Mashups, etc.

This was maybe the most difficult concept for my aging, non-techie brain to grasp, but I did my best despite my general mystification. (Perhaps the most difficult part of this week's assignments was the podcast, which made me a little sleepy - until, like the RCA dog, I perked up at my "master's voice," that being the voice of my boss, Scott Plutchak, who was actually going on about a couple of programs I run here in my library. Cool!)

Anyway, I can definitely see the potential for medical librarians in developing mashups targetting their clientele and their needs, even if it's doubtful I would ever be so inclined to develop one myself. It is good to know about the ones already out there, however, like HubMed and eTBLAST.

The "Award Winning Mashups" were interesting. I really liked the 24-Hour mashup, allowing one to find 24-hour grocery stored, drug stores, gas stations, etc. However, it appeared that mashup database was currently only populated with listings for services in LA and NYC. So, no way to find that haven for midnight munchies here in my hometown as of yet. I then checked out the "World News Map" with current headlines from all over the world, accessed by clicking on the global map. Since I'm a bit of a news junkie, and since I'm heading for a 10-day trip to Turkey this summer, I checked out the postings for Turkey. (Yes, I can find it on a map, believe it or not - it helps that the rollover links include the names of the countries too.) Postings are of the "News McNuggets" variety, although you can follow links to more in-depth articles. Not bad...

As for the Rollyo searchlog posts for librarian blogs and privacy, I seemed to gravitate to The Shifted Librarian posts, although some of them were a bit dated. I liked the post about the difference in perceptions of privacy among the Netgeneration folks and us old fogies - it is interesting that what the older generations may view as narcissism re: the cataloging of all manner of personal info online for all to see can be seen as simply a nod to the reality of life in the 21st century, what with cameras everywhere taping our movements, tracking data online related to our purchases or website visits, etc.