Kim-23things

The number of blogs that exists is overwhelming, but not surprising, considering how easy it is to start a blog. On the one hand, the ease with which one can start a blog is inspiring. Anyone can express themselves and have an open dialogue. On the other hand, this means that you have a lot of bad quality sites. Technorati helps us to maneuver this through this overwhelming world of blogs and user-generated content. It is also important to track and to study the web culture.

It is fascinating to see the top favorited blogs, top blogs and top searches. While it is not surprising that there are social networking sites listed in top searches, other searches seem more random, like london. It is slightly surprising to see Engadget as the top blog. I know electronic gadgets are popular, but I somehow thought that it was my "little secret" for learning about nifty tech toys. Now I know better...

I just realized that I might as well be wearing a big sign with the Google logo on it (or maybe a t-shirt). In addition to using Google Docs (See Thing #18), I also use iGoogle, a personalized homepage that uses both RSS feeds and Google Gadgets. I also add RSS feeds to my LiveJournal account. Gotta love RSS feeds where you can have everything you read in one spot.

See below for a screenshot from my Bloglines account (Click to enlarge):

Before Google Docs, I used to send myself e-mails or create drafts in my e-mails. While I have a flash drive, there is something very convenient about accessing a document via your e-mail from any computer with Internet access. When I was a student, I was on the move enough that I didn't want to risk incompatible file formats or older computers that didn't take my flash drive.

And then Google Docs came along and it was a major convenience. Especially the ability to share files with other people. Today, I have a total of thirty-six files saved in Google Docs. Some of them are word processing files. Others are spreadsheet files. I've shared files of terms with my partner in my Thesauri Construction class. I've also shared a spreadsheet file of friend and family contact information with my friends who threw me a graduation party. I've created a bills spreadsheet file that I could share. A person also has the ability to chat live about the document that is being shared (See below and click to enlarge). I found this greatly useful; only I've just learned that you can only do this with spreadsheets. Google Docs is currently working to offer this function for the word processing application as well. I also just learned that Google Docs now offers a way to create presentations similar to Powerpoint and Keynote. This is a great tool for group presentations.

I first discovered LibraryThing through Neil Gaiman's blog. At the time I was cataloging my books through a Mac program called Delicious Library. Using my built-in laptop camera I would scan in the bar codes of not only my books, but also my movies and my video games; and information would be pulled up from Amazon.com for each item. I could also edit each item's record, adding search terms.

So then I discovered LibraryThing. What makes LibraryThing different? There is the obvious: It is web-based and free (though there is a paid account option). As an online tool, LibraryThing is also a social tool. When you add your book, you can see other LibraryThing members who have the same book in their LibraryThing. You can also see how other people have tagged books in your list. And in addition to Amazon.com, information about these books can also be pulled from the Library of Congress as well as a variety of other university and special libraries. The LibraryThing LibrarySuggester, BookSuggester, and BookUnsuggester also use information about members who have similar books to offer recommendations for books you should and shouldn't read. (Also look to the right column to see the "Random books from my library" widget.)

I still mainly use Delicious Library for cataloging my books and media, but LibraryThing is nice as a tool to share my library with others. For my KimLibrarian LibraryThing account (see below), I have cataloged books I want to consider for booktalking. By using the BookSuggester and LibrarySuggester, I can see recommendations for other books I can consider for booktalking.

I learned something about myself recently. I have no patience for cassette tapes. None whatsoever. I always thought that there was something nostalgic and romantic about records and record players. Film, even. But cassettes??!?!?!

Well I recently found a "Classic Cassette Tote." See right. I find that pretty cool; but I think that that is the only cassette I like. I am an iPod girl through and through and currently I burn CDs of music I need for my storytimes. That way, everything is located in one spot and I can choose the track number I want without constantly rewinding and fast forwarding. My ultimate goal is to be able to find an iPod portable speaker that I like. That way I could just create playlists and play the music directly from my iPod.

In the meantime, I've discovered a way to digitize music from cassette tapes. That's a project for this weekend, so I'll tell you guys how it goes...

Gotta love MP3 technology and MP3 players! Greater storage capacity, portability and a way to organize your music library.

Tagging, tagging, tagging...

What can I say except that I love it. Sure, precision isn't always the best. When I try searching for "tiger" in Flickr for instance, I get images of: tigers, tiger butterflies, kids dressed up as tigers, Tiger Crow flowers, Tiger Cub Scouts, cats named tiger... You get the idea. But if you enter a specific search term, you can get pretty good results (Searching for "fishing cat" for instance yields much better results).

Why is tagging better than using folders for organization? Well it expedites searching and there is the whole concept of poly-hierarchy. Note that entries in this blog are tagged and the list of tags is listed on the right-hand side. Recently, when I gave a presentation on Web 2.0, I saved links to all of the sites I used as examples in my Keynote (Mac version of Powerpoint) to Del.icio.us. I tagged these sites by the name of the slides they appeared. Since we were in a computer lab, by providing everyone with a the url to my Del.icio.us site, they could quickly explore these sites for themselves. Below is a screenshot of my Del.icio.us site.


Photo Credits:
1. Tiger, 2. Untitled, 3. Dormindo igual um gatinho ...., 4. TigerLiliesBW.jpg, 5. Phoenix, 6. Tiger, 7. Sam's Halloween Costume, 8. Little Tiger & Mom, 9. eye of the tiger ..., 10. FOA: Drama 2, 11. After, 12. lonely tiger, 13. tiger, 14. Not available, 15. Not available, 16. Not available

There are so many neat library related blogs out there. A wonderful place to search these blogs is LISZEN. Remember Rollyo where one can "roll" all the websites they want to search? Well think of LISZEN as a Rollyo for library-related blogs. Currently, one can search over 750 blogs with LISZEN.

Some blogs that are searchable through LISZEN:
Reader's Advisory Knapsack
The Tao of Searching
User Education Resources for Librarians

And then there are the children's literature related blogs that I love:
Big A little a
The Kiddosphere at Fauquier
Kids Lit

Like I mentioned before, there are a lot of blogs out there. I think that is why specialized search engines such as LISZEN are so valuable. They help you to focus on the information that you need.