Week 10 - Thing 23 - To Sum Up

Well it's been fun. Sure I may have been less than comprehensive in my coverage of some of the weeks, and sure a slight hint of cynicism or sarcasm (it's the lowest form of wit, don't you know) may have crept in from time to time, but I actually had fun for the most part and learnt a few things too.

Week 9 - Thing 22 - eBooks

We came along a bit late for the free content on the World ebook fair. It finished on the 4th of August and it now costs the princely sum of $8.95 a year to join the world public library and access that stuff. As I am way too cheap to cough up that sum for a bunch of old ebooks, I went to Project Gutenberg's site and clicked through a few for free. Inkeeping with the weak thread of vintage horror I have tried to maintain through this blog, I read the first bit of The Fall of the House of Usher. I've never read it before and I was immediately captivated by the unusually lighthearted tone of the opening:

DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

Poe: wacky

Before long, reading off the monitor, eye strain set in.

Don't get me wrong, I think ebooks are fantastic and it's good that people are donating their time and energy to make all of this out of copyright material freely available, I just like paper books better is all.

Week 9 - Thing 21 - Podcasts

After checking out all three podcast sites, updating my Quicktime and even installing a third party viewer, for a long time I couldn't get a single podcast to play on my computer. Some of them sounded quite interesting, but I was feeling the constraints of time and my short attention span problem was rearing it's ugly head again. Anyway, I perservered and finally, at the end of a protracted ordeal that I ensured my colleagues had to live through with me, the disembodied voice of a dour Englishman speaking slowly and deliberately about horror films emanted from my computer speakers. It was a wonderful moment and one I shall cherish, to be sure.

Week 9 - Thing 20 - YouTube

Because any excuse is a good excuse for old cigarette ads:


Damn, I used to love smoking.....

Week 8 - Thing 19 - LibraryThing

I actually got on this bandwagon about a year ago. I became rapidly addicted to adding all of the books in my house. Except the ones I didn't want to admit to. I also only put in books that I actually still own, which meant leaving out gems like A Clockwork Orange and 1984 which I borrowed from libraries or people. I also left out books that I haven't managed to finish, like Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading. Less invitation, more beheading please!

I could go on and on. But don't worry, I won't.

My LibraryThing is here.

Week 8 - Thing 18 - Zoho Writer

I really like this thing. It's portable and it's simple. I would have linked to my document, but it's incredibly dull. I can definitely see this kind of application being commonly used in the near future. Maybe even breaking Microsoft's stranglehold?

Probably not, I guess.

Week 7 - Thing 17 - TAFE 23 Things Wiki

I just created the Image Generators and Web Award Winners page and added thrilling content. In doing so, I discovered that my blues name is 'Sirloin' Bartholomew Peebles! I wonder if I can fit any more links in here.

No ..... no I can't.

Week 7 - Thing 16 - Wikis

The subject guide wiki seems like a pretty good use of the technology, but I'm not too sure about the execution. It's a bit...busy.

Overall, these were interesting but since most of them are in their infancy, it's too early to really say whether or not they will be useful.

At this point in the 23 things I'm getting concerned about the sheer weight of web 2 material that might be rolled out into unsuspecting libraries. Obviously a lot of these gimmicks will diasappear or be integrated, but when we are dealing with a client base which contains people who struggle with concepts like "left click", I wonder what it would be like trying to get them to "go onto our website and check out the blog links in the subject guide wiki."

I don't know. This stuff is cool, but is it necessary? It would be nice if the technology could one day be merged together into one user-friendly-do-everything program, but in an age of rampant global capitalism I suspect that is a naive notion. It'll probably get more, rather than less complicated. That is unless Google achieves it's aim of global domination, and at this point I would like to be the first to welcome our new overlords and offer any assistance that a puny subject may be deemed worthy of contributing.

What was I talking about anyway?

Getting down off my soap box now.

Week 6 - Thing 15 - Perspectives

I really did read a few of those perspectives on Library 2.0. Some of them were interesting, incisive commentaries prompting deep reflections and even the occasional paradigm shift on my part. But it was two weeks ago and I can't say as I can remember them right now. I'm sorry.

Quick! Look at the monkey:

Week 6 - Thing 14 - Technorati

If you wanted to add this blog to you technorati favourites for mysterious reasons known only to yourself, you would need simply click on this here thingy:

Seems I've added a tag here too:
[SJLibrary2.0]
Click on it and you'll see a whole lot of blog entries called Week 6 Thing 14. Wheeeee!