electronic consumption?

Today I created two more accounts -- for librarything and rollyo. To go along with my blogger, hotmail, gmail, ICQ, AOL, yahoo, meebo, flickr, twitter, blogger, second life, wiki accounts -- whew -- you get the idea and I'm really a luddite all things considered! I don't have a myspace or facebook page - figuring -- isn't it good enough that people can find me with a good ole google search? We talk about our ecological footprint in terms of energy consumed but I wonder if we each have an electronic footprint as well? How much space does each of us consume “out there?” Not to mention the information that the good ole government posts about me like my property value. There is information out there on the subject but it seems focused towards a generation of college-bound Internet users who don't seriously consider how much information can be assembled about them before they ever attend their freshman orientation. Mark my words; I see a day when they'll be offering genealogy classes on how to trace your family's social networking history.

thing 12 / rollyo

After learning about federated searching and its pros and cons - I wondered how I'd feel about this. I searched "nebraska" in all the rollyos provided - same results in each set. I searched some additional rollyos: Food and Dining, Reference Search and Ask Mr. Fix-it - ehhh, the results weren't impressive - I like plain google better.

Lastly, I created a Rollyo for movies in Lincoln with four sites - Douglas Theaters, The Ross, IMDB, and the Oscars. After I created the site, I searched for "honeydrippers" - a movie I know is showing at the ross. No results came up for that title. Gotta say - two thumbs down. Should I have done something differently? My thinking is that combining sites looses the ability to find what is best on each site. For optiumum results, search each site individually.

thing 11 / library thing

A while ago, I started keeping lists of books I'd read and movies I'd watched in an excel spread sheet. I keep track by author, title, and date of consumption. It's been helpful in not re-consuming the same product twice - so librarything has great appeal. I also have a huge DVD and CD collection and have crudely cataloged them at home. Sadly, my collections are too large for the free portion of the program - and I confess, I'm rather used to my system. That said, I did create an account (which was a snap) and cataloged the last ten books I'd read. Very interesting to see how many other folks had cataloged the same books as me. For the Austen books, there were too many versions to select from so I simply took the top listing - probably not the most effective way to do things.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/librarianlisalincoln

Librarything doesn't take itself too serious - here were my two favorite quotes:

"The UnSuggester will give you humorous recommendations of books you probably wouldn't enjoy." - reader's illadvisory :)

"Users (informally known as thingamabrarians, a term coined by contributor RJO)"

thing 10 / generators!

I played with several generators and had done so before but didn't know what they were called. Because of the difficulty I had uploading a picture to my blog, I selected text generators. I tried a find your hogwarts house generator by answering 10 or so questions but then the advertising kicked in and I left before my result was provided. My pirate name just didn't fit - so ... here are my best results and links:

Peter's Haiku Generator
Jam waggles custard.
The bottom squirters jingle.
A squirter giggles.
(Haiku w/silly vocabulary)

Priests kindly nail ice.
Smouldering, bad angels lurk.
Cold winds twist shadows.
(Haiku w/noir vocabulary)

And from Slognizer:

Saved by librarians!
Nebraska - today and tomorrow.
Do you know books?
coffee, i want it all.
jane austen for president.

and now for something completely different

A friend sent me this link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=87777150
-- which is a segment from NPR called "This I Belive" -- I took a stab at my own version:

this i believe

Work is not your identity. When I got my first job out of graduate school, I remember being introduced as Lisa the librarian. I always thought, wouldn’t it be fun to be introduced in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with my vocation? For example – this is Lisa – who’s trying to perfect her alfredo sauce or -- this is Lisa who is reading all the Jane Austen novels. In the U.S., work equals human value. Giving more than 40 hours shows devotion to your employer. On the home front, weekend activities should be a list of labors, not navel-gazing sloth. When I'm not at work, I foster relationships, entertain myself, and maintain my home to be a place that restores me. I am always surprised by people who say they’ll never retire. I know work is an important part of life and I am grateful for the job that I’ve been given. Still, when the time comes to no longer be a slave to my alarm clock, I have a pretty good idea that I’ll be able to set a worthy agenda for those 40 hours. I’m not ashamed to say I’m looking forward to that.

thing 9 / add feeds

... so you realize, I'm gonna have to WEED now!

I liked searching for blogs. I tested out some wierd subjects and didn't find what I was looking for - so it's not all out there or rather no one's blogging about it yet. Here's what I added:

Jane Austen's World
The Old Foodie
Nebraska eGovernment Headlines
Virtual Reference
University of Nebraska Press

There are some places I would like to provide RSS Feeds that currently do not - let me know if NET or LCL begin providing this info.

thing 8 / RSS and bloglines

I created a bloglines account a while ago. Checking my feeds is an enjoyable task and I like the one-stop shop approach to catching up on things of interest. I subscribe to a mish-mash of blogs so there's always something to suit my mood. I did the extra step of subscribing to all my co-workers blogs that makes it easier to check them. Some of my favorite blogs are the Librarian's Guide to Etiquette and Free Range Librarian. On the non-librarian side of things - I like Car Talk and Cool Tools. Combined Library Job Postings is one of the ways we fuel our job site.

Living in a small home has made me fairly fastidious about weeding - and this applies to blogs. When I subscribe to a few new ones (which I have today) I'll take out some old ones that I find I consistently read last or have lost interest. More isn't always better - in the world of blogs, more is just more to read.