Web/Library 2.0

Fancy psuedo-high tech name for old concept. New technology. Love it, hate it, face it new stuff isn't going away so you may as well embrace it......or don't. The car is still here, the telly is still here and so the computer is here to stay until we can plug in directly to our brains and control everything with our thoughts. Maybe not in our lifetimes (certainly not mine, being a cat) but our children or grandchildren. Although we are still waiting for that hovercar. I am not in favor of technology just for the sake of it. I am not going to use technology I don't need. My mom wouldn't have made a myspace for her branch had it not been for the simple reality that she could not update a page on the SAPL site. That is the real beauty of technology, you need a Web site to advertise something and voila! you can have one today. AND you can update it every hour if you wish with a few clicks. Mom can remember when people paid hundreds of dollars for Web site development and now it's free to anyone who can borrow a computer.
Here's one problem I see. Online is great for some things, but not everyone is online. Even my friend who works at MICROSOFT doesn't have a home computer! So as far as the library is concerned, I think we need a good Web presence, but we need to balance that with other forms of advertising to reach our audience. We also need to watch that we don't alienate anyone with our site by making everything too cool for older computers to deal with.
The library should embrace change and technology, but look at what kinds will really enhance our services like computers to download media onto ipods, mp3 and other media players in-house. Computer classes to teach patrons how to use our Web services like Ebsco etc. Even mini-classes on how to use our catalog to find items seems very useful to me. You'd need a real live person for these classes in case of questions but you could also do videos online to walk patrons through the catalog.
I do love technology and all the fun things it can do, but I also love technology for all the useful things it can do.

Trying to catch up

Look people, I'm a busy cat. I got food to eat, sisters to harrass and humans to love. I don't have time for superfluous stuff. Sadly my mom works at the busiest branch in town and doesn't have time for lots of things like tagging blogs or bookmarking with delicious. We only use the technology we actually need. I guess if you work at a really slow branch (yes, I'm talking to you Landa) or have A LOT of free time, you may find tools like delicious or technorati useful and may actually want to tag or label your posts. Also, technology I find unamusing (not hilarious) or difficult to use (re. flikr), I just won't go any further with it. Either give me something indispensible or make me laugh people!

Rollyo

Here it is for the sake of the assignment.

Select Search Engine...MangaSearch The Web

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LOVE Good Reads!

I just wish Mom didn't have so many books to add to her shelf. I'd better get an extra can of wet food for this!

warholizer

Behold! The Warholizer!

RSS is TMI

Okay, I know my Mom is a librarian and Yeah! Information! But the RSS feeds, IMHO, are for people with ooodles of free time, no hobbies or no televisions. I have set up ONE RSS feed on my google reader, The Annoyed Librarian because during my exploration of the RSS assignment, that one looked amusing. And, I know you know, I can't stand Flickr, but also, I am sorry to say, I really dislike RSS Feeds. I've been in the trap before of signing up for a bunch of feeds that seem interesting, and then getting a pile of news delivered each day to "my door". It's like someone backed up a truck of every daily newspaper in the world and delivered it all on the front lawn in a ginormous pile of TOO MUCH INFORMATION. I really don't want all you readers to think I hate everything technology related. That's not true. I love technology. I just love technology that is useful to me personally and doesn't clutter up my life.

Crazy Halloween

Halloween certainly kicked off with some craziness. Maggie and I were dead asleep next to Mom when the house alarm went off early Friday morning. Mom and Dad freaked out and leaped out of bed. The phone rang and it was the alarm people. Being 1:45 a.m. Dad couldn't think of the exact password but Mom told him it was one of two passwords so he told that to the alarm people..."It's either this or that." Then he hung up after finding out it was the fire alarm and relaying to Brinks that there was no fire or smoke. While he was trying to turn off the beeping disabled fire alarm, Mom's cell phone rings and in the distance a siren is coming closer and closer to the house. It was really killing my ears so I ran around the house with Maggie. Mom answers the phone and tells the alarm people the same password as Dad but they keep asking "which one?" She doesn't know which one because it's almost two a.m. in the freakin' morning and we've all been woken up out of a deep sleep. Then she asks if they sent the fire dept. and they say "yes". Mom asks them "why, we told you there wasn't any fire" and the alarm people said it was because Dad didn't know the exact password he only said one of the passwords, the secondary one. So the fire department arrives with lights flashing and these giant firemen with all their gear on tromp into the house and look around for the fire while Mom and Dad stand around nearly in their underwear. Maggie and I hide under the bed because those guys sure are big. After the firemen leave Mom asks Dad, "Did the alarm people think someone broke into our house at 2 a.m., set a fire, then answer the phone when Brinks calls and tells them the secondary password just for fun?! I mean, who does that? Why couldn't they just accept the secondary password? Who could think of anything at 2 a.m. with a loud alarm blaring. After finally getting the primary password out of the alarm people and figuring out how to turn off the beeping which involved crawling into the top of a closet and moving a heavy wardrobe, Mom and Dad went to bed. Maggie and I were freaked out for awhile (I'm telling you those firemen were REALLY BIG with VERY LARGE BOOTS), but we curled up with our humans and went back to sleep.