YouTube!! Can be practical, but geez it's funny =)

I'm so glad someone at some point introduced me to YouTube. I have a lot of great memories of falling off chairs with tears streaming out of my eyes, laughing at a totally silly but hilarious video!

Currently "Beached Whale" http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHZwI8pcA is my favourite. It's such a simple little thing and yet it seems so many people I come across know about it. That's the power of popular culture when it has the means to spread with ease.

The other thing I like about YouTube is its ability to grow and change over time. The following scenario is quite common: someone uploads a video ---> lots of people watch it and it becomes very popular through word of mouth ---> some very witty and creative people edit the original video to create something new but in the same vein. An example of this is the Beached Whale video I mentioned above. Add some techno music and edit the video to match the beat and all of a sudden you have something even more hilarious and worthy of the name "Beached Whale Hardstyle" http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=aSEVCPmmTBA.

With the previous two Beached Whale videos I purposely just posted the link. This time, to practice embedding the actual video into my blog, I shall leave you with the following - "Introducing the Book". It makes fun of people's reaction to learning computers by showing how people first reacted to learning how to use books.

RSS feeds

Well, at least I can be assured I won't ever starve now that I'm being fed by Bloglines =) Let's just hope I'm not eating junk!

I'm not a huge Internet surfer. I tend to have a very focussed goal; I go straight for what I'm after; I get out :) I think RSS feeds are more for people who like to surf and turn over a lot of info. An RSS feed would significantly reduce the amount of search time.

I love the library comic strips you see around the place every now and then. With the variety and number of people you meet in a customer service role, you can't help but find many humourous situations worthy of becoming a comic. With RSS feeds I now have several library humour sites converging in one place so I can quickly and easily get my funny bone fix =)

Since doing this task I've begun to notice the surprising number of sites that display the RSS feed symbol. It's amazing how you can tune out the things you don't understand. I wonder what else I've missed that has been right in my face...

As for library RSS feeds, I can see it would be very useful for customers to receive info on library events, book awards, release dates of popular new books, etc. I see the elibcat already allows customers to subscribe to a feed. That might be a very handy piece of info to pass onto customers that show an interest!

Worked to the Bone

The thing I like about Flickr is all the unusual and funny stuff you can come across.

To be honest, I don't use Flickr personally, but I imagine from the librarian point of view it would be useful in getting informal images of the library out there into the public domain. The old straight laced view of libraries is still very much present despite today's relaxed libraries and that can be intimidating to many potential new customers. I think the casual nature of Flickr would show a very different side to libraries... like we don't all run around going "shhh" to the noisy kiddies... rather we're racing around laughing our heads off as we put the more unusual items in our collection to comedic use :)

I'm sure there are some days I look and feel as the guy in this photo does! haha

I think I would really like the people who took this photo (University of Redland Library). They have my humour :)

The first entry :)

Ahh... the first entry. It's almost like the first crispy clean page of a diary, knowing as you press the pen deep into its white loveliness that things will never be quite as fresh as the these few very first moments. You'll encounter trials and triumphs and, after quite some time and maybe just a little heartache, all the pages will be filled with the clutter of life and the joy will then be to reminice on all that you've accomplished.

It seems to me that a blog is very much like a formal diary based on a specific topic or project, except that with a blog other people are free to be inspired by and make comments on your comments.

This one will follow some of my experiences with the 23 Things training. Even though I don't personally use them, I have a basic understanding of most of the things I'll be exploring. That being the case, I imagine I won't have too much to say except when I come across something mind-blowingly cool or frustratingly troublesome :) Your thoughts and comments on these are welcome :)

Happy 23 Thingamejigging people :)