Thing 5: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

I remember watching the Royal Wedding of HRH Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer when I was little.  My dad woke me up early (as requested) so that I could see the whole thing live on a lovely Wednesday morning.  This morning was a similarly beautiful day and thanks to the Internet and Social networking sites, a bit more intimate and global all at the same time. 

I've been following @Clarence House  (for the Prince of Wales' Press Office) to get updates for the past few weeks, as I think I mentioned in my last post.  Apparently Westminister Abbey has also gone 21st Century as someone was live tweeting the wedding at @Wabbey .

One of my new favorite blogs is Madhattery which covers the hats and fascinators (such a lovely word for a cross between a hair comb and a hat) of Royal Families around the world, with a very witty commentary.  Not surprisingly, the traffic to the site caused a crash this morning, but if you want to see the hat that Zara Phillips or HRH Princess Beatrice (the one that looked like a beige clock) wore - this is the site for you. 

With the Official Programme released yesterday, I was able to download it to my iPad 2 and follow the service line by line.  Small and intimate and around the world all at the same time!

Going along with tradition, HM the Queen bestowed a new title on HRH Prince William and Miss Middleton received her first title.  They will now be known at the TRH the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Thing 4: Online Communities

I wasn't sure how to approach this week's CDLC assignment on online communities as I may be the last person in New York State without a Facebook account.  I've seen Facebook and have been able to keep up with my family, thanks to my husband's Facebook account, but generally, I'm not really that interested in Facebook, per se.

I read a number of people who are on Twitter, for both personal and professional updates.  I was really pleased to be able to add Twitter feeds to my Google Reader stream a while back.  There are a lot of libraries who tweet about programs and services, but bringing a longstanding institution like the British Royal Family into the 21st Century must have been a much more difficult sell to the Queen!  I have been following Clarence House's twitter feed (HRH The Prince of Wales' PR office) about his son's upcoming wedding and now know that #rw2011 is the official hashtag for the Royal Wedding on April 29th.

Personally, one of the social networking tools that I use is Ravelry, which is a great site for ideas and free patterns for knitters and crocheters.  Well, it's great in some ways, but my list of "oh, that would be a great project" is getting longer by the day.  Where else can you find a pattern (available through Ravelry and Paypal) for "Mittens with Pints On" with rows of different types of beer in English pint glasses.   http://www.etsy.com/listing/65452301/mittens-with-pints-on 

Thing 3: Photo Sharing

This week as part of our CDLC project, I've been exploring online photos.  Flickr is the best-known site for uploading pictures to the Internet.  You could also upload photos as part of a videofeed on Youtube, but moving images work best there.
Our library has a Flickr feed : http://www.flickr.com/photos/cphpubliclibrary/collections/ where you can check out photos of the library over the years, recent Children's programs (including an adorable set of photos from our Teddybear Sleepover) and meet Tad, our library mascot. 
During my tour of Flickr, I found links to some great photos including one below.  If you know the connection between the person in the photo and me, leave a comment on the blog.   Bonus points if you can identify two connections!  Have fun.

Photo by Thom C:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomconlon/1420737659/

UPDATE:  Catalogthat came close with her guess of Canada, but the actual link is that Matt MacIsaac (the piper in the picture) and I are both from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  The other link is that Matt's mom made a kilt for my husband that he wanted for Christmas a few years back.  Check out their website http://www.mackilts.com/ and see Matt's sister Veronica's site http://www.veronicamacisaac.com/ for some really cool, trendy tartan clothing.  Yes, tartan can be hip!!!

Thing 2: RSS

We have been working on RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds for week 2 of the CDLC class as well as aggregators and default webpages. 
As Google takes over the world, iGoogle pages abound.  The iGoogle page works nicely with a gmail account and the Google Reader that I use for RSS feeds.  In the past, I read the feeds through Bloglines but the site was scheduled to cease existence.  Like Mark Twain, the reports of Bloglines' death were premature.  It continues to live another day, but since I've adjusted to the Google interface and ease of adding URLs, including the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Public Library's twitter feed, I'll stay the course.

Thing 1: Blogging

CDLC is offering a great program for librarians to testdrive technology. 

We've had a fun Adult Winter Reading Program at the library this year and the response has been great.  For some people, it's time to rev up their reading during this long winter, which even today seems like it will never end. 
I've really enjoyed the program and read some great books.  I've just finished Something Borrowed which moved up the list ahead of finishing, The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Imagine finishing a fun, light read over a dark book with a cliffhanger!