The Word Widget...

used to mean 'tv remote' in my friend's house, or a thingy in beer cans to make the fizz. Still, I was familiar with adding widgets, as I'd already various bits and pieces to my blog and other things, so it wasn't difficult to add the photostream or to put my Delicious links onto my start page. The only downside is that I haven't kept up Flickr or Delicious...

Officey stuff

Anyone who waded through what surprised me by turning into a mini-rant yesterday will be relieved to see that I don't have much to say about Office 2.0 - either Google Docs or ThinkFree. Both are potentially very useful, and could save the sending of a lot of email attachments; I don't need to use them at the moment, but I'm pleased to be a bit more familiar with them (had used Google Docs in a small way before), so that they will spring to mind next time I need to share documents.

That's all, folks.

Wikis

My previous experience/impression of wikis came from googling something to do with Doctor Who, and coming across a wiki with minutely detailed episode guides and character summaries for (apparently) every creature who ever had a second of screen time, or was even obliquely referred to. Ditto with Harry Potter.

Still, I had a good browse over the Oxford Web2.0 wiki, and made a couple of pedantic updates.

Adventures in Wikipedia were much more interesting, as I was unsurprised to see that the revision history of the 'Israel' article has multiple revisions every day, and that people were even getting into arguments in the notes which give the reason for revision.

I use Wikipedia quite a lot, either for an introduction to something about which I know absolutely nothing (or have never even heard of), or for basic facts about something. For these tasks, it's ideal (though I sometimes want corroboration from other sites once I think I've found the answer I want). However, looking at the pages for my own 'specialist subjects', I can see its problems. Everything present on the page for All Souls is factually correct, there are a lot of important things which should be mentioned and aren't, and it doesn't really represent either the history or the current state of the college very well at all.

Similarly, the people who wrote the article on Ben Jonson clearly haven't read my masters thesis. (And to stop you leaping to Wikipedia, suffice to say he was a friend of Shakespeare and mainly known for his plays) he Understandably, there was a lot about the plays and masques and bit about the poems, but nothing about how they were printed and his unusual involvement in every detail of the process from the quartos onwards, or even the significance of the First Folio. Similarly, there was very little about the intellectual and literary culture he was operating within, and his aspirations for drama as a genre. In short, the article is biased towards providing what people are looking for.

I realise that this might seem an odd thing to say - that's what wikipedia is for, isn't it?! - but it seems wrong that all someone looking at this article gets are the basic facts that an A-level student reading The Alchemist or Volpone wants to fill out their essay. The encyclopaedic presentation of Wikipedia strongly implies that it is authoritative, and whilst readers might be aware that they should check their facts in other sources (I corrected a statement that one masque was lost, when it was actually rediscovered several years ago), they wouldn't realise that there are highly significant facets of Jonson's life and work which aren't even mentioned.

Collective wisdom is a powerful tool indeed, but we have specialists for a reason. I have to confess that I hadn't really thought about the limitations of Wikipedia until I looked at the entries for things I already knew about and could see not just what is wrong, but what is missing.

I certainly won't stop using it - how else could I find out in under 10 seconds who Barry Crocker is ("a popular Australian singer, with a crooning vocal style"), or confirm my suspicion that Tweededum and Tweedledee are only in Through the Looking-Glass, not in Alice in Wonderland? - but I will be more wary in future.

Falling Behind

Oh dear, I'm slipping - not only did I not finish the Twitter Things, I missed my regularly scheduled Sunday evening blogging session, so I'm several Things behind. I engaged with Twitter a bit more, and kept it open for a couple of days at work, replying to people, using hashtags, etc. However, because most of the people who follow me are also following the rest of the people I follow (are you following?!), I didn't find anything I considered worth retweeting, because I knew everyone who would be interested would have already seen it...

I did find it reasonably compulsive for those couple of days, but I soon grew bored. It's just the same as facebook status updates (in fact, often they are facebook status updates), but you don't get to see people's photos, new contacts, events, or entire conversations, so I find it much less interesting. I might occasionally sign in for a nosy, but, much to my relief, I don't feel the pull that many seem to!

Twitter

I was looking forward to this Thing; Twitter is mentioned so often that I was intrigued to see what the fuss is about. To be honest, though, I've been disappointed. I've found other trainees to follow and a couple of other people/things, but apart from the same sorts of status updates I get from facebook, I haven't gained a lot from it, nor have I felt the pull that leads people to become hooked (thankfully! I have enough addictions...).

As a result, I have to confess that I forgot about Twitter for most of the week, and possibly I haven't put enough in to Twitter to get much out of it. I'll try to be more active about it, and see if I can fulfil the criteria for Thing 16 before too long.

In more exciting and early modern news, I've got going on my project. I'm working towards a producing a catalogue of one of the college's most interesting manuscripts - a collection of letters, poems, speeches, masques etc from the early 17thC - so most of my time and enthusiasm are taken up with that.

LinkedIn

Verdict: Not Impressed.

I deleted my account almost immediately, as it seemed like a very shoddy sort of site. It was very difficult and counter-intuitive to navigate, and from the way that there were two separate University of Oxford 'companies' and an 'Oxford University', it didn't look to be very well managed. In addition, there weren't enough people on it to make it seem worthwhile setting up a profile, as it seems unlikely that any useful potential contacts would be looking at (if they were even able to find me!).

Facebook

Not much work required from me for this Thing, as I've been a member of Facebook for about three and half years now. I've found it perfect for staying in touch with people and sharing photos, but the novelty of not-quite-spying on primary school classmates (after all, they know what they're making public!) and looking at blurry and vaguely embarrassing photos of my friends has long since worn off. Gone are the days when I could spend hours facebook-stalking, finding more groups to join, and link-hopping until I found myself reading conversations between perfect strangers. Interestingly, a YouGov survey I took last week asked me if I am getting bored with social networking sites, which suggests that I'm not alone.

As for libraries on Facebook, that's a difficult one. I've been a member of the 'Duke Humfrey Appreciation Society' and 'The Bodleian's Upper Reading Room is Hallowed Ground' groups for years, but never expected or wanted any interaction with these groups. Moreover, it was clear that these were fan groups (from the days before pages), created by readers independent of the libraries themselves, and I would feel disturbed if the libraries did try to do something to entice me in. I've seen several pages created by libraries to represent themselves, and whilst they have fans, in the same way that I joined the two above to show appreciation, I've love to know how many people actually want/take something from these pages other than a sense of connection with others, and the joy of giving something the equivalent of a thumb's up.

The Queen's College has what I consider to be a terrifying page, with accessions lists, links to SOLO, Jstor, COPAC and lots more, but whilst it has nearly 2000 fans, I wonder how often these functions are used. I have to say it would never occur to me to go to Facebook to look up a book, and, when I was a student, if I'd come across one of the search widgets whilst on facebook, I doubt I'd have used it. I may be looking at Facebook for work now, but back in the day, if I was on Facebook then I was Putting Off Work, and wouldn't want to be made to feel any guiltier than I already did by being confronted with the very thing I was avoiding.