A quick note on comments. Having a look round the 23 Things Blogs, most comments seem to be helpful, and, in some cases, quite charming (I've enjoyed the doodle posts especially). I'm finally getting this community thing, and losing the sense of blogging to myself!

At the other extreme, online blogs for national newspapers seem to attract outrageous comments. Whilst people who record their responses to a particular viewpoint are understandably partisan, it amazes me that some are apparently happy to parade the fact that they are ill-informed. For some participants, the comment function enables them to join in the conversation, playing the flamboyant devil's advocate role that flies in the pub, but not the online forum. Others approach it in a more journalistic fashion, including facts and statistics to support their opinions, which seems more appropriate (many responses to the blogs about library strategy that I've looked at fall into this category, happily!) I wonder why someone would bother to read, for instance, a Guardian blog (it's not like you can't anticipate the political standpoint!) then post a comment complaining about left-wing liberals and their views? That is not political engagement, it is knee-jerk defensiveness. I know you can be condemned by your own comments in this context, and therefore they shoudn't be deleted by a moderator unless they are directly offensive, and I admire the Guardian's approach. However, as a naturally cautious person, it makes me nervous that people are happy to splurge themselves into a comment box without taking time to consider the subject - it implies the same level of involvement as 'liking' a facebook post. I suppose that's part if the instantanious nature of blogging...but I think I'm too uptight (or well-mannered??) to dive in!

I guess part of the role of an 'information professional' is to contribute to the process - I was particularly heartened when I read G Greer's last blog-moan about the UL: someone had left a dramatic comment about how the library should stop being an enigma and open it's doors to the wider world, and a public-spirited librarian goddess followed it up with the friendly advice to check our admissions pages!

Screen shots, belatedly

Having fallen very behind with the programme, I will try and accelerate through the Things I've missed over the weekend (in between football BBQs). The students seem to have thinned out a bit today, so I have at least got time to put up the screen shots of my igoogle pages. They may seem a bit sparse, but as I share computers, I can't set it as my homepage. There is an unfortunate temptation to play pacman endlessly if I leave the page open at work, so I've tried to segregate sober items from the things like lolcatz that I really shouldn't be caught messing about with if I wish to be taken seriously.

Here is my library page

igoogle must be experiencing an increase in interest in books images during this programme...

...and the forbidden pages. Love those penguins.