MYSPACE

Yes I advocate MYSPACE have for almost 2 years and my closest friends are on there. ALL 5 of the best friends of my life my little sister just everyone i can think of. When i first started myspace i was all about fixing the page adding pictures let's just say that i had more time on my hands then i do now. So in honor of my blog i sent out some friend requests and changed my song and default picture. It is really simple so simple that my little sister in Africa has her own page and refuses to email me anywhere except for myspace. I have friends from high school and even some people who go to the weekly hockey games out here. It just feels good to have something that can keep me connected to everyone and does not involve me picking up the phone or writing a 3 page letter. Its awesome and everyone should just jump on board it is soooo easy and you know what when you see how good the page looks when your done you have something to be proud of cause you did that all by yourself!!!!!!

Social networking sites are really about ...?

Social Networking Sites (SNS's) are good. They are like when you were in 1st grade when if one person messed things up and didn't do what they were supposed to do then everyone suffered the consequences. Well that is what happens with everything there is nothing perfect in this world and some people decide to cause chaos. I was talking with Diane today about having a myspace page for each library. As i have said in almost all of my blogs this is a world of change, it's a world of technology that booms everyday. SNS's are like having pen pals except you can talk to each other on the web, you can see pictures you can even im them. To me its the same yes you get alot of smut comments and you have the people who curse and put images that don't really need to be seen but don't punish yourselves and everyone else because it is a good way to connect with people around the world that you know or that you have no clue. How are you going to know if you have met your best friend or your soul mate if you haven't met anyone in the world. I am sure that if you have ever moved in your life you had to leave behind a friend. For example me and my best friend have known each other for 16 years i left NY 5 years ago we don't talk on the phone much because we are always busy but we stay connected through myspace.
I think that library should promote a page in one of the SNS's because they closely relate to the teenage community. We want the kids of this generation who are completely computer literate to have everything accessible to them to give them the best life and opportunities possible. I rather them be on myspace reading about what events we have and what books are coming out than on the street doing nothing.
Times change and we just have to change with them or we will be left behind in the dust.

Adding to a Wiki

Adding to wiki is as easy as pie. All you have to do is edit type as if you were in a word document and save. Its just as if you were writing a paper except you only have to do however much you choose. The VBPL Reader's Advisory was very easy to add to and it was fun to look at because i am a blurb woman. I can read the blurb on the back or the jacket of a book and be drawn in so seeing others writing about there favorite books was fun for me. I posted Octavia Butler's Kindred i read it in high school and enjoyed it. It was something different than the regular reading for high schoolers. Adding to the wiki was a piece of cake it was point ,click type and save. To me people that come to the library come for reference but they come for the easiest reference to them. also i feel that if someone learns about something and they really enjoyed learning that they will continue their research on there own time. The operative sentence being on their own time and with wiki you can change something at 6 am or add something at 12pm. It is just so easily available to people and honestly the easier the better. I am all for library's and change. When i was young i thought all librarians had buns, pointy noses, a line skirts and just shushed shows how wrong i was library employees are full of people with knowledge that they can share whether it is on the library wiki or a wiki of there choosing.

Wiki,Wiki,Wiki

I have known about wiki's since last year. I enjoyed the ability to look something up so quickly almost like a search engine and have massive amounts of documents pop up. It reminds me of the encyclopedia Britannica except that you can beg to differ if you see that something is wrong or you can add any tidbit of whatever extra you happen to know on the subject. Funny story having to do with Wikipedia. My husband Jason came off of an 8 month deployment this year. We went to visit his brother in Pennsylvania any who when the three brothers get together they talk about hi tech gadgets and computer programs etc. So Jason was telling Ruben about Dubai a stop he made on his trip Ruben had never heard of it so he goes ok i am gonna wiki it. I knew what he meant but Jason just had this look like what the heck is wiki we explained it to him and till this day if he doesn't know something or wants to find something out he says I'mjust gonna have to go and wiki it right now lol i guess you had to be there lol
Anyway wikis are awesome totally feels futuristic when i was young i couldn't imagine anything so top notch as the stuff we have now. It makes it easier for the people who already know how to work a computer and it aides that people who are just learning.

IM and Libraries

I can bear witness that IM is a life saver. I spent most of dating my husband over the IM we lived in the same city, we saw each other everyday at school but we both HATED talking on the phone so IM saved us cause we could be watching a tv show, eating a sandwich or doing homework and still be able to have a conversation that didn't have any akward pauses.
I think that since technology has evolved so much since the 1990's when IM just began to start that libraries and all facilities should have IM i love when i have a problem on a website and i want an answer then and there that the website offers a chat now with customer service rep best thing ever invented since sliced bread and i don't have to wait on the phone for 2 hours to speak to someone.
I know that some people prefer the human contact however IM is perfect if you are too busy to speak with a human. To me a person who IM's a librarian for refrence material can do more than one thing and the librarian can help then and there. This is the new age it's understandble that some have not grown up with technology however it has been a lifesaver for me and i do honestly belive that the more broadcasting that IM's promote that more people will begin to IM the libraries. It's awesome to go into a library and get refrence but to me it's soooooo great to sit in your pajamas and not worry about doing your hair and get refrence.....

Searching for RSS

So RSS searching is kind of like searching google or ask.com. You type in what you want in my case JOHN TRAVOLTA (yes i am a travoltian) and 2 feed came up on the syndic8 search. I feel that was the easiest way for me to find out what I wanted and it was at the tip of my finger tips. I tried topix.net as well and honestly i have been searching for things that hold an intrest for me. Some of the things i looked up on topix.net were for one of my favorite authors Beatrice Small i didn't get any hits about her but i got plenty on the NHL which is my favorite thing when i have free time. I found scores, injury list articles on the players it was awesome. The other way i have been looking for feeds is by just logging on my everyday websites and searching for an RSS feed a couple of them had it some did not but i am sure that soon everyone will get hip with the times and have RSS feeds on there page. It just makes everything easier for the everyday busy person.

RSS

RSS should have standed for Really Super Simple because i have information at my fingertips that normallyI would have ran a search to find out. Because of these RSS feeds I found out that my favorite hockey player Bruno St.Jacques was reassinged to the anahiem ducks and I would not have known that because when i went searching it took me 20 minutes just to find out anything. RSS feeds are very useful and i was skeptical at first that alot of websites wouldn't have a feed and they did. I can get the latest updated news, who got traded to what team from the NHL feed, if red lipstick goes well with pale skin from cosmopolitian magazine and arts and crafts from Woman's day. RSS is a smorgasbord of new information that keeps you up with the time. Technology is constantly changing you can mail your mail from your home, you can send flowers across the world with a simple click, The web has so much to offer and with Web 2.0 being given to us to help utilize everything at our fingertips, life is becoming easier on the everyday workaholic.