I was thinking.....

My husband cringes when I start a conversation with those three words. He knows it will lead to work for him since it usually involves painting, moving, replanting, some kind of renovation work that will inevitably lead to the Mushroom Factor. The Mushroom Factor is that phenomenonon, usually with old houses, that a simple task leads to so much more. To have a better understanding of this, check out this blog about it.

http://fixithouse.blogspot.com/2006/09/mushroom-factor.html

Anyway, what I was thinking after starting the Technorati task, was I am not sure exactly why I need this. I found the mushroom factor blog by just putting it in google. Since I am a librarian, I know what I am looking for, and 99% of the time can find it quickly and efficiently. Technorati searches blogs. OoooHKay - then what? I have more to read? I need to see other people's opinions....all of the time...?

Last week I read, and I have no idea where or what source, that too often we mistake this information on blogs as valid resources. Yet again, another opinion. But, an opinion that makes sense in regards to what information we overload ourselves with. Honestly, blogs aren't research; blogs aren't peer-reviewed; blogs aren't scientific. So, what purpose would this serve for my students and the teachers I work with? Two sentences in the paragraph end with with. Now, there are three counting this one. Have the rules changed about ending sentences with prepositions because "with which we overload ourselves" sounds really weird. Just wondering.

Technorati also indexes 112.8 million blogs. Of course, checking all of this out, I got sidetracked, saw something about a suspect being released for the murder of a nine year old, read that, got sidetracked and found this blog about the "Dead Kids of MySpace". Talk about depresssing, but the poster's purpose was to make everyone aware of the dangers out there for children. Great purpose, and some of the information posted was from the perputrator's online journals or blogs. Great, too. Incriminating.

But what about those of us that aren't of the criminal mindset? Since our blogs are now being indexed, couldn't we also become noteworthy or suspect for a slip of the keyboarding finger? What all this reminded me of was Big Brother, spying, reading, organizing for someone, somewhere to be able to aggregate it all for someone else to do...?

So, I'll do my task whatever, for week whatever and explore Technorati. However, what I'd really like is someone out there to tell me why I need this for my job as a school librarian for a bunch of prepubescents.