Thing 36: Comic Relief-Generate Some Fun

A Wordle for this blog: Click on it to see a larger version.




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On a bit more sinister note...I took a tweet from Ann Hutton and gave it a slightly creepy image at http://lolwr.us. You can see it at http://lolwr.us/view/759.

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Much more silly - from The Excuse-O-Mat - "I am consumed with guilt. You've reminded me-- oh, it gnaws at me in every waking moment-- that I have treated you as no decent human being would. It would be a mercy for you to never speak to me again. Say the word, and I will lick your boots in apology."

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I'm not sure that these fun generators have much use in the library. I can see a storytime talking about apologizing or making excuses giggling over the Excuse-O-Mat. It is clean, but quite nonsensical.

A generator I love is http://lolwr.us/. It takes your twitter posts (or your friends!) and give you 6 random Flickr images to pair the tweet with.

Thing 35: Books 2.0

We've come to an interesting crossroads for books and the internet. There are so many websites out there that help guide readers to books in a variety of ways.

I investigated BookCrossing and lib.rario.us for this "thing" and I think I'll be exploring lib.rario.us a lot more in the near future. I like the idea that I can catalog movies & music...along with books - and the website will sort them out so they're not all in one big list. The biggest downfall of lib.rario.us that I see right away is its small user base. There can't be a lot of networking if there aren't a lot of folks to network with.

I don't see myself using BookCrossing at all since it is so unlikely that people will take the time to input that they found my book if they do. It's a fun idea, but not very practical.

Websites for books like the ones discussed in this thing are just like any other kind of resource for literature...it will help readers if they're interested in pursuing and researching books that interest them, but only if they take the initiative to do so. The sites themselves do not have the ability to hamper or not the experience of reading. If nothing else, the enhance reading since they give many options for sharing a special book with others. I can see the value especially for those living in remote areas.

Thing 34 Is This Our Competition--Online Answer Sites

I just visited Snappyfingers, a site that puts FAQ questions & answers together & makes them available using a keyword search. This can be a very helpful place to go to get information on a variey of program/hardware specific questions - both by librarians and their patrons.

I've also visited Yahoo!'s answer site in the past, and found the ability for me to rate the answers given a nice feature.

I read the article on "lauren's library blog" on the future of the reference desk, and I must admit, I agree with most of the information she has mined from the articles she's read on the topic. There are many ways to provide reference services without a desk in the middle of the reference books. I have heard many good things that are happening in the "libraries" of SecondLife for reference. Web2.0 has many things that can be, and have been, adapted for librarians to use, so why not make use of them??

I really like the idea of Slam the Boards! I'll have to make a real effort to particpate in this effort. It is very important for reference librarians to be more vocal in their knowledge, & to promote their resources & services - I see this as a great way to do so!

Thing 33 - Travel 2.0

I took a look at a few of the "Travel 2.0" sites on this thing's article (TravelAdvisor, Wines & Times, Boo), and I didn't really learn/see anything I hadn't known before. I really do not see many applications for library use, except perhaps if patrons come in and need help planning a trip and they wish to use the internet to do so. But even this use is not a major one, since so many people already know about the many travel sites like Travelocity and Yahoo travel that also have reviews and other features these Travel 2.0 sites offer. So I really don't see the need for library staff to have a lot of knowledge and experience with them.

I can see the usefulness of some of these travel sites for people planning a trip, but the ones I looked at all had quirks. They quirkiness mostly comes from not being well known, and the reviews and ratings of hotels or attractions are very low. I looked up Washington D.C. on Boo.com and The White House as an attraction only had 3 people review their visit there. It is really hard to see the value of a place with only 3 ratings!

Speaking of Twitter...

Unshelved for today is all about the fun of communicating via Twitter. :)

Thing 32: Google Maps & Mashups

View Larger Map

This is a Google Map of all the public libraries in the SELCO region. Interesting excercise, and I can see myself using these customized maps for road trips/vacations.

Thing 31: Twitter

Twitter is my friend. :) I really enjoy coming up with short little blurbs about what I'm doing, and seeing what my friends and co-workers come up with as well. All my twitter posts (from @rlgray) are automatically posted to my Facebook status, which shares my Twitterings with many more people than would otherwise see it.

I have added a Twitter Badge to the side of this blog to help anyone reading this to follow me. So please add me! :)

With working on this Thing, I have added a couple interesting people to follow including Darth Vader and the blue whale that is suspended from the ceiling at the Museum of Natural History in NYC. While neither of these 2 have anything to do with libraries, the whale is a great example of a way to use Twitter to promote your organization. The whale's "voice" is quite irreverent and fun. It's been discussing the band Phish the last couple of days in avery fun mnaner. I can see a library doing this with a mascot, special collection or art installation.

I see Twitter as a way to let people know what you (personally or organizationally) are doing in a fun and quick manner. It is a snapshot as opposed to a full blog post which could be considered a full slideshow or video.

Thing #30 - More Uses of RSS and Delicious

I almost didn't do this thing since I have quite a bit of experience already in using RSS & Delicious. I created a video podcst that highlights additional uses of RSS feeds for a project at SELCO, and in it I included weather alerts, FeedReminders and the like (it hasn't been released yet). So much of this Thing was repeated inforamation for me.

That said, I had no idea about the Delicious badge I could add to my blog. So I added this to this blog's sidebar. I also tried adding this to my personal LiveJournal blog, but they do not offer HTML/Script sidebar widgets. :(

I have been pretty lax in keeping up with my RSS feeds since installing the web browser Flock, since I am able to go directly into my gmail emial account with a single click in Flock itself. I keep most of my RSS feeds in my Google Reader, so I have to make more of an effort in the future to go to Google's homepage more often to get my feeds.

Thing 29 - Google tools

I love Google & the variety of applications they have developed over the years. They have taken the concept of a search engine to a whole new level with all the extras they've added.

I attended the Google tools session at MLA last year, so I had heard about a couple new products and add-ons they offer (like Google Notebook), and this Thing reminds me to check out all the new "toys" Google has been producing for us to use and to help people collaborate with friends, family & coworkers. I have already used the Google Docs for this purpose, and am also a Gmail user. (I love the layout and the combining of all the emails with the same Subject line - much easier to read and organize. Although this did take me a while to get used to it.)

I just downloaded the Google toolbar. Not sure how enamored I'll be of it, but I like the moon phase, "Today in History", National weather radars and cat clock widgets I've downloaded for so far. I'll post more on how this works with my work flow in the future...if I remember! :)

I glanced at the Google Sites application, but am unsure if I will ever use this kind of service. Then again, I can see this being really helpful for groups collaborating across distances, so I'll never say never on this one.

I can't wait to try out GOOG-411. The one question I have on it right now tho, is how do they pay for this service? A friend of mine mentioned that they might charge companies to be the top result like they do for their web search engine. I can see this being the case, so it will be something I'll take into consideration when using it.

Thing 28 - Customized Web Pages

I have been using iGoogle for a couple years already, and really like its flexibility and usability. I have a variety of widgets I use - including a birthday reminder, CNN news feed, local weather and my Google Reader feed. While I have been getting out of the habit of viewing this personalized page every day (since I use the web browser Flock and can easily get into my Gmail account with 1 click), I do enjoy taking a gander at it every couple of days. I still add and subtract things from my iGoogle page, and have even used the tab feature they offer (I currently have 3 tabs), which makes it very easy to keep my widgets organized.