#22 Web 2.0 Award Winners and Webware

The first Webware article which grabbed me was one about a new Zoho Notebook but further reading brought up serious glitches (disappearing content) although the designer commented that these problems have now been smoothed out. From here I found out about Google Notebook, Netvibes http://www.netvibes.com/, Clipmarks http://www.clipmarks.com/(bookmarking service) and simplest of all, Notefish, which provides a sample of gathering online data such as all one needs for a trip to New York http://www.notefish.com/notes.php?p=122 or to purchase a laptop http://www.notefish.com/notes.php?p=162 I would have to sign up for each to really evaluate them (perhaps someone already has) but they sound perfect for public computer users at the library and student or work groups working on team projects.

Web 2.0 awards under Books brought up nothing new until I spied http://reader2.com/ which was interesting in its links to the "global world takeover project" under Honorable Mentions.

MyFilmz - social list of movies.
MyProgs - social list of programs.
TagFacts - social knowledge base.
Bank of Ideas - social list of ideas.


It may be time for KCLS to link to these kinds of collecting and/or tagging sites if we cannot streamline our book bags and checkout lists for our patrons' use.

#21 Google Labs

Google Voice Local Search was the first thing I tried on the Google Labs' site and it worked liked a dream. I gave a business name (Rudy's Barbershop) and they listed the 5 locations and I uttered the one I wanted and was connected in less than a minute. (Faster than calling the Answer Line? Possibly.)

Next I exported (!) my Bloglines subscriptions to the Google Reader and installed a widget on my Blog for shared news items. I like the tagging feature of Google Reader harking back of course to my fondness for Library Thing and its tags. Of course, it also spurred me to read my feeds which cost about a half hour of progress on 27 Things as I shared, starred, tagged and emailed on the new Google Reader. I stopped short of adding it to my mobile phone.

Google Trends is amusing and possibly helpful at work since I don't know what half the citations are! Today, not a big news day, brought us:

1. dena schlosser (murderer)

2. kristen wiig (SNL star)

3. deanna laney (another murderer)

4. rita mori (Miss Universe)

but, best of all, I discovered a blog whose writer actually does the NYT crossword puzzle every day. http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ *This* really is something we can use at Answer Line.

#18 Rollyo and Google

I am beginning to see how this might be very useful after looking at Booknotez roll which searched study or homework-oriented sites for literature questions. This could be a real boon in our Homework Help area on the library website, or certainly for those of us working on Chat queries. I created a general quick reference Google search box on my blog, but further thought suggests a more specific searchroll would be better used. The travel searchroll is very cool, as is the Food and Dining (I looked up morels).

#20 Google Docs and Zoho

I find Zoho more fun because it has the planning function which I use fairly often, making to do lists, adding notes to myself, book titles, etc. kind of an electronic organizer online. I tried to use the Google Docs to create a history of my book club's titles, working from someone else's Excel doc which caused me lots of table/cell grief, but the potential is there to share and to add to if I spend some time (not on the phone) figuring out this bonus from Google.
Both of these would be useful in a library setting as they would anywhere a shared document need be created and edited. I've already alerted an out-of-town traveling buddy who loves to organize our trips.

#22 Choose Your Own Adventure

was the link I selected and then got lost for a long time just scanning the endless possibilities. Trying organization, I wasted considerable time setting up an online calendar. Then I pursued t-shirt designs , tools for using eBay & Craiglist , but ended up doing the most on Zoho http://www.zoho.com/ making notes from Kirkus & PW about titles I want to read (instead of using the Book Bag which I usually mistakenly close during multitasking) and http://www.listdump.com/ Who doesn't love lists?

It was a pleasure finding this list of film noir movies on stumbleupon (a site for finding new sites) http://www.stumbleupon.com/: http://www.ericenders.com/noir25.htm

#19 Web 2.0

The open library comes into its own. Sometimes we're so focused on the trees as we place holds for patrons, help them download audio books, renew materials, research phone numbers that we forget to step back and view the whole picture. And "the forest" is changing dynamically. A good friend called to discuss how many gigabites she needed on her new iPod since she expected to download podcasts of her favorite radio and news programs. Another calls me "rampant digerati" as I demo some new graphical toy on KCLS Learning 2.0. And each of them is a regular reader of print books, too, although I must admit they get their newspapers online, a morning routine I am reluctant to abandon. And abandoning old tools is part of this surge forward. Our resources at Answer Line have changed dramatically in recent years as book use declines and we use the Web for the vast majority of our responses. I don't think KCLS circ has declined like Rick Anderson's 55% but change is the key and we already are aboard as far as Questionpoint, Chat and Live Homework Help tools to connect with patrons. The Chicago map mash up mentioned by Michael Stephens was nice although not that far superior to ours. Dr. Wendy Schultz' vision was my favorite (probably the single malt!) but her idea of the library as a mind gym and her definition of a library: "Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory." This entire exercise has helped stress these convocational attributes as we learn so many hip, new ways of connecting, not simply through writing and talking but through photos, videos and websites. Public response from friends and family has been awed and impressed by the breadth of the KCLS learning exercise and particularly that it is coming from the LIBRARY!

Library Thing

Cookbooks on Ice
Originally uploaded by featherlearning.

No introduction needed to Library Thing for me. Search my library to the left. I'm already a big fan with many books entered and I am fascinated by the social aspects of seeing who has my books, what they have in their own libraries, how they review them and the conversations generated in the groups including Librarians Who Library Thing. While Gurulib has the same listing capabilities, it lacks the social aspects and group functions that I enjoy in Library Thing. Shelfari is more interesting because it offers Reading Lists and Wish Lists but they do not have the extensive bibliographic resources for downloading older or more obscure titles (i.e. libraries all over the world.) Library Thing is just bigger which is another plus if the social links draw you in. Any of these would serve library patrons in keeping lists of what they want to read or have read, plus Library Thing now has a feature directed at libraries where patrons can register at a cost of a nickel per patron. And they will be previewing even more and better things for libraries this weekend in Washington DC:

"LibraryThing for Libraries is composed of a series of widgets, designed to enhancing library catalogs with LibraryThing data and functionality. The achievement is that the widgets require NO back-end integration.

We're serious. Just add a single Javascript tag, and one
tag for every widget you want to display and we do the rest. To make sure the widgets use your library's version of a title and that some widgets only refer to books you have, you also need to upload a file with ISBNs in it—just ISBNs or all mixed together in MARC records or whatever. The whole thing should work with any catalog."
http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2007/04/sneak-peek-librarything-for-libraries_09.php