L&P 8: Bloglines

Check it out to see my bloglines account:

http://www.bloglines.com/public/Aeolussurf

L&P 6: Flickr Mashups

Here's a link to a card.

Clearly I should have sued a photo that wouldn't pixelate so much. :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeolussurf1/2867321899/

L&P # 5: Flickr

Please visit this link to see some Flickr work:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeolussurf1/

Sorry for the brief posting!

L&P 23: The End (or is it the beginning?)

Learn & Play was a wonderful initiative; big props to all who organized it and fostered participation. I was please with how many of the items I had already tried or even used on a semi-regular basis (over half of them). I was dismayed at how little time I have to keep up with any of the trends. I have a Facebook page, for instance, that languishes, neglected. I had not logged into Fickr for over a year before this initiative made me go back--it wasn't easy to remember my account name and password. :-) I don't even answer gmail anymore. No doubt it is a matter of priorities: if I have an afternoon and the wind is blowing, however, there's no question to me that a day windsurfing is more important than a day web surfing, no matter how many social networking sites call. For me, this initiative was best for making me take the time to discover or re-discover. That said, I suspect I won't blog any more, now that the initiative is over. Why, when nobody reads what I write and my uninspired and hasty words merely sit as bits on some server somewhere? If I'm going to keep a private diary, it will remain private and is not (as in Wilde's joke) intended for publication.

Would I do another L&P initiative? Absolutely! It would make me find time to explore. Please don't do Twitter again. It makes me feel guilty for not taking time to follow it but without a portable device I simply don't have the time. The biggest complaint I've heard from staff, speaking of time, is that they simply don't have the time to keep up, given our branch's workload. We told them they could, encouraged them to, even alloted time in the schedule, but most felt a greater obligation to public service and made sure branch work was done. Commendable but not ideal for learning. Maybe it would be different had we been fully staffed.

Farewell, dear non-readers.

L@P # 22: MOLDI

I've been using MOLDI for some time and encouraging my college students to use it as well; a decent digital reading makes some classic texts, such as Dickens' Hard Times, more accessible for many undergrads for whom literature is not a passion.

It's very exciting that MOLDI will support IPODs now.

Digital downloads are the future of media; it will not be too long, I suspect, before the library has no discs and is offering several types of download, from music to movies on demand. User behavior will drive this trend, not technology. Several different vendors are already offering library databases to support this trend, some of which offer holdings as or more interesting than what we find on MOLDI. I hope that CML can trial and perhaps subscribe to some of them. So far, film offerings are a bit scanty but we can expect to see that change.

The ability to "check out" digital offerings and have them automatically "return" will offer customers the same ability to enjoy content that we now have with check out of physical items; the library can remain a source of enjoyment and instruction for those who wish to enjoy without the necessity of purchasing, enhancing public literacy and knowledge.

L&P@CML: Podcasts

Many libraries are already podcasting. I like the Central Library (LA) podcast, which casts the content of programs at the library; the cast about the Dalai Lama was very interesting to hear. Other libraries seem to be casting about how to use their databases or the different services they offer. I was a bit dismayed at how infrequently many of the podcasts seem to occur. To the extent that podcasts primarily offer audio, they might be losing the war for survival to streaming video: for subjects that can be treated in a brief period of time (say 10 minutes), I suspect they may be less attractive than videos. Their ability to replay lengthy content (1 hour plus for the Dalai Lama program) and to save to portable listening devices in MP3 format may make them attractive for longer programs. CML might well be able to cast programs of interest. Perhaps we could feature a regular reader's advisory cast touting some hot new picks in fiction, non-fiction, children's, etc., on a monthly basis.

L&P@CML: YouTube

Hey, what's not to like about YouTube? Sure there's a lot of junk but there are also many gems. The site has contributed to making the web a more democratic (small "d") medium, allowing people with a camera and relatively little means to air their views. I go to the site to watch windsurfing videos; since we don't live in a high wind area, it is one of the few ways I can easily see the people good at the sport (unlike my own earnest but inept efforts) in motion. Librarians have already begun to exploit the medium, of course, creating their own generally low quality but fun and tongue-in-cheek content. One way we might be able to quickly use the site is to take advantage of the fact that publishers and authors are creating videos about BOOKS; they are advertisements, of course, but do provide information about the titles in a fun way. We could have a new book page and link to content, including YouTube vids, in addition to the ubiquitous Amazon.

Here a YouTube favorite, from Weird Al himself. Many of you have probably already seen it. It inspired me to become a librarian: