Social networking

The merits and de-merits of social networking have been trawled through a million times over and have been the subject of much debate. I'm on twitter and I wasn't on Facebook until a few minutes ago (that always feels like a startling confession to make!).  The background to it is this: what started out as it not really feeling necessary some years ago snowballed into having to stick to what seemed like a decision based on a preference for relative anonymity. The truth is, since friends have moved abroad for work and such I have thought about signing up, but am afraid. Very good reasons for being afraid are outlined in this article that was mentioned in the latest 23things update : it is a minefield, people...  Apart from common sense, a good rule of thumb, I find, is that you learn the etiquette of a community by sticking your foot in it repeatedly. Not to mention the maintenance aspects of every new thing you set up: a work blog, email acc, private email and twitter account, google reader crammed with RSS feeds, college email and portal (including a distinctly facebook-like e-portfolio) to check on a regular basis. But in the spirit of trying new things (and a little curiosity) I have now signed up with a test account. Regarding a library facebook page - it might be a good way to keep students in the loop - if you can get them on board and tackle some old library stereotypes. Regarding twitter - I'm not sure to be honest how this can be used for our library. I think tweets (and blog posts) are best with either a personal dimension or else alot of new projects and events to tweet about. I was following the New York Public library but unfollowed because of the amount of stuff received. Striking the balance between enough and too many is again key! Anyway, its the Friday of a bank hollier, this is all too heavy. Have a hungover owl.

My first (proper) Wiki

I've finally gotten around to creating a Wiki. Signing up was easy. We used a wiki in college last year but I didnt enjoy it possibly because it was homework! For that task we all had to look up information on a few names we were given and add/edit the biography info on the page for the names. I found it annoying because people were sticking up conclicting info on the names and I felt uneasy about deleting other's comments and adding my own. Perhaps that was the point of the activity - to make us appreciate the ups and downs of wikis - but it backfired cos I decided I couldn't be bothered. Having thought about it since; I can very much see the point of this kind of thing - if it is done in a useful way! Lists and compilations of resources/links seem to be the way to go for me. So I tried to think of something useful that a particular group of people (you guys!! or at least anyone studying/wanting to keep up with the current research) might have a passing interest in. Lo and behod the wiki:  Library and info e-journals for Cregan Library. Its not exhaustive, I simply searched for journals containing the keyword "library" in Serials Solutions and whipped out the (I thought) relevant ones.
Feel free to add some if you can think of any.
If I decide to develop this I suppose I could add other relevant resources.

Illustration corner and Galerie martel

Yesterday's book themed illustration was by Gabrielle Giandelli and you can see more of her pictures (and lots of other great ones) on Galerie martel. I feel like changing today so enjoy Shirley and Mr.Hoffman by Milton Glaser, also on Galerie martel in the corner. Check out the Dylan poster by Milton Glaser there too..

Wikis - stand back - I've hit the motherload.

I found this wiki of (admittedly American) academic library blogs through this presentation on why using blogs and wikis in academic libraries are a good idea.

ProQuest - Library Tools

ProQuest - Library Tools

This is a great list of free resources and tools for libraries and librarians. Particularly useful marketing ideas.  I sound like I'm working for them but I promise I'm not!

Movie review and Illustration Corner update

Hi there
On the right Illustration Corner is featuring one of Katy Horan's pretty yet somehow terrifying illustrations - Spectre. I decided I'm going to have to mention featured illustrations in posts as otherwise (because they're just in the image gadget) they will disappear when I change the image.

My first movie review is below - dont worry no spoilers! 
I went to see Meek's cutoff last night and I really liked it - alas in the IFI instead of the Lighthouse. I wanted to see it before reading Kelly Reichardt's article in last month's Sight and Sound (thanks for the tipoff, Anonymous Librarian!). The film does a great job of showcasing  the hardships of frontier life for settlers in Oregon (and the American desert) in the nineteenth century. The sparseness and dustiness of the landscape and the silhouettes of parched plants and the small band of lost wanderers in the desert look wonderful against the vast rolling sky; daylit scenes are flooded with light and the nights, devoid of light, are black and eerie. You get a real sense of what it must have been like to venture into unmapped territory, without roadsigns or markers of any kind, electricity, water supplies, or technology. The movie will have its critics - it doesn't answer any questions conclusively (I heard somebody muttering about disappointment as they left the theatre) and Meek himself seems a little cartoonish - but I think it works very well as a dreamy snapshot of the frontier, and the heart of the film is in its penetrating look at people stripped down to their most vulnerable. A word of warning: bring a bottle of water!

Pixton comic

Hmmm...Pixton allows very limited cartoonery! Dont know how others managed such nice comics using this thing! Guess it was fun anyway...i hate trying to think up dialogue so in the end I just fished for and found the cheesiest library-related joke on the net. Not related to RSS feeds but in its favour it does feature an owl...if you cant read the text (which I know I cant!) click the link after the picture.

