Well here I am on reruns again...

I couldn't access the OPAL chatroom for today's webcast. I've sent out a cry for help and I'm certain that it will all be resolved before too long. Instead of being in the classroom I spent the time reading about social bookmarking and setting up my own blog on wordpress. There's nothing in the blog yet, so I won't hand out the address until I come up with something profound to say.

I must admit to being slightly skeptical about the use of some of these tools for work purposes. But I have been won over! Prior to my librarian days, I was in Purchasing and spent many the night waiting til it got late enough to call Wendy at the IPO in Hong Kong (sorry - international purchasing office). And I clearly remember the number of meetings that had to be rescheduled because the required information didn't arrive on time (stuck in the mail or customs). I can think of dozens of ways that the social tools we're talking about would have made for a lot fewer late nights as well.

So, I've had my first introduction to RSS over the last 2 days. I've subscribed to Google Reader and then to some of their pre-packaged feeds in order to play around a little. After that I went into library land and subscribed to the Top 10 blogs list that was posted earlier today. I spent the afternoon reading through and have already unsubscribed to some that were unable to hold my interest. I think there will be a lot of trial and error with this process.

I definitely like the idea of having this type of updating in a single place. One of the problems that I continually encounter is not being able to find what I am looking for in my bookmarks. I'm no cataloguer! Therefore, I'm inconsistent in the 'folders' I choose (I am getting better with practice). But the bigger problem is the amount of time it takes to check each site and see what may be new. I'm really hoping that Google Reader will make a difference to my daily life. 

Hello to all of you. My name is Sandra and I'm a late addition to the 5 Weeks course. I'm really looking forward to it and you'll have to pardon the fact that I'm a little behind the rest of you. This is the first time I have posted to a public space...well outside of joining the SocialLibrariesLurkers wiki a few weeks ago. I am a recent graduate of the MLIS program and still hunting for my first full-time job but work Sunday Services at Toronto Public Library. Most of the users we see on Sundays are students. I'm in two different branches, one seems to attract mainly high school students while the other attracts students who are avoiding the very large and, I'm guessing, intimidating library at their nearby university. I hope to land in a university setting, preferably one with an LIS PhD program because someday I intend to go after that degree too!