#23. Summation

I found a blog called "Library 2.0: An Academic Perspective." It's no longer running, since Laura Cohen, the person who was maintaing the website, has retired. But in her penultimate post, entitled Snake Oil, Bandwagons, and Library 2.0 she raises issues that are worth thinking deeply on, and thus worth ending on.

I'd also like to say that throughout this process I have begun to think not just about learning 2.0, but also about how to manage the onslaught of new technologies. Must everything be discovered? No, I don't think so. Some people seem to be far better at this. They can examine a new website or service, get the gist of its value and move on. I tend to turn things inside out in my ming, continually move for new perspectives, question again and again if it's actually worth something to me.

There was a portion of time during this 23 things exercise where I felt like I was being forced into a situation where I couldn't see the value. That doesn't mean the tools aren't valuable for other people, but I wondered why I was exploring. And I can't even say I was really exploring that heartily. I explored some of these services from the balcony of my hotel room (so to speak).

But going through the process has also made me reflect on what I like and made me think about how things that I've encountered could be used in creative ways. A week ago I devised the initial stages of a new feature for the library that I work at on the UW campus. I talked to a full-time librarian about it and he said he liked the idea. It's given me the idea to seek out a practicum where I can learn how to create podcasts. I've wanted to do this for a while anyway, and thinking about it all has brought me to this point, where I want to take the thinking to action. That's a good result from an exercise like this.

#22. Downloadable Content at Libraries

Instead of going to NetLibrary to look at the audiobooks, I've decided to do a little research on how actual libraries are using downloadable content. I read about the New York Public Library first. They have a FAQ section that is sort of amazing. They have different formats for music, ebooks, audiobooks, streaming video, etc. Then I looked at the Boston Public Library and they seem to be using the same service called OverDrive.

#21. Podcasts

I can understand why many people wouldn't be interested in podcasts. Most of them I find to be boring or irritating. But it's the podcasts that I like that make them worth it. I got into listening to podcasts because I started to listen to talk radio in my car, right around the same time that I got my first iPod, maybe 2004. I started to read a lot of news online, and so podcasts were a natural ally in the quest for more and more news.

I listen regularly to the Slate podcasts, all of which are good. I subscribe to Filmspotting (a weekly film podcast), Savage Love (weekly sex advice podcast), Musicheads (weekly music podcast). I cherrypick the rest, dipping in to Fresh Air and several others.

I don't know why more newspapers don't do more casual, personality-driven podcasts. They're a great way of luring in a new audience. I really dislike the podcasts that are read from scripts. I like the ones when people are passionate, interesting, experts, etc.

I like podcasts about film and music, so I've begun downloading podcast called The /Filmcast.

#20. Youtube

I don't know if you've ever seen this, but it is one of the first videos that I saw on Youtube that I began showing to people when I talked to them. It has a lot of the Youtube touchstones: amateur production, little to no editing, drama, the sense of having witnessed something inexplicably entertaining. Good stuff. If you haven't seen it, I assure you you won't be traumatized, and implore you to stay until the end.



Videos on Youtube, one of the things that I use Youtube for the most, often makes them unembedable, but someone is always putting a new one up, and if they have to, will videotape their own television. But it feels much more about fandom than about not paying for something. Like this video, how can you not love it?

#19. Urban Spoon

OK, urbanspoon.com is insane! First, I looked at restaurants in Madison, and this ranks them, which makes me want to go to some of the restaurants I haven't been to and to not name the one that isn't on their top ten, lest it get busier than it already is. I checked out the breakfasts, because we basically only go to the Original Pancake House. Marigold Kitchen seems to have a good rating, and you can access the menu, see a map to its location, read reviews.

The oddest thing was that I checked out Green Bay after Madison, and noticed a link to Luxemburg, this tiny town that I grew up in, not exactly the most urban place for your spoon, and it had a top ten of restaurants from that area! And they are pretty good suggestions. Excellent tool for travellers, for vacation, for dumbfounded resource searchers, extremely comprehensive and easy to use.

#18. Google Docs and Zoho

The two words that keep recurring throughout this process of web 2.0 exercises is the emphasis upon things being free and communal. I've used google docs in a few classes, and the more I use it, the more I see its use. No more group emails where documents are attached and people try to edit them, not knowing what the current state of the group project is. No more of the inability to open documents because your Mac cannot open the file extensions of new Word packages (i.e. docx). For example, I have to be on a computer with the newest version of Word to open the lectures for this class. That computer doesn't exist in my home. But Google docs works well!

This is the first time I'd heard of Zoho. I didn't create an account, because I already have access to Google Docs and because I feel like taking a break from signing up for these services that are coming too fast for me to actually use them. Zoho looks like it offers a lot, though it's a bit overwhelming to consider it all. I don't know how other people take this kind of thing in. Do you feel compelled to look at it all? Maybe find one service that intersts you and just use that? It's a bit too much for me. Google has it right IMO. Simple look, practical, flexible applications. The creativity comes from the user. It's easy to do a lot with little.

#17. Playing Around

Well, I created an account, but there is no "Edit" tab that I can see. The only tab available to me is "View." I can tell I'm signed in. Don't really understand what's going on. Maybe later.

I don't know about favorites. Lately, I've really liked the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall. My fiancee and I have watched it a few more times recently and it's very quotable. Now when someone speaks with a British accent, I'm tempted to tilt my head, simulate a bad British accent and say, "You sound like you're from London." When someone needs to move on, I say, "It's like The Sopranos--it's over. Time to find a new show." Etc.

For the headier side of my personality, I'd recommend The Complete Essays of Montaigne, translated by Donald M. Frame. If I could only take one book to a desert island, blah blah blah, this would be it. I used to think the complete works of Shakespeare, but that just seemed like the appropriate answer. Honestly, I'd take Montaigne. The first essay is called "By diverse means we arrive at the same end" and the last one, is called "Of Experience." But the essay I've been reading lately, also from the "third" book, is titled "Of Vanity." I just flipped it open to a random place in the essay and found this:

Whatever it is, whether art or nature, that imprints in us this disposition to live with reference to others, it does us much more harm than good. We defraud ourselves of our own advantages to make appearances conform with public opinion. We do not care so much what we are in ourselves and in reality as what we are in the public mind. Even the joys of the mind, and wisdom, appear fruitless to us, if they are enjoyed by ourselves alone, if they do not shine forth to the sight and approbation of others.

This made me think of writing this blog, and all blogs in general. There's something strange and fruitless to the feeling that others must read it, and I don't really know why that's so important. But it feels like it is, whether by art or nature. And I wonder about how good it is too, which is why I closed my Facebook account. I did feel defrauded by the notion that I somehow needed to live in the online public square.

I remember writing to a friend (a letter, by hand, on sheets of paper, because Montaigne will inspire that kind of thing) calling Montaigne a friend. I regretted it after I'd sent the letter, because it felt ridiculous to write. And it still sort of is, but there's something about this book that feels a lot like the best aspects of friendship.