Technorati: or, Digital Immigrants

Unlike del.icio.us, which helps me keep track of sites and pages I am interested, Technorati seems less useful to me personally.

I do have an account, and I have claimed my blogs. Again, this is a tool I learned about in the "Social Software in Libraries" course, so I tried it out during that course and have puzzled over it since.

For my purposes, Technorati would mainly be useful in pushing my blogs to other readers, something I'd very much like to do, since I'd like to increase my readership.

However, its main purpose seems to be finding blogs or blog posts on the various tagged subjects. That's a very valuable resource, yet not one I personally would use very much.

My experiment of searching Technorati for “Learning 2.0” did give me a taste of the huge variety of blogs, fields of interest, etc., which intersect on that tag. As a professional observer of the Internet, I'm fascinated at how rich and multidimensional this cyberworld has become, and how much the human race has advanced in the free sharing of information—the very thing which Public Library was invented to do.

However, for an old geezer like me, its just WAY TOO MUCH INFORMATION.

I'm glad it's out there, I'm glad people are sharing it so freely, I'm glad there are all these free social software tools for pushing and finding the information. It's just not my speed.

My mid-20th century brain was programmed to use books and pens. I've managed to get it to use PC screens and keyboards...but I don't do downloadable media or MySpace or any of the vast online social-connection stuff, I don't use a handheld device or a laptop, and my cellphone only makes phonecalls. I don't even have a TV.

This is no judgment against all that technology or the people who use it. It's a personal choice, based on how I've learned to nurture my thinking and learning and creative work.

I'm comfortable being a pre-computer person, a "digital immigrant."

One catch: my job is speeding away from me at cyberspeed! That's part if why I value this JPL Learning 2.0 course.

Thanks.

Note: Several times now in doing these assignments, I've stumbled across Tame the Web: Libraries, Technology and People. It looks like it's worth subscribing to in Bloglines.com.

#9 Finding Feeds

I wanted to find blogs about "remote reference" or "chat reference" services.

I tried Blogline's search tool first. It was somewhat useful, yet I did not find it easy to search by subject rather than keyword...which meant it was difficult to target my search narrowly enough. Nonetheless, I did find these blogs and posts:

• QuestionPoint: 24/7 library services - QuestionPoint is the live chat software platform marketed by OCLC. It is one that Florida's Ask a Librarian has been considering as a replacement to its current software.
  
  I'd like to see JPL's chat team members start to explore this site, especially the Best Practices pages. Even though we are not using this software, the principles will be almost the same.


• Remote Reference Updates - I think this is an internal staff blog for Harris County Public Library in Texas. Again, worth exploring.

Next I tried Technorati Advanced Search. I like this a lot better. I didn't do a lot of searching, but it was more flexible and rich in search options than the Blogger one. I also know by reputation that Technorati has a huge database to search.

I only had time to find one blog, but it looks excellent, and I'm adding it to my Bloglines subscriptons:

• Tame the Web: Libraries, Technology and People - "Tame the Web (TTW) is a blog written by Michael Stephens. TTW deals with libraries, technology and people - and the fascinating intersection between all three. How do we use technology to further the library’s mission? How do we use technology to learn? What are innovative libraries and librarians doing to explore this realm?" (from the About page)
  
  My one complaint so far is that the right-hand navbar displays waaaaaaaay down the page, instead of right next to the top post.
  
  The post that caught my attention in the Technorati search was this one: Txt a Librarian.

Very interesting.