Full Tilt

Cohort 7 is a metaphor for the field of librarianship. We students have too much information thrown at us. How do we manage it? How do we prioritize, process, store it all? How do we retrieve and apply what we have gleaned? The challenges are overwhelming. Perhaps those of us most technologically deficient benefit in some way. We can FEEL the crisis in our gut. We ARE out of control, and we know it.

Librarians face special challenges today, and with these challenges come opportunities. As we master the crafts of our profession and learn to face head on the changes in the world of information processing, we need not confine ourselves to going with the flow. We must also seize opportunities for impacting the surge and direction of this wildly cascading deluge of information.

New Day, New Attempts

I am having difficulty with Scribefire.

What I wish to do is post two tags to this blog in the form of links. I would like these links to appear in the same post. Since I am not succeeding with Scribefire, I am attempting to use Zotero.

Scratch Zotero. I now seem to be in Scribefire. The question is, will I be able to apply its functions to my task.

I have the Scribefire window open, though I'm not sure it has enabled me to proceed, but something has. I have been copying and pasting and seem to have the links where I wish them to be.

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=CDE+Help+Bookmarks&i=39437,00.asp


http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/meta_tags/

Well, I may have succeeded in getting something entered here. But my method was inelegant. I seem to have had to go back and enter everything manually rather than properly using the bookmarking tools or Scribefire option.

Each day I am waking with enthusiasm for our courses, am in awe of the technological knowledge out there, so much apparently housed in the brain of Christinger Tomer. But by the end of the day I find myself questioning whether or not I have the personal stamina to continue slogging through all this material. Well, I believe I can continue the slog, but will I be able to retain a valuable quantity of information when we begin to climb free of the muck and mire come August? Don't get me wrong. It's not freedom of the subject matter I seek, rather I crave this goal: that plodding through it all, I will end up with enough useful information stuck to the tar of my own grey matter that, well--while I anticipate at least a few synapses flickering with the glimmer of achievement, something like giddy fireflies--will I have absorbed enough new knowledge to conclude the semester with a sense of substantial achievement??? Will I be able to accomplish this while at the same time garnering a respectable grade???!. Yep. That's what I hope to have earned at the end of the 2600 road: a solid sense of achievement and a grade to match. Aiyeee!!! In the meantime, pass the toothpicks, please, (to keep the eyelids at mast) and don't forget the Rolaids.

Failed Attempts

I have not been able to accomplish any of the tasks I'd hoped to utilize in this post. Quite discouraged. Does this lament qualify as a blog entry? It's meant to. At least I'll have completed one assignment successfully today.

Any chance MLIS 2600 could engage a home office technician? Some cute little guy who would make house calls? Answer our questions on site? Now there is a useful idea. I highly recommend. Please consider, Dr. Tomer. Seriously, though, while we have this 24/7 help line through Pitt, it's not course specific. How bout getting a 24/7 tech TA special for this course? He wouldn't even have to be cute. He wouldn't even have to be he. But he'd be there, 24/7, and I could call him up and get answers to all my questions, immediately! Yes!

Meanwhile, tonight, I'll continue pulling my hair out and hope tomorrow brings some headway with del.icio.us and Connotea postings.

Not So Jolly Tonight

Dear MLIS colleagues,

The frustrations of the technological challenges are overwhelming this week. I want to be sharing with you professional information, not the gloom and flotsam of my ludicrous technical flops.

To apply some salve to my very bruised ego I will once again attempt some hyperlinking.

I'm interested in studying websites of various public libraries. You can access mine at www.bapl.org. I visited the Coeur d'Alene Public Library recently and was moved and intrigued by that library's grace day on fines. On this day, bring in a canned food item for a human or a pet, and fines are erased. You can access the Cd'A library at www.cdalibrary.org. And in case my hyperlinking is kicking in, here's the CRD/PaLA link I tried to send last week: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpla/CRD/.

All best to all. Good night.

Oh, Brother

I didn't even succeed in hyperlinking properly.
What if I do this: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpla/CRD/
Nope, doesn't seem like that's working either.
But I believe I have it typed correctly now.
Sheesh.

Making Sense of It All

HA!-----NOT BLOODY LIKELY THIS WEEK! I am going to try to attach a page of information. Let's see what happens........Well, that was completely unsuccessful. Since I know next to nothing about cyber-processing, I figure I'd jump into the deep water. Be bold, ya know. Well, what I did was this: I Saved a page onto del.icio.us.(Is that what I REALLY did???--highly doubtful--see what I'm trying to do is let everyone know about the CRD-PaLA workshop in Bethlehem, PA (Lehigh U) on June 8, and, anyhow, I saved this page or posted it or whatever the hell I did to del.icio.us, thinking, well, since I haven't a clue WHAT to think del.icio.us might actually be for, MAYBE it's for doing what I'm trying to do! Well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But I ain't got anywheres yet with my method, SO, what I AM going to to is type in a hyperlink:

http://www.lehigh.edu/inpla/CRD/

I've gotta run back to work, will see if this has any success when I return.

TTFN

First Night in Blogville

Hello classmates. This is my first blog entry. I am simply going to say hello and call it a night, as I have been going whacko with trying to catch up with you all this evening. TTFN