WTF: 15 minutes of fame on Technorati

I wrote briefly about Technorati a few blog posts ago. I registered and claimed my blog and discovered that I already had a small community of KCLS bloggers who linked to my blog! (Hello! aseaberg, acrossanddown, and Truckin' Beagles!)

Technorati really amps up social networking opportunities. What struck me while searching for blog posts that mention kcls27things in Technorati is how many of us are forming communities of linked blogs. We even create community with people we've never met in "real" life.

As I also learned while tooling around in Technorati, kcls27things is a hot topic. The number of posts about 27things by KCLS bloggers reached a critical mass, inspiring the service to ask someone to write a Where's the Fire? (WTF) blurb explaining kcls27things sudden popularity. "WTFs are short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top." kcls27things made the Top 10 Searches today as you can see below.

Tagging is del.icio.us, Part 2

my del.icio.us tags-d032407
Originally uploaded by bright_eyed_girl.

This is a picture of my tag roll from del.icio.us, presented as a word cloud. Every tag I assigned to a website is displayed here. The tags I assigned most often are displayed with large fonts while the least used tags are displayed with small fonts.
One of my most frequently used tags is a bookmark I created for Featured websites. I used the link roll tool in del.icio.us to add the links to these sites in my kcls27things training blog. The links in the sidebar are updated as I add or remove this bookmark from sites that I tag in del.icio.us.

I am fascinated by tag clouds. I believe they reveal information about users themselves: their interests, preferences, and what informs their view of the world.

I would like to see user tagging in library catalogs, not to replace subject searching by any means, but as a way of opening up new channels of communication, or conversations, between libraries and users. I think this is a very exciting time to be a librarian!

Yellow for Orange

Pretty Orange
Originally uploaded by Aoife city womanchile.

I signed up for a Flickr account a few weeks ago in preparation of Library 2.0 training. I was amazed at how easy it was to find great pictures like this one by searching for "orange flowers." Searching with tags helps to filter search results to retrieve only the most relevant items. Imagine if we could filter search results to this level of specificity in our library catalogs!

I am in awe of the generosity of the people who share and tag their photos so that others can find them.

See my previous blog post on the usefulness of mashups.

Blog On

After I volunteered to be a Learning 2.0 Advocate, I checked out the 23 Things blog for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County (PLCMC) for a preview of things to come--and I must say, it's going to be fun! I cataloged my books on LibraryThing and tagged my favorite bookmarks on del.icio.us. Images I found on Flickr bring my blog to life and I created a little avatar at Yahoo to put in my user profile.

Stephen Abram's presentation was a wonderful introduction to Library 2.0 training. His infectious enthusiasm for his subject inspired us to think about library service in a new way.

Two books have been helpful for setting up my blog: Blogging in a snap by Julie C. Meloni and Blogging for dummies by Brad Hill. The first book is devoted to setting up and customizing blogs using Blogger and the second book has some tips for tweaking Blogger.

And speaking of tweaks, I am not one to leave things alone. I taught myself OCLC's Basic (Macro) Language so that I could write programs that automate certain repetitive tasks and reduce input errors. I love to figure out how things work and then fiddle with the code to make them work better. I've been experimenting with tweaking the HTML on my blog.

I think one of the best things about being a librarian and working in a library is the exposure to new ideas. My friend, a non-librarian, wondered how I learned about all the fun things you can do on the Internet and I told her it was because I work in a library and I get to learn something new (and share something new) every day.

Dive in, the water is fine!