Absorption and sharing of information

I have never used Scoop.it, and already I am clicking on links and information just because of the LibraryLink provided in the 23 Things NB blog, and from there I went to another page (Aboriginal Links), then to a YouTube video that I wanted to check out. Just in this small way, it is obvious that these information-sharing-tools make it easy to access and disseminate these information tidbits that you may find relevant to your interests or needs.

Checking Out Scoop.it

I followed the steps I was supposed to, searching through their pre-set topics, for something of interest to me (no cats were present), I chose a 'recommended' music topic (however, and not to be a negative-nancy, but I had a hard time, and it took me a while, to find a music topic of interest to me. I didn't find one until the 5th page....). But after some searches of my own I found a few users/topics to follow!

Of late, and for the first time really, I have been following everything going on with Canada Reads. The debates, the votes, etc. So I harnessed this interest to complete Thing 19 (to share a Scoop.it article on Twitter...P.S. yay for cross-posting--a term I have heard used but have never taken part in myself, what an exciting time in my life). Sharing does feel good, just like my mother taught me, how fun!

Duhduhduhduhduh (that's a drumroll), I went to Twitter to check out my first cross-post-thing and success!!:

Week 7 already.....back at it again!

That break seemed like a long time away from this exercise that is 23 Things NB, and the blog itself (I can sense it's--the blog's--loneliness and empty feeling).

First off, I must say, that video we had to watch for this week's YouTube lesson gave me the chills. I even shared it to my Facebook (which I never do anymore, unless I feel very strongly about what I am sharing). Very cool to say the least.

For this I will fall back on my good-ol'-go-to-subject-matter (and no not cats silly-people, LEMONS!). Instead of hyperlinking, I am going to attempt to embed the same video that I used in a previous post, none other than The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin:

 



But for realz...I mean real...videos, podcasts, etc. are definitely an easy and powerful way to disseminate information; they can be interactive, attractive, appealing, and much more. While this TED Talk may not be specifically about libraries, it is dicussing information and what are libraries if not a gateway to that information.

 

I watched this TED Talk in school a couple years ago and I always thought of it as a great (and quick) little learning tool for what these companies are doing with us/our information. It provides an alternative to just reading about it, top that off with decent speaker and some graphics in the video itself and you have yourself an attractive/appealing/powerful little snippet full of thought-provoking and interesting things to think about! Happy viewing:

 

Pinning interests...pin interests...pin terests...PPPPinterest!! (imma pin the Olympics)

So can I just start out by saying Go Canada Go! I am obsessed with the Winter Olympics. At this very moment we are ahead in the medal standings, with lots of shiny golds. But that is not the only thing I love (winning that is), I love the sport, the way (especially after Vancouver 2010) it makes me so proud to be a Canadian, the competitive spirit, the spectacular triumphs and fails, everything about it. That being said this week and the next= a non-existant life, unless it involves a screen giving me Olympic updates.

Oh shoot, this isn't about Sochi 2014....it's about Pinterest...my bad...

I have done pretty good so far tying in my off-topic topics with the THINGs of the week so let's see if I can succeed with a week of Pinteresting the Olympics! Here it goes...(I had to create an account, seeing as I have only ever visited the website once before via a link someone sent me)...

Easy-peasy, though there was not as much as I was hoping on these current Olympics, but I pinned a few pins to my Olympic board:



For our final THING this week, I don't think there is an Olympic Library to follow. There really should be though, I am sure a little library in Athlete's Village would be grand for athletes' unwinding and down-time (I am going to suggest it, and run it!). That being said, I did a search for library pinners to follow and chose a few that interested me!

Happy week and Go Canada Go!!!!!!

Images of cats, you say?.....

I must say, those videos burst my bubble (and I am not going to lie, scared me a little). I guess I should go back to a couple posts and properly give credit.

I am not new to copyright, I know (for the most part) that you can't just use anyone's images anytime you want to. But, thinking back to the lemon-cat image I posted a couple bloggings ago, it was not even an inkling of mine to give someone credit for that, as it just seemed like silly nonsense--I guess the proper thing to do is thank and give credit to...http://lordalexvw.videofoundry.co.nz/...

...but how do I know this person didn't just do the same as I did, get it from somewhere and not state the source. I guess it simply comes down to not using images you can't source, if you want to do things properly...

I found this week very interesting--learning stuff I thought I had a decent grasp on before. I must say, though, I am realizing how naïve I was about all this image usage stuff...anyhow, here is my my Wordle-created-word-cloud, legally-found-and-used-and-attributed-image and the meme I created:

(I couldn't edit the coding to make the image bigger, and not affect the quality, any tips?)

