Random Thoughts

Scanning the library universe, I came across an interview with David Lee King on the website degreetutor.com. The Future of Librarians Interview is an interesting read. When King was asked why libraries are still important?, he said the following:

"We are still one of the few social places one can gather, tell stories, and create stories. People will always be attracted to that type of space. And, of course, we have free stuff".

King made an interesting point. What really stands out in his answer is the comment about libraries being "social places". Much has been on the library radar about the new social web part of our lives such as Flickr, Youtube, Second Life, etc. etc.

Blinging it with Social Life

It is difficult to keep up with this new surge in social software or new and exciting applications that make your online social experience easier.. Bringing everyone up to speed can be a challenge. Larger library systems have attempted to provide staff with the opportunity to learn about Library 2.0 via self-paced online tutorials. It is beneficial and I highly recommend that everyone take the time to spend a few weeks to learn about blogging, wiki's and MySpace, etc. etc. I would not be here right now writing this post had it not been for those free library tutorials!

24 Hours Later

I realize that for the past 24 hours + 1 year ago, I have been trying to get this blog up and running. Well, here it is in beta form-finally! I shouldn't really say beta. I spent a great deal of time tweaking the format. Unfortunately, I kept changing my mind and had to go back and re-do everything over and over again. Some of the features you see on this blog may or may not work...this can be for a number of reasons. Either the HTML code is corrupt or the template I am using and edited doesn't recognize the commands. Is this getting to technical for you?

I tried to make this blog simple and use other blogs as templates. WNYC's program ON THE MEDIA has a simple blog they created for a special segment. Other blogs can be pretty intense or slightly media heavy- is one way of calling it. My dear friend Drew Pisarra writes a weekly blog for New York Magazine online about the FOX show "So You Think You Can Dance". Both of these blogs are worlds apart as far as content, purpose and audience.

There are blogs about blogs! We have the Anderson Cooper 360 Blog and we also have All Things Anderson blog. Wait did I also mention Anderson Cooper 360 Review blog? What about the real dirt about Anderson Cooper in this blog?

So what was I thinking? What does Milo think about this blog business anyway? This is a great learning experience for me. Will it just fade away and will I get tired of it? Will anyone post to this blog? Can you spell RSS?

In many professions, there is a need to keep up with all the changes around us. Wiki's, myspace, blogs, social networks like Second Life are examples of those changes. I need to get up to speed. A 10 year old at the library recently explained to me how to fix a MySpace page template!



I hope, as best as I can through this blog, to bring you along and discuss issues on a variety of topics and provide a place for you to talk back. Ok- so how does Milo fit into this? He is sitting right here dictating this posting!