Thing 4 - Exploring Flickr

Lovecraft
Originally uploaded by jovike

I enjoyed browsing through Flickr. I must admit, I've maintained a Flickr account for a couple of years at this point and have over 1000 pictures posted (only two are public--which should give you an idea of how I feel about privacy), so I spent my Thing-time focusing on features I don't use (like groups). Groups seem to have potential, and I like that they can be public or private. I'm not sure what to think of how the Clemens and Alcuin libraries of the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University are using Notes to highlight books in shots of their displays. Seems like a lot of staff time to spend on something with minimal payback, but I do think Flickr does have PR potential in the public library. If nothing else, it's seems like it'd be a great way to keep track of and organize pictures taken internally. At MCPL, such photos could then be made available to staff on LInt. Just a thought.

I'm also quite insular when it comes to using Flickr, so I don't look at stuff posted by folks other than Friends and Family. As such, I took a little time this time around to explore, but I really struggled to find something I wanted to post to my blog. I've settled on an image of some old editions of works by H.P. Lovecraft. Yes, in case you didn't know, I love Lovecraft's short stories--especially those in the Cthulhu cycle. However, this shot wasn't my first choice. I looked at pictures of famous Diggers (like Emmett Grogan), pics of bands I enjoy (like Stereolab), historic photos of Bloomington, and tried unsuccessfully to find pictures of the Indianapolis Racers before settling on the picture you see.

I didn't go through every option in the challenges section, but I did think there were a lot of cool tools available through Big Huge Labs. I even made a magazine cover. Good times.

Thing 3 - Learn About RSS

I've been using RSS on my own for a while now, so this thing didn't present a lot that was new to me. That said, I still consider myself a relative late-comer to the whole RSS thing. At first, I thought it might be cool for keeping up with news, but I soon found that my Google Reader account was inundated with new stories on an almost minute-by-minute basis. After that, I decided to seek out feeds from sites that were only updated once a day or less.

I did take the time to set up an RSS feed for every weblog in the 23 Things initiative here at MCPL. It might seem like it would take a long time to do, but I got all 50 or so blogs set up in my Google Reader account within 15 minutes. And now I don't have to click through all of those links (although I do if I want to see all of the nifty avatars and such--like the three avatars I have on my blog).

Beyond that, I've actually found RSS feeds quite useful. I set up feeds for the Rory Litwin's Library Juice blog, Jessamyn West's Librarian.net, and Nora Rawlinson's Early Word blog. I also receive the WSJ book reviews as a feed. Going to one spot to check these is great, and I'm getting updates on the issues of relevance to progressive issues in librarianship, heads-up on new books and RA tools, and insight into library technology--including the new programming field of gaming in libraries.

But what I really like is being able to 'star', 'share', and 'tag' items. This allows me to keep track of really interesting posts, share them with the world, and organize them. Right now, I'm starring anything of interest. I have a link to my shared items via my personal blog, but as I use this new account, I may create a link to my feeds in my work blog. And I really like being able to tag the WSJ's recommended reads. Even though I didn't need any more books on my "to read" list, RSS is making the list grow at an exponential rate. Wowzers!