A blog in which I regale you with my thoughtful analysis--or, more likely, with my sometimes-snarky comments--about books of all sorts and for all ages.
It's difficult to know how to categorize this book. Is it Time Travel? Magical Realism? Paranormal? Exactly what box should I check to describe a book in which an AOL CD-ROM in 1996 opens an internet portal to Facebook 15 years in the characters' futures?
Since the characters themselves never time travel, and no one has psychic abilities of any kind, I'm electing to put it under "magical realism." Close enough, I suppose.
Josh & Emma have been best friends since they were little kids, but their friendship has been strained most of this school year due to some misread signals in November. Now it's May, and Emma's father has sent her a new computer, for which Josh's mother has given her an AOL CD-ROM. But when Emma boots it up, a strange thing happens: her computer displays this weird website called "Facebook." Is it an elaborate prank? Why are there photos of Emma looking older? And how much DO you really want to know about your future self?
For Readers' Advisors: story and character doorways. Plenty of teen angst. Some swearing. And the audiobook alternates between a male and female narrator reading chapters from Josh and Emma's perspectives.
Whew! I made it through all the different 2.0 tasks...just in the nick of time! So many things got in the way of completing each item's required tasks, I feared I would not finish before my 4 months were up.
It's been quite an adventure going through each step. I learned so much, and there are so many things (the rest of the video sites, for example) I plan to go back and explore further. My favorite pieces were the steps where I signed up for a Facebook account (and later when I learned how to add Scrabulous to it--both are addictive!), signed up for a Pandora Radio profile, watched funny videos, and learned how to create this blog. I did enjoy many of the other sites & features we tried out as well--Flower Sudoku was fun, Flickr can be an enjoyable way to waste time online, RSS feeds are good for helping me remember what the heck it was I wanted to keep reading (like friends' blogs and so on) and letting me know when Nancy Pearl has a new podcast (radio broadcast). Meebo with the Firefox add-on helps me keep track of when friends & family are online without me having to toggle back & forth between tabs--this is a handy timesaver for me. I already had a Goodreads account, but I enjoyed creating a LibraryThing account and comparing the two. And it was good to create a Google doc from scratch instead of only knowing how to follow a set link to get to one particular file I could edit--a wide world opened up for me with that one.
I won't bother to talk about the steps I didn't like as much or find as useful. I've ranted about those enough already. If you really want to know how I feel about them, you can always re-read prior blog posts. I won't bore either of us with a repetition of my complaints & frustrations.
When I began this program four months ago, I had no idea I would find some of these 2.0 technologies so incredibly addictive or fun. I wanted to learn more about them so I wouldn't sound so clueless when interacting with patrons (especially teenagers), but I didn't think I personally would find some of them as fabulous as I did. What a wonderful surprise! And to think I got paid to learn these great new tools...wow.
I was able to find friends on Facebook whom I had not spoken to in years--never knew what happened to them after we graduated, for example. I'm glad I was sitting at my desk at the time so I didn't startle any patrons with my exclamations of joy & astonishment. :) (Apologies to any coworkers who weren't so lucky and got to share in my delight.) That was probably my most favorite aspect of this whole program and the part I'll use the most in the future, both on a personal level and probably on a professional basis as well, eventually.
My only suggestion for improvement with this 2.0 program would be that a few of the steps could use more explicit instructions. There were several times when I had to ask Sam for help because I had no idea how to accomplish something. (I can track backwards if you want to know specifics.) And there was one item where the instructions on how to accomplish a task were in the comments below the post, not the post itself. I have no objection to asking colleagues for help, and I actually think it's a better way to learn something if you have to teach someone else, but sometimes there isn't anyone around when you get to a step where you need help. So rather than saying things like "Go here and embed such-and-such in your blog," it would be helpful to include step-by-step instructions as to HOW to do that, for example. Overall, though, I think this whole experience was fantastic and completely worthwhile. Thank you very much, Discover 2.0 planning team! I look forward to using my new skills for years to come, adapting to updates and changes and new inventions as they come.
Everyone has heard of YouTube, but I have to admit this was my first experience searching for something there. Mostly I'd seen a few of the One Minute Critic videos Sam had posted on YouTube, and I think I'd seen some other random "hey-you-should-watch-this" videos other people had pointed out to me. For my search, I typed in "Library Week," which brought up ALA's videos that I wanted plus other videos I didn't particularly care about. Revising my search to "National Library Week" helped a bit with that. I also got to view a short video from some university library that was pretty cool--video of the library on campus overlaid with clips of students talking about their favorite places in the library & why & what they'd like to change if they could. That was fun!
Next was blip.tv and another search on "National Library Week." That brought up a whole list of videos in a format that was much easier to scan. I like it better than YouTube's too-crowded layout. Here's my favorite Reference video (the same one I posted on Facebook):
Blip.tv makes it really easy to embed their videos. I appreciate that! Plus, on their site, the videos are larger (easier to see) than on YouTube. You can even click a little icon and make them full-screen, which is fabulous!! (note: I just discovered almost by accident that YouTube offers this feature, too. That's good!)
I also discovered that blip.tv has a drop-down menu off to the side of the video you're watching that lets you "share" the video via a selection of options which includes Facebook. I think I'll try it and compare the two....OK, at first glance they appear the same, but clicking on the postings to view the videos has two different effects: blip.tv takes you to their site in a new tab, while YouTube lets you view right there within Facebook. I prefer the latter, I think. Still, it's good that no matter which of the two sites I'm on, I can add a favorite video to my Facebook account. (So again, why in the world would you need one of those tumblelogs??)
