Librarything

Is it just me or do all librarians harbour a secret desire to catalogue their own books? And now I have the perfect tool to do it. The only thing I have to work out is whether to get extra long cords and take the PC, screen, mouse and keyboard to my bookshelves or will it be easier to carry the books to my PC or should I use a pen and paper (very last century I know) and sit by my bookshelves making a list that I can then use to enter my holdings on Librarything? I have added 5 titles to my Librarything account after sitting at my desk at work racking my brains to think of 5 books I actually own as opposed to those I have read and enjoyed. The site then went offline (is that the term) for some sort of maintenance, so I didn't get any further with it.

There are lots of books that I love, but don't own, so I tend to feel that my list won't truly reflect my reading habits. I suppose there is no reason I can't just add books/authors that I like as opposed to those that I actually own.

I do like Librarything and can see that it would be useful to have a list of the books I own (for insurance purposes if nothing else).

I am just wondering why every application we have looked at so far is so keen for me to share my life with others. I don't think I have such an extraordinary life that anyone else would be interested in knowing about it.

Del.icio.us

At last, an Internet application that I can actually see myself using. I think being able to access your bookmarks from any PC is a great idea. That said, the idea of everyone else being able to see my bookmarks seems a bit too much (and I am not particularly concerned about privacy issues). Although if I use an obscure enough name no one will know who I am. As far as the use of the tags go, isn't it just reinventing 'indexing', which we as librarians have been using for years.

Image Generators

Having looked at the 'generators' exercise, I can see that you could easily waste a huge amount of time designing your own delft plate or my little pony. I don't have my own webpage, so I can't see any practical use for the generators. That said, life isn't all about being practical and although I have no professional reason for using generators, I do know a couple of children who will enjoy messing around with them.

I did however try one generator - brainscannr - and picked the one that seemed the least pathetic. So if you are that interested or that bored See my brainscanner results . OK, so now you know who I am as well.

Flickr, RSS

I'm all for progress and technology and I continue to be amazed by what you can find on the Internet (US government reports that used to take months to get can now be downloaded in seconds), but I can't see myself using Flickr (and why can't things be spelt correctly on the Internet) and the thought of being bombarded with information via a RSS is too much.Perhaps it's my age, but I prefer my photos in hard copy and to share them via an album (with a nice cover that can be passed around). And, I can't think of any information I am so desperate to have that I need it automatically sent to me via my mobile phone or PC. I much prefer to go out and find the information when I need it. Does this make me a dinosaur?

Testing, testing

Where am I?
After a false start wondering why my blog doesn't show on my libraries list of participants, I have now set up a new blog (with a much more satisfying name). I have also discovered why my other blog didn't show up - apparently you need to register it as belonging to a particular library service (thanks go to a very tech-savvy workmate for showing me the way).
Am I out of my depth if I can't even get the simplest things right?