This is one of those resources that I am certain all of you are already aware of, but is important enough to point out again.  Personally, I just discovered it.

Index on Censorship is "one of the world’s leading repositories of original, challenging, controversial and intelligent writing on free expression issues."  Scroll through their blog-like site and you will find news from around the world on censorship, activism, media, governmental intervention and much much more.  This is a site for librarians interested in Intellectual Freedom, which frankly should be all of us.  Subscribe to the RSS feeds!

Scientific American has an eye-opening article on How to Unleash Your Creativity.  There are several components to it:

1.  Capture your ideas without judgement. 

2.  Challenge yourself with tough problems or new experiences.

3.  Broaden your knowledge, learn new things.

4.  Surround yourself with interesting and diverse people and things.

For me, this speaks to me not only as an individual who wants to be more creative and as a parent who wants to raise children free to explore their creativity, but also as a manager.  Perhaps especially as a manager in a library where I want to free all of my staff (and yes, I mean all of them, down to the pages shelving books) to think creatively, offer their ideas, and understand that in every failure is a success. 

National Public Radio has an incredible collection of summer reading ideas for your patrons.  Discover the must-reads of the summer, hidden gems, great summer cookbooks, and much more.  Great for librarians and patrons alike to take their first dive into the books of the season.

College@Home has a great article on Twitter and librarians.  First, you get a good definition of what Twitter is, then ways to use it, and finally lots of options for putting it into use.  Very nicely done!

If you are a librarian wondering how to enter the discussion online without starting and maintaining a blog, then you need to start investigating services like Twitter.  I would also recommend trying FriendFeed, where you would be starting at the ground floor of what may just be the next huge thing online. 

Have fun experimenting! Tweet me! (And no, that wasn’t a rude thing to say…)

Snackr is an RSS ticker that scrolls merrily along the bottom of your screen.  You can put your entire RSS feed list on it, or just do a selection.  Personally, I am using it for the feeds that I never find time to head to.  Mine are feeds about new online applications that I would love to read, but they are necessarily last on my list.  Now there’s a chance that as they flow by, something will catch my eye.

Another interesting application would be just putting news feeds on it and creating a news ticker.  Or perhaps you have a category of feeds you would like to just have flow by and not worry about missing things.  This one is definitely worth a try.  It too runs on AIR.

AIR is my new favorite platform, crossing seemingly effortlessly from Windows to Mac to Linux.  Doomi is an AIR application that lets you have a handy to-do list right on your desktop.  Even better, any item on your to-do list can have a reminder attached so that it gets your attention again.  Sweet!  I loaded this up, cleared my desk of pesky little notes and am set to run on just this.  My only complaint is that it takes up space on my start bar when running even when minimized.

Very rarely I find a site online that takes my breath away.  This is one of those elusive sites.  Click on Open We Feel Fine and be patient.  Another window will open and suddenly fill with bright-colored balls and squares that flit around.  Click on any of them and you pull out a line from someone’s website or blog that uses the words "I feel" in a sentence. 

If that interface is a little scattered and wild for you, head to murmurs where you can watch items scroll past.  If you enjoy images more than text, head to Montage where you will see I like statements paired with photographs.  Mobs lets you play with the data even more, selecting certain aspects and seeing what emotions are most prevalent. 

I know that this sounds like an odd interface and idea.  But it is about the stories of the current online world.  How do WE feel?  And somehow there is a joy in knowing that you too are one of the bright colored specks flying around.  Mobile, singular but never alone.  This is online storytelling at its most unique and interesting.  C’mon give it a try!

JamBase is a site that lists live music shows in not only the U.S. but around the world.  You can find shows by searching by artist, venue, city, state or country and limiting by date too.  The site also features music news, show reviews, CD reviews, featured articles, contests, and forums.  Also check out their new JamBase TV feature.

When I first heard about The Hyperconnected study, I was fairly sure I would classify as a hyperconnected type.  I use far too many social networks, blog on several blogs, use IM, Skype, and play online multiplayer games.  What I wasn’t expecting was exactly how closely I would follow the others who rated that way in the study.

First there is the point that hyperconnected people lose the boundary between work and personal time.  Yup, my online life is one and the same at home or at work.  Except of course the game playing.  But otherwise, it can be nearly impossible to distinguish between what I read at work and what I enjoy reading at home.  This could be seen as a bad thing or a good thing.  Since I didn’t purposefully set out to erase that boundary, I see it as a positive. 

Another point that resonated with me is that I must have my laptop along to feel right.  Without my laptop, it’s like a connection is missing.  I feel isolated and strange.  Luckily at most library conferences, I join the troupe of the connected gathered around the power outlets at the back or side of the room.  It’s very acceptable to lug a laptop.  Sadly, when I head to more local library meetings, that is not the case.  Laptops haven’t yet broken into those meetings.  Perhaps I have to just decide to make that happen.  After all, I take it with me to work the service desks even if I never have a chance to turn it on.

And I don’t even want to talk about how important blogging and other ways to connect online are to me.  It’s a very powerful connection to like minds, which on some days is vital to me and my psyche.  Thanks for being there!

Any other library hyperconnecteds out there?  What rings true with you?  Are you a laptop lugger?  IM chatter?  FriendFeeder?  Wild Tweeter? 

I was on a panel a couple of weeks ago talking about sites that other librarians may not have heard of.  You can check out our list of recommended sites at Haveuheard2008 on Delicious.  At some point during one of my pieces of the talk, I asked my fellow presenters (all hip folks who use all sorts of online tools) if anyone used Twitter.  No one did.  So I decided to remedy that and explore Twitter myself.

So far, I’ve been using Twitter actively for a week and am impressed by it.  I knew that I had a dormant account on it that I had never really used much, and realized that I had to find a way to get myself actually Twittering.  For me, I found the key was using tools.  So here are the ones I use.

Twitbuzz is a website that lets you know what content is most popular on Twitter.  If you want to see what’s happening on Twitter without an account, this is the place to go.  I have it loaded on my MorningCoffee plugin to remind me about Twitter and to post on it.

Twhirl is by far my favorite Twitter service interface.  I tried several others, but this one really works for me.  Best of all, it doesn’t solely work with Twitter, but also with FriendFeed which I am continuing to adore as a service. 

Alert Thingy is another interface that works with FriendFeed.  I like it, but for some reason I enjoy using Twhirl more.  YMMV of course, which is why I am mentioning it here.

As a blogger, TwitterFeed is what finally got me posting to Twitter.  It takes the entries from your blogs and posts them automatically to your Twitter account, complete with link back to your blog.  Sweet!  This way, as long as I manage to blog that day, my Twitter account is not dormant.

If you’d like you can follow me on Twitter and/or FriendFeed.  I am tashrow on Twitter where I continue to fight with my background image.  And on Friendfeed, I have the same tashrow username.  You can use that same username to find me on delicious too!  I try to be consistent.