Week Three: Social Reading

Thing #7: Being an Official Library Gorilla, Ook has partaken of Social Reading prior to this. Not many gorillas can claim that! Yes, he has his very own library card. Ook has created an account in Vision, the NBPLS interactive catalogue, where he occasionally posts little reviews of new books that have come into his library.

 

Thing #8: Ook has made some Lists. This is a very useful aspect of the Vision catalogue for discovering new books one might like, or suggesting books to other like-minded primates. Ook has made lists about Steampunk and Picture Books. Perhaps, on another occasion, he can make a list of his favourite gorilla books.

 

Thing #9: Commenting on a book. This is also a useful tool. A gorilla can leave as long a comment as he or she likes, "I loved this book," or an in-depth review. Sometimes one might want to leave more information; for instance, if another commenter has remarked on book two that alas, the series is over, Ook might leave a comment to say that in fact book three has now been published and is in the library. This may make other people happy, not only NBPLS users, because Bibliocommons links library users all over North America. (Sadly, that a book is on the shelf in Ook's library does not do someone in Ottawa any good, but at least it means they can hie themselves to their library to ask for it -- or buy it at their local bookshop.)

 

Thing #10: Following other readers. Hello, a gorilla is now stalking you .... But Ook is very friendly; he likes to read your reviews, because you, too, enjoy picture books with lovely art. Perhaps by following your reviews, Ook will discover an author or illustrator who is new to him. 

Week Two: Ook has twittered. Or possibly tweeted. Yes, like a birdie.

Here is Ook, reflecting on today's achievement. Yes, Ook has set up a whole new Twitter account and tweeted a whole new tweet. He has even retweeted a tweet, which he had previously tweeted.

Twitter does provide a very useful tool for communication, so long as the people with whom one is communicating are Twitter users. The ability to have tweets post directly to Facebook can be very useful as well, since the Twitter interface is quick and efficient, far less cumbersome for a quick reminder-announcement such as "Knitting Club tonight" than going into Facebook. The streaming newsfeed and the ability to follow updates on a range of subjects are among the things Ook likes best.

What does Ook like least about Twitter?

It has the absolutely most horribly illegible Captcha non-robot-verification system we have ever seen. Make one typo in your password and you are doomed. Doomed! Doomed!!! You will never get in, as you try and fail Captcha after Captcha -- or at least, it will take you a good long while to satisfy the AI overmind that you are in fact a real person who made a typo and not a robohacker.

What does he enjoy most?

The elegant precision required to fit a thought into 140 characters is a pleasure, not that he would enjoy having to do that with every single sentence, no indeedy, absolutely not.

Actually, we've done this before

For the curious, Ook's real blog can be found over here at (ahem) the competition.

Ook's First Blog Post: A Haiku

Here I sit blogging
The emptiness of the screen
Demands attention.