it's all over

...well, come on. I haven't posted since MAY. The focus of this blog is too narrow, especially since I'm not a working librarian, and it's too strictly factual. Or sometimes not. This blog never did decide what it wanted to be, and that makes for a mediocre blog.

all these things that i do is a blog -- well, a microblog -- with a broader range and shorter posts. Tumblr offers simpler, easier ways to post all kinds of different things, so I guess it'll be more multimedia, too. I hope you enjoy it.

Matar a tu lector RSS (English in previous post)

Este artículo de Farhad Manjoo, periodista tecnológico de la revista Slate, es sobre los lectores RSS y como son innecesarios. Es decir, que el escritor ha encontrado una manera de seguir todos sus sitios preferidos sin usar ningún lector RSS. Me divertí mucho leyendolo. Aunque he usado Google Reader y My Yahoo! durante unos años, nunca he sido una usuaria habitual. Normalmente, los ignoro; a veces, me dan un sentimiento desgradable de dejar mis responsabilidades, de ser floja, y convierten algo que debe ser divertido - encontrar cosas nuevas y interesantes en la Web - en una tarea tan aburrida como ver mi e-mail de trabajo (cuando tenía trabajo).

La estrategia de Manjoo es muy simple: organizar sus marcadores dentro del navegador según cuantas veces a la semana los lee, y usar el botón medio del raton para abrirlos en pestañas diferentes. (Si no sabes lo que pasa cuando abres una enlace con el botón medio, hazlo. Te esperaré.)

Mi problema con RSS siempre ha sido así: ya sé que sitios quiero visitar. Sé que sitios voy a visitar. Voy a recordar un sitio que tiene información interesante y útil. ¿Porque, entonces, necesito un lector RSS para darme la lata? Hasta ahora, he utilizado Delicious y la historia de mi navegador para ir a donde quiero, pero voy a utilizar la estrategia de Manjoo a ver como funciona.

Kill Your RSS Reader

This article by Slate magazine's tech guy, Farhad Manjoo, is all about how RSS readers, championed by many as the only way to stay up-to-date on all your fave blogs and sites, are really unnecessary, not to mention annoying. I loved reading it. I have designed two RSS pages, on Yahoo! and on Google, over the past couple years, but I've never become a dedicated user of them. At best, I ignore them; at worst, they give me an unpleasant feeling of slackery and laziness, making something that should be fun - finding cool info on the web - as much of a chore as checking my work email (well, back when I had a job).

Manjoo's strategy for keeping up with the Joneses is a more sophisticated version of what I already do: he organizes the bookmarks in his browser according to how often he visits a site, and then opens them all up in the same window using the middle mouse button. (If you don't know what happens when you click on a link with the middle mouse button, go try it. I'll wait.)

My problem with RSS readers has always been: I already know what sites I want to visit. I already know what sites I'm going to visit. If a site has useful and interesting information, I'm unlikely to forget about it, so why do I need an RSS reader nagging me to do it? Until now I've been relying more on Delicious and my browser history to get me where I want to go, but I'm going to try this bookmark strategy. Let's see how it works.

Salamanca Public Library

I recently returned from a camping trip to the interior of Spain with my husband and two friends. We visited Toledo, Segovia, Avila, and Salamanca. Salamanca is known for its university, which has produced many famous minds. Among the must-sees in Salamanca, or so say the guidebooks, is a structure called the "casa de las conchas", a building decorated with shells -- not real ones, though. We eventually found it, and it turns out that its other name is "Biblioteca Publica".





According to the library's website, this library was inaugurated in 1993. Check out the entrace hall and weep.

I wanted to take some pictures of the interior of the library, but the librarians weren't too thrilled at the sight of my camera. I can't blame them, really: the atmosphere inside was so quiet and studious I felt like a jerk just walking around. I can report that they have made wonderful use of the space. Lots of windows and simple, modern design made everything feel light, spacious and airy.

Read more about the Casa de las Conchas on Wikipedia (Spanish only).

wordle UPDATED

I just discovered Wordle, which is a free tool that can make word clouds for you from any blog, from your delicious account, or just from words you submit yourself. Here is a cloud made from my delicious tags. Note: "glis634" was the number of my web design class in library school. My final project for the same course included a lot of photographs. And I currently work as an esl tutor just to put food on the table. Update: Here's a cloud from this blog too.

Further update: Boy, am I late to the bandwagon on this one. My friend Amy linked to this months ago. And a funny thing: I remember seeing it. Anyway, enjoy!

discoveries

1. In Spain, the information professions are known as documentación, and include biblioteconomía (librarianship), archivística (archival studies) and museología (museology?) as well as, according to Wikipedia, documentación itself. That confuses me a lot, but I'm working on it.

2. There are a whole crapload of professional organizations here. The ones that seem most relevant to me at the moment are the Asociación Andaluza de Documentalistas and the Asociación Andaluza de Bibliotecarios, because they are specific to the autonomous community I live in. There are lots of other ones though, like ANABAD, FESABID and SEDIC. FESABID is having a conference in Zaragoza in May which I think I should attend, broken Spanish notwithstanding.

3. Info professionals in Spain don't find my story quite as impressive as I do.

4. It's unlikely that I'll find a job very quickly. I suppose the best thing to do would be to make myself known to some professionals around here, so that I don't seem to have come out of nowhere when a good opportunity actually comes up?

scanner-free

I am in a foreign land and don't have easy access to a scanner. However, the last time I was here I found the public library while getting lost looking for something else. I plan to make a trip there soon, take some notes, and put 'em up here. So... see you soon! I hope?

the Library of Congress Strives for Accuracy in All Things

The correct LC subject heading for the homes of ministers of the church, when those homes have been provided by the church, is "Parsonages" and not "Rectories".

The correct LC subject heading for gardens attached to the homes of ministers of the church, when those homes have been provided by the church, is "Rectory gardens" and not "Parsonage gardens".

I think "Parsonage gardens" sounds like a very expensive, very tasteful, very exclusive housing development.

This is likely the reason for LC's inconsistency. Thank you, LC, for keeping your subject headings both accurate and evocative! Keep up the good work.

Hiatus due to generation

I am, probably unnecessarily, announcing a hiatus on this blog. I feel that these projects should have a purpose, and frankly I'm not sure what the purpose of this one is. I lack focus. I have, probably, a diffuse personality.

This apparently just makes me typical of my generation:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/52229

and

http://www.slate.com/id/2187428/

Oh, please.