Social Networking

Facebook is a fun way to peek into the lives of coworkers and fellow students, as well a great means of keeping up with far flung relatives and people I knew once upon a time. Right now I have 114 Facebook friends, many of whom I haven't seen since my freshman or junior year in high school. There are even a couple of people I haven't seen since elementary school! I tend to use it as a social, rather than professional tool, but I include less personal information on my Facebook page than I do on MySpace. This is in part due to the fact that I'm Facebook friends with many people from the library, which does raise the issue of the line between work life and personal life becoming blurred. I've even had a patron friend request me!
I keep meaning to create a LinkedIn account, maybe one of these days . . . As for Twitter, it just hasn't grabbed my interest. Maybe it will at some point.
I've seen a lot of articles lately about managing one's online identity, which prompted me to create a Google profile that will provide some basic information about me when someone searches for my full name. I do have some privacy concerns when it comes to Google, though. Between my Google profile, the content of my Gmail messages, and the searches I perform, they certainly have access to a lot of info about me! Let's hope they stick to not being evil.

Second Life

It appears that Second Life is much bigger and more rich and complex than I had imagined. The corporate world is definitely paying attention to the virtual world, and we should too! The OCLS presence in Second Life sounds exciting and as it grows I hope I'm able to get involved.

I wonder if, in a few years, most people will be involved in virtual worlds, similar to the way it seems like everyone is now using social networking sites. It could be a fun way to try on a new persona, learn new things, or meet people you might never have the chance to encounter in real life. Visiting virtual worlds also seems like an excellent way for someone with physical disabilities to socialize and get out into the "world."

Dark Side of the Web

This week's lesson was a great reminder that we need to be on guard when online. Now that I do most of my bill paying and holiday shopping over the internet, I shudder to think of what could happen if my financial info fell into the wrong hands. Thanks for helping to keep me on my toes!
The IE7 tutorial was also helpful--even though I've been using it for quite a while now, I hadn't explored some of its features, such as the RSS feed button.

Life Long Learning

I loved this week's lesson. The opportunity for life long learning that the library provides is the reason I work here!
I just finished my first semester of an online MLIS degree, so higher education 2.0 is definitely something I'm interested in. Not having to show up in person for class is incredibly convenient, but I've also found that it can be more of a challenge to stay focused.
Wikiversity is an exciting concept--it holds so much potential, especially for those who might not otherwise have access to continuing education. I'm interested to see how it evolves.
As far as the professional development sites, I was very impressed with the Positivity Blog. Attitude counts for so much at work, as well as everywhere else.
My favorite site for personal growth was the CNet Digital Home DIY. I used it to find and download a free antivirus program for my home computer. I also enjoyed salivating over Indian cooking videos at Expert Village. Aloo gobi . . . mmmmm.

Where's the Mouse

I like Clay Shirky's assertion that we are living in the midst of a cultural shift akin to the industrial revolution, and I hope that he's right. We are definitely moving in a good direction--away from being spoon fed mindless entertainment--toward a much more participatory model of shared ideas and information. Viva la revolution!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

First, let me say that Willie Nelson, with his USB bracelets, is just the coolest.

The DaVinci Institute article about libraries was fascinating. I found trend #4, "Search technology will become increasingly more complicated," especially intriguing. It blows my mind to envision a future in which technology will allow us to search for attributes like smell and opacity. Whoa.
Sometimes I worry about the future of libraries in a world where books will eventually become obsolete. But this article makes a good point--as we come up with more and more ways to perform complicated searches, people will need librarians to help them sift through the mountains of available information and find what they need. Much of what I do as a reference clerk is a matter of knowing how to navigate the catalogue, which combination of search terms to use to yield the best results. As searching gets more complicated, these skills will only become more necessary.

Open Source Information

This week's activities really drove home for me the advantages as well as the potential pitfalls of open source information. The free, collaborative nature of open source makes it vibrant and exciting, but it will only be as good as the people who participate. And we all know that while some people are great, some are not so much. I posted questions to Askville, Yahoo Answers, and Answerbag about the wisdom of voting via absentee ballot in Florida. The responses I received ranged from the common sense (our elections aren't auditable so there's no way to really know if the vote will count) to the ridiculous (ROFL! Waaa haaa! You live in Floriduh)
It's wonderful that the internet gives us access to so many diverse viewpoints, but when I read the comments that people leave about articles they've read, I often find that those viewpoints are mean-spirited, pointless, or worse. Ah well, I guess we take the bad with the good, don't we?

Googling myself made me cringe! The first thing that came up was a link to my Facebook account--so far so good. Next came a people tracker website that listed the towns I've resided in for the past 10 years, promising a full background check, complete with criminal history, aliases, and associates, for the low price of $49.95. Not that a criminal check would reveal anything, but still, I thought it was kinda creepy. There was also a link to a blog by someone who apparently uses my name when they attend Renaissance festivals. Finally, there was a link to a blog where someone had signed their name (My name! My fairly unusual name!) to some rather desperate poetry about needing to be loved. If someone from my past Googles my name in an attempt to see what I've been up to, they could very well come across this and think it was me. How embarrassing.