THING 8: Curation

It's true that we indeed sort, classify and try to make thing accessible everyday. I for one try to keep the noticeboards and Moodle homepage fun and visual to help students find information or even just know when we are open or who to ask a question to. The closest thing to a fun book display we have is our serial desk, which due to cuts is looking less updated and shiny, but I still put effort into keeping everything looking tidy and visible.

I have come across Pinterest in passing, but it follows that type of boxes of images display that I find counter-productive to user friendliness. It is a form of visual information overload. It's that type of display that turns me off Windows 8 through 10. It also means that people like myself with lower internet speeds can't display it right. But it's the way of the future and I have to admit the images array is pretty. It's also nice to get a break from words. Young people seem to be more drawn to this set-up aswell so it is in keeping with trends in the field. As many people have said in their blogs, Librarians will continue to be necessary but need to adapt and evolve.

My main concern with all these different types of media is the time-consuming nature of their use. Yes, Pinterest is good for pinning and book-marking in a visual way, but I already use Twitter for useful links and for images. My opinion has more to do with simplifying my use of social media to a few sites and I happened upon Twitter first, so therefore I use it. Also the fact you need an account to even view these pages, and there is no sign in with Google option, is a bit discouraging.

Ok, so I have an account. Picture overload with like 11 following. Though it is a nice source of images. Rapid City have put their page to good use with different programs they've run. Could I use it to display some stuff about us? I just need to work out how to upload something original. Just one question though - good God, why did they shred books!???
I'll update when I've had a chance to look around.


UPDATE, the next day:
Wasted like a half hour searching different terms to see if there's a way to find all the stuff I want to buy when I get paid and pin them to a board as this would be useful for me. Still can't figure out how to upload my own pictures/links so it might be actually useful for promoting our library.


I didn't even try flipbook because the thoughts of setting up another account i'll never use again happened. I did try storify as it seems useful for searching terms across social media and creating the course of an event or news story. And I could sign up using Twitter!
It could be useful and is easy enough to use but I couldn't really work out how to filter results bar narrowing the search term. I'll have to spend more time at it I imagine.


UPDATE, Much later:
There's actually something I found on my own called paper.li that's good for sharing news. it's a bit finicky as regards it automatic streaming sources in, but it's useful for sure.