addendum see also: ***

***The Lad's half sister on his mother's side.

I wish English would hurry up and find words to describe the following relationships:

Your step-child from a former marriage
Your ex-spouse's first spouse
Your ex-spouse's first spouse's children with a new spouse
Your daughter's step-child from a former marriage
Your ex-step-parent's parents
Your step-sibling from a stepparent's previous marriage
Your former step-sibling from a stepparent's previous marriage

Are we dizzy yet?

* see also**

From the above post

*This is the cybername of my family unit. With my parents as the Alpha generation we have Auto Tender and Account Tender (aka: Barn Farmer .) The Beta generation are Book, Beer, Byte and Baby Tender (Baby is aka Baby Preacher). My niece and nephew are Color and Computer Tender

**There is no English word for the child who used to be your stepson. The Lad will do.

How Blogs, Feeds, Wikis and RSS Changed One Booktender's Life: A true story

About a week ago I revisited the whole idea of blogs and newsfeeds and RSS and, yes, even wiki. I felt like I hadn't kept up. Here I was, one of the local librarians deemed most likely to cut herself on IT's bleeding edges and suddenly...WHAM...I had no idea what was happening.

I spent time observing my niece and nephew at the 2005 Thanksgiving gathering of the Tender family.* The gamma generation showed peculiar behaviors. Texting while burning a CD and IMing and Myspacing in my parent's livingroom by using the neighbor's wireless network. All while enjoying conversation with the family and watching a DVD in the background.

Then it became clear. The web had just shifted and shifted drastically. Just as it had when GUI arrived, the Internet had just taken an abrupt turn. Right in my parent's living room.

Being a wise woman, I took a step back. For months. I pondered. I observed. I listened. I attended meetings where the phrases changed from email and website and homepage to myspace and flickr and rss to social networking and blogging. I hemmed. I hawed.

By Spring of 2006 I had once again lost The Lad** This is traditional for us as neither of us are good correspondents, despite our undying affection for each other. I did, however, know where he participated in a music discussion. So, being a good step, I lurked. Sure enough, Bubbles*** spilled the beans and I discovered The Lad had a myspace account.

Before I knew it, I had a myspace account. And I found The Lad. We communicated! I discovered what he was up to. Communications are better than ever before! I discovered his friends, the kids I'd helped raise in the neighborhood and, amazingly, they were glad to hear from me!

But there was more. Some of my co-workers had myspace accounts! I have virtual friends and RL friends! I was using...SOCIAL NETWORKING!

Next, I had to figure out how to use this for my job. How could I use blogs and rss and social networking to improve my collection management skills? How could they streamline my awareness of up and coming authors and titles?

So last week I stuck my toe in the water. I set up a blog http://www.bloglines.com/blog/Booktender
I surfed for RSS. I investigated publishers websites in search of feeds. I assimilated with joy.

Here we go!

And now...the blog

I first attempted a blog in 2003 on this very site. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was still here!

I'll be using this in conjunction with other high-tech and low-tech tools to lead us on a journey into the selection of fiction and genres and the provision of reader's advisory services.