A glut of extra things (but lots of pretty pictures)

It's a bit of a last-minute rush, but I simply couldn't bear to leave all the pretty Extra Things undone before Cam23 is over for another year.

Starting with the prettiest of all the Extra Things, the data visualisation section has cheered up many of our blogs, as well as celebrating blogiversaries and even, crucially, promoting libraries!

I have used Wordle in the past and will be using it as part of my final post (*sob*) so I decided to give Tagxedo a go for this extra thing. I like Wordle very much but Tagxedo allowed me to produce this:

Although Tagxedo is a little less straightforward to use, it offers a much more simple way to shape your word clouds and create something perhaps more coherent with it. I chose a lightning bolt because the Cam23 programme has been full of little flashes of inspiration, as well as the occasional bolt from the blue! 

I was looking forward to Gliffy after seeing all the lovely floorplans that have popped up liberally across the Cam23 blogosphere. However, whilst I could try to recreate my lovely new terraced house in York, I've only spent about 15 minutes in it to date and therefore can't really remember what it's like. Instead I've decided to try something a little more serious with a Venn diagram about the overlap between librarianship and academia:

Created using www.gliffy.com

As a disclaimer, it is, necessarily a bit of a generalization on both sides. It's actually quite a difficult topic to expand upon though, because there are so many almost-correlations, and a lot of myths on both sides. I used this helpful post by Betsy and a careers case-study to help, not to mention sending my Classics colleagues into a right old debate in the office - so I hope that you agree with some of my ideas, and if you disagree with other, please let me know why and we can carry the debate on here!

Back to data visualisation for the moment - what better way to promote your library/webpage/blog/links than with a personalised QR code? The codes in themselves are a very clever marketing ploy (as long as your target audience is smartphone-savvy!) but are eeeeven cooler if they reflect the product (for want of a better  word) as well. Something along these lines, perhaps...

Created at http://vanity-qrcode.com/

Shameless, shameless (and in this context, slightly pointless) self-promotion.

What's left for this whistlestop tour? I blogged about list-making software and, naturally, tried out all the ones that I blogged about. In fact, some of my opinions are pretty thinly veiled in the Cam23 thing post here. My favourite was TeuxDeux, and I'm pleased to report that it has been successful...at the other end of the office, where Lyn raves about it! But me, I'm devoted to my scrappy bits of paper and notes stuck to the computer monitor - call me a luddite, but there's something very satisfying about tearing up a completed task, altering an ongoing one, or doodling all around the job you're putting off (as opposed to on Teux Deux, where your outstanding tasks chase you from day to day!)

Another very pretty Thing (or couple of Things) is the Tumblr/Posterous brand of short blogging. I haven't used either of these programs but I can definitely see the usefulness of them. I think the kinds of images and quotes I like to share are a little too random and unfocused to warrant a whole Tumblr page, for instance, and so I tend to share them as individual weird ideas on Facebook or Twitter (this was today's offering, which really made me smile!) I find that Facebook also allows me to discuss such things with friends more easily, because of the extended contacts that I have built up over 5 years (!) of using it and because it is an accepted (maybe expected?) way in which my friends and I utilise the Facebook News Feed. However, I think this site is a brilliant use of the software (even if the premise itself confuses me a little) so if I had a coherent and clearly defined point to make, I would definitely look to these kinds of tools.

And finally, I cannot forget Dropbox from weeks and weeks ago - I have an account because a friend sent me some large files using it some time ago. I must admit that it worked very well on that occasion...and that I haven't used it since. Photos I send via email, documents I share using Google Docs, resources I have posted up on Wikis...these all seem like perfectly viable ways of working, so for the moment, Dropbox is a bit redundant. Never say never though.