I have a crush on LibraryThing

LibraryThing is my favorite kcls27things "killer app" and probably the most difficult for me to write about because there is so much I want to say. I cataloged nearly every book in my home on LibraryThing. I think I'm up to 135 now. It's probably a good thing that they will start charging a fee after 200.

When I first signed up a couple of months ago, I thought I would catalog a couple of favorite books and call it good. I catalog books for a living so it would be a little crazy to catalog them as a hobby. Then I took the tour and read the comments in the Buzz section where I learned that I have the coolest job on the planet. Ignoring warnings of the addictive nature of cataloging books on LibraryThing, I cataloged a handful of titles which turned into everything on my book shelves. Over the next couple of days I unpacked boxes of old books so that I could put them up on LibraryThing. I happily reconnected with my collection of children's books and an old copy of Cricket illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman.

One of the coolest things about LibraryThing is the connection you can make with other people. While reading anglophile's booklist I discovered that we both loved horse stories by Marguerite Henry. (Alas, I couldn't find mine among my boxes). For a moment I was transported back to the enjoyment of receiving these books as birthday and Christmas presents and it enriched a personal connection with a friend (in real life).

LibraryThing offers the kind of services that I would very much like to see in our online catalogs: ratings, book reviews, and user-assigned tags. The catalog could become a virtual branch that fosters community, connection and conversation between users and the library.

WTF: 15 minutes of fame on Technorati

I wrote briefly about Technorati a few blog posts ago. I registered and claimed my blog and discovered that I already had a small community of KCLS bloggers who linked to my blog! (Hello! aseaberg, acrossanddown, and Truckin' Beagles!)

Technorati really amps up social networking opportunities. What struck me while searching for blog posts that mention kcls27things in Technorati is how many of us are forming communities of linked blogs. We even create community with people we've never met in "real" life.

As I also learned while tooling around in Technorati, kcls27things is a hot topic. The number of posts about 27things by KCLS bloggers reached a critical mass, inspiring the service to ask someone to write a Where's the Fire? (WTF) blurb explaining kcls27things sudden popularity. "WTFs are short blurbs that explain the buzz around people, things, or events—why the hot topics are so hot—and you can vote the best ones to the top." kcls27things made the Top 10 Searches today as you can see below.

Tagging is del.icio.us, Part 2

my del.icio.us tags-d032407
Originally uploaded by bright_eyed_girl.

This is a picture of my tag roll from del.icio.us, presented as a word cloud. Every tag I assigned to a website is displayed here. The tags I assigned most often are displayed with large fonts while the least used tags are displayed with small fonts.
One of my most frequently used tags is a bookmark I created for Featured websites. I used the link roll tool in del.icio.us to add the links to these sites in my kcls27things training blog. The links in the sidebar are updated as I add or remove this bookmark from sites that I tag in del.icio.us.

I am fascinated by tag clouds. I believe they reveal information about users themselves: their interests, preferences, and what informs their view of the world.

I would like to see user tagging in library catalogs, not to replace subject searching by any means, but as a way of opening up new channels of communication, or conversations, between libraries and users. I think this is a very exciting time to be a librarian!

Tagging is del.icio.us! Part 1

I enjoyed finding new tools for customizing del.icio.us that are bookmarked in the kcls27things account. I've been adding Library 2.0 bookmarks to my del.icio.us for a couple of months. I imagine this tool could be useful for building collections of good websites and sharing them system-wide.

One of the features I like best is that I can use del.icio.us to update information on my blog. I have two del.icio.us link rolls that display in the sidebar. When I add certain tags to websites, their links automatically show up on my blog. When I am tired of a link, I can delete it from del.icio.us or remove the tag so that it doesn't show up on my blog anymore. See the Help pages for more information and tools.

Service Alert!
The LibraryThing site announced that they are down this morning. Some elements in the sidebar will not display correctly.

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

When I signed up for a MySpace account, I was a bit dismayed because it reminded me of a depressingly dingy, low-rent shopping mall. Then I visited MySpace pages created by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County and Steele Creek Library and I became a believer. Their spaces are nothing like the drab default profile pages that MySpace provides when you first sign up. Looking at these sites, I can see the value of building a library presence in MySpace and other virtual environments. They are engaging, informative, and offer teens a safe place to learn and play.

