Facebook and LinkedIn

I guess I must be getting old. Facebook especially felt like a bad dream about high school. Trying to find friends and then having to wait to see if people you picked as friends selected you - or acknowledged you were their friends - it was enough to make you break out in a rash. LinkedIn seemed geared to a more professional crowd since most of the questions related to finding a new job or connecting with people who could use your services on a consultant basis.
Unfortunately this was an insane week for me, so I didn't get to explore these tools in as great a detail as I would have liked - I never signed up for MySpace, although I plan to next week to see what all the buzz is about.
I could see the utility of these programs from a networking standpoint, although only if you post answers to questions about your profession and your unique skill set - rather than your biggest crush and favorite nail polish color. :-)
I'm having difficulty seeing it's utility for the library in terms of having a presence there - although again - perhaps I'm showing my age, which I didn't think was that advanced, but maybe in regards to this technology. The examples on our assignment page were more applicable to teens, doesn't seem like the grad students we deal with would have time or interest in this other than to share stories about med school or nursing school.
I can see privacy being a concern, but it seems that would be best addressed by the individual and how much information they put out there. I think like online publishing was, it's a new frontier and it will take time for some of us to embrace it and it's possibilities.
But I'm glad I am experiencing all these things since they are so in the news and used by so many - if I didn't have a class holding my feet to the fire I would probably never explore these things. So thanks!

blogs and wikis, oh my!

A blog is like an online diary that an individual creates, but that allows others to post their comments to. But those comments don't get incorporated into the 'meat' of the blog - rather they are more like asides. A wiki is a truly collaborative venture, where an individual can post content, but then anyone is able to edit and change that content. (Depending on how open the wiki is.) Wikis would be great for collaboration of a research project across mulitple institutions. I am working on a research project with a PI who is collaborating with several other institutions in various geographically dispersed areas. The PI was excited about using a personal file management program and sharing references, but now I'm thinking we could take it a step further and collaborate on the actual article and research findings on a members only wiki. I'm not seeing as much use for a blog. Initially, I thought it might be useful - we have one at our library to let people know what's new and different and to try and start dialog amongst our users on topics like personal file management software or the NIH public access policy. But no one is looking at it. I think it's just one more thing to look at and people are overwhelmed.

Week 1 - Blogs and RSS feeds

I'd like to go back and spend some more time customizing my blog to make it look a little more interesting/appealing. But it was certainly easy to do and the videos provided were immensely helpful.
Picking RSS feeds was more difficult - not in the sense of how to do it, but what to pick! So many interests and so little time...

RSS Feeds & YOU

This is definitely something that faculty are interested in creating, especially on their research topics. I'm presenting at a technology brown bag for the College of Nursing faculty on this topic soon, so this assignment is very timely. I think most people are interested in it as it relates to setting up search alerts. We already have a blog set up with an RSS reader (I'm probably using the terminology incorrectly here) for the library, but it hasn't generated alot of interest so far.