 

(How can you look at these eyes...this face...and not love Springers)


By The Boy that time forgot (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

(Not sure if trying to be funny worked out so well)

 

Social reading (sorry no chatons this week, I am getting down to business here)

I am young(ish), and of a generation that 'knows computers' (more-or-less) so to speak. But this term 'social reading' was entirely new to me. My mother even asked what it was, and I realized today that what I told her was not right, at all (I thought it had something to do with RSS feeds and reading social media 'stuff' all in one place).

Well, lo-and-behold it has to do with the reading of books--that sure made me happy! I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that I prefer reading a book over reading social media 'things.' Does this make me anti-social? Well maybe before, but now that I found out about social reading....maybe not any more!

I must admit, I have never used Bibliocommons to do anything besides searching items and placing holds. So this is my first (real) exercise, not only social reading, but with Bibliocommons as well.

So I used my personal library card to log into Bibliocommons. I made a list called 'Currently Reading' and added A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin (since that is what I am reading currently)....and voilà, I made my first comment. *I already know I will like this!* Finally, I used this item again to complete Thing 10, I read through the comments and found the silliest one there (I like silliness).

From here....well onto Goodreads I suppose, which I have used in the past to look for things but have never partaken in what it offers.

Hey NB 23 Thingers
I am going to throw out a question that I would appreciate answers to! When we are looking at these comments and users, does this bring together all of Bibliocommons? I am wondering because I always assumed these users were those who belonged to our system, but the person I decided to follow belongs to Park Ridge Library (that does not exist in NB, if it does I don't know where I have been). Thanks!



Well this was a weekly-post lacking in cat-talk. So for your viewing pleasure here is a random picture of Fawkes

So you thought this was going to be about cats?....

...well in reality it's going to be about Lemons (and maybe Tweets & the Twitter-verse, since it's Week 2's topic of discussion)...

Until this very moment, give-or-take a few [several] mintues, I have avoided Twitter because I just never got it. I created an account a few years ago, tried following people, but the only thing that followed were emails to my Gmail account that I never followed-up on.

An aside: One thing I will follow-up on is doing my utmost to give my cat a dog-complex as well as encourage her to become a Lemon, like me, as well (perhaps by administering drops of lemon juice in her water-bowl??). Whoops, I said this wasn't going to be about cats.

My apologies, I got off-topic....Twitter...I created an account, handle (a new definition for my vocabulary, to be filed alongside lemon-cat) HilaryLemon, all that was pretty straight-forward. I found a couple twitterers (another new word?...yes! I checked their glossary) to follow, and then I did something I have been dreading since Twitter became so popular...tweeting (but I had to because Thing 6 told me to do it!).

And it is done, as I said in my very first tweet, I avoided it for however many years, but here is the proof:

Some Lemon- and Twitter-things for your viewing pleasure:

Liz Lemon

The Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin

Twitter-search of 'Lemons'

I got a cat, and a blog (somewhat reluctantly)

For my first post I thought I would relate my experiences of acquiring a new blog and acquiring a new cat:

1) I never really wanted a cat, and I never really wanted a blog....

• No cat reason: I have always been a dog-person, and it's much harder to find apartments that will allow dogs than it is to find ones that will take cats.
• No blog reason: I just never thought I had enough interesting material to write about.

2) ...but here I am with both...

• Reason for cat: an opportunity arose to provide a kitten with a home, and since I can't have a dog at the moment, I thought 'why not?'
• Reason for blog: mostly 23 Things NB, and since we needed a blog to complete this, I thought 'well I have to!'

3) ...and so far it has not been as nearly as bad as I thought, and much easier to get started.

• Cats: I didn't have to do to much to get ready for her arrival and (as many people know) she is self-sufficient, so yeah, easy. And so much fun!
• Blogs: Since I have had a Gmail account for a few years now (I made the changeover from Hotmail) setting up my new blog was, well, very easy and fun figuring out what you can do (notice my hyper-linked titles and I even uploaded a photo with caption and all)!

All that being said, I am as happy as can be with both!


So there is my first blog post and here is Fawkes (the namesake of both Guy Fawkes and Fawkes the Pheonix of Harry Potter stardom). As you can see she has a dog tag. I may be giving her a complex, but I had to fulfill my want and need of a dog in some way.

Happy trails with 23 Things NB!