Link to my stupid library joke

Illustration corner

To the right you can now see a rotating selection of (i think) lovely illustrations for your viewing pleasure. If I was consistent I'd change them on a daily basis but sadly i cant promise that - I do promise to change them frequently and or when the mood takes me. My first is by Stacey Rozich, an American artist who's paintings remind me (im not sure why) of the Mexican art (done or commissioned) by Miguel Calderón and displayed in Eli Cash's apartment in the Royal Tenenbaums. And do you like my Charley Harper wallpaper? I've been decorating...

RSS feeds

I've always been curious about what RSS feeds were (not quite enough to do anything about it but curious nonetheless!) I set up google reader and suddenly the RSS button on my favourite sites applied to me!! Originally as well as a handful of these sites/blogs (Ted talks/the Guardian film/dvd reviews, the NY Times book review, Antler magazine) I had everybody's 23things blog in there too but felt swamped so I cut them loose (seeing as I get updates of those in Blogger already). How could having everything in one place and in digestible form be a bad idea?!
One thing I'm curious about is what the difference is between Google Reader and iGoogle? You can get RSS feeds in there too.
I haven't yed found out how to get this 'Next button' beside my bookmarks that the Anonymous librarian speaks of...hints?

Best Blogging tips blog discovery!

Hi, you might have noticed I've been tinkering with my header; adding an image from the web as background to my blog name. It isnt coming naturally though - as you can see there's a bit of the old header border sticking out the side like an unsightly blemish on the face of my blog. I searched around and found a site which gives a multitude of tips on how to change and make the most of your blog: Tips for new bloggers.com

However, shaving this bit of border off will take a little HTML editing and as I mentioned in a previous post I'm code-illiterate! So hopefully I'll figure this out in the next few days. This is the first time I've been able to see the practical application of coding - its amazing! It all makes sense! (well not really -at all! but now i have an idea of how things work). There are lots of useful tips on the site for customisation, design, code, etc.
Having said all that, if anybody can shortcut my learning curve I'll be grateful:)

Have a good weekend!

Animations provided by MySpaceAnimations.com

New movie alert!

Looking forward to seeing Meek's Cutoff when it comes out next Friday. I love a good western! Probably not a bad idea to support the poorly Lighthouse cinema either...although (just to end on an ominous note) I think its days are numbered.

Delicious imports

Twice now, I've tried to import my bookmarks from firefox and been left with an "importing...." screen for hours and zilch bookmarks imported. I doubt its the amount of bookmarks - as I have at most a meagre 40. So that's very much determining my feelings towards the site. As Anonymous Librarian has pointed out, the site is clunky. So while I agree that the idea is good, I'm finding it's not very usable. Has anyone else had trouble importing their bookmarks? Surely we shouldn't have to import one by one?! Sigh...

More guided browsing alternatives

I mentioned the other day that I had stumbled upon something...a friend recommended a site called Stumbleupon as a ready supply for blog content. Some of you might already be familiar with this (and others might shy away because (a) theres going to be more password nonsense* and (b) there is a very real possibility that the internet is going to eat your free-time/allotted leisure time/life and leave no room for anything else.) Having said that it is kind of fun - basically you sign up (which is quick and relatively painless) and pick your interests and then start stumbling across a selection of the web - giving the thumbs up to sites you like.  It's like Delicious in the sense that other people (either friends through linking up with your Facebook/google contacts etc.) or just general stumblers are 'handpicking' good sites. There is still human some filtering required here but I've already come across some really interesting things like Bookmooch.
Pursue if you dare!

 *steam out of ears

Delicious (part 2) and my first bookmark

Hi there fellow bloggers,

Yesterday I tried to import my bookmarks from Delicious and the system crashed :( However being the tenacious library assistant that I am, I'm trying again this evening. Also being impatient , I decided to start adding bookmarks in the meantime. My very first bookmark I added was the recently-renamed site called 50watts.com. It used to be the blog of Will Schofield, a book illustration enthusiast/collector with a taste for weird Eastern-European (and beyond) book covers and art. I'm still getting used to the new format but it remains a great place to go for unusual desktop wallpapers as well as inspiring images so its a nice thing to share. The irony is not lost on me that I've bypassed Delicious to do the sharing on the blog, but anyway...for a taster see below.

Delicious (part 1)

I'm currently waiting for my bookmarks to import from Firefox into Delicious (its taking an age...didn't think I had so many!) so I cant comment on the site's usefulness yet. I will second the Newkid's comment that it never seemed like a particularly useful thing to me but I'll withhold judgement until I've gotten in and had a thorough dig.

thought I would give using Jessica Hische's lettering project Daily Drop Cap a go...You copy and paste the HTML code from her website and stick it into your blogpost for an interesting first letter. For someone with very basic computer skills this gave me a great sense of achievement!

Superscholar

This is kind of interesting; it's a website called Superscholar that I stumbled on (literally - more on that later!) and is for American college students so of course it's heavily, heavily biased towards the American mindset; but wouldn't something like this be an idea for Ireland? Maybe it already exists! Let me know if it does...