åņņå

What in the world is that?! That's not a Fail Whale! Twitter can't even get going down right anymore... - Heidi Blanton-Hansen

LOL Heidi. What's the caterpillar supposed to mean? I don't quite get it. Anyone? - Miriella

I couldn't have seen this at a better time. it be speakin' to me. - holly

I like to think of social networking using various metaphors. The one I'm stuck on now--thanks to M. Stephens is social networking as cloud computing--we are all little clouds and working together--well mostly. - Max Macias

Been thinking about this too. We've all got "text-only personas" that can sometimes even be dramatically different from our in-person selves. For 5,000 years or so of Written Word though, they've been mostly denied the back-and-forth our talking personae take for granted. 5,000 years buried in relative isolation and anonymity, and now, we are risen. Out-of-person, disembodied, web-spectres. Not so much computing in the clouds, from what I see, as dancing, hair down, freak on, in the moonlight: Everybody here is out of sight / They don't bark, and they don't bite / They keep things loose, they keep things light / Everybody was dancin' in the moonlight ... http://bit.ly/4BZ0jY. Or maybe that's just me. :-D - Mark Stiarwalt

Even though I live in a city with gazillions of librarians, I feel like I've found more like-minded souls via social networks. Maybe being in the social network is the real reason why I feel like my friends here are like-minded souls ("Hey, you're in the same club I am...kewl...ain't this club grand!") Or maybe I'm just intrigued by all the folks online who get web 2.0 technologies and use them effectively. - Stephen Francoeur

I like Joe's term - cyber-ego - Courtney S.

Steve, how very well put! And timely. I think this deserves some further development and rumination and may end up writing about it. I think Mark elaborated very effectively about the progression of this development. I struggle with this cyber- or hyper-ego daily as you all well know. My problem is that I try to be "myself" online, which is risky and sometimes unsettling since the cues we normally use to self-regulate in RL are mostly missing in text. - W!cKeD

Exposing a hyper-ego that is similarly open in the way we would present ourselves to close RL friends requires a certain amount of trust, a sense of security with who we are as a person, and ability to express ourselves without constant self evaluation of how we are being perceived. Not an easy task. Sometimes I fear that I reveal too much of my frivolous side and neuroses but less of my professional persona. It could be because my work is less fun & interesting than I am. :) - W!cKeD

i love social networking, it makes everyone a standup comedian, poet, philosopher, therapist, and at times that friend who offers you that warm hug you need. - Royce

It's a temenos, what we got here, what the Greeks called it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...). You can do alchemy and stuff in one, if you tend it well. And yeh, W!cKeD, I had you (among others) in mind when I wrote "hair down, freak on." :-Dance on, brother W!cKeD. Appreciate yer enthusiasmos. - Mark Stiarwalt

New word, neat! Thanks, Mark. - Dorothea Salo

@Dorothea: Every word I know I learned from James Hillman. - Mark Stiarwalt

@Stephen Francoeur: I've been trying to calibrate my understanding of how awesome this group of people is since shortly after I got on Twitter. It just seems too rare and wonderful to have come together all that randomly, and I wonder how many others there are like it, and how different they are from what came before the internet. Thus, anyway, we refute thee, "Bowling Alone." I suspect there's good work to be done weaving together conference attendees, social networking, chaos theory, and strange attractors .... - Mark Stiarwalt

Usually this is the kind of thing that would lead to time spent researching word roots and attempting neologisms. But for now, the tenemos (not so much royal in this case, very much common) and whatever word gets best attached to "outsourced psyche" work for me. - Julie Neff

BTW, thanks for all the fantastic ideas and comments. W!cKeD, I almost mentioned you as my outsourced id. ;) - Steve Lawson

This is the first FF thread I've bookmarked. Steve, it's interesting that you said that. My Id frequently wins over my super-ego but the battle rages on. I like to think that the super-ego wins in the important matters pertaining to people, but I AM very driven by the basics of life. Those elemental urges speak to the life in me that my contemplative side just "thinks about and ponders". I'm honored and will waive the cover charge. ;D - W!cKeD

The fact that I'm commenting on your post here is really meta. All of these comments only supporting the whole point of your message, no? - рneum@tic

