Thing 14: LibraryThing

I really enjoyed this thing, perhaps because it was more focused that Thing 13 -- fewer sites and tools to explore. I've had the LibraryThing blog among the rss feeds in my Bloglines account but didn't quite get how big and popular LibraryThing was until touring it a bit. As I get older I find that it's difficult sometimes to remember the titles and authors of books I've read. LibraryThing can keep track of them, especially the ones I want to remember.

I set up an account on LibraryThing, completed my profile with some favorite authors and a historical photograph of a woman reading a book. I then added six books, including tags and ratings. I love seeing the covers for so many of the recently published books. Being a visual person, the covers are an important reminder of the books and are an attraction for books read by others that I'd like to explore. I joined two groups, Librarians Who LibraryThing and Minnesota Things. I can see the value for readers in discovering other books and authors to read. I put the LibraryThing search box widget on the blog.

This seemed to be a perfect time to look at Good Reads, a site a retired colleague actively uses. I've sometimes looked at the books she has shared but haven't entered many of my own. Realistically, I'll probably only use one of these sites for my recreational reading and may choose Good Reads because I have a real live friend there. LibraryThing, however, fits libraries better and could be used as a promotional tool and source of images of book covers for new books listing on our intranet and public blogs.

Thing 13: Productivity Tools

Well, there were certainly a lot of things to look at in this thing. My initial reaction is that I spent quite a bit of time perusing possibile productivity tools. If I use one or more, my productivity could be increased. Meanwhile, it feels like I spent a lot of time looking at many tools I'll probably never use.


For the start page I chose NetVibes, not one of the choices mentioned. I learned about NetVibes from Michael Stephens in his spring 2008 presentation to Minnesota Health Science Libraries. I like the ability to choose and arrange elements, including e-mail, rss feeds, web searches, image searches, local weather, to do lists, and other highly useful tools on one page. I may use it as my start page at home. At work I use our library inhouse page which contains many databases and resources most relevant to my work. During the course of exploring thing 13 I also updated my iGoogle page, too.


While I found some of the calendar pages interesting and full of possibilities, I'm already managing an electronic calendar at work where I keep my meetings, appointments, and desk time up to date as well as a small datebook where I write my personal appointments. Right now it doesn't seem efficient to add another calendar to the mix. I think I might consider Google calendar when I retire. One tool I'm going to try is a list, Remember the Milk. I did get the countdown calendar to work and added it to the blog.

I took a look at Backpack and was impressed with the possiblities. My next step is to identify a project, either at work or at home, that I want to manage and give it a whirl.

Thing 12: Now I Digg and have Reddit

Like my animal friends, I've been having a good time digging in the garden. Time to get back to the 23 things. I spent a bit of time with all four tools and have concluded that they could be very useful to me at home but seem less relevant at work. Much of the emphasis is on the popular and sometimes wierd but interesting stories. My work is much less sensational and newsworthy. Since many researchers who come into our library are interested in genealogy, I thought that genealogy would be a good search term for these tools. One of the things I discovered was that genealogy, heritage, and family history are frequently used as terms for such things as computer programs.

On Digg I got four hits for genealogy. The first and best was an article on Geni.com about Genealogy for Web 2.0. The Second was about Windows Vista inheriting the sins of the father. Don't get me started on Vista.

Reddit yielded more results for my search on genealogy, about 50. Some were relevant to my interests and others not.

Newsvine was the most graphically appealing of the sites and represents what the world is talking about. Unfortunately, those are not the conversations in my library where researchers are focused on very specific topics, most of them in the past.

Mixx includes stories, photos, and videos submitted by users. I enjoyed looking at the popular photos, which were a diversion from work.

In conclusion, I could see spending time on these sites on vacation or in retirement. My acid test for Library 2.0 things is whether it saves me time and enlarges my understanding of my work and our clients' needs or if it wastes time and distracts. These sites fall into the second category.

