Thing 20 Facebook

Well, now I'm a Facebook member. To my delight, I found one of my younger acquaintances online. The redoubtable Andy Granger has a complete, fully decorated facebook page (if that's what it's called.) He had posted his latest news --dental surgery a few hours ago. I hope I shocked him by turning up unexpectedly in a stronghold of youth like Facebook.

Thing 19 Podcasts

I've finally come into my own with these last two things. Finally, a Thing that I know fairly well.! Thanks to my iPod and my indefatigable exercise walking regime, I am an enthusiastic (and omniverous) consumer of podcasts from Public Radio. I've been known to turn off the radio during favored broadcasts like "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" and "This American Life" so as not spoil them for later podcast enjoyment during my daily walk.
While I generally download my podcasts automatically (and, for free) from the iTunes website, I didn't realize that there were other sites like podcast.com and podcast.net. I'd like to compare offerings between the various sites, but I'll have to do it on my home computer, since the library's machines don't have iTunes software loaded.

Thing 18 You Tube

At last, something I know about and use. However, I've never posted a video clip to my blog (or to anything else, for that matter).

The YouTube gem I chose is from Jacqus Tati's superlative 1949 film, Jour de Fete, but I selected it for strictly serendipitous reasons. While I was working on Thing 18, a patron walked up and asked for Jacques Tati films. I recognized a fellow enthusiast and began describing Jour de Fete, which I last saw projected against a sheet in a student film venue in Den Haag 30 years ago while I was living in the Netherlands. He'd never heard of it, and we could find no evidence that it had ever been released in an American format DVD. Well, what was YouTube meant for it if not moments like this?

Sure enough, YouTube had three separate clips from the film--although not, alas, the most wonderful scene of all. That would be the "training film" shown to the Tati and his fellow postmen, in order to teach them how to deliver the mail "a l'americaine" using the "methode atomique." Giant mushroom clouds punctuate the latest in postal technology. It sounds horrible from a 21st anti-nuclear p.o.v, but in terms of the film, it was gentle French raillerie at the expense of the American efficiency. The print I saw contained was black & white, but someone had carefully hand colored all the French tricolor flags (the "jour de fete" in question is Bastille Day, after). Purely lovely.

Thing 17 Page Composer

I quite liked the Ebsco productivity tools, or at least I liked the theory of them. In reality, I had some troubles setting up a website with the photos (of poet Thomas Clare) that I had grabbed from the Internet. I'd need to become much more familiar with the available options before I could start rolling it out with confidence for patrons.

Thing 16

This is one I like, particularly the Research Project Calculator, which is an online timeline for high school students contemplating the daunting experience of doing a term paper. I think we should have it linked to our homepage, so that I won't have to rely on my memory alone when I recommend it to patrons.

Thing 15--Online Games

August 29, 2008



Who needs a second life? I have enough trouble keeping track of the first one. Seriously, who--once safely past the solipsistic shores of adolescence---would be interested in creating an online fantasy life? The mind reels at the thought of aging 20-something troglodytes crouching their parents' basements while inhabiting some virtual fantasy life of unlimited power and sexual adventure. My God. This is the "community" with whom one is supposed to interact in the opportunities offered by Thing 15.

Still, learning about the popularity of such activities is endlessly amazing. I am struck by the sheer mechanical, quantifiable aspect of matters that in real life are soft-focus and indeterminant. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog, but in fact you can calibrate with mathematical certainty the exact degree of your non-canine life.

I've been reading Benjamin Nugent's American Nerd: the Story of My People, a weirdly fascinating account of the kind of people who spend inordinate amounts of time on game sites like Second Life. The quantifiable aspect of online human relations (Charisma Level 14; Wizardly Powers Level 6 etc. etc.) is exactly what appeals to them about the virtual social world. Not that "anything can happen in your second life" but that--unlike the life they were born into--their second life promises control and predictability in that most unpredictable of arenas--human relationships.

Thing 14

Thing 14

The Library Thing is not my thing. Why is that? Because I have enough book-talk in my real life already(I belong to 3 different book groups and I work in a library, for heaven's sake) . The idea of establishing a virtual reading life just exhausts me.
Still, it might be a good source for identifying "Other Books like [Author Name]" I wish there were a way to post appeals to collective memory, though. "Idenify this book" kind of stuff. I'd appreciate another resource for that.