Bloglines

Bloglines is a web-based news aggregator for reading syndicated feeds using the RSS and Atom formats. I went ahead and started to set up a Bloglines newsreader account. I can now keep building/editing the list of the feeds I get on a daily basis.
I currently have a few RSS feeds in my server toolbar, including BBC News Front Page and Latest Headlines. RSS is a set of Web-based formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video. An RSS document includes full or summarized text, plus accompanying metadata. RSS feeds benefit readers who want to keep up with various websites' postings or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

UbuWeb

A very exciting technology-related thing in the world of libraries is the ever growing world of digital libraries. UbuWeb is an extensive online digital library collection of avant-garde material featuring visual, concrete and sound poetry in addition to film and sound art mp3 files. UbuWeb was founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith in response to what he considered a “marginal distribution of crucial avant-garde material.” (found in UbuWeb’s manifesto) UbuWeb provides access to out-of-print avant-garde material as well as representing the work of contemporaries through the digitization of text, image, film, and sound. UbuWeb is completely independent from any institution and therefore free from any academic bureaucracy. The web space is provided by donors with an excess of bandwidth willing to contribute to the building of this digital collection. Other supporters include WFMU, PennSound, Artmob, Greylodge, Art Torrents, Electra, and Roulette. Below is an excerpt from the “About UbuWeb” section of the website:
Essentially a gift economy, poetry is the perfect space to practice utopian politics. Freed from profit-making constraints or cumbersome fabrication considerations, information can literally “be free” on UbuWeb, we give it away and have been doing so since 1996…we’ve gotten queries from Ph.D. candidates seeking information to third graders researching a paper on concrete poetry.

Flickr mashups

Wikipedia defines a mashup as "a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool." Flickr has an open Application Programming Interface (API for short). This means that anyone can write their own program to present public Flickr data (photos, video, tags, profiles or groups) in new and different ways. There's a long list of API methods available to you to work with.
One such 3rd party site I investigated was Airtight Interactive's Flickr Postcard Browser . This lets you browse Flickr's huge image database, by searching for tags (keywords). Flickr Postcard Browser use the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface. The image above is the result of a search for the tag "Dr. Evermore", the local artist who makes large scale sculptures from scrap metal.

Flickr

Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and an online community platform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications. In addition to being a popular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers as a photo repository. Its popularity has been fueled by its organization tools, which allow photos to be tagged and browsed by folksonomic means. (To the right is a tag cloud of the most popular tags used by Flickr users.)

If you're a member of a Flickr group, you can add your photo to the group pool. The easiest way add a photo to a group is to go to the photo's page and click the "Send to Group" button between the photo title and the photo.

Here is a link to a list of library-related Flickr sites: libraries using Flickr.

7 1/2 Habits of Lifelong Learners

23 Things was originally set-up as part of PLCMC's Learning 2.0 project to encourage staff to experiment and learn about new and emerging technologies that are quickly reshaping the context of information on the Internet today. The program's objectives are to encourage exploration of Web 2.0 technologies and provide librarians with new tools (available on the Internet) to better support PLCM's mission Expanding minds, Empowering individuals and Enriching our community.

PLMC provides a video describing the 7 1/2 habits of highly successful lifelong learners. These include:

Begin with the end in mind
This habit describes the importance of setting goals. Without an end in mind, the learner cannot direct his/her actions towards a desired result. However, it is important to understand that learning can be a rather serpentine process that often veers from the set path due to unforeseen circumstances. In short, it is beneficial to set goals, but it is also important to maintain a flexibility that allows you to explore unknown lifelong learning possibilities along the way.

Accept responsibility for your own learning
This habit states the importance of inner discipline as opposed to external pressures in regards to the learning process. To value and take pride in learning is the first step towards a thorough and upright education.

View problems as challenges
The importance of viewing every obstacle as a learning opportunity can never be understated. Welcome challenges! They are the only way to grow.

Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
This habit describes the importance of maintaining a positive or at least compassionate self image. We all have the power to make or break ourselves.

Create your own learning toolbox
This habit discusses the myriad routes towards growth and learning including: books, technology, friends, websites, etc. Collect what you need and keep track of them.

Use technology to your advantage
This habit describes technology as a tool that should be used to make your life easier. I think this is important to keep in mind-- if technology is NOT making your life easier, get rid of it quick.

Teach/mentor others
In any endeavor, it is important to share/guide/teach the knowledge or wisdom one has attained through various life experiences.

The Forseeable Future

The title of this blog comes from Argentine writer, poet and librarian Jorge Luis Borges's short story The Aleph published in his short story collection The Aleph and other Stories in 1949 and later revised by the author in 1974. In Borges's story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points and whoever looks into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously and without confusion.

Along with The Aleph, a number of contemporary thinkers believe that many of Borges's imaginative works of fiction somehow bizarrely prefigured the future of the World Wide Web. A recent book by Perla Sasson Henry Borges 2.0: From Text to Virtual Worlds compares the decentralized internet of Youtube, Wikis, and blogs with several of Borge's stories, including the Library of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths, and The Intruder.

This blog will be my opportunity to experiment with various Library 2.0 Strategies through the 23 Things compiled by PLCMC, as well as provide a space for communication and sharing links. Cyberlandomania!!!