Week 9, Thing 20 again and 21! A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto

YouTube posting of the Chabon interview failed. I received an email telling me it was a no-go, though I could not decipher the reason. But, look, librarian's manifesto worked, so I did correctly link my blog. Why failure with Chabon? A difference originally in the posting to YouTube? Length of the video--could be. Chabon talk was long.

On to podcasts. I have been listening to podcasts on an MP3 player for a couple of years, and I am addicted. Why not? Makes washing dishes or lifting weights much more interesting. But I had never thought of the obvious: the computer itself can deliver audio and video podcasts--an entire class can partake of information. Why is some information delivered via RSS and some via streaming? RSS newer and easier technology? I may never know the answers to these questions--and does it matter? The technology will continue to evolve, the important part being to open my mind to new applications.

Humorous, though not meant to be, article from New York Times recently, and reprinted locally about the ethics of audio delivery of printed books. People in different book clubs were interviewed and actually felt listening to a book the club was reading was cheating--not enough time was dedicated to the absorption of the book's writing, content, style...some who listened rather than read were librarians. This inflamed the group members even more. I guess we all need to continuously practice twisting and then straightening our spines on these issues.

Tried Podcast Alley. Not giving up on it (usually I use iTunes) and like the idea of not having to download software to utilize, but it certainly is visually unattractive and uninteresting. Did subscribe to The New Yorker's animated cartoons, and am now having them delivered to Google Reader, which caused me to explore Google Reader in greater depth. Ah! How one path keeps us moving further into the forest.

Week 4, Thing 9

Just placed the Blogline tutorial on my links. Something really to study several times over. Without the tutorial I never would have thought of putting Flickr photos on blog feeds or using blogs to track down podcasts. Now I just have to figure out how to download the podcasts to the computer (can I use my usual iTunes?) and upload to the iPod. I shouldn't worry about that--the kids at school can tell me easily enough.

Google has just introduced "gadgets" for use on personalized Google home pages. Added a school libraries link in about one second--I was checking on something and Google asked me if I wanted to add the gadget. A very intuitive program, to the degree that having a personalized homepage with them makes me not want to use other sites--obviously their goal. And they are very successful at it. Definitely time for each student to have his/her own home page, with blog and RSS feeds, along with a link for Harbor High's library site. One thing to do during this project is to find some links with which every student should be familiar.