#19: Other Social Networks

Besides Facebook (which I haven't even been checking as often as I used to), I am fairly limited in the social networks I participate in. I've mentioned I'm on MySpace, but I really don't do anything with that. I am on LinkedIn, which is a more professional social network. I used to connect with camp counselors I worked with on MyFamily, but they went to a pay-to-upgrade scheme and no one would pay for our site after a few years. Instead, we have a group on Facebook.

The social network I use the most is Goodreads, which I absolutely love. I talked about how I used LibraryThing to keep track of the books I own, and Goodreads to keep track of the books that I have read and want to read. Currently, I have 1614 books here. 531 are read (since I joined), 950 are to be read, and I am currently reading 3. I have an enormous to read list; when I come across a book on a blog or in a selection tool like Booklist that I want to read but I know isn't appropriate for my community college library, I add it to my list. I know that it would take me forever to get through all of the books, and that I probably will never read some of them, but now when I'm looking for books to read, I can simply peruse the list. I summarize and review all the books I read in spreadsheet, and I upload that to Goodreads as a fail-safe. I started doing this a few years back when I was having problems remembering certain books I read years ago, and I needed considerable sleuthing to track down. Others I still haven't figured out. It's also nice to have my thoughts on the books written down, so I know whether it's worth re-reading or not, and I can also see how a certain author has done. If I don't like a lot of their books, then I won't bother with others. When you read as much as I do, it can be difficult to connect the dots unless it's ordered in a specific way. I've requested permission to be a librarian on GoodReads, and now I can fix problems, upload book covers, and all that jazz. This is good, because I am quite anal-retentive and I can't stand to see known errors without fixing them. I'm constantly updating records in Aleph for our catalog when I see an issue--and that's definitely a good thing. Less errors mean better search results. It's all about quality control and customer service.


For a while I was uploading some of my recipes to wegottaeat.com, but I just don't like the set-up very much. Instead, I'm using Evernote, and I really like it. I can create individual notebooks (Appetizers; Desserts; etc.,) and put individual notes in them. Since I find many recipes I'd like to try online through blogs, I can simply copy and paste them into these notes. They remain very searchable (so I can search for a particular ingredient, such as when I have some half-and-half to use up) and I can tag things very specifically (within my Dessert notebook, for instance, I have tags for brownies, chocolate, cookies, egg whites, egg yolks (if something only uses egg whites or egg yolks), and more). This lets me narrow down quite well, and it's less limiting than having a print notebook. I had been using Google Notebook, but they recently announced they are eliminating support and updates, and I decided to try something new.

For music, I use Pandora. You tell it what songs you like, and it creates a station with similar artists and songs. When I'm in my office cataloging or working on something, I like to have a little music to help keep me going. Pandora does has some limitations; you can't get a song 'on-demand' and you can only skip so many songs, but there is a lot of customization that you can do if you're having too many songs you don't like. I decided to take a look at last.fm. I didn't like it as much as Pandora. First of all, it was a little confusing to use. Secondly I really didn't like that you needed to add 15 artists to your library to be able to play stations. I don't have 15 favorite artists from one genre, and I don't really like to mix genres. I'm usually in a certain mood, and it was a little strange to have La Oreja de Van Gogh mixed up with Journey. I just couldn't get into this one.

I was very intrigued by WebJunction, however. I signed up, but immediately was quite disappointed. None of the affiliations that you're supposed to pick from in Step 3 fit, so I had to leave that blank. Searching for groups was difficult; I wished there were a way to browse through them all; nothing came up for 'community college,' 'academic,' 'reference,' or even 'library,' so I have no idea what groups exist. I didn't really want to pay for the courses either; unless it's something very relevant to my job, I won't really pay for it, and none of the listed courses really piqued my interest. I get enough relevant courses through NEFLIN! I think I might also be a product of the open-access generation, where there are very few things I am willing to pay for. I just discovered that The New York Times has opened up its archives for free on their website, and I am thrilled! It's a little easier to use their site than to go through the databases. I have stubbornly refused to pay to upgrade my Flickr, just because I don't think I should have to. I understand that these companies need to make money, but I prefer to be bombarded with ads than pay for yearly fees. The one exception I've made is I paid $25 to become a lifetime member at LibraryThing. It was a one-time charge and it was quite low, and seemed reasonable. Other than that, there are very few things I will pay for.