(I too used to be very id-driven, so much so that I self-identified as "primitive," but that label d/n stick so well lately.) I think the threads I read and comment on most often contain q&a "Should I" or "Should I not." Or, "Here am I?" Yes, the last is a question because otherwise why bother? It is entirely validation. The external validation from this psychologically has a gestalt quality - not just because of numbers but because of the nature of the group. Yes? We chose this area, declare ourselves and the bits of us that make us. What we've done IMHO even just w/i this domain is social alchemy. XCUS BENIDRIL TALKIN KTHX - Julie Neff

W!cKeD, I was joking of course: your FriendFeed "id" is obviously highly filtered. You have chosen to reveal yourself in a different way than many of us, in a way that careens between the more elemental and more cerebral in a very engaging way. - Steve Lawson

Steve, in the same way that your initial thought states, this process of feedback we all give and receive is very enlightening. We learn about ourselves by taking on the views of how others see us which feeds back into that loop by affecting how we present ourselves - more so than in RL I think. I'm constantly trying to understand who I am and understand others. If I didn't trust all of you, I wouldn't feel comfortable sharing like I do. Am thankful for a cohort I can be myself around. - W!cKeD

IRL can be very intimiding and far too intimate. You have deal with eye contact and personal space and so on. - Julie Neff

I make comments online that I would probably never interject IRL sober conversation. I have more fun expressing myself in text, and Julie is right, there is a certain distance and impartiality here that faciliates, or at least makes it easier to let down barriers. (dear godz don't let this be the last post on this thread - when will I ever learn to stop) - W!cKeD

LAST POST. - Meg vM

*plays taps* - DJF via twhirl

no but wait...you see the thing is...the dominant paradigm...what it all boils down to... - Julie Neff

I had a post ready overnight to re-fire this thread in case (hah) it didn't take off this morning, the gist of which was, "If lots of us are finding here, as Steve did, that some bit of our psyche suddenly has a room of its own now and is entertaining visitors, how much does this change the lay of the land too?" *Is* text-based conversational networking more world-changing, say, than emails, conference calls, and potluck dinners combined? (Might it be even bigger? Stirring an appetite that's been denied for 5,000 years may or may not be a small thing.) Or is it just more shiny new internet, a toy we'll grow out of? I'll say this, it's awfully infrastructure-dependent -- and Net Neutrality-dependent as well. - Mark Stiarwalt via fftogo

Mark's stuff always packs a punch. I've only got time for a short answer. I think it is game-changing for our time, just like usenets were in their heyday. More later. - W!cKeD

I see a feudal system emerging out of some of this, actually, speaking of infrastructure and neutrality. And yes my con't.. commenting on here is part of my staying active on compy until 4. - Julie Neff

can you expand on what you mean by a feudal system julie? - Eric Maynard

I gotta say 2 things first: I was on a heavy dope of Xanax, and this was a paranoid dystopian vision. We are the serfs - our content doesn't really belong to us here, it belongs to the company who provides the infrastructure and means of producing it. User-generated content is easy for companies to grab away, just as a lord would grab away like 80% of a serf's tillage just for the privilege of living on that land. The companies go under, the structures collapse, and where are we left? Again, it was more of a gut than an accurate analogy, but do you see what I mean? - Julie Neff

I'll go the paranoid dystopian biz one step further, and say that the one plot hole that's still bothered me from Little Brother is, why wouldn't a repressive government shut down a fully-encrypted ISP, in a heartbeat? Dial that back to the ongoing net neutrality battles -- yes even during and after an Obama administration -- and keep in mind that networked communities like this one are by definition, whether you realize it or not, "enemies of the state." Our corporate-guvmint combine has the means, motive and is itching for the opportunity to make what we're doing here more expensive, slower, and/or harder to access. We passed a milestone this last week -- we moved money around the country, in the decentralized, difficult-to-trace form of gift cards. Imagine thousands of networks like ours, moving around money, info, hope, and camaraderie independently of Big Media, Big Banking, etc. etc. -- and take time to wonder if Big Surveillance and allies haven't also taken note how this is now possible. - Mark Stiarwalt via fftogo

Even if Teh Boogieman is not out to get our sharing of hugs and gift cards -- and our outsourcing of our psyches -- we still stand to be collateral damage if we lose net neutrality and end up with an internet like this: http://i7.tinypic.com/5z6vt4n.... As Cory Doctorow and others have pointed out, we need alternative sources of bandwidth just like we need alternative sources of energy: http://www.boingboing.net/2008... They'd provide at least some of the antidote to the sort of serfdom Julie talked about. Izzat the sort of answer you wanted, Eric? - Mark Stiarwalt

