Thing 13: Library Thing ... ROCKS!

I visited librarything a while back but never got a chance to get into it much. Now I have the opportunity, and it's been awesome! I don't know if is more of a personal benefit or professional benefit, or maybe both, but it is so awesome! In the past, I've had so many books piling up that I wanted to read and couldn't find the time to do it, that I finally started making a list. This takes it to a whole new level!

Not only can I make a list, but I can share the list with others, rate it, find others with similar interests, read comments about it, catalog books, search for books, share my books, find similar books, on and on and on. And I feel like I've only scratched the surface!

I set up a profile, added a few books, then went back and added some more and I could hardly stop! This is perhaps my FAVORITE thing of the Things thus far, although it faces tough competition from Delicious, Newsvine, Digg, and Meebo, and I have yet to see other mashups like iGoogle.

I can't say enough about this Thing! Although I couldn't find any local events, I'm sure this is slowly growing.

Feel free to browse mylibrary.

Lastly, I just recalled finding out about the new and improved Worldcat through a Florida Electronic Library workshop. It allows you to set up an account, rate books, buy books from different companies, and even has a mobile feature. Check it out if you get a chance.

Thing 12: Wikis

Wikis are wonderful-someone should make that a motto. Many people hate perhaps the greatest wiki of all - Wikipedia, but it's great. It's a fantastic idea.

I know, I know, it's not the best source, but sometimes it may be the only source, or at least the quickest source. I confess, I refer to it a lot, but when I usually get information for others from it, I say something to the effect that I got the information from a source that may not be that reliable.

Let's face it. People want information, and they want it now! Most probably don't care if it's right or not. Wikipedia usually provides a good starting point to find more reliable resources.

The idea is fantastic - provide a platform for anyone to make their contribution. Talk about collaboration and collectivity (is that a word?) to the Xtreme! This can be especially helpful for work groups. I can definitely see wikis useful in libraries or any work setting, including schools. I am disappointed that PB Wiki charges you to create a wiki though. I haven't tried, Wet Paint or Zoho, but they look promising.

A great real life practical example for the wiki includes a PB Wiki currently used for the Sunshine State Leadership Institute (for it's participants). I only wish it was a little more user-friendly. It just takes a while to get used to it and updates aren't always blatantly obvious. (This is coming from a former online student using BlackBoard for library school, however - I liked using Blackboard for school). I was able to use my current login from the Institute for the 23 Things Wiki. Great!

I also recently discovered 2 great wikis that have been started for work on eGovernment in Florida and through ALA. I have yet to become a member, and will, but I haven't found the time yet. On to Thing 13, perhaps the most highly anticipated one yet!

Thing 11: Social Media "I'm lovin' it"

Love it, love it, love it.

A news channel like no other - this is something I can really use, personally or at the reference desk. It eliminates the problem of going through several different news sites to figure out what's out there. I realize the most popular stories are on the top headline or news Web site, but there are sometimes really great and informative stories that don't make it that far. These social media examples help with that. I took a look at the different sites and was surprised with the quick demos. Here's what I thought.

Mixx-not a particular fan, but the options seemed many, and the layout seemed to provide all the necessities in fine fashion. I came back to this however and created an account because it was listed as a way of sharing on cnn.com and I could Mixx stories without logging in! Mixx this public librarians! Unfortunately, the story didn't mention she went to the public library to type up her letter.

Digg-dug Digg, looked a little more professional, but I had to register to Digg it! Maybe when I have more time.

Newsvine-love it! professional, and looks like my one-stop shop for news. I had to create an account though and it wasn't listed on CNN :(

Reddit-and wasn't impressed. Not very fancy, it was very simple, but this may also be a good thing if you want just the text (headlines).


The only downside to all this was that I don't know which one of these I should really indulge my time in...time will tell, I have to get back to work!

Thing 10: Tagging and Deeeeeelicious!

I love Delicious! I couldn't wait to get here.

I set up an account a while back and loved it. I love saving Web pages, tagging them and sharing them with others. I have really gained a great deal from exploring other users that save the same sites as I do. You can essentially explore the sites that other like minded users have saved on their Delicious accounts. It's a WONDERFUL exploration tool!

I would really like to see this used at the Reference Desk in libraries. I think it's great! I would also highly encourage patrons to use this.

I know of at least one library that makes great use of this for eGovernment! in Pasco County, FL.

Delicious may not be the best source for links, unlike crafty Web sites with drop-down menus, but they are certainly a great resource for Web site exploration.

Thing 9: Sharing - slides-"neh", photos-"neh", databases-"hmm"

Well, finally! I'm getting over 9! This was a tough one for me.

I'm still not a fan of sharing my pictures and I could never decide on what pictures to find from the Web to create anything I would feel remotely satisfied with, so I tried skipping slides and photos.

I looked forward to databases but couldn't get it to work. I guess I'm not alone though, because there was a message about this on the NEFLIN's 23 Things blog and, of course, I sent them a message as they suggested. That did me no good, however, since I had to get back to slides and photos! Ugh. I guess it wouldn't be bad if I had a good, large collection to work from, but I don't.

Soooooo...
After spending much time with a broken database, I made a quick mosaic of a few ACLD locations. Can you guess which they are? I know...not too hard for ACLD staff. Nevertheless, 2 can be tricky...

Thing 8: Communication - Web 2.0 Style

I admit, I was already familiar with AOL, Yahoo, MSN, and MySpace instant messengers, but I was not familiar with Google Talk.

