...this just might be my thing...Library Thing, that is!

...finally!! Something I can eally get excited about on "the Net"! LibraryThing really caught my imagination. I've only posted about 10 books so far, but I can see how this could get addicting, as well as informational. Imagaine my surprise when one of my all time favorite books, a book my mother had and passed down to me, showed up as a choice of other folks, too....I own an original copy of "Mrs. Mike The Story of Katherine Mary Flanigan. I probably first read this book as a young teen, and have re-read it every few years since over the last 35 years or so....It always makes me laugh and cry, everytime! Just a few years ago, while I was paging no less, I discovered that there were 2 (or maybe 3) more books in what I'll call the Mrs. Mike series. I hunted them down and read them, too.

When I've got some time on my hands (yeah, right!) I'm fairly sure that I'll be cruising around LibraryThing!

Here's the link to my LibraryThing page http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kickingnscreaming

flickr: i'm not ready for this...

Ok, I've been putting this off as long as I can....I've gone to the flickr site at least three times now, and I still can't really get my head around all of the possible applications. We all know by now that I'm am an internet dinosaur, in that I've spent years "kicking and screaming" against joining the flood of web ether "junkies". How else can I describe all you wonderful folks who spend so much time floating around "out there" and loving it?? I'm honestly trying to love it, but I don't, I just don't, and it still makes my head hurt.

I think the concept of sharing your photos with everyone in the known universe is kinda cool, but (yup, here it comes...), I just don't have the time in my life to even begin to figure out how to "make it so"....maybe someday, sigh.

Etherial musings 1.0A

...I received my "krl2pt0" t-shirt today and promptly gave it away to my "extrinsically motivated" co-worker...

but I kept the chocolate that came with it. lol.

Etherial Musings 1.1

...well, I decided to see if i remembered anything about tagging by adding another link to my "cloud"?...is that right? Anyway, I added a link that is about something very near and dear to my heart. In early August of 2002, my daughter and i were present at the foaling of my best friend's mare, Chantares, aka Chance. Less than a week later and after two emergency trips to a vet clinic across the water Chance was dead and the filly, dubbed "Kanga" due to an exclamation by my daughter(...Oh my god, look at those kangaroo legs!), was an orphan. It was a long, hard road we went down to keep that foal alive, accomplished in no small part by the frequent (hourly feedings) and unselfish (night and day) help of many local horse people in Poulsbo and the surrounding area. It truly does take a village.

In spite of her early setbacks, Kanga has turned into a beautiful, coming 6- year- old sale prospect, and that is where the link comes in. There is a nice write up about her on the website along with still shots and a short video. Check her out at http://www.toplinesporthorse.com/ in the sale prospects under "Bequest". Why Bequest, when you thought her name was Kanga? Under the rules of the registry (can't remember which one), foals must be officially named using the first initial of their sire. Kanga's sire is Beech Grove/Big Boy, so her name must begin with a "B". My friend chose to register Kanga under the name I suggested, Bequest, as she was Chance's gift to us.

...RSS, a snap...

...well, maybe not a snap, but definitely easier for me to grasp than the previous assignments. This was truly the first time I got excited about something to do with krl2pt0 "...you mean i can subscribe to NPR or the BBC and read stuff when i have time!" That got me. I have to admit that one of the things that I miss most since going back to work 3 years ago is listening to KOUW's Weekday every morning while I puttered around the house or drove children in various directions. The sad part, though(yes, I'm still kicking and screaming about all this), is that it means I will have to spend more time in front of the computer screen to catch up on what i may have missed...sigh.

And I still had to spend hours reading and re-reading to "get" it.

Etherial musings 1.0

...well, I meant to make a post on the subject of "internal" vs "external" rewards as soon as I saw the post about incentives for doing the week 3 extras...but I was so wound up in actually trying to figure out how to do week 3 (tagging) and then bound and determined to complete the extras, just to prove to myself that I could, that I just ran out of time. I would have said something along the lines that external rewards can be effective, but generally only over the short term....if the desire to even try to learn to something new or do the best that you can at some task doesn't come from within, eventually the "where's my treat" attitude will take over, resentment will begin to permeate when the "reward" is not forthcoming and the learning/drive to perform will stop, etc, etc...

Boy, was I surprised to find out I "won" a week 3 extra. When I shared my "moral dilemma" with a co-worker, I was really surprised at the vehement response I received..."External rewards absolutely do work" I was told. "How would you like to give me YOUR paycheck!?"

Wow. Hmmm and wow again. I'm going to have to cogitate about this for awhile...

a funny thing happened behind the circ desk today...

...a patron came up to check out, and during the time I was taking care of them, they mentioned that they used to be able to keep track of books that they were interested in or had already read...B and I both commiserated with her over the fact that with our new system we could no longer do that. When suddenly, out of my wondering mouth these words popped out..."Well", I said, "I can't believe I'm even going to suggest this, but you could always open up a del.icio.us acct. and keep track of the books you were interested in that way...". Her response? She made a funny face and replied, "Huh, I want YOU (i.e the library) to do that for me!".



Two important things happened during that conversation. I realized that some of this "stuff" is starting to coalesce in my feeble brain re: 2pt0, AND, maybe more importantly, it was brought home to me that people still want us (read libraries) to provide the information they want/need WITHOUT PUTTING OUT THE EFFORT THEMSELVES! To me that means that many of our patrons still come into the physical space that is our library expecting US ( the warm bodies) to find the answers for THEM. Alot of them, like myself, are still kicking and screaming when it comes to all this whizbang stuff on the internet...



My "breakthrough" today, if you wish, which was figuring out how to actually create tags for different sites and deposit them on del.icio.us, came after many, many hours over the last several weeks, on my own time of trying to sift through all of the 2pt0 info to date that has been presented to us. I feel that there are still countless people out there who have neither the desire nor the time to learn this stuff. The wave of the future ??? I'm not sold yet.

del.icio.us...my head is spinning!

Yikes! Am I having fun yet???! Not too sure, to be honest. After a week of reading and reading and reading again the info re:del.icio.us, telling my husband( the compute nazi) that I needed to download some"buttons" to our home computer in order to continue with this project, then spending over 1 1/2 hours yesterday doing the project, I was all done in. I went well beyond sensory overload.

However, I think I actually managed to make a tag....

Outta time, more later.

Wowza, sensory overload...

Ok, I'm back for another try. I've just gone and re-read 3 of the first weeks assignments, and while I did find some interesting points, I'm truly feeling sensory overload. I find the whole internet format to affect me that way. I want my information to be right in front of me, something i can touch, feel, fondle, hold....in other words, a book or books. I find it difficult to process information from more than one "window" at a time. The opening and closing of windows, layering, etc, leaves me reeling. Maybe it's that I just don't enjoy looking at a computer screen....? (I think I feel a migraine coming on.) However, I guess I'll go check out some other folks blogs and post a comment or two.

Andiamo.

I've joined the dark side...a work in progress.

I can't believe I've actually done this, the preliminary steps to making a blog...I am sooo out of my comfort zone right now that I should have a nosebleed; but I promised myself, kind of a New Years resolution, that I would try to become more comfortable with "the Net". I'm sure that I will do alot of stumbling along with the requisite kickinag and screaming...we'll see.