I gootcha. I wasn't thinking on that high of a level, but I get the analogy. I haven't read Little Brother (wow! Cory has been prolific in the last couple of years), but I do recall that Liberation Spectrum left my mind whirling about just who really 'owns' the spectrum. I guess the SPs have a right to meter and assign a cost to the bandwidth, but if they seek to somehow meter the content as a by product, I think a 'revolt' is definitely in the works. - Eric Maynard

I think I need to get this thread its own domain. - Steve Lawson

Podcasts - anything by Radiolab, Vidcasts - anything from TED.com in particular Michael Shermer. - Jo Brodie

for some interesting technology culture, I've just discovered Spark www.cbc.ca/spark It's not just internet, but that's a lot of it. - DJF via twhirl

seconding selected shorts - RudĩϐЯaЯïaȵ

I'm a great fan of Escape Pod for science fiction (escapepod.org). Digital Campus for instructional technology stuff (digitalcampus.tv). Loads of free fiction at podiobooks.com. More on this guide I created at MFPOW http://guides.main.library.emo... - Jαsοn Puckett

Christiana's Shallow Thoughts & Geek Radio Daily are the two I listen to on my commute every morning. - åņņå

I like "lime and violet" "sticks and string" and "Cast On" --but those are all knitting podcasts, may not be right up your alley. - Abigail (Hε₫§εhσ§ ĺﺃβ)

Second TedTalks; I blogged my favorite science podcasts at http://cogscilibrarian.blogspo... Also for news, I like the News Hour and Washington Week (I ♥ Gwen Ifill) - Stephanie♥CogSciLibrarian

Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'm surprised that no one has mentioned any LIS or web 2.0 podcasts. Any ones that are "must hear"? - Jill Hurst-Wahl

There are some good lectures on Simmons' GSLIScast. Haven't yet listened to Gary Marchionini ... but it's on my short list. - Stephanie♥CogSciLibrarian

there are some pretty cool guests on Uncontrolled Vocabulary, I hear. - DJF via twhirl

and that T is for Training show is ok too. Sometimes New York State library professors are on the podcast. - ♫baldgeekinmd♫

spark on CBC radio is good. though I haven't listened is a while http://www.cbc.ca/spark/ - poÍÍӋ҉aÍida

UnVocab made my drive to Denver fly by. I'm fond of the New Yorker comment podcast, although it's not very long. Ditto The Moth. Democracy Now! if you want news. Oh, and Real Time with Bill Maher podcasts. It's a little odd without the visuals, but still wicked funny. - laura x

Thanks! I'll have to come back to this list again, since you all have given me wonderful ideas! In January, I hope to commute by city bus to SU, so I should have a chance to listen to lots of podcasts! - Jill Hurst-Wahl

Oh, I'm in! With a capital-IN! - joshua m. neff

Count me in. - Matt Hamilton

Would you be willing to print something that has already been "published" online, or are you looking for new content only? - åņņå

Still working on structure. Also: not going to ALA. - Meg vM

I think previously-published would be fine. ALA attendance would not be mandatory to contribute. - Steve Lawson

Come to think of it, ALA *membership* might disqualify you entirely. (I kid, I kid.) - Steve Lawson

Not that you need it with the huge wealth of Creative Commons photos out there, but you're welcome to use my photos for this--I'm not consistent with my licensing, so consider this my permission to have at it. Tag with LSW, if you please. Useful? (Edit: I'm also willing to help with printing) - Cindi Trainor

I'd be willing to help out with printing. - Jill, Superhero Librarian

But I will not be able to watch them gnash their teeth and pull out their hair upon reading my blistering screed if I am not going. - Meg vM

I'll videorecord any teeth-gnashing-hair-pulling. Plus, you can just be happy with the implosion of ALA and the sight of Chicago in flames from your incendiary prose. - Steve Lawson

Also, thanks Cindi and Jill. I have no idea if we'd use your photos, Cindi, but perhaps an LSW zine would have a little actual info on what the LSW is supposed to be, and your photos from CIL and ALA and IL could come in handy. - Steve Lawson

Could we distribute a call for papers at ALA Midwinter in Denver -- I will be there. I will also put out a call for articles on various listserves(tm). Do you want articles that espouse the LSW way of looking at things? - jokrausdu via fftogo

