SEAMLESS RESOURCE SHARING

The Web 2.0 Week 6 title interested me more than the previous lessons probably because the words Tagging, Delicious and LibraryThing (TDL) have psychologically created a friendly impression on me because I could connect to the meaning of the words easily, unlike the terms Blog, Wiki, RSS which sounded so alien or unfriendly to me at first sight. For example, the word Tagging conjures up the image of an object for identification purpose such as magnetic tags fixed on endangered species that environmental conservationists practice in their scientific studies, the common  price tags found on  commodities that serve to alert potential buyers the freshness of the goods as well as to prompt to people who have budgetary restrictions to spend wisely looking at the price tages first before heading to the cashier counter, or even the concept  of one tagging along/behind/closely a person for a reason... Delicious brings us the sense of “good aroma, taste” to our senses of smelling and   tasting like the judges in the TV  program “Iron Chef” often commented on the dishes they tasted “mmmm…it’s so delicious like swimming in the mouth” and LibraryThing inescapably gives us (or at least to me being a server in libraries for decades) the familiar concrete images of a physical structural building, different types of visible shelves of collections including nowadays the invisible e-collections on the Internet as invaluable sources of information, the services provided by the people manning the service points etc.  Perhaps with such familiarity of the words to me, comparatively I found the exercises were more user-friendly, more interesting and easier to do compared to that RSS feeds  lesson. In this TDL exercise, I could at least equate mentally to some of the actual practices known in library science  e.g. tagging is equivalent to assigning meaningful useful subject headings (keywords) in cataloguing to facilitate searchers in the use of library catalogues, the key to the treasures in their  treasure hunts;  Delicious is truly the fun part for me to search, identify, and bookmark many interesting web sites that hold the titles close to my heart, an overwehlming rich pool of resources from which I can draw up my own acquisitions or reading lists for my very own little Library, to be able to note like-minded people who also have selected the titles I have identified is a useful barometer for me to gauge the readership. Certainly in my opinion, Library Thing is a useful tool for libraries to structure into their system with the primary  objective in promoting the true spirit of sharing their special delicious resources seamlessly with all other libraries and interested users of libraries.

Food for thoughts:

"We can recycle things but cannot recycle our wasted time"

THERE IS SUNSHINE IN A SMILE

By Helen Steiner Rice

"Life is a mixture of sunshine and rain,

Laughter and pleasure, teardrops and pain,

All days can't be bright, but it's certainly true,

There was never a cloud the sun didn't get through -

So just keep on smiling whatever betide you,

Secure in the knowledge God is always beside you,

And you'll find when you smile your day will be brighter

And all of your burdens will seem much lighter--

For each time you smile you will find it is true

Somebody, somewhere will smile back at you,

And nothing on earth can make life more worthwhile

Than the sunshine and warmth of a beautiful smile"