This may be especially helpful to add with all the other Google products. Is there anything Google doesn't do? Okay, maybe even in 2.0 land, there's still room for Google to grow, in particular, I would like to see Google in Meeboland.



I was especially glad to see Meebo, since I had heard about it before. I knew it could be embedded into a Web page, and saw a reference to it in the Virtual Reference at Nebraska video, playing in the background as I'm typing this. I really loved being able to aggregate several Instant Message accounts into one though. Personally, this helps to stay in touch with friends that use other IMs, but in the library, it also helps reach out to many different users. I would really like to see this implemented at reference desks since it seems just about as justified as a phone, in my opinion.

I created a Meebo account for the first time and added Google Talk to it. This is really great.

Thing 7: Online Image Generators

So many online image generators, so little time.

I wonder if my U.S. map for Thing 6 leaked into this Thing, but since Big Huge Labs was listed under both I might be safe. :)

I couldn't come up with a toon on ToonDoo that I liked and many toons wouldn't let me change them, so I moved on. So much for humor.

Creativity is a challenge for me at work, so this was tough. I finally decided on trying out SuperStickies and Image Chef. They seemed much simpler than the rest. I created a SuperStickie...



It was a little lame, I confess, so I went with one more in the spirit of 2.0...

Thing 6: Flickr Mashups

I wasn't too crazy about continuing with Flickr, but decided to give it a try nonetheless. I'm a big fan of mashups, though iGoogle is probably the most practical and useful for me thus far. Nevertheless, I tried checking out the Flickr mashups.

The clocker was neat, but I got too frustrated trying to figure out how to upload it to this blog.

The "Flickr Color Pickr" was also neat. I could find this especially useful if I'm trying to find a photo with a certain color, although I wasn't all that interested to upload this to my blog.

I didn't find any of the others particularly interesting or useful. Perhaps if I had more time, I might explore them in greater detail.

Finally, I decided to revisit them and check out "Big Huge Labs" in greater detail. That's when I found the "Map Maker." This is always fun, though I've never been able to find one that actually works like I want it to. I decided to make a U.S. map of all the states I've visited. I don't know if this will work or not, but here goes a try. Thank goodness for "Preview." I like being able to change the colors.

Visited States

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

Thing 5: Flickr

I confess, I wasn't looking forward to Flickr for a few reasons.

#1-Why would I need a Flickr account at work? - I can see it useful for the library to post pictures, although I know there are several considerations, like copyright, parental permission for kids, "public domain," etc. I just didn't see myself getting a Flickr account and posting my photos on Flickr for the whole world to see.

#2-Redundancy - I already post my pictures to myspace and facebook. So why would I post them to Flickr also?

I do like going to Flickr to search for images though, and I like being able to tag them and find them with tag names though.

I also liked using the map to see what places look like. I would really like to be able to use that for all the scenic shots I've taken, but this will take quite a while to load.



Instead of setting up a Flickr account, I decided to search for images instead. My main searches were for "Pepsi," "Gainesville" and "Otto NC".

Pepsi gave me several images, few of which I liked.

Gainesville gave me images from Georgia and Florida (since there's a Gainesville in Georgia)

Otto NC surprisingly had some images and mapped them, which I really liked. Not much a collection though. I would almost prefer going to the new Google map images available now. It would be great if Google Maps also gave you the opportunity to post your photos onto their site of all the scenic shots people take in their travels.

And for this Thing, I'm going to add a link to one of the photos I found on Flickr ...

Pepsi

Thing 4: RSS and Newsreaders

Sweet! Thing 4 was easy, especially with Google and the Google Reader. I had set up an account before, and (thanks to Google) I could easily find it and manage it. I'm glad to see Blogger is a Google product, as is Google Reader AND iGoogle (which I hope is coming up in one of the "things". Essentially, I can log in to one of these and get logged in and manage all of these Google products together.

I found the video “RSS in Plain English” to be simple, helpful and informative. I had already set this up before, but confess that I never used it after. I think I'll try to log in more often, especially since I like keeping up with the news. Nevertheless, I prefer to log into iGoogle to see my news (through all my subscription gadgets) rather than log on to the Google Reader. I guess it depends on individual preference.

I definitely like the idea of avoiding ads! That's wonderful! I'm a little frustrated that I can't add HTML code here with links though. Maybe I'll try using that "compose" button up on the right.

Thing 3 - Blog Search Tools

I chose
Technorati (as suggested) and
Google Blog Search (because it is after all Google).

My search was: “Library 2.0”

Technorati: 4494 results
GBS: 4,244,939 results

Technorati:
1st page of 10 results were a little off, not real indicative of library 2.0, results like
Winamp 5.52.1800” and
“Html and Uri String Encoding without System.Web”
GBS:
1st page of 10 results were a little muddled, not too enticing, like “Library 2.0/Church 2.0…02.04.09 « The Proverbial Lone Wolf ...” and
“» Book Review Group Members Adventures in Library 2.0”

Technorati:
Had 4 search filters for the results, definitely a plus, along with links to related videos interspersed within the results.
GBS:
Had a “Related Blogs” feature at the top, definitely a plus, along with a date/time sorter and an advanced search feature.


I’m amazed and a little overwhelmed by all these blogs out there. I’m sure I’ll come across some good ones in the future, mostly through hearsay I suppose. But maybe I’ll get lucky and find one through a search engine. Either way, it will take a while for me to find a few good ones, especially since I tend to be so thorough and time indulgent, with so little time - that’s assuming I don’t push it aside and forget about it.  I believe blogs have a lot to offer, but it will take a while for me to adapt and get the most/best use out of it.