Several posts (and some comments too!) in one day?

It's by way of apology for missing a few days and by way of warning that I'm on leave all next week and offline. So no more posts for at least 10 days.

See you then.

I'm definitely getting too old.

Tasked with exploring Second Life and it's utility for the library, I've now made three trips and spent about three hours there.

And each time I just get motion sick. Great.

Still, at least this last time I actually managed to find some work related things (rather than find a beach to lie on, drums to play or strip naked messing with clothing options - and let's not go there with the - very temporary - breasts and beard look). Visited the SL Best Practices in Education 2007 exhibition (but teleported away and couldn't find my way back). Actually made it to Info Island and looked round the library - but didn't seem to be able to read the books. Met a library/info guru who explained a couple of things to me and helped direct me to a couple of things which was fun.

But all in all a mite frustrating.

Still unclear about fair use?

This is a marvellous tour de force:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo&eurl=

One of the things I've fallen into in this new job is exploring the Web 2.0ishness (and of course Library 2.0 stuff) and social networking sites etc. The aim being to see how useful such things might be in our library work rather than just playing with them for the sake of it.

Not that I wasn't uninterested in my old job - but here it seems we're further behind and I'm finding that anything I learn or do means I'm well ahead of the game and becoming the de facto expert if not an actual expert.

But as you sign up for more and more things, create logins/passwords, profiles - even avatars now - it all becomes harder to keep track of. But there's something else that's been niggling at the back of my mind and Sarah Houghton-Jan puts it really well:

http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/2007/05/sarahs_social_n.html


No, she's not the only one.
Worse yet, I feel myself being put off bothering by just such a sense.
I can't even recall when I last logged onto Ning.

Yes, I know I know. I've not posted for a while.

What with grandiose plans to blog about a non-work related item that I've chickened out of (made me feel far too vulnerable), the funny blank post that I've yet to correct and now can't even remember what it was about, and then several odd days off doing various things, it's been one of those fortnights.

So to get me going again, I'll post this:
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/how-to-prevent-running-out-of-blogging-steam.html

[Blank post]

Nope. Left it far too long. Can't remember what it was about. Probably says far too much about me and my blog to want to dwell on. Sorry. WDB.

Not got anything done at this end of the day as it's the staff quiz tonight and we've been trying to pressgang someone into making up a full team thanks to the sickness of an office colleague. But if the evening is half as much fun as last time round, it should be good. Not that my general knowledge is great - I have brushed up on State capitols which I've not been sure of since I was about 9 - but they're bound not to come up.

Feeling a bit of a buzz today.

I think it's because the training session I was preparing on Monday seemed to go so well this morning.

The first 10 minutes we did most of this acvitity:
http://mlearning.edublogs.org/2007/03/16/workshop-activity-paper-blogs
which was enthusiatically embraced even by those familiar with blogs. And to think I'd nearly backed out of doing it at all. Then 25 minutes of "too many blogs and how to cope with them via a blog reader" - comparing Bloglines and Google Reader in some detail. Then 5 minutes to finish with the video that I mentioned on Monday (connected to the session by being a good example of the distraction of blogs in something found by an (otherwise) very useful/productive work-related blog!).

Given that I was a bit unnerved by:
a) the fact that I was supposed to be running the session jointly with a senior colleague but he'd pulled out for some reason or another
b) the head of library and the two associate librarians all turned up, not to mention one of the largest turn outs of library staff I've seen for one of these sessions
c) I'd been having a crisis of confidence that the whole thing was too basic (or "fun")

it was quite gratifying to find get some really good feedback and thanks that it had been really helpful and just the right level.

So much for my plan to be so trivial or light-hearted I was never asked again.

One of those frantic days that seems incredibly full and yet you've got nothing done.

Not helped by parents coming to the city to buy a new gadget (they can't decide between a hugely lustworthy Archos 700TV or something similar but with a bigger screen that plays DVDs directly). But they took me to lunch which was great - particularly as it's not been possible for the last 6 months with them abroad.

Then the last hour of the day taken up by me being asked to meet with the two associate librarians (my boss and her counterpart) about e-matters. She was concerned with the "c generation" (2nd featured article at: http://www.econtentmag.com/ but unfortunately not available online), and he was concerned with add ons to the library catalog to make it more interactive. Not entirely sure that we achieved anything but it's encouraging to know that if the library's held back from "e development" it won't be that level of management that stops it.