So after saying a couple entries ago that I never do link dump posts, here I am doing another one.  Maybe I should give in and make this a recurring feature on the blog, just like the Friday Fun Links?  Heck, I could have a whole week's worth of features and never have to come up with an original thought again!

Sunday Photo of the Day (Flickr or From My Own Collection)
MetaFilter Mondays
YouTubesday
Wikipedia Wednesday
Thursday Download of the Day
Friday Fun Link
Saturday Link Dump o' The Week

Or maybe that would be incredibly dumb.

But anyhow, (seeing as it's Saturday) here's a few more link dumps for you…

“OMG! My mom joined Facebook” – NYTimes
Facebook's recent facelift (ha!) is deeper than I initially realised.  All those new widgets you can add to your profile are a big step in Facebook's attempt to become a “social operating system“.  They don't want to be bought out by Google or Microsoft – they apparently want to *be* Google or Microsoft.  This could get interesting!

“More Advice College Graduates Don't Want To Hear” – NYTimes
Lots of good tidbits here – I'm a big fan of “pay yourself first” along with “pay yourself 10% of everything you make” having read “The Wealthy Barber” while still in high school.  The sooner you start saving, the better off you'll be in the long term.  Chris Graves has a link to a site that explains compound interest in a very straight-forward manner.  How do you save 10% when you're young and not making much or paying off student loans or whatever?  It's hard but not impossible.  Set up an arrangement with your RRSP company (you do have an RRSP, right?) to automatically withdraw 10% from each paycheque (or from your student loans even!) and adjust your spending accordingly.  Don't buy Starbucks.  Don't buy smokes.  Don't buy booze, shoes or a CD of the blues if it means you won't be able to save that initial 10% every month. 

Man, I have lots more to say on this – this should be a full post sometime (why do I have a memory that I already linked to Chris Graves' post on compound interest?  It's taken a year but more and more, I feel like I'm repeating myself on this blog.)

LIS757 Delicious Links Page
This semester's social networking class at FIMS has a page where students are required to submit links to stories about various aspects of Web 2.0.  Lots of good browsing here!  (Bonus to the person who can identify which submission here is a link back to my blog.  Since Delicious only shows titles, not URL's, I'd have to scan through all of them to find out which person linked back to me – which is how I found this page initially.)

The Loneliness of the Conservative Librarian
“When David Brooks did some research into political donations by profession for his September 11, 2004, column in The New York Times,
he found that for librarians “the ratio of Kerry to Bush donations was
a whopping 223 to 1.” By contrast, the corresponding ratio for
academics was 11 to 1. As one of those rarest of beasts, a conservative
librarian, I can attest firsthand to the stifling left-wing orthodoxy
of modern American librarianship.”

Another anecdote which I think I've told before… I was walking out of our first day orientation and ended up walking beside Quinn (though I didn't know he was Quinn just yet!) and he noted that he'd recently read an article about how librarianship was the most left-wing, progressive profession by far.  I was like “yeah, and…” Anyhow, that's a thought that's been going through my head lately – looking at Facebook profiles of colleagues who are brave (stupid?) enough to note their political and religious beliefs (not that these two are linked – I know there are progressive religious people and there are conservative ones.) 

Anybody looking for an RQ challenge?  Do a search for any studies of the political leanings of librarians.  Or use the Political Compass quiz and Survey Monkey to do an informal study on your blog.  (I'd do these things but time does not actually exist for me right now!)  Or do a full-fledged independent study at FIMS next term and send me the results!

Here's my results by the way:

Your political compass

Economic Left/Right: -8.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.74