Sara Mooney

Weekly World News cover from http://www.girlofwords.com/

Social media.  It’s one of those things you like or hate.  For me, I really like it.  Using tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Meetup have allowed me to meet a slew of people in a relatively short time. As many of you know, I moved out here just over a year ago.  The first 6 months I split between Las Vegas and Montreal, so I never really got to know that many people outside my group of friends at work or through existing Vegas connections.

Once I finally got of the road for a bit, I used Meetup to find groups of interest in the area.  I ended up meeting John Hawkins and the Black Diamond Digital crew on a First Fridays meetup.  That led to Twitter connections, which led to attending WordCamp Las Vegas, and the creation of Beer and Blog Las Vegas.  Social media allowed me to find these people, and get to know them a bit before meeting them face to face.  I’m a fairly shy person by nature, and wouldn’t normally introduce myself to complete strangers.  I’ve met some really nice people — Manya, Lori, John, Chris, Bill, and so many others — that I feel like I have a group of friends compiled in 6 months compared to the 10 years it took in Orlando without social media.  Living in Vegas also afforded me the opportunity to attend some really cool events like the CES parties (Thanks, Robert Scoble and Dustin Wax), Twestival (okay, the one I attended was in Montreal — another social media story — but I would’ve attended the Vegas one had I been here!), and the Monster Vegas Tweetup (Thanks, Scott).

There’s a further hunger harboured within me… the one that wants to see libraries and knowledge repositories (both private and public) become more social. Social media is another medium — a tool — to facilitate teaching and learning. There are people who may answer a work-related problem outside the immediate  department.  The company wiki benefits from those who created the page as well as those who maintain the item’s page. A tutor may be available to help a local student with their math studies.  Co-workers in different offices thousands of miles apart could use each other’s knowledge to solve problems at their immediate location.  Mao Tse-Tung is quoted as saying, “Learn from the masses, and then teach them.”  Social media is designed to be an exchange mechanism, much like the telephone, only it’s main purpose is the party line.

In the same vein, though, users also need to make sure that they’re not sheep.  Blindly following the crowd can lead to disappointment and causing yourself to look unintelligent in front of your peers.  This is the librarian coming out in me, but information literacy is key.  Today, every person online needs to be able to discern quality information from the junk.  Look at it this way: the Wall Street Journal compared to the Weekly World News.  Laugh if you will, but many people think that the Weekly World News is legitimate news and not sensational half-truth fiction.  It’s easy to get caught up in groupthink when surrounded with like-minded people, which is the exact reason why we need to teach critical thinking to children at an early age.  Sure, everyone gets duped at some point, but the severity and frequency is reduced with the knowledge of what comprises real information.  We’re still figuring out the rules and norms of Social Media and the exponentially expanding web of (mis)information.

Camputs? What are those?

Yep. Apparently Google believes that the Rhodes Ranch area of Las Vegas, NV needs a medical camputs. When someone figures out that is, please let me know. kthxbye!

Photo by Brendan Wilkinson

Tonight I had the privilege of watching a pre-screening of Watchmen at Rave Motion Pictures in Town Square, Las Vegas, NV (courtesy of Gofobo). One word: WOW!  It’s based on the 1986/1987 DC Comics graphic novel by writer Alan Moore.  It’s been years since I last perused the pages of the book, but this movie did live up to my expectations.

First, it’s an epic movie, running about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Pee before entering the theatre and again 5 minutes before it starts. Second, parents please leave your children at home.  There are scenes that are extremely graphic in both sexual and violent nature.  There is no shortage of flesh or assorted dangly bits, and also there are themes that kids under 13 will probably not fully comprehend.  I certainly wouldn’t want to be trying to answer questions about the ultimate life joke in terms that a 7 year old would understand.  If you do, go right ahead.  This is why you’re the parent and I’m not!

