RSS

RSS is a technology that I have now happily embraced.

Using Bloglines, I subscribed to feeds for food and the arts. Next, I added two favourite blogs - You Grow Girl and Apartment Therapy - employing the two different methods described in the CPL2.0 blog. Both methods were easily accomplished.


I enjoy dipping into the content provided by this service that is accessed from one source.
It was like creating my own magazine.

The best part is that, unlike Facebook, it requires no meaningful input from me on an ongoing basis. Interesting content, no relationship. I'm loving it.

GOOGLE and CPL2.O

Google's basic service has eliminated the routine use of many reference sources and gives every user access to a dazzling source of information. The astonishingly good gets even better with the extended list of specialized products.

This morning, I dabbled with SketchUp, a tool for creating 3D models which can be imported into Google Earth. Because time and firewalls prevent downloading the program, I explored the warehouse of models of famous sites.

On Google Scholar, I took a look at my son's list of publications. Joe J. Harrison is a post-doc at the University of Washington and writes things like, "Chromosomal antioxidant genes have metal ion-specific roles as determinants of bacterial metal tolerance". Who knew?

My personal Google favourite is the image search which allows me to find pictures of unusual things like angel wings. That was a customer's request and she was impressed with the thousands of pictures revealed by this search.

Last year while making sketches for window painting for Stampede, I wanted a model for the back end view of a horse. You guessed it; I googled "horse rear end" and found all the images I needed.

I think this makes me Joe's smart-ass mother.

Facebook, CPL 2.0 and Friendship Circles

Friends require care and attention. At my age, I have more friends than I can look after with the care and attention they deserve. An embarrassment of riches. Most of my sins are sins of omission, after all.



In my day-to-day social world, one of the greatest problems is friends who want me to be friends with all of their friends. There isn't enough of me to go around. (And, occasionally, I need to call the kids.)



In short, I'm not looking for more friends or trying to reconnect with people from past lives, however fine they might be. Downsizer mode is about trying to simplify and be selective. Removing extraneous stuff. Paying attention to what matters. Doing less, but getting more out of it, and on. I don't want baggage, including electronic baggage.

Don't call me cranky; call me selective.

Wikipedia and CPL 2.0

Wikipedia is the reference worker's best friend. When you don't know much - or anything - about a topic, Wikipedia will usually get you started and point you in the right direction for further research.

However, like many a best friend, it's a know-it-all that is sometimes wrong. No problem. There is a whole circle of other friends that love to point out the wrong-headed errors and make corrections.

I had to look no further than the CPL entry in Wikipedia to find a small grammatical error to correct and a start-class article that could be easily augmented with an additional paragraph.

CPL 2.0 , Delicious and Downsizing

Delicious is the tasty work around for providing Calgary Public Library staff's Best Websites to the customers. Library workers certainly love to hoard information and sort it into tidy little bundles!

When suffering a vacant moment on the reference desk, Delicious can help you to remember a useful site. It could also prove invaluable for training new reference staff in some of the hard-to-remember resources for complex subjects.


Unfortunately, Delicious is buried several clicks away on the CPL home page, making it an unlikely find for most of our customers. As well, you can usually find the same information faster by Googling. These days, I try to keep my headspace in downsizer mode. Layers and hoarding are out. Simple and direct are in.

All in all, Delicious is not to my taste.

Cut Down to Size

I am an early baby boomer whose generation has slung its collective weight around the world for half a century. However, age is beginning to cut us down to size. Maybe it's about time.

I have recently moved from a house to an apartment and the process of winnowing through accumulated possessions is both humbling and exhausting. Worse to confess, I have had practice. This is the second time I have downsized from house to apartment.

For most of my adult life, I moved about every four years. Then, seven years ago, I moved to the house I just left. When this stone stopped rolling, it gathered a lot of moss.

This blog and first post is part of an assignment for the Calgary Public Library where they hope to make me more technically savvy. How can you argue with an exercise aimed to make you a better person?

Not this little worker.