Week 10: Tags (Stickin' It to the Man)

Well, well, well. Tagging is so relevant to library services it's readiculous. We all know a library is information organized for use and that is what tagging is "good fer". Although The Cootess must admit She tends to use tags, not for efficiency, but to be all cute. But Booby (sic and sick and it stays) del Libro is on to sumpin': let's use these suckas to finally take down that old, dead man-cootess M. Dewey. (A) That dude's turn 'o da century nonsense is totally stale (B) When it come to reigning cootesses, there can be only one. We all know this is going to end with Me and Kanye in the ring, so let's just fast forward, shall we? Let's move this into Webrary 3.0. Too late, already happened. So The Cootess, Bobby and Effie Reader were all working in the salt mines/reference office, our backs to one another as we blog and comment and email away, when Bobby says, "Cootess, I just sent you an email about my blog. You can twitter me what you think." That's when we all slowly turned around and Effie Reader said,"OMG, we just busted through to 3.0." Anyhoodle, all I'm saying is The Cootess West is designing overpriced, ugly space alien tennie-pumps for Louis Vuitton. The least we can do is get delicious with ourselves.

Qutoable Quote:

"The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on."

--Melvil Dewey (but you know Kanye's thinking it)

Weeks 8, 9 et al: Putting First Life First

What can the Cootess say? Having wasted chunks of Her own precious youth on Ms. Pac Man and inane electronic chatter about hairstyles and boys, The Cootess certainly sees the appeal of gaming and social networking. Fortunately, We (oh yes, that is the royal "we") also spent some of our days cultivating a little sumpin' sumpin' called "interior life" and what the kids call "meaningful interpersonal relationships". The way The Cootess sees it, Web 2.0 is like drugs: it can be helpful to maintaining a healthy quality of life, but, if abused, it can be just as destructive. Certainly this was the case with exterior narratives and mechanized communication long before the advent of the Web (The Cootess, though a progressive sort, still frets that movable type may have stolen the soul from the Written Word), but it's a horse that deserves beating because the heart of the Public Library has always been expressed by the equation FULFILLING INTERIOR LIFE + FULFILLING PERSONAL INTERACTION = FULFILLMENT OF HUMANITY and you don't want to be coming up with a goose egg on that one. This whole Web 2.0 assignment has taught me that while She's helping folks with Second Life, The Cootess must always be cautious not to divert energy and resources from First Life because here at the Library, humanity is job one. This sounds easy enough for a librarian, but for The Cootess, the siren song of cyber-realms is always threatening to suck the life out of Life.

P.S.

I'm gonna start a "Libraries: we're not just about machines anymore!" campaign to off-set the "Libraries: we're not just about books anymore!" slogan I keep hearing. Who's with me?

Quotable Quote:

"Humanity comes not from the machine but from the heart."

--The Late Delightfully Crusty Coot, Joseph Campbell

Flick My Flickr and Twitter Redux

Hey, here is a really nice shot of the Greatest Cootess of All Time, Kanye West, performing at the Democratic National Convention. I got this pic from Flickr and it comes from a set tagged "Democratic Convention". It doesn't say which Democratic Convention, so I'm guessing this is the Democratic Convention Kanye put on in his rec room because the DNC refused to put his name ahead of Barack Obama on the guest list.

The Cootess is a fan of Flickr. Having lately been privy to an onslaught of weddings and births, having a central place to post and view pix is quite nice. Also, one could do things like follow Kanye West's adjuct Democratic Convention if one so desired. It would almost be like being there.



Speaking of which, this weekend I actually had some teachers ask me what Twitter is, and after I explained, the conversation went a little something like this:

Teacher: "I just don't get it. Why are people so wild about this?"

Cootess: "Look, I'm not here to sell anybody on Twitter. I'm just an information professional. I don't provide judgement, just information, so get out of my chilli.

Teacher: "But it's so shallow. I understand why 8th graders would be into it, but functioning adults? It's just such shallow communication and who has the time?"

Cootess: "I believe the immediacy and forced brevity are the attraction. I have an article furnished by the Web 2.0 committee you might want to read. Just go on my blog ..."

Teacher: "But I'm right here! This is the problem with this technology culture. I don't want to go to your blog, I don't want you to text me or tweet about it. Let's have an actual face-to-face conversation."

Cootess: "How is any of this relavent to Kanye West?"

Fish for Food+Cootess+Deb N. = Fit Club Frenemies

The Cootess has intiated Phase II of her Diabolical Fit Club Domination Plan: lull the competition into a false sense of security. It looked like I was going to come out on top this week due to the lameness of the competition when, in the eleventh hour, one Deb N. comes in with a five pound weight loss! Are you kidding me with this? Well, The Cootess 'aint no sucka, sucka. You can't be bustin' out numbers like that week one. You better pace yourself, Miss Deb. On second thought, don't pace yourself. Keep on bringing it and by week four you will have collapsed from "dehydration" or "exhautsion" or some other glamorous skinny person malady, and that is when The Cootess busts a move of her own. And you better watch your back, Fish for Food; you think you're smooth with your zero pound loss. Are you trying to out-cootess The Cootess? Puh-leez!

Quotable Quote:

"I'm gonna git you!"