Youtube FTW. Deadline? I will get to it. - Meg vM

Zine! yay! Get in touch with Jenna Freedman at Barnard as I'm sure she will have ideas too... and perhaps a copy for her Zine Library ;) - Fiona Bradley

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... LSW1, LSW2, LSW3 - Three! Three licks to get to the center of a tootsie-pop” - AaronTheLibrarian

This is a completely awesome idea - I'm in! - Chad Haefele via twhirl

recipes! - Stephanie♥CogSciLibrarian

Joe, let's hold off on listserv announcements, if you don't mind. On the one hand, anyone would be welcome to submit, but on the other hand it might work out better if submissions come mostly from people who are already aware of the LSW. - Steve Lawson

Also, in subject matter, I think we'll be looking for things a little more personal, a little less academic than what ends up in most library publications. For those new to zines, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z... and http://www.barnard.edu/library... and http://flickr.com/groups/zines... - Steve Lawson

YES YES YES, Steve! Personal, not academic! Exactly! - joshua m. neff

Should we maybe have a loose theme, to provide direction for people? Like "the future of libraries"? or "the future of professional associations"? - joshua m. neff

Ok, I will hold up. I will let some of the other LSWers I know in on the idea... Ruth, are you there? JoeyDigits? Jill Hurst-Wahl? - jokrausdu

The Nonfuture of Nonlibrarians. Or the Future of Librarians? - Meg vM

Yes, but will the Zine be indexed in Library Lit? WoS? Should we get an ISSN for it? :-) - jokrausdu

Impact factor like a fist in the gut! - Steve Lawson

up for an "international" contribution? - јдмβιИд

Well, it is the Library Society of the *World*. I suppose that includes Quebec. - joshua m. neff

josh: only until they finally pass the damned referendum and secede. - DJF via twhirl

Librarians like new ways of retrieving, sharing, consolidating, and understanding information. FriendFeed satisfies all of those needs. - Squirrel Girl

We are addicted to information and what better way than the FF fire hose. Also, because we love technology, are early adopters, and generally are pretty decent people. I think we also have pretty high percentage in Second Life. - Kenley Neufeld

Librarians are like porn stars. We'll try anything once, & we'll go anywhere to do it. - joshua m. neff

+1 for the Sheriff - Laura B.

+1 Josh, Do we even know how many people are on ff? I'd like to see some stats. - Altruistic Librarian

Librarians have had a big online presence for years. So when friendfeed was the new thing, an existing librarian network took it up. For why there was already an online librarian posse, see SG and Kenley above. - Steve Lawson

So that when we get called out, we can respond like a big, scary mob and make sure you never ask questions again. - Greg Schwartz

Site Analytics (http://siteanalytics.compete.c...) says there are 648,443 people on Friendfeed (which is a 1012% growth in the last year) but you know not nearly that many people are active (if my friends list is any indication). What can the other librarians dig up? - Kenley Neufeld

What I find so interesting is how many people on FF have friends on FF who are librarians! I know we are here in huge numbers, but we could have stayed all insular. Instead, librarians have become this huge *presence* on FF. Dunno if we're as big as Scoble, but.... - RudĩϐЯaЯïaȵ

I think that I would qualify Kenley's statement by saying that a particular 'subset' of librarians are early adopters, love technology, etc. Unfortunately, not everyone in our profession embraces technology and new information systems as quickly as some. So, you should assume that there are some of us who are ahead of the curve, while others see no use or need for 2.0 type tools. It's an on-going debate about the developing tool kit that Web 2.0 has opened up for us. Either way, we kick ass. ;-) - W!cKeD

Because librarians are awesomesauce and friendfeed is awesomesauce...ergo they are one and the same...Flawless (nonsensical) logic FTW! - Alex Scoble CISSP

We're a bunch of lemmings following the "ooh shiny" wherever it takes us. - åņņå

...don't piss us off. - MLx

Yep. I'm a lemming like Anna says. You discovered my secret identity. - Jill, Superhero Librarian

Because we get to goof off on social networking sites and call it 'research'. - Cecily

Because the Dewey Decimal System is not fun like it use to be back in 1957 - Outsanity

hahahha! Librarians are hot! - Mona N.

