flickr and YouTube

I've been using flickr for my photos, both work and personal, for a while now. The free accounts are a bit limited in size, which is a big drawback. Tags are great, though. Here are The Hub @ WT's photos if you'd like to look at some Information Commons photos (most taken by me).

There are a lot of YouTube videos that I think are pretty great. My favorite library-related one is Saving Student Brian.



Some of our great UK Librarians made this video to replace our boring old PowerPoint presentation for our Freshmen Orientation. I taught several sessions of the orientation last fall, and I thought it was a big hit.

Come to The Kentucky to save Lexington

On Saturday, March 29, there is going to be a meeting. Wake Up Lexington: An event to save our block will be held at the Kentucky Theatre. Come out to have some refreshments, listen to music, look at film and photos, and organize to keep Lexington's downtown a place where you'd like to be.

The Most Modern Library in the World

We've been having some discussion about the future of our service points at our library. I think the most important thing is that we make sure we make a real plan with concrete objectives that lead us toward well-thought-out goals.

The Shifted Librarian's Visiting the Most Modern Library in the World is an example of an innovated library that keeps user's needs foremost, as all libraries should. This is a public library, so it is different from ours, but it might inspire some innovative user-centered ideas.

Why are old habits so hard to break?

One thing we've been talking about in the Going Green Library Committee is encouraging employees to use their own cups at library functions rather than disposable ones. A few days after we first talked about this I went to a Blue 2.0 function, and as soon as I got there poured myself a drink in a disposable cup, even though my travel mug was downstairs. Today I went to the Hospitality Committee's hot dog lunch, and, again, poured myself a drink in a disposable cup. I didn't even think about my travel mug until it was time to go out on the desk.

I feel like stapling the mug to my sleeve to get me to remember to use it. I always take it with me to the library cafeteria, because that habit is firmly ingrained. How to I learn to make it a habit elsewhere?

Second Life and Twitter

I created my Second Life account about a year ago. I always advise anyone who is trying SL for the first time to take the time to go through Orientation Island throughly. I rushed through, and I missed some fun activities that I couldn't go back to once I'd left.

Second Life is definitely interesting, and I think in some ways it's the wave of the future. I predict that the Internet will eventually become a 3D universe like this one, but I don't think it will be SL itself, just something similar. My main problem with SL is that it's private. Linden Labs is a private company in San Fransisco and SL resides entirely on its servers. I've heard that SL will eventually become open source, and that will make me feel better about it.

For this assignment, I also signed up for Twitter. I was very familiar with the concept of micro-blogging, but I just hadn't tried it myself. I had been getting Twitter updates from some individuals for a while, since you can post your Twitter feed through Facebook.

Micro-blogging reminds me a lot of text messaging or status updates on Facebook. It's a way of sending a very quick message to people you're connected with. I think it would work best in a situation where time mattered. It seems like it would be useful at a conference or a political rally, for example. One thing I fear is being overwhelmed (or overwhelming others) with trivial posts. So far, my only two posts have been "I'm signing up for Twitter" and "wondering if the weather will be as bad as predicted." Too many posts like these, and maybe people will stop "following" me.