Alas, I digress.  Watchmen definitely pleased me both visually and musically.  Zach Snyder, director, did an awsome job of creating those graphic novel type effects.  As I tweeted upon leaving the theatre, the movie is epic, interesting visuals, dark, sexy, & action packed. A number of slow motion, pause, actual speed effects pull focus on the action — much like looking at a comic frame. These stunning effects are juxtaposed with 70’s and 80’s tunes (Leonard Cohen, Nena, Tears for Fears, Jimi Hendrix, Philip Glass, etc.) that provide a very interesting explanation to the action.  As with 300, the scenes are extremely dark, and color is used to accentuate the setting instead of overtake them.  As for the computer graphics, they were interesting and at times seemed to overtake the meaning of the scene. This is particularly true for the Laurie and Dr. Manhattan on Mars scene. The fight scenes were well choreographed, quick cutting and hard hitting.  And of course there’s the obligitory love triangle (complete with a fairly graphic sex scene and a few frontal shots of CG Dr. Manhattan dangly man bits).  There’s not much left for the imagination.

Acting was good as well.  [SPOILER ALERT] One of the final scenes where Dan/Night Owl (Patrick Wilson) drivels as Dr. Manhattan obliterates Rorschach seemed overly sappy and contrived. [END SPOILER] Yes, some things became trite, but the characters were well-formed and consistent with the books.  Overall, it’s a good movie and definitly one of the best in the graphic novel turned movie genre.

Yes, I know it’s been almost a month since I last updated the blog.  There are 5 posts in the draft stage, none of which want to complete themselves. And school once again consumes my time.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be trying to catch up on the Neflin’s 23 Things, usually placing 2-3 relating things in each post.  Otherwise, I’ll be spending my time writing a management-style memo, a book report, and beginning a marketing project.  Glad I can read and write, and I’ll see you in a few weeks.

… and Thing 4!

I’m undertaking these 23 Things of library 2.0 because I want to learn more about the tools available to use.  Last semester I took a metadata class, and the fact that XML is everywhere really made me want to explore the possibilities for use in searches.  I looked metadata for finding photos & videos in my job. I’m trying to find real-world or new applications to make my job easier, as well as aid those who create the information a more streamlined method of storing and finding their files. I believe that this is quickly becoming a backbone for information transfer and connection, amidst the crosswalk issues.

As an RSS aggregator, I used both BlogLines and Google Reader, and tried out the one in Mozilla ThunderBird.  My current choice is Google Reader since I can keep one log in for many different tools.  I found that they all work very similarly, and I opt for convenience over bling.  Besides, I can plug in a widget on iGoogle to display the most recent posts, and share interesting posts with contacts (if you’re interested in KM and metadata, add me as a Google contact Sara.Mooney[AT]gmail[DOT]com).  A list of Mac feed readers can be found on About.com’s website. The main reason why I don’t like the ThunderBird is for the sole reason that I receive way too much email as it is, and don’t want to be in there all day.

I find that I use the feed readers while I am waiting for files to upload or transfer while I’m at work.  I can read short entries in the length of time it takes to transfer a mid-sized file.  This way I learn new work methods, trends, and stay productive during a time where I would normally be idle.  A feed reader allows me to skim the posts and select the ones I want to read in one place instead of going through each person’s individual blog. Time saving!  By using an RSS feed, a library could easily place a small feed widget on their home page that pulls any press with their name in it (another great feature of Google — their alerts and blog searches).  Most news services and pages are RSS enabled, so I tend to add them to my feed to see when they’re updated.

Finding the feeds isn’t hard through the use of the Google blog search, Icerocket, Technorati, or any number of other blog search engines (warning: site has a number of broken links, but the ones that work are good). Some are simply for news. Others you need to submit your RSS feed to be included in their searches.  They all display slightly different results, and it takes a lot of trial and error to find which one works best for you.  I personally stick to Google blog search or Icerocket.  Sphere is a semantic search widget that’s slowly getting there (I like to check results every few months), but I’m not finding it incrediblly useful yet. No matter what, it takes a bit of digging to separate the useful information from the noise.