As for library applications, well, bring on the videos! Sam's One Minute Critic program should be advertised on our FVRL website with all kinds of videos--he's certainly got enough to choose from! Why are we not taking advantage of them? He's been posting them on YouTube & blip.tv & elsewhere for months. But why not here, where our audience/participants are likely to be?
Likewise, I think we as a library system should be using videos and podcasts to advertise all kinds of library programs and activities. Currently we're only just beginning to do this, and mostly through our teen MySpace pages, etc. This is fine--a good thing--but not enough. We're not maximizing our potential yet. (Incidentally, why can I not find links to these MySpace pages from the FVRL website? Am I just looking in the wrong place, or do you need to go to MySpace directly and then search for FVRL?)
The tricky part is overcoming search quirks. How can we be consistent in our tagging so that all related things can be found by unrelated users? Tags and titles are crucial for the ever-important "findability" factor. It's why I prefer Goodreads to LibraryThing and why I like Blogger's "show all" option for a post's labels--so that I can see what tags (or bookshelf titles) I've used in the past and remember to use them again for related items. I don't have any magic answers here. Just my opinion that there is great potential out there in techland to reach new and returning patrons, and we should be thoughtful in how we go about doing it. That's my 2 cents' worth. For today. Tune in tomorrow....
My official reading level of my blog, according to the Blog Readability Test, is "high school." Woohoo! I'd feel even smarter if only I knew whether there was a "college level" rating. Still, it was fun to test out and see.
The next cool thing I played around with learning was Scrabulous. I'm not a fan of violent computer games, and I have barely any hand-eye coordination abilities anyway, so I love the idea of playing word games online. I also like that there isn't necessarily a time limit. This is good because unlike real Scrabble, I can't manipulate the tiles with my hands, just my brain. A tricky thing some days. This is a fun (read: addictive) way to spend time at a computer.
It took a while to figure out how the site worked and how to sign up for it through my Facebook account. One didn't seem to lead to the other until I searched within Facebook for the Scrabulous application. Once I did that and added the application, I realized that there was already a game waiting for me from way back when I first joined Facebook and a friend challenged me to a game. I vaguely recall someone suggesting I join, but at the time, I didn't get the whole "application" concept and ignored her game request. So now...better late than never! (I was able to take my turn, despite the length of time between her challenge and today.) When I added the application to my Facebook account this afternoon, it asked me to invite my friends to join, so I invited a couple I thought might be interested. Many of my friends weren't listed, which I thought odd, until I realized they were already Scrabulous participants.
It would be quite easy to be in the middle of a multitude of games simultaneously, given that you can play with several people at once (on the same game even) and have multiple games going concurrently. What I have not yet sussed out is whether I'm now registered twice--once through signing up on the Scrabulous website & once through Facebook. And does this matter? I suppose I could log in to Facebook & Scrabulous at the same time and compare to see if my 2 in-progress games show up in both places. That would probably be a good clue. :)
Ooooh, telling us to sign up with Facebook (or MySpace) is a dangerous thing! I've become addicted, especially since I rediscovered several long-lost friends from childhood & college. I learned how to upload some photos, post on people's walls, send messages.... I'm still trying to figure out the deal with all these applications you can add. And what is the point of this "poking" thing? Very strange.
Today on Meebo I figured out how to change my buddy icon. Not very personalized yet, but at least it's not the photo of some man I don't recognize. (My first attempt was sort of an accident.) Now I need to start remembering to change my status message when I leave my desk or whatnot. But I like the Firefox Meebo add-on Sara told me about that keeps my buddy list in a side pane within Firefox so I can still get things done online and keep an eye on who's logged in all at the same time. (Thankfully, most of my friends seem to be offline most of the time, thereby reducing the temptation to chat instead of work.)
One thing I find REALLY annoying is how often Facebook is too busy to load. What's up with that? They need to add more servers or something. Drives me crazy when I can't navigate the site or post something and have to keep trying & trying until suddenly it goes through or the page decides it's now in the mood to load. Argh. Still...I keep trying. Addiction is a powerful motivator. Or perhaps Facebook is really some sociology professor's grand experiment? With young adults instead of mice, and computers instead of pushing bars to get the food pellets? Something to think about....
I had no idea there was so much controversy surrounding the decision for libraries to join MySpace or Facebook. Perhaps it's my relative lack of familiarity with these sites, but I don't see what the big deal is. Creating a library profile seems to me to just be another way to reach out to our patrons where they "live." We can use RSS feeds to push information to people about upcoming programs or services that we offer. There's no rule saying all users must do that annoying poke thing, and I'm sure users don't have to post all comments that come in to their pages, so what's the problem? Is it logistics? Stodginess? Prudence? Staffing? It seems to me that having a library presence on a social networking site like MySpace or Facebook is just another form of outreach--much like the bookmobiles or homebound services are. If we're sensible about how we go about setting up our library profile, can't we pretty much avoid most of the pitfalls some people seem to be afraid of? And really, how many kids are going to be THAT upset that we've "invaded their space," unless we go out of our way to be obnoxious? Most kids I know either love the library or ignore it. I don't think we're seen as offensive or anything. And it's not usually the set-in-their-ways librarians who are putting libraries on these sites anyway, it's the younger, "cooler" teen librarians.
A lot of fuss over nothing, so far as I can tell. That's my 2 cents' worth.
The Future of Us by Jay Asher
