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As I mentioned in my comment on Shelley's post, I'm a completely devoted fan of Google and have been finding it more and more useful in more and more parts of my life. (I know our new Assistant Director would LOVE for us all to have corporate Google accounts, too, so that might be in the future for OPPL.)I'd never used Google Alerts, though, so I added a couple: "lions" and "Peter Sarsgaard" (my favorite animal and my favorite celebrity crush). I'm not sure I really set the settings as well as I could though, because I've already gotten alerts to lots of websites which don't really even mention him. I think I'd better just set it to "news."
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The Google Doc I'm sharing--IS LIVING WITH THE YUPPIES WORTH IT?--is something I put together a couple weeks ago after visiting the new apartment tower just above Trader Joe's. The vote's still out on whether my boyfriend and I will take the yup plunge, but I thought you might get a kick out of the pros/cons we're considering.* * * * *
I've never used delicious.com, though I was familiar with it. I think my resistance comes from the same place as the part of me that decided to quit Twitter: sometimes I have to put in a locks and dams, mentally, to prevent myself from spending too much time (or, at least, too much FREE time) on the internetz. I also have other venues for sharing cool stuff: my blog, my e-newsletter about pop culture (remember! You should sign up for that by letting me know that...you know, you want to sign up for it!), and, of course, Facebook.
Anyway, it was still good to putz around delicious and it really was easy to add bookmarklets to my Firefox toolbar on my work computer. I added three for all of you to enjoy.
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Sure, there are lots of stuff in this unit which we could use as a department or library (or already do use)...but I'm always worried about participation and burnout levels. For someone who uses a fair amount of technology and digital media to organize and inspire my own life, I find myself more and more resistant about including in my working life, or in libraries in general. Resistant--not quite reluctant :).
For example, I really dig (though I don't really "digg") the new teen website especially now that, for the purpose of this Technology Adventure, I've poked around it a bit more. But--and I hope I don't step on any toes here--I'm not convinced that a mid-size library's website needs to be this interactive. As far as I can tell, all of the content generation has been from staff so far.
I understand that you've got to build up interest and build up a backlog of stuff, but...that's a lot of staff time for something I doubt many patrons are looking for/at. Lots and lots of people are already feeling like they spend too much time online--even teens. And the time they do spend is already at social media sites (whether it be a behemoth like Facebook or a more niche, interest-based site like GoodReads) so what can we do to really attract them to spend much time at ours? And is it worth the effort? I suspect that the small number of kids who get involved will already be really library-centric, so it's probably not a promotion tool....
But, whatever. I wrote a review and submitted a review of a YA nonfiction title I read and loved this weekend.
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Finally, I need to say this.
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1 comment:
See, now I consider delicious to be something I use just for me, not a social sharing thing. (Although I use it for that sometimes, too.) I find it very useful to have access to my bookmarks from all of my computers and mobile devices, as well as an easy way to go back and find sites. My browser's bookmarks lack an easy way to search and browse, and I often get frustrated trying to remember if and where I've saved something.
It's true, the teen bloggers on staff are doing a lot of work without a lot of return. That's pretty disappointing to me, as someone who worked hard on creating this. I think part of it is that they have so many other social options. If our content was getting pushed to where they already are (Facebook, etc), would that help? We need to consider what we offer that will fill a need not found elsewhere. Alternately, we really need to push and advertise the site more. Would use go up if there was more knowledge of it? Maybe if we focused more on highlighting events and books/movies/cds we own here, as an alternate form of reader's advisory, maybe that would help.
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