Why are there not more Librarians? - Chris W

Cecily, don't let the secret out. Everything is "research" and therefore work related but I can't let my non-librarian colleagues know I play so much. - Kenley Neufeld

Nice Alex. :) That logic works for me. - Squirrel Girl

FF is the perfect place for people that specialize in research. Their the best at finding things. One of the most useful class I ever took in college was a basic Library science class. - Michael Fidler via twhirl

librarians are hot. - Thomas Hawk

Do most libraries even use the Dewey system anymore? I mean what's the point when all the books are searchable on a computerized database that tells you what section they are in...or even better, in PDX area you can request a book be sent to your local library for pickup. Awesomesauce. - Alex Scoble CISSP

I'm a former librarian... does that get me in the "hot" club or does it mean I was formerly hot? :) Seriously, the best full-time job I ever had was a five-year tenure at a college library while studying part time for my undergraduate degree. The library was the "brain center" of the place... - Kevin C. Tofel

Alex: most public libraries use Dewey, yes. (Looking at the Multnomah County Library's catalog, it looks like they do.) The section that a book is in is based on its Dewey categorization. - joshua m. neff

Not that I want in any way to be advocating for Dewey, which is deeply flawed, but it does more than just position a book in a section of the library. It positions it in a particular shelf-order that achieves more granular collocation of similar items than can be accomplished by sticking them in alphabetical order by author within a general section. The bigger the collection, the more important that granularity becomes. - Greg Schwartz

What else do they have to do inbetween check in and check out books....JOKING! :) lol. no seriously, I haven't been in a library since early college - I started using the internet for stuff that was book related. You can even use the online libraries. :) - dafire

Rock on Steve. Though I follow you on Twitter and FF, I first saw it on Twitter. Thanks for the question (and may end up being one of your highest commented topics if you're not careful). I've already picked up a few more "friends" to follow. And, Greg, WTF "achieves more granular collocation of similar items" - are you a librarian or what?? - Kenley Neufeld

Kenley, it actually is research for me - my title is Web Services Librarian. :) - Cecily

There are also a ton of scientists on FF. Since I'm a science librarian, I followed the scientists to see what I could learn about them. And, like Cecily said, it's a great way to combine fun and research. - John Dupuis

Move to canada: we think you're a first class citizen and will happily tax you to death. - DJF via twhirl

I've been threatening a move to Canada since 2000; however, I would be unemployed. Not easy to get a job there unless you're a citizen. - åņņå via twhirl

If you've got your MLS, then you are covered by NAFTA and can get a work visa relatively easily. But yes, preference is given to Canadian citizens and landed imigrants, just like in the states. - DJF via twhirl

I have a job and am not a citizen. - John Fink

They won't do a thing until we say "Statistics or we drop our subscription." - Dorothea Salo

I wish we could say "statistics or we drop our subscription," but that doesn't have much backing it when library administration spends most of its time kissing the feet of faculty. - åņņå via twhirl

I've never understood why librarians can't get together and say actually that: give us stats or a smaller price increase, or we all walk. I'm in. - Jen Holman

Yep. - Dorothea Salo

"I'm sorry, we don't know how much use your very expensive resource is getting, but we do know how much these other things are being used. Because we don't know how much our users use your package, we will have to give it a lower priority during the next round of cuts." - DJF via twhirl

Actually, at the NFAIS event on usage statistics, what emerged was the concern that smaller and mid-sized publishers have that the Counter statistics are continually evolving and their resources are being strained to the limit in trying to keep up. The big players are all in step, but the smaller players are the ones that may be having difficulty. And being told, "You must be COUNTER-compliant before we can even consider licensing your resource" is a blow to the knee-caps for those providers. - Jill O'Neill

ugh! I'm with you on that. - åņņå

I think this is another good reason to go to Australia - Alan Simpson

$*)&)!! there needs to be a *spider* warning whenever people post stuff involving spiders. GAAAAH! - Miriella

I have a thing about spiders. I see them and then I can't seem to breathe or do anything but scream. Shhh, dont tell my enemeez.... - ωαřмaiden

Yikes! - Katy Southern

Eep!! I think I will write postcards with you. - Låura Harris

Yeah, LOLPACs rolls off the tongue better. - Steve Lawson

ours are usually notLOLPACs :-( - Stephanie♥CogSciLibrarian

I can haz book? INVISIBLE USABILITY. I found you a citation, but I eated it. - Dorothea Salo

Nicely done, Dorothea. anyone want to provide photos? Extra points for kittehs + catalogs. - Steve Lawson