It is my displeasure to be dipping my toes in library waters on the weekend (especially at this time) without it being necessary for academic work. But since the football's finished and the only thing on TV is Cameron Diaz having a go at acting, here I am.
Twitter - I have mentioned before how I've dipped in and out of Twitter in the past, since my new incarnation I do use a bit more regularly (time permitting). I began to follow the usual suspects plus a few others I find interesting. This has been great for keeping informed and staying up to date with the library community. I try not to be too much of a lurker but I rarely find something others might find useful that hasn't been mentioned before, especially as I only find myself checking Twitter at the end of the work day!
One of my primary reasons for sticking with Twitter this time is that I had something tangible I wanted to get out of it (purely selfish). I wanted to tap into a community of knowledge where I could gather/request information/advice for my dissertation in the first instance anyway. For this to work you need people to follow you as well as following them. That's the Catch22, if you follow everyone it's just information overload and advised against in some circles (follow what's useful...) but then you may miss that vital piece of info or a request for help. Still immensely useful though!
RSS Feeds - I started following blogs before my involvement with 23 Things using Google Reader and am happy with how this works and very satisfied with it. I have updated my subscriptions with some fellow participants and find it a much more enriching experience to read detailed experiences of others. I'll certainly keep going with RSS but I'd like to better organise my feeds.
Storify - I had heard about this but never used or explored it until now. Initially I didn't really get it! Who has the time to put a story together using various web 2.0 tools? I can see how this could be very powerful for reflecting on the global experience of a huge event for instance the uprisings in the Middle East, people harped on about the power of social networks then, imagine if that was professionally organised (which I imagine the value lies)!
I'm sure it's of more use to others than to me, which is probably why I didn't enjoy using it. It's not something of any particular value to me in my work or my organisation with it's lack of social network usage. From the sample stories I looked at mostly use Twitter as it's feed which is where I think my only interest in it lies as it is now used for conversation summaries for UKLibChat. I'm also not a fan of it's use of Facebook status updates, as I think this could get a bit murky with people being targeted see here, regarding YourOpenBook. Since, there have been a few sites that let you search across Twitter and Facebook updates such as Kurrently.
I prefer using tools for dedicated news streams that I have selected that appeal to my tastes such as Pulse and Google Currents. This way my favourite news sites, magazines are in one place and up to date, I will be keeping my eyes peeled for more of the same!
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