Thing 26: Join the Ning

I joined the Ning in Round 2, since I did not participate in Round 1. I didn't find an appropriate group to join, so I created a group for MLIS students. So far, I am the only member. I am not sure if any of my St. Kate's classmates are participating in the Things.

I can only speak hypothetically of how I would use Ning in "my" library, since I don't yet have one. But I can see it being a useful tool in a branch library or a school library as an informal way to converse with patrons/students about things happening in the library. I have used Ning to keep intouch with relatives. We would share pics and reminiscences about loved ones who have passed on. But after a brief spurt of activity, we all started to communicate on facebook instead. I do like having the opportunity to email my photos in so I don't have to sit there waiting for them to upload.

I did enjoy seeing other people's photos of their libraries. Some of them were very nicely laid out and inviting!

Thing 25: Blogger's Toolkit

I added the Subscribe to button, Random Classic Art, and a Library Thing application

There were a few ideas I rejected, some of them because they seemed too complicated, others because it felt like my private life would be intersecting with a public blog. In the former category were such things as a news feed (I wanted a feed of the British paper The Guardian, but got way too many results when I searched for guardian in the gadgets) and Google calculator (link was broken, didn't feel like looking for another version). In the latter were such add-ons as googletalk, because I am not quite ready to be available to all and sundry for random conversations. Also, I didn't want my twitter messages or other social networking up on this blog since I am not sure who my audience is.

I spent at least 3 or 4 hours working on this Thing. I could easily have spent much more if I hadn't had other things to do!

Thing 24: Refresh Your Blog

Well, in my case this was "start your blog." I chose a simple layout because I found the suggested sites for importing a new layout into Blogger to counter-intuitive and more difficult than I wanted to deal with at the time. Perhaps I will go back later.
I did chose a picture for my profile, since I have never been a fan of cartoons (I know--what a party pooper!). I like it because it is a Russian constructivist collage with the word "BOOKS."