The Fine Print

Last night my bedtime reading was the new Terms of Service agreement for Tumblr (they were just acquired by Yahoo). Don't judge me. They are actually way more interesting than you would expect. For starters, below each term laden with jargon there is a text box that explains it in layman's terms.

Some of the highlights:

 



I think this is great. Especially for a tool with over 39% of users under the age of 25 (Source). They've gone out of their way to make their Terms of Service accessible and even interesting.

They did the same with their Community Guidelines:

Now that we have a generation that grew up with the internet, it is assumed by many that they just know how to use it. The mechanics, maybe, but what about guidelines and best practices? Do they know or do they just click on "I Agree"?

Twitter feed

It's just too much sometimes.

Social Reading

I like the social features in the library catalogue, especially the lists and reading shelves. I like creating lists to be able to keep track of series with multiple authors (aren't those lovely? Especially when the series isn't always part of the title?). The Seven series is one:

I also follow staff from other libraries to see their lists (SeattleTeenLibrarian's lists are good ones).

I prefer Goodreads for sharing information about what I'm reading because you can connect with Facebook friends and post your reviews to your Facebook feed. I also categorizing the books I read using tags so I can sort them better later (yah, that is the librarian in me for sure) and like the recommendations you receive based on items you have read and not just what your friends are reading (even though you still get to see what your friends are reading).


Extra Cool Extra Thing: Rainey.me posted on how you can create that cool carousel feature on your blog.

Twitter

Confession: I am the WORST at Twitter. I've had it for years and I only have 265 tweets (most of those are retweets and that one time I was asked to live tweet a hockey game).  When I do tweet they are such insightful gems as:

I may not be up for all that content creating, but I do like reading what others have to say. I like searching for specific hashtags to see what people are posting about events or news stories. I use Twitter primarily for professional development and finding interesting articles.

My favourite library related Twitter accounts:
NY Public Library - @NYPL
National Reading Campaign - @readingcampaign
HuffPost Books - @HuffPostBooks
YALSA - @yalsa
American Library Association - @amlibraries
Fake Library Stats - @fakelibstats

Privacy

Since we started training some have had concerns about privacy and the amount of information we are asked to share online. I think that is an important concern and also part of the learning process. How much are you comfortable sharing online and how can you limit what you share (or how it is used)? I tend to try and share the minumum amount of personal info I can get away with. When I created my Google account I didn't give my phone number. You don't have to! They make it seem like all of those fields are mandatory, but they aren't.

I try not to be super paranoid, but am sometimes uncomfortable with my digital footprint.

CBC's Spark program frequently talks about the future of privacy. Here is one podcast from October following the Privacy and Access conference in BC. "We need to be educated on how to use data, when to protect it and when to just let it free."

PBS has a short video that has some US specific backstory, but there are some parallels with current concerns in Canadian legislation

Blogger App

I'm attempting to use Blogger for iPad.

I have no idea what each tiny icon means. I'm just trying them all. I turned my first post back into a draft? Enh. 

Blogging

I started blogging about 10 years ago, but it didn't stick.

Top 3 reasons why I failed at blogging:

1. I wasn't consistent. I only posted when the mood struck, whether it was twice a day or once every two months.
2. I didn't plan ahead of time. Tips for success include sitting down and making a list of ideas for posts, blocking them into a calendar, scheduling time to write posts or saving drafts.
3. I was all over the place. I had no target audience, nothing I was trying to promote and no cause. I have a lot of different interests so I definitely couldn't stick to a theme.

Here's hoping I can be disciplined enough now to overcome the first two reasons. I still struggle with the third. I'm interested in library stuff, but if I had a blog about library stuff where would I put my other interests like circumpolar exploration, illustration, animal rights and gifs of kittens? 

 

I prefer Tumblr as a platform because it is generally easier to post (especially from my tablet) and to follow my different interests. Because it is so easy to repost content I do find it frustrates me in terms of copyright and attributing author, though. 

EXTRA Cool Extra Thing - I recently started playing around on Weebly and really like it for creating modern looking websites that are a bit more complex than the standard blog.