Thing 16 - wikis

For me the most interesting ways to use a wiki is in the more creative ways that are interesting to many different types of people. I especially loved the concept of the booklovers wiki found at http://booklovers.pbwiki.com/Princeton%20Public%20Library because of how it got a large variety of people involved in editing and adding content in the forms of books reviews and analysis points. The wikis concerning AlA conference and ones on library success are useful as well, but they don't have the same excitement as the booklovers wiki. They only focus on getting already involved librarians involved in the posting and editing in the wiki and therefore are less outreach oriented. Helpful and useful in their own right but definitely not as fun or as interesting to most library patrons to be using.

And looking at this wiki in particular really made me want one for "my" library. How sweet would that be to be able to read comments on books and magazines from my own fellow Omahaian books lovers?!

Thing 15 - Library 2.0

The term Library 2.0 DOES mean many things to many people. However, for me it elicits images of a higher tech library than the one we all work in now. Library 2.0 would seem to be the information portal which is not held down by the four red brick walls but is much more interactive with other nontraditional forms of retrieving or using information. Like this whole series of web 2.0 options. I have seen many different forms of technology which could be very useful in marketing or building the usability of the current library for our patrons and for ourselves as well. Now to get that ball rolling towards making library 2.0 a reality....

Thing 14 - technorati again

In looking at technorati again, I still am not totally impressed with this technology option. I tried the different searches as we were told to do, and did not return many different results. The tagging in technorati also seemed normal to all other tagging options I have been in contact with. Overall, still not impressed with this tool.

Maybe my apathy to this web tool is tied to my disinterest in most blogs. A select few interest me for their content or scope or for the authority of the author(s), but I do not spend enough time online reading blogs or trying to find blogs to read, that technorati would be of much use to me. However, if one was into reading different blogs or into working on keeping up with that kind of news, this would be a good tool to use.

Not yummy but at least it's useful: Delicious, Thing 13

I browsed through Delicious and was intrigued by the capabilities of such a tool. I especially was drawn in by the beelerspace comment about how similar delicious was to gmail with its flat hierarchy. I love how flat hierarchy works as well, as I am able to quickly move from idea to idea, from piece of information to piece of information without continually switching folders or frames or whatever might be organizing all the little pieces. And with clouds of tags to quickly glance over, I see many different similar topics which I hadn't thought of before, kind of like the search tactic used by library patrons to look for similar books on the shelf around the book they found in the catalog. Overall, a useful tool to remember for the future!

Originally skeptical -- Thing 12

Originally I was skeptical of what use rollyo would be to me or to others I know. So I put together a quick compilation of the searches I do online every once in a while. And after I put together the rollyo of searches I was surprised at how convient the search engine really was. Instead of searching each recipe site individually, I can now search them all together for whatever elusive random recipe I might need. So I will concede, this IS quite a resource!


http://rollyo.com/svan3/definitive_recipes/

Shelving on librarything - Thing 11

First off I should say that I was quite disappointed with the searching capabilities on librarything. I guess I have turned into too much of an information professional and love too much the ability to refine searches and hone in on what I actually want. With librarything all I can search is title or author separately, definitely not in conjunction with each other, a quite annoying way for me to try to find the obscure or random or even popular titles I wanted to add to my library shelf. If anyone found a better way to search the sight, please do share!

Other than that aspect, I found librarything a really fun tool and program to play around with. I can see how others call it addicting, once I started adding the obligatory five books to my shelf, I kept thinking of other favorite books I really wanted to add and tag, and of some books I recently read or want to read in the future. I think I have heard people talking of using their librarything account as the resource to help keep track of books they want to read next?

I searched for a way to link my catalog to my blog. But I couldn't find anything in the time length I had. So I'll just paste in the html code and see what shows up in the post....

Thing 10 - Wordle

I love the way that Wordle looks. Huge words and different colors all randomly placed together in a haphazard but understandable way. Here I did a poem called The Roads by C. S. Lewis. The wordle picture doesn't quite do the poem justice in my opinion - not enough feeling and emotion - just the blunt words. But it still does evoke some of the artistry of the poem.