Blogging Section of SLA-IT

How to follow your friends' Twitters without signing up to Twitter

A useful mini-tutorial for people on Jaiku who want to follow their friends' Tweets but don't want to sign up for Twitter. Note this only works if your friends haven't required people to sign in to view their Tweets.

1. Go to http://jaiku.com/channel/create and sign in.
2. Once you've given your channel a name, add a short description and click Save Changes once you're done.
3. Click the Edit link next to Feeds.
4. Click on Add another Atom or RSS feed.
5. Enter the URL of the Twitter you want to subscribe to, in the form twitter.com/name.
6. Click Find Feeds.
7. Click the button next to whichever feed you want (RSS or Atom, that person's Twitter or the person's Twitters along with those of his or her friends).
8. Click Add Feed.
9. Do the same for other Twitters you want to add.
10. You can add an icon for the channel, create a badge (widget) for your website, modify colors and so on from the URL http://jaiku.com/channel/[channel name]/settings/design at any time.

You're automatically a member of a channel you create, and it will show up under your Contacts. That way, you can follow your friends on Jaiku without fellow Jaikus being annoyed that they're reading stuff from people they don't know (as would be the case if you just added feeds directly.

I see Michael Sauers has created a channel for Internet Librarian 2007, but he hasn't added any content to it.

Cloudalicio.us

http://cloudalicio.us/

Watch tag clouds and how they change over time. Someone oughta do this for LCSH and MESH - I have a feeling the patterns wouldn't be too terribly different.

Preservation of Personal Digital Artifacts

I'm at the ASIS&T annual meeting in Milwaukee this week. They (well, we, I suppose - I am a member) are a very academic group.

One of the posters I saw yesterday was entitled 'Exploration of the Motivation for Knowledge of Preservation Practices for Personal Digital Artifacts and Implications for Libraries'. Check it out here: http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM07/posters/34.html.

In short, Ms. Japzon is interested in how and why people save their digital stuff. Since we have a small child I spend a lot of time with our digital photos, but I don't think much about my blog posts or other digital artifacts.

How about you?

Book: The LinkedIn Personal Trainer

Steven Tylock trains people on how to use LinkedIn and has written a book called The LinkedIn Personal Trainer.  88 pages in length, the book helps people use LinkedIn more effectively.

mmm...isn't it interesting that every new tool requires a manual?  Yes, we'll jump in and learn by doing, but we also need to hear tips and techniques from someone else...even with these tools that are meant to be learned and used socially.  Thankfully, Steve has provided a manual on LinkedIn.

And...yes...some of your fellow division member are on LinkedIn (like me)!  If you haven't jumped in, why not give it a try?!  And it you need a how-to, check out Steve's book and other resources like LinkedIntelligence.com.

Pibb

The curiously-named Pibb (which I associate with a semi-obscure brand of soda) offers an interesting amalgam of bulletin board, chat, e-mail and instant messenger features. Highlights for me include private as well as public channels and searchable threads. Admittedly, some of these features are in IRC as well but I don't have a sense for how much IRC is used outside techie circles. So Pibb might be an easier sell to a general audience.

Sign-up is free: you can sign up using your AIM screen name, LiveJournal username or OpenID if you already have one. As you can see, you can embedd Pibb in your website, or add it to Facebook. I've included screenshots, so that you can see what it looks like. Yes, I have a LiveJournal. It's mostly memes and quizzes and silliness.

Local vs. global

I attended a meeting last night where the speaker gave networking tips. Many of her tips had to do with face-to-face networking.  Also at the meeting was a student reporter who was interviewing people for a story she was doing.  Her questions had to do with how small startup businesses use computers.  Suddenly the light went on in my head...!

Many people are focused locally.  If you look around, likely you can see some businesses that are focused on their regions or neighborhoods.  Many libraries have a very local focus.  Doing business with people that we interact with in our communities is very comfortable for many reasons.  And for some, having a truly local focus is the correct thing to do.

Do you need a web site if your focus is purely local?  Although I would agree that a web site could be helpful, I suspect that some businesses really wouldn't see the need if their customers truly are people in their community that they can reach out and (literally) touch. 

Do you need to use social networking tools if your focus is purely local?  Again, maybe not.  Although we know that there could be a benefit in using them.

However, if you want to reach out beyond your local area and want to do business with -- or just interact with -- people in other geographic areas, then you need to be more findable.  You need a web site and you need to be using various online tools in order to interact with your potential customers.

Local libraries do want to attract people from outside their region to use their local history collections.  They also want to remain relevant to students who head of to college and residents who travels.  They also recognize that some of their customers don't feel comfortable walking through the door, but do feel comfortable walking through a virtual door.  So being online is important.  It also helps those libraries to collaborate on electronic resources and other things that will make their collections stronger.

The other thing that really hit home last night was that I am of a different generation.  Not necessarily age-wise, but in my comfort in communicating electronically.  What is normal for me, is not normal for others who are around my actual age.  Last night's speaker has rules about what she won't do electronically, like send a note of sympathy when someone dies.  mmm...when my mother died several years ago, I sent an email note to a lot of people with the information, and received email notes of sympathy back.  The emails came quicker that the snail mail and were greatly appreciated.  But I need to keep in mind that some are not comfortable with that type of interaction.

I've rambled and don't have a "conclusion."   If you've read this far, thanks.  If you found something that hit home, that's good!  I think I just needed to get this all off my chest!

Introducing Zoho DB

Mark at TechCrunch has brought my attention to a new office tool from Zoho - Zoho DB.  It’s a database application that “accepts queries in any SQL format (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Informix and ANSI SQL dialects).”

Sounds pretty handy - especially if you don’t have access to something like MS Access and you just need to work on one database - or something simple.  I haven’t played with this tool yet, in fact I haven’t played with Zoho in a while because I liked the way Google presented their office tools better, but maybe I should give them another shot now that they have a new tool to play with.

Technorati Tags: online office, zoho