Not the most useful of Things, perhaps

I signed up for LinkedIn. It offered to connect me with half a dozen people in Somerville who were already registered. All of whom I'm likely to bump into at lunch.

I can see LinkedIn may make you feel better if you're a lonely little cog in a huge organization, or be useful if you're a career-oriented job-seeker wanting to Get On in your profession. (Librarianship isn't a career, it's a sort of love-affair. As I said to the landlady who asked me, "Why don't you get a proper job?") A directory of recommended service providers could be useful -- but I would start by sending an email off to the Committee of College Librarians maillist saying "Can anyone recommend ...?", especially if I was looking for something local. And it may be that it's only just getting going and will expand, but the range of services listed seems very limited -- I can't see "book suppliers" or anything similar.

Like so many of these web-based networks, it seems too all-encompassingly globalized and diffuse to be of much genuine benefit. Perhaps Web 3.0 will be where all this information-sharing goes intranet rather than internet and gets more focussed -- now, wouldn't it be useful if Oxford librarians had a website for sharing things like tips and tricks for searching OLIS, where to find a good bookbinder or lighting supplier, how to decline an unwanted donation diplomatically, who to contact about cataloguing a book in Kadazan, etc. etc.?