watch out grammar girl, here I come!

listening to podcasts is not something new for me, and I added feeds for Grammar Girl and Mr. Manners to my blogroll when we were learning about RSS in Semester One. I have been subscribing to podcasts thru iTunes for awhile: radio shows, classical music, podcasts for running, programs from the Art Institute of Chicago, New Yorker fiction, you get the idea. iTunes downloads the most recent podcasts automatically every time I log in, but I regularly forget to check, so adding them to my bloglines account is a good reminder that new episodes are available.

We have often talked about what we might use podcasts for at our library (book reviews, tutorials on how to create free email accounts, talking patrons through the free credit report page which is very confusing and difficult to navigate if you are new to the web) but I have never tried to create one. So I created a podcast of my most recent book review for MADreads and it is available for the world to hear on Gabcast! Project Play Week 6 #2

My voice sounds kind of muffled and weird - I can see where it would pay to have a little microphone, but I was quite amazed that I could do this over the phone. That could not have been easier. Energized by my first attempt, I am already planning how to take over the world with my new podcasting skills.

Now I need to work out some kind of Bill Gates/Steve Jobs masterplan. Any ideas? Would you listen to podcasts about cupcakes? candy? what's new on zappos or j.crew? hollywood news according to pinky? While I am working out those kinks, I will continue to play more, learn more and fear less. Ciao for now!

who do you know?

not too many folks, apparently, as I have zero online "friends" as defined by MySpace and Facebook. oh well.

I remember hearing Stephen Abram (Mr. Innovation from SirsiDynix) speak at WiLSWorld a couple of years ago and he was touting his daughter's 3000 (or some huge number) of MySpace friends and I was skeptical at the time. How meaningful could those friendships possibly be? I am still skeptical. But more understanding. Now that I have a dogster page, I understand more about how you can have friends (or pup pals as it may be) that you have never met and that you don't keep in contact with more than that initial "hey, let's be friends" business. One acceptance email and you are friends for life.

So where does this leave libraries and the quest to satisfy the knowledge needs of the public? I am on the fence. My niece uses MySpace for email and chat. Constantly. But she doesn't really do anything else with her page. My cousin who is a freshman at UW is all about Facebook. She met all sorts of other incoming frosh before she even graduated from high school! For these two girls, social neworking sites are for just that, socializing. They are not doing research or homework via these sites.

I think a traditional web page that is attractive and easy to use is more important in spreading the word that libraries have a lot to offer. I have tried searching on MySpace and never have much luck. After browsing the sites for this week's assignment, I'm still not that enamored. The AskAway site is great; it is clear and easy to use. Denver's site is kinda ugly and Oshkosh's was very hard for me to view. The green and gold gave me a headache! La Crosse and Charlotte have pages that look pretty cool. But I would still go to their library homepages first if I wanted info.

That said, here's a link to my seriously lacking MySpace page that has thus far only been used to email with the aforementioned 17-yr-old niece who lives in Tennessee. She won't add me as a friend, though! (My page is really pathetic looking, but I found out that hers is all tricked out because she bribed a techie kid that she works with at the mall! It really is all about who you know.)

I am trying to play more, learn more, and fear less. Now that other humans may view my MySpace page, I need to find someone to fancy it up and fast!

baby's got some brand new shoes

abécédaire entrées has a new look! I took this week's lesson catch-up time to play around a bit with changing the template of my blog. It took a lot of tweaking and some unfortunate choices to figure out how to change the code (preview is a very important feature) but I finally found something I liked. So long Scribe, hello Love (the name of the template that I copied the background from). Don't these shoes look lethal?

Until next week, play more, learn more, fear less, and take time to breathe. Love is in the air!