And build you must. MySpace is a do-it-yourself project. Knowledge of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) really comes in handy. (Good thing I've been taking lessons at W3Schools at night). I suspect the boring profile defaults were designed to provoke users into changing them as quickly as possible!

I've been tinkering with my Profile on MySpace thanks to a gem of book I checked out from KCLS: MySpace Visual Quick Tips. I still have a lot of work to do but I am having fun learning!

Thanks, I'll stick with Bloglines

I tried Feedster. I wanted to like it because it had a shiny appearance. Searching was frustrating because I found too many irrelevant hits. I can't imagine stumbling serendipitously across something better than the sites that I already subscribe to. I preferred starting with some recommended blogs and working my out from there. Find a blog you like, see what's on the blogroll and follow the links.

Technorati on the other hand, wow. It's pretty neat. I signed up (another set passwords to remember), claimed my blog, and exported a nifty search tool to put into my blog. More exploration will follow, I'm sure.

I like Bloglines because I'm used to it. It's easy and I appreciate not being given a lethal dose of advertising every time I visit.

Check out this new title: No One Cares What You Had for Lunch

If you need some clever, creative ideas for your blog check this out. This charming little book passed through my hands this morning. The subtitle says it all: "100 ideas for your blog." It answers the question "whatever shall I write about?"

Here is a gem that got me laughing and invited curious stares from co-workers:

All readers need an occasional dose of schadenfreude, so fess up. How do you fail? Do you consistently kill plants?

Rain Rain

Rain Rain
Originally uploaded by its a bronwyn.

I've been a Bloglines user for a couple of years but until I downloaded the Notifier tool I never remembered to check my feeds. I subscribe to over 40 feeds, organized into folders. Some of the most interesting library-themed feeds have been Tame the Web, Stephen's Lighthouse, and The Shifted Librarian. I also enjoy reading the KCLS blogs listed in the sidebar.

I subscribed to some of the feeds for Exercise #7. The National Weather Service feed is very useful as it has been reminding me every day to expect floods.

It took a little doing, but I finally managed to export a blogroll and put it on my blog. I had to remove a hyphen in my Bloglines user name to accomplish this.

Arlington Heights Memorial Library

Check out Arlington Heights Memorial Library website. It has some nifty features on it. I like how all the good stuff is easy to find on the page. No scrolling required!

My cat, Belle, AKA Bunny Goodness, decided to "help" me write this post this morning so I'll keep it brief.

Yellow for Orange

Pretty Orange
Originally uploaded by Aoife city womanchile.

I signed up for a Flickr account a few weeks ago in preparation of Library 2.0 training. I was amazed at how easy it was to find great pictures like this one by searching for "orange flowers." Searching with tags helps to filter search results to retrieve only the most relevant items. Imagine if we could filter search results to this level of specificity in our library catalogs!

I am in awe of the generosity of the people who share and tag their photos so that others can find them.

See my previous blog post on the usefulness of mashups.

Only the Most Useful Mashup Ever

When I started looking into mashups I thought that they were interesting but I could not see how they might be useful in my everyday life. However, events that transpired over the weekend led me to realize that I need a mashup of all the Starbucks Locations in King County in map form. Someone else had the same idea and created the FindbyClick coffee finder. Type in the name of a city to see locations and addresses of all the nearby Starbucks stores displayed in a map. This is by-goodness useful information!

I had an appointment in a small city south of Seattle and, as I was early, decided I had time to get a Starbucks' Cinnamon Dolce latte. The new mall seemed like a promising destination but when I got there, they had a different coffee house. Could this be the city Starbucks forgot? According to my new finding aid, it appears that there are as many as three stores in that city so this unsettling situation can be avoided in the future.

Fun With Links

I just figured out how to turn an image into a hyperlink. I changed the image in my previous post so that a user can click through the picture of Ms. Dewey to the site. (Remember my first post and my love for fiddling with code?)

I also found this tool for creating South Park images while reading the Librarian Avengers blog (Librarian Avengers is mad brilliant). Then I used my trial copy of Snagit to capture the image and edit it.

Did I forget to mention how much fun this is?