Things I'd Never Known...

...that I know now are skills that I can impart to my patrons. It's a good feeling having spent time looking at a few of these applications.

I'm especially fond of Rollyo. It's as if I've created my own version of the Internet. It truly has the potential to streamline work and can even aid in the effort to evaluate sites for content versus others. They key, however, is how good Rollyo's algorithm is. I constructed my search roll on Thomas Jefferson:

Select Search Engine...Thomas JeffersonSearch The Web

Powered by Rollyo

I'm a bit less enamored with librarything. While the idea of having my own catalog is cool, and its Web presence gives it portability, its display is clunky. However, that's me and patrons may love it. I mean, we're constantly getting comments on reading history. Anyway, here's my very small library on librarything: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/danskabeaver

Love the imagemaker. Not sure how it's useful, professionally, but I can see it being a fun way to give some artistic flare to a site:

RSSn' It

This is the most useful thing I've come across of the few tools we've looked at. Current awareness is vital in the library world and RSSing provides as much. Of course, being a complete librarian means expanded one's view well beyond the library world to news sources that speak to the events that are going on now. On the other hand, the fun stuff - sports in particular - is something that I'd prefer to not have a RSS connection to. Part of the fun IS going to each individual site and mining those special nuggets of information. I enjoy this and it gives credence to the adage that it's sometimes the journey as opposed to the destination that makes the effort worthwhile. That said, as a professional RSS feeds are a huge help. As a male in his 30s who likes sports, RSSing takes the fun out of stuff.

Flickr Good, Mashups, ehhh...

Flickr is a great site. It's a repository, art gallery, and, in its commons section, a great place to locate royalty-free photography, the last being the best part. I suffer from a nervousness that I might violate copyright with all Web-based projects I do. Flickr and Creative Commons take a lot of the Angst out of the process and for this I'm grateful.

Insofar, as the third party features of Flickr, I'd have to wonder what the utility is. I appreciate the color pickr for its ability to match style concepts for Web design, and perhaps Mappr for the rare time when I'd like to dress up a map, but montagr just looks for fun than useful, which is okay, but not really why I'd look to Flickr.

Easy - Hard

I enjoy learning, especially if it's what I want to learn. That said, I've long enjoyed setting goals and adding to my cache of experience and abilities. The 7.5 Habits of Lifelong Learners are appealing and have a definite familiarity, based on what I've done in the past and what I aim for in the future...

The Eastiest of the Habits has to be fun. I make a leap and say that fun is the most natural of human conditions. The hobgoblin, of course, is the problems that may arise along the way. Again, while I'm comfortable with all 7.5 of the these ideas, I'd have to say that turning a setback into a mere bump in the road takes perspective and discipline. I'm not always good at accepting either, but neither are both foreign. The journey's part of the goal and often times easier to savour than the result.