Week 2: Online Communities

This is probably going to be the easiest assignment of all. I've been using Facebook for a while, but not really for professional networking. I use it primarily to keep up with friends and family, especially those living far from me. I do have quite a few "work" friends, but these are people who would be my friends even if I didn't have to work with them.

My close friends and I use FB to share music finds with each other -- things like rare video and audio clips, rock star deaths, 1 sentence reviews of albums, or any music related news that we want to share. I love this feature because we can all see it simultaneously and engage in dialogue via comments regardless of where we're living. My main music buds are in Kansas, England, California, and Massachussets - I can post a video of Kraftwerk doing "Pocket Calculator" from a 1981 concert and I love how we can all talk about it. Nerdy yes, but that's the beauty of online communities.

Using the 23 Things Kansas registrants' list, I friended 2 professional contacts. It'll be interesting to see how I balance personal and professional "friends" on the same profile since I use FB very little for professional matters. I hope I don't offend them. I know that quite a few of my colleagues belong to TSCPL's network and that the library communicates with the public through FB. Only time will tell if this is something I want to participate in with my personal profile or with a separate "work" profile -- I know that some of my friends have separated FB friends this way.

Week One: Blogging

Hello fellow 23-Thingers. My name is Tanya and I'm an Adult Services Specialist at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. Why am I participating in 23 Things Kansas - I have no idea. I just thought I'd approach this as a tabula rasa and see what sticks.

I usually only blog about obscure bands and songs that only about 5 other people in the world have heard of so I'm expecting this to be an entirely different experience - I have never blogged about what I do when I'm not listening to music. I may be in for a bumpy ride.

I leave you with the lyrics to my favorite Sam Phillips song, "Faster Pussycat to the Library" -- "We'll go to where the action is / If you don't know what to do / I'll look it up for you."