The Good Ship Beagle

How embarrassing…. it’s been so long I’ve forgotten my user name for my blog. And what about my own name? No, that’s OK– it’s still Amy Howlett.

Listening to librarians at the Collection Development workshop in Killington renewed my energy for completing the 23 things. Now that’s Real Social Networking! We wanted to make sure they knew about RSS feeds, about reading book reviewer blogs, about saving links with delicious– and so we found ourselves talking about Vermont’s 23 Things. For anyone who’s still finding it hard to go after this material: find a good teacher. Linda Braun showed me so much in one brief day– so many connections, ideas, uses for the new web tools.

So how did I stop working on the 23 things? Somehow that was the easiest thing to lose when I got busy this summer. Looking at the new blogs, I want to offer support for people who are bogged down in making those first posts. If we meet, if you know me– please ask me for help! (I know– it’s not help you need– it’s Time. Can’t do much about that!) If you’re in a larger library, or a supportive county group– bring up the topic, and find a partner you can talk with. Most of us are social creatures, and getting personal support might be more motivating than posting on a blog.

So here’s a post on realizing how valuable the Things have been, and on thing 20 as well– looking at the Web 2.0 Awards. Should I be surprised? Many of the winners and runners up are ideas I’ve explored thanks to 23 Things. I was surprised that Lulu aced out LibraryThing in the books category– so I explored Lulu. This looks like a great site for self-publishing. I’m not about to publish anything bigger than a blog, but I do see the retirement community loving this activity. It’s mostly memoir that I’ve been aware of– stories of street games after the war, recollections of the beginning career years and early family. Many of my relatives have taken to this– in one case spurred on by competition with an old boyfriend. Hey, if he could write his memoir, I could do twice as well! Wouldn’t this be a nice site to mention at one of those adult programs on getting your recollections on paper?

Lulu has easy introductory materials, discussion groups on different topics, and click and drag instructions for photos and styles. I didn’t load anything, I admit– but I’d feel very comfortable showing this to someone when they came to the library looking for memoir titles.

I also spent some time on Yelp, a site that aggregates travel information by city. I’m thinking about a trip to New York and was able to look at hotels and public transport for Manhattan and its neighborhoods. A friendlier way to look at information through social posts. Hotels and travel are linked together, which was sometimes helpful– transport links right next to hotels.

Mostly I noticed how many things I’ve dipped into are in the top sites– twitter, delicious, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and wikis. Yes, my life has certainly changed in the last twelve months, thanks to web 2.0!