Thing 11: Tagging and Del.icio.us

Sometimes I feel like a slow learner. I set up a Del.icio.us account a while ago and saw it useful for preserving and getting access to bookmarks regardless of which computer I was using. Now I'm starting to appreciate the value of tagging as a way to make those sites useful and easier to find as I add ever more sites to my Del.icio.us account. Since I have many different interests, I can use the tags to find what I'm seeking much more quickly. Being a reference person rather than a cataloger I feel empowered to add labels of interest to me and perhaps others without having to consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings.

First I tagged a few of my more recent blog entries to see how that worked. Very simple and easy to do in blogger.com. I then explored Del.icio.us to see how others used tagging and social bookmarking. I have seen tag clouds in blog entries and now I know how easy it is to create one. My own Del.icio.us account does not have enough sites and tags to make a dramatic cloud. Most of the tags look about the same size. Now that I know how to use Del.icio.us I will add more bookmarked sites and tag more assertively.

I can see how this process could be very useful for my own personal research projects and also for collaborative work projects. I was impressed by the Minn23 Del.icio.us site. A very fun and useful thing. On to number 12!

Thing 10: Bunny explores wikis

I am really drawn to the idea of using a wiki for subject guides, like the St. Joseph County Public Library. Our library has lots of subject guides. I could see that this would be useful to our researchers. The book lovers wiki is very attractive. I found much useful information on the Library Success wiki, structured in such a way that I could find topics of interest. I didn't find the Library Bloggers Wiki either terribly useful or interesting.

There was quite a range in the Minnesota wikis. The Educational Heritage Project seems to be very well developed, one of the advantages of having a limited but committed group working on the project. MPR's Minnewiki has some good information, but many of the articles are stubs. That's a good way to start a wiki and try to attract others to add and enhance the information. There was almost nothing to the Beekeeping in Minnesota wiki -- just a page linking to a national wiki. The MN 150 wiki obviously had a lot of web development, which shows in the more sophisticated presentation and layout as well as the completeness and organization of entries.

I left a comment on the 23 things on a stick wiki but found it like a messy scrapbook.

I did some editing and added an entry on placeography, a house and building wiki .http://www.placeography.org/ I added an entry about the John F. Eisenmenger house: http://www.placeography.org/index.php?title=John_F._Eisenmenger_house%2C_1015_Mound_Street%2C_Saint_Paul%2C_Minnesota_%28Razed%29

I can see the potential for collaboration using wikis to share knowledge with others. Libraries can use them both internally for planning and publicly to provide information to their clientele and engage library users in sharing their knowledge, ideas, and opinions.

Thing 9: Collaboration Tools

I've been a regular user of Google docs for a couple of years. I find it a great place to keep works in progress such as memos, creative writing, blog posts, reference letters, and other musings. It's convenient to be able to access it while I'm at the reference desk, at home, or at the public library. Otherwise, I have a tendency to not do any work-related writing unless I'm sitting in my office. One test for me is if a tool adds to my productivity and sense of organization and accomplishment versus being another source of distraction. Google docs definitely falls into the first category. I was impressed with the larger number of features offered by Zoho writer (judging by all the icons at the top). However, to be realistic, I'm more likely to use Google docs because my personal e-mail is gmail and when I chat it's with Google chat. I will share both tools with my writing group.

I have done collaboration on a proposal with a colleague in a distant state. Google docs worked well for that. I found the editing exercise both frustrating and annoying. Not so much fun for Bunny.

Thing 8: Sharing my creations

I created a slideshow on thumbstacks, which seemed clunky and primitive. I had to consult the helps just to add a slide. My colleagues have created very attractive and informative slideshows on slideshare which were easy to access. That could be a nice way to share presentations with students in our class or others wanting to learn how to use certain resources in our library.

For picture sharing I loved Big Huge Labs and played around with Picture Trail. My slide show is below. In my personal life I use Kodak Gallery to share photos with friends and family and to order prints. The Warholizer feature on Big Huge Labs is awesome and would make a great library poster or flyer. I could also use it to highlight favorite pictures of favorite loved ones. For documents I'm a big fan of Google docs, using it to work on conference proposals, blog drafts, and even the beginnings of a novel.

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