I'm a Shover and Maker and so are you!

I'm a Shover and Maker! Check out all the other winners at The Library Society of the World's Shovers & Makers.

The Cult of Done Manifesto

I've become quite fond of The Cult of Done Manifesto created by Bre Pettis and Kio Starr. I decided there needed to be a color version, though, so here it is.

Librarian Heroes!

Created with Hero Machine 2.5.

See more Librarian Superheroes here on Flickr.

Shelving of Doom

For years now, I've had the notion that someone should write a murder mystery in which the implement of death is compact shelving. A quick check of YouTube reveals that I'm not the only one who is fascinated by it.


Short and sweet.


This one is a bit long and could have used some editing, but is still amusing.


Finally, here is a less scary take on compact shelving.

The Compassionate Community

I've been ruminating about InfoSciPhi's recent and moving post about suffering and compassion. I very much respect and admire his forthrightness and honesty in talking about both his difficult experiences with his family members and what he has learned from them. InfoSciPhi's stories about his brothers have sparked some amazing dialogues on Twitter and FriendFeed, in which people express their support and empathy for him and his family.

During the past couple of weeks, others in my online communities have disclosed similar struggles. In one case, the recent suicide of a family member. In another, a child's attempted suicide. I have participated in several thoughtful and meaningful discussions about how mental illness directly effects each of us with folks in the LSW Meebo Room. I am reminded that suffering and mental illness is part of all of our lives, even those folks who seem so very together, professional and well-adjusted. In two days, it will be the thirteenth anniversary of my brother's suicide. For several years prior to his death, we had witnessed with horror and shock as John lost bits and pieces of himself to schizophrenia. While I still feel a painful ache, like a missing limb, I am no longer quite so angry with him. Time has changed my experience of loss.

As InfoSciPhi says, each of us can choose how we respond to traumatic events that are beyond our control. I am proud and moved that my peeps in Libraryland have responded to him with kindness and compassion.

The Twitter vs. FriendFeed Smackdown

I've recently migrated from using Twitter on a regular basis to instead trying FriendFeed. FriendFeed (FF) is a social networking application that allows one to follow specific people's posts from up to forty one applications, Web sites and services. It also allows one to post directly on the FF site. Why this defection, you ask? Because, as Tinfoil + Raccoon so eloquently expressed the other day, Twitter has been so full of fail recently that it's been breakin' my heart. I mean, what kind of application lures me in with promises of constant connectivity and cracklike social networking capabilities and then is broken in one way or another for weeks at a time? I don't like being taken for granted as a user. These days, we have enough viable choices that if an app is frequently broken or hard to use, people will leave it (we in Libraryland should know this better than most, right?). And so, even though today Twitter is functioning perfectly, it is with great reluctance and and a heavy heart that I follow my libr* peeps over to FriendFeed.

Here are some of my initial thoughts about FriendFeed:

• I love that it keeps discussion threads together, which makes them very easy to follow.
• I enjoy seeing which posts get rated favorably with "like".
• Some folks are taking advantage of FriendFeed's aggregation functionalities to display their posts from Flickr, del.icio.us, Pandora, their blogs, and more. While I for some reason feel reluctant to aggregate my entire online life in one place, it is kind of interesting and handy to see other people's stuff all in one place.
• FriendFeed also allows one to create rooms (such as the LSW room) that allow one to easily share posts with a specific group of people. This kind of room doesn't facilitate the social chattiness of a meebo room, but it still could be useful for asynchronous communication.
• I loved being able to direct message people via Twitter when I wanted to say something to a specific person more privately, so I'm disappointed that FF doesn't have this feature.
• FF makes it very easy to post links, especially since there is no 140 character restriction.

Presently, my loyalties remain divided. Time will tell whether Twitter can win me back or whether FriendFeed will ultimately triumph.