Sunday, July 15, 2007

My Personalized Logo Items

I have become a fan of t-shirts and baseball caps, so I decided to see what my logo would look like. I wore the outfit shown here at the American Library Association 2007 annual conference held in Washington, D.C.

My earrings are also part of my wizard identity. Since I don't want to have my ears pierced, I am always on the look out for interesting clip-on earrings. For this look, I found what are known as adhesive embellishments, and glued them to earring backs.

I liked these logo items so much, I also had a long sleeve t-shirt, sweat shirt, hoodie and mousepads made for me.

This photo was taken at a board meeting of the Continuing Library Education Network and Exchange (CLENE) Round Table. I am the editor of the CLENE quarterly newsletter, the CLENExchange.
I am also a blogger for the CLENE blog, CE Buzz.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Exploring Web 2.0 Tools

Another milestone along my Web 2.0 learning curve happening today!

I've had this blog since 2004 and have tried out lots of new online tools over the years, however, I've not learned much about html.

I'm a "template kind of person" who likes to find easy to understand examples and just customize them with my specifics.

I'm a Mac user and for blog entries, I use MarsEdit, a shareware program that costs $24.95. MarsEdit is described as a powerful blog authoring made simple with an email-like interface for editing and publishing.

My newest aha today was to figure out how to add a Twitter badge to this blog. Scroll down to the bottom to see the lines at the very bottom of this page. As you can see today I was reading about iPhones.

What I'm doing - Twitter
* Reading mail from Twitter saying the company bought iPhones for all of its employees! 16 minutes ago
follow me on Twitter

Twitter describes badges as "widgets that display your latest twitter
updates on your myspace, blogger, facebook, typepad, or other web
page. They're great for letting your visitors know what you're
doing right now and keeping your page up-to-date via SMS, IM, or
other Twitter device."

I tried it with great success because I got an email from Twitter saying they "recently made it much easier to grab, customize, and install the badge that's right for you." Even though I still consider myself using training wheels, at least I'm able to be creative!

Friday, July 06, 2007

On Blogging

Why are blogs so captivating both to read and to write?

Flash back to 2002 by reading these two articles...

The Blog Phenomenon by John D. Dvorak in PC Magazine online in February 2002

The Blogging Revolution by Andrew Sullivan in the May 2002 issue of Wired Magazine

Dvorak, a technology columnist provided a list of reasons why people blog (i.e. write personal diaries online):
• ego gratification
• antidepersonalization
• elimination of frustration
• societal need to share
• wanna-be writers

Sullivan, a libertarian conservative author and political commentator included the following thoughts in his article...

"Blogging is changing the media world and could, I think, foment a revolution in how journalism functions in our culture."

"Blogs do two things that Web magazines like Slate and Salon simply cannot. First off, blogs are personal. Almost all of them are imbued with the temper of their writer. This personal touch is much more in tune with our current sensibility than were the opinionated magazines and newspapers of old."

"The second thing blogs do is - to invoke Marx - seize the means of production. It's hard to underestimate what a huge deal this is. For as long as journalism has existed, writers of whatever kind have had one route to readers: They needed an editor and a publisher. Even in the most benign scenario, this process subtly distorts journalism. You find yourself almost unconsciously writing to please a handful of people - the editors looking for a certain kind of story, the publishers seeking to push a particular venture, or the advertisers who influence the editors and owners. Blogging simply bypasses this ancient ritual."

He ended his column by saying, "Check back in a couple of years to see whether this is yet another concept that online reality has had the temerity to destroy."

I checked Andrew's current blog, The Daily Dish today; it is one of five Atlantic Voices offered by The Atlantic Monthly online.

I love reading and contributing to blogs for two main reasons:
1. As a reader, I learn new things from those who blog
2. As a contributor, I am stimulated to generate my own ideas or search out interesting pieces of information to share with others

I write for two others besides this one:

Infoblog, started by Infopeople in 2004 as "a resource for keeping libraries up to date with new information and technologies."

CE Buzz, started by the Continuing Library Education and Networking (CLENE) Round Table of the American Library Association (ALA) in 2007 "to provide a thought-provoking resource for those interested in and responsible for Continuing Education (CE) and staff development in libraries."