Mountains and Mole Hills: the Small Applications of Web 2.0

Have you ever heard the phrase, "You are making a mountain out of a mole hill?" The statement is intended to say that you are making a big deal about something that truly is quite small. This week the phrase is haunting me, but I feel as if the quest is turned around to turn something really big into something rather small. One of our bluegrass music students put it differently in a song about daily life in prison "making little rocks out of big rocks" all day. This week, in "23 Things," we are looking at Twitter and services that shorten URL's. In the spirit of making larger things small, I will describe my feelings about this week's assignments in one word, conflicted.

The concept of shortening URL's excited me. I chose to try bit.ly. Changing the URL for the Archives of Appalachia's Facebook page from http://www.facebook.com/home.pho#!/pages/Johnson-City-TN/Archives-of-Appalachia/300223478446 to the shortened version, http://bit.ly/ArchivesAppalachia-FB was most definitely an example of making gravel from a boulder. I believe it can be a very useful tool when using Twitter and adding links to our Facebook page. I share a concern that the links would no longer work should the service end, but maybe we would at least get a "tweet" about it. I also discovered that it would not work for everything. Maybe, I should step back and say that I haven't figured out how to make it work for everything. I was equally excited about shortening our link to our iTunesU site. The URL for our iTunesU page is: itms://deimos.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/BrowsePrivately/etsu-public.2101594451 which is a very ugly URL. The bit.ly service would shorten the URL, but the link would not work. I could not get the long or short version of the iTunesU address to work from our Facebook page. The link will work from our web page, but it would not work from Facebook. It looks as if bit.ly turns everything into http whether that is correct or not. When adding a link on Facebook, it seemed to do the same. I would welcome any hints about making this work.

Twitter is another matter. I entered into opening an account with absolute dread. When I got to the point of creating a one-line description of myself, I said, "Archivist and native of Appalachia, longing for a simpler life." It made me pause. If I long for a simpler life, what, for heaven's sakes, am I doing with a Twitter account. Having said that, I can see how Twitter could be used to quickly get an announcement out or to share a link to some video or webpage. I also can see how it could be used to feed announcements into a Facebook page. Some of my folklorist friends prefer the Google version, Buzz. Why? They like the fact that you can use more words. They want to make boulders into rocks instead of gravel. Will I continue to "tweet" and "retweet" after completing the "23 Things." I rather doubt it, but you never know, I could have a change of heart.

To catch up on one of the "things" from last week, I did create a Facebook page for the Archives of Appalachia. After about three days of a live page, we have over 140 fans. I was shocked by the speed that the word got out through the social network. I chose to use a page rather than a group after looking at the way several other organizations and groups used their pages or their groups. The group feature worked well with a group of international fiddlers. This Facebook group came together as friends and formed a group because they were all interested in traditional fiddle music. They are scattered throughout the world but regularly share links to recordings and insights about fiddle tunes, performers, etc. It seemed to me that the page would work better for an institution like the Archives of Appalachia. I think it will be an excellent tool to share information about new collections, special events, topics of interest to researchers, etc. It also gave me a chance to do a behind the scenes photo tour of the Archives. I do intend to keep this page going after the 23rd thing is completed.

With all these comments from so many being shared with anybody over services like Facebook and Twitter, I wonder if we are trivializing what we have to say to fit it into the format. Are we creating a mountain out of trivial conversations that are truly just mole hills? I guess the answer to that is up to us. Are we talking "to hear our head roar," as my mother used to say, or are we saying something meaningful? I worry about thinking and communicating in "sound bites." I hope that the "sound bites" can be used to catch the attention of those that would have never thought about archives and the wonderful things that can be found there.