Hitting that Brick Wall and bouncing off...

Do you ever get that technology phobic feeling? That little nagging aahh in your stomach. I sometimes get it where I just think that there is no way I can learn all this new technology. Its like math anxiety from learning times tables in the second grade all over again!!

So what to do? The librarian profession is all about technology nowadays. I don't know about you, but I'm still in the Gen X classification..so why the phobicness?

I think its the rapid change even as you blink your eye...Like I learn Dreamweaver MX, don't use it for 2 months...oops now I've forgotten and of course Dreamweaver 8 just came out....Learn Camtasia 4 ooops now there is Capitivate which can be better what to do?? Then what about not having access to the software you want to learn...Scream! No...

With the overwhelming balance of reference, supervision, collection development, committee work...who has time to sit down and learn photoshop for the one time a year you may need to post a picture on the web?

What to Do?? This is what I'm doing this year (my personal goal) Take one one piece of technology...software...whatever you choose, but choose one and work hard at learning that one for a month....then next month on to something else. This month for me its Adobe Acrobat...why?? I needed a form for a conference registration...so good time to learn. Also...tutorials on the web are fabulous:

Video-tutes
Tutorial Outpost

Just a little musing of overwhelmedness!

OK so I've been hanging out at the Eighth Floor for a few days to learn as much as I can and Lee Ann and I starting talking all about You Tube and RSS feeds because:

I have a favorite YouTuber...one particular You Tube user who I love to watch every video put up on You Tube....what to do:

You Tube has a Help memu all about RSS feeds and how to do it per "tag" or user...but could it be more complicated and non-intuitive. From the You Tube website:

"RSS Feeds for Tags and Users
To create an RSS feed for your favorite tags or users, simply enter the tag or username as specified in the below URLs. You can then add this URL to your newsreader. Please note, you will need to create a feed for each individual tag or user you wish to subscribe to.

Tags:For example, if you wanted to create an RSS feed for the tag "monkey," you would enter: feed://www.youtube.com/rss/tag/monkey.rss

Users:feed://www.youtube.com/rss/user/[insert username here]/videos.rssFor example, if you wanted to create an RSS feed for the user "YouTube," you would enter: feed://www.youtube.com/rss/user/youtube/videos.rss "

Then paste that in your aggregator for viewing when something is new. I'm not sure that this is an easy way to go about it.

Alternative: you can subscribe to the person's list and get an e-mail notification, but then your back to the carbon age. ERRR....complicated either way. But the choice is yours.

Knowledge is power. Lynn the Librarian

Here is a wiki of note....interesting items about libraries and best practices.

http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Enjoy.

Well its been forever since I've posted anything and that's probably because of the personal life getting in the way of the professional life...but now that the comic book business is on its way to successfullness... its time for me to refocus my energies on this venture called librarianship