Google... It's not a post about what you think

Google likes to celebrate uncommon holidays. When they do that, we see a change in the way Google is presented on the initial search page. It's been dressed up for a birthday party when it recently celebrated it's ten year anniversary. It's sported Olympic rings and Chinese dragons to honor the most recent Olympic games. We'll be sure to see soon pumpkins at Halloween, turkeys in November, and possibly decorated fir trees in December. So why not urge Google to acknowledge World Diabetes Day. It may seem like a silly thing, but wouldn't it be great if the millions of users of Google were educated, if only slightly, about a disease that affects us all. Even if you don't have it, I bet you know someone who does. If you are interested in signing a petition to do just that, please feel free to click on the "sign the petition" button below. And thanks!

Web 2.0 Awards List

I browsed the awards list and found several that I recognized. Although there are many useful sites, I wanted to focus on one that I'd never visited before. There seem to be so many it was almost like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or maybe I was like a kid in a candyshop, and just couldn't make up my mind. In the end I found one that is health related, my initial looksy, but was actually listed under "Niche Social Networking". The site I chose to write my blog entry about is tudiabetes.com. It is, stating the obvious here, a social networking site for people who have been touched by diabetes. People who have it, who know someone who has it, who are experiencing pre-diabetes symptoms, who are type 2, or who are type 1. There are groups formed to socializing, for support systems, poetry writing, music, health related information, just about anything you can think of that someone who is dealing with this prolific disease might be seeking. My interest is two fold. My father was a type 2 diabetic and was diagnosed when I was fairly young. He initially started with oral meds and diet control but eventually his diabetes got so out of control that he needed to go on insulin shots to keep his blood sugar control maintained. My second reason is that I am a type 1 diabetic (what most people know as "juvenile diabetes"). I am insulin dependent and live with this disease every day. There is no cure (yet!) so finding a site like this where I can talk to people who are also Type 1's is comforting. I have a support system in place but like so many journeys in life it is difficult to truly understand all the nuances of a disease unless you are experiencing it too.

Living in the Cloud

The "librarian" part of my brain took over and I searched for an article related to that piece I'd heard on NPR about "living in the cloud". I found it on NPR's website - "Computing In The Cloud: Who Owns Your Files?" http://tinyurl.com/5wo2g7. Something to think about.... I am not someone typically adverse to using technology generally or Web 2.0 tools specifically. But I do think it wise to be aware and keep ourselves informed of just what we are getting ourselves into.

Google Docs

Spent a little while playing around with Google Docs. There is a similarity to the idea behind Delicious in that Google Docs frees the user from the computer harddrive. I don't know the number of times that I have been working on a Word or Excel document from multiple computers and ended up mixing myself up as to which version is the most current. I usually ended up saving the file with the date updated in the title so it was obvious at first glance (I know that viewing properties would give me the same information but just not as quickly). Even then I would sometimes not have the current one on the computer I was using. Using Google Docs instead would have allowed me to be able to access those documents from anywhere. This would certainly help me as an individual librarian, particularly if I tend to take documents home to work on or work from more than one location. Public libraries could benefit by using Google Docs when working on collaborative projects where more than one person is responsible for completing a document, when a group needs access to several documents but many not work in the same building or when sharing information between library systems.
One caveat, though, is to be aware of unintended consequences. I heard a story on NPR a few weeks ago (sorry, forgot which program) about how much information people are now storing "in the cloud" (ON the web as opposed to ON their own harddrive). The amount just keeps growing and has produced some unforeseen situations. Some of those consequences have been that if a server goes down, or if for some reason a user is blocked either temporarily or permanently, the information stored in the cloud is unaccessible. Sometimes permanently. There are issues with intellectual property rights too. Most people, myself included, just don't take the time to read the fine print in those user agreements we all to frequently automatically agree to just to click through to setting up our account.

Two words to the wise.... make sure you always have a backup of the current document saved on a harddrive somewhere and always read that user agreement you are agreeing to when you set up your account.

Wiki Sandbox

Today I added my blog to the Favorite Blogs section of the L&P @CML Wiki. Like many other people, I had difficulty logging in at first. I set up an account, but when I first tried to access the wiki, I was given a message that I did not have permission to leave a comment (let alone edit). Twitter was useful in that I saw conversations between people I am following that indicated I was not the only one who was having trouble. Comfort in numbers. By this morning, whatever quirky issue had cropped up was resolved. Apparently you needed to request and be granted access by someone with greater authority. Took only a few minutes and I was able to add my blog. One thing though, either someone was taking an inordinate amount of time to add their blog or they logged in and forgot they were in edit mode because the wiki was locked for quite some time.

Wikis

This is interesting. I've used wikis before (who hasn't at least perused Wikipedia?) but have never really sought them out to see how organizations use them. Mostly I have just stumbled across them while searching for information on the 'net. I do like the whole idea of a collaborative effort, where people from all over can share ideas. I even know people who continually edit Wikireadia on certain entries. As for how libraries can use, the emphasis is definitely on collaborative, whether it is librarians across the country or even world, sharing information or a local Teen Advisory Council sharing information for their club.

My four-legged kids

I'm really bored tonight, so I thought I'd add some pics of my four-legged furry kids I mention in my profile.





DJ (15 1/2)

Hoover (13 1/2)

Keesha (almost 12)

Polly (almost 9)

Luna (4)

Picasso (2)

Kasey (10 months)