or celebration, so although she's half a world away I can see them so soon after the event it's almost as though I lived around the corner and she popped round to show me.

I did know before that you can create photo albums online using a site like Flickr, but hadn't realised you can do your own jigsaws, posters, CD covers, etc, too.

I liked the Flickr Color Pickr site very much. Simply choose the colour you want and it finds, very quickly too, a selection of public photos in the chosen hue. I'm not quite sure how useful it would be if you had a specific poster project in mind and needed a pic since you can only choose the colour and not the subject matter. It was fun to look at though!

Week 2 Fun with Flickr
Enjoyed looking around Flickr and finding loads of really wonderful photos. It's very simple to find images of a particular subject when you put in the tag/tags, although I did find some photos came up that, as far as I could see, bore no relationship to the tag I'd searched.

Below is the link to a photostream I found very appealing - I particularly liked one called 'Milk & Chocolat' probably because it has so much blue on it and because it has been created in a very simple fashion. This photographer has come up with some stunning images.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/larsvandegoor/

Well, it's the end of Week One - how have I found it? I thought the whole process of setting up a blog was very straightforward and had fun playing with the colours, template, etc and popping in a picture.

I find it pretty amazing that it's such a simple process, and now feel sure that the rest will be equally easy.

I have found it difficult to set aside the time this week, but hope to get onto it sooner in the ensuing weeks.