Goodbye Cricket

Well, I had intended to post about my last-minute speed knitting today (I managed to make Norberta and two Back to School washcloths* and a Mason-Dixon felted box in about two weeks - a record for me) but woke up this morning to find that my 16 year old cat, Cricket, passed away last night. Getting her was the very first thing I did after I signed the lease on my first apartment after college. She'd been with me in Boston, Milwaukee and now Columbia, through 3 jobs, grad school, two more cats, a dog, a husband and a daughter. 16 years from just post-college to closing in on middle age. I will miss her very much.

*one in blue with an orange"Go" and one in orange with a blue "Gator" for a Gator fan.

Second Challenge

I already use Bloglines - I signed up for an account about six months ago. I have my account divided into folders - one for knitting blogs, one for house renovation blogs, one for beauty blogs (I'm addicted to Sephora), and one for library blogs. I can't imagine NOT using an aggregator - it takes much less time to catch up because I don't have to visit each separate blog to see if there's something new. I think that an aggragator is sort of like the TiVo of blogland - it takes care of capturing everyhing I want and I can then catch up at my leisure. Lately, I've become really intrigued with netvibes, which is sort of an RSS feed/portal page. I've set up one for my husband that has all his sports feeds, techie feeds, news feeds - as well as access to his gmail and ebay accounts current weather, etc. This is really cool.

I think that there will be lots of ways for us to use RSS feeds at the library - I would like to see the calendar available as an RSS feed, as well as the news/info. on the home page and the teen and "regular" newsletters as well. I don't see how this could even be possible right now, but wouldn't it be neat if HIP's "my account" info. could be an RSS feed - then you could have your account information (overdues, holds, etc.) served up where you wanted it - perhaps on your own personal portal page.

I actually read or skimmed through all the articles in Suggested Reading because I know I need to become very familiar with RSS - and how to create RSS feeds. I really liked Roy Tennants' (Feed Your Head: Keeping Up with Using RSS) idea for using RSS to create a New Books list. I also enjoyed Stephen Cohen's RSS for Non-Techie Librarians and Using RSS: an Explanation and Guide. I heard Cohen speak at the Internet Librarian conference and enjoyed his presentation about new innovations in social software (that's where I heard about netvibes). He also talked about some different aggregators. At some point, I'm going to try something other than Bloglines - just out of curiosity. Wusteman's RSS: The Latest Feed provides some interesting ideas for RSS in libraries - good food for thought. I was not aware that there were RSS feeds for newsgroups - I frankly wasn't aware that Usenet newsgroups were still heavily used in this era of web-based message boards. Now I need to start reading the articles about how to create feeds...

The New Knitty!

OK, so I finallly went to see the new Knitty - there's some good stuff there! I really like Eiffel (though my time with Picovoli taught me that I probably don't have the stamina for a full sweater -plus I have Gauge Issues) and Sheldon and Rolling Thunder and Monkey - but I really, really, really like Norberta - I went and ordered the yarn immediately and can't wait to try this one (if I can finish it in time it will be a Christmas present for my dragon-collecting mother). And Twinkletoes will probably be the next pattern. My two-year-old likes to pretend she's a ballerina and these would be perfect. One thing I'm not happy about - it used to be that at the top of every pattern were the links to every other pattern. That's gone now and it takes extra clicks to just browse through from pattern to pattern. Or am I missing something?

Newfound respect for other knitbloggers..

OK, I just spend more time than I'm willing to admit to to take pictures of my FO's and my current projects - and the pictures just aren't that good. How do people take such good pictures of their knitting? And how do they still have time to do anything else afterwards? Wow. Right now I'm working on the Shetland Triangle from Wrap Style (using Knitpicks Shine Sport that was supposed to be my Picovoli before we broke up - we just couldn't get along).

I'm also one skein into the Basket Weave scarf from Interweave Knits (Knitpicks Andean Silk in hollyberry, I think). I'm modifying it to include Annie Modesitt's slipped-stitch edging found in her patterns Alison's Scarf and Backyard Leaves.

Pretty terrible pictures, eh? But, at least I have a record now!

Finished Objects 2006

I'm not sure I even remember everything I knitted... a hat and scarf for my daughter, multi-directional scarf, Clapotis, Kate, Backyard Leaves and Misty Moonlight from Scarf Style, 1/2 of a Pomotomus sock, Jaywalkers, 1 plain sock w/a cable running down the side (not sure I'll finish that pair - I love the yarn but it doesn't wear very well), Not-Quite-Straight Scarf (pdf), a felted ipod case (not so happy with that one), the large spiral bag from One Skein, 2 ball-band washclothes and 2 Mason-Dixon washclothes from Mason-Dixon Knitting and probably something else that I've forgotten. I'm not even counting the things I started and never finished -I had a brief love affair with Picovoli, which ended in tears, started a plain drop-stitch scarf which I will never finish

First Challenge

How to use blogs in my personal life? I'm not entirely sure yet. I subscribe to a number of blogs and I love reading the knitblogs and seeing what other people are working on. I've always thought that a knitting blog would be a good idea - for no other reason than to have a record of what I knit. I keep thinking I'll remember, but we all know how that works. I've always hesitated to actually start a knit blog, though, because I know I won't have much time to keep up with it. I tried blogging once before and it died because I never had any time to keep up with it (Life With Our Poppet). Still, the thought of having a pictorial and text record of what I've made and what I'm making is just too tempting. Now to find the digital camera and try to remember everything I've made so far this year...

How to use blogs in the library? Now that's an easy one. I was lucky enough to attend the Internet Librarian conference this year and came back full of ideas for incorporating social networking software into the library's website. The most obvious place would be the home page. We already use a home-made ColdFusion application so that PR can update the home page with news and announcements, but a "real" blog would allow us more flexibility and more posting options and could integrate better with the page design. There are lots of other ways we could use blogs as well - for example department-specific blogs would be an immediate way to tell patrons about (for example) new periodicals, new databases or new audio-visual items. Additionally, any blog on our website would also be a great way to open a dialog with our patrons, as long as the comments are turned on.