Following in the same vein as my visit to award-winning websites, I chose to watch some clips on YouTube of Joni Mitchell - today as a seasoned performer and at the beginning of her career when she was still (Roberta) Joan Anderson. From there I segued to hearing James Taylor, then Sarah McLachlan sing Joni's classic song River. To be able to EASILY access such obscure film is AMAZING!! It's like taking a Historical (Magical) Musical (Mystery) Tour. Again I have to remind myself that this is work and I'm getting paid to explore the best of the web. I'm adding to this YouTube post the only photo in my blog that I haven't personally taken - a picture of Joni herself.
For Thing 19, I couldn't believe I was being paid to listen to music while reading about places to visit in NYC. Pandora is a music site where you select the music of a performer you LOVE and you are then feed song after song from similar artists. Once I discovered the music of Joni Mitchell in high school, I knew I had located my high priestess. I decided to put Pandora to the test and the website started me off with Harry's House, a song from the jazzy Hissing of Summer Lawns. From Joni we went to Simon & Garfunkel, Sandy Denny, Suzanne Vega, and ended with a later Joni tune. Just as photography is my passion, music has played an equally important part in my life. I will listen to anything once and am always searching for a musician who will give me goosebumps and move me with his/her vision. With music streaming in my ears, I also figured I'd glance at the winners in the City Guides & Reviews categories. In October I'm going with my husband to NYC for 4 days. Although he'll have some time, I'll be exploring on my own a fair amount and I want to make the most of my visit. Although I've run out of time for Thinging today, Yelp looked like it had some great event, shopping, and restaurant ideas.
I'm curious to compare Zoho's word processing software with Open Office Writer. Although OO Writer has been perfectly functional, I have found a few occasions when it wouldn't translate. I had to write up a final report for DLDS summarizing the second year of Cultural Connections. The report is written within a template. I could add to the report, but couldn't save my changes. It's quite possible this problem was a result of my new Ubuntu machine or even user error. I ended up reverting back to Word to complete the report. Below see a photo of Tulum, a most spectacular area in the Yucatan. (P.S. Posting to Blogger was a breeze!!)
My tech talk will be brief as I try to catch up on my remaining 23 Things. As Beth T. noted, part of the success of this blogging process involves looking at and commenting on co-workers postings. While reading others' musings, I'm overwhelmed by how many "can't live without" websites are mentioned. I try to evaluate each one I see, knowing in the back of my mind that there are a googleplex of others just as amazing. As a purveyor of information, it's important to stay current, but with cyberspace growing by light-years, it's difficult for mere mortals to keep up. Of course, I can't post anything without adding a picture, so I'm including one of my beautiful daughter Julia.
I can see that a wiki would be a great venue for connecting the area's largest ethnic groups - Chinese, Korean, Indian, and Urdu - with HCL's vast resources. There could be sections for highlighting new materials and upcoming programs, as well as feedback from the community in terms of collection requests, program reviews, sharing of great titles, etc.
Given my involvement with Cultural Connections, I'm wondering how Library 2.0 can benefit Howard County's foreign-born community. The ultimate goal of CC is not only to enhance library service for the area's diverse multicultural population, but also to foster an understanding of and appreciation for ethnicities other than one's own. Even though Library 2.0 connects people in brilliant ways, does it sometimes remove the face-to-face element? And is that element crucial for improving cultural relationships?
Not many people know that if you get up before dawn and witness the sunrise, you will see the most otherworldly light. Attached find a picture I took of the flour mill near Main Street in Ellicott City. The lighting was so unusual that this photograph almost looks like a black and white shot that was hand-tinted. I'm also registering my blog with Technorati on this post.Technorati Profile
