Blogging Blah Blah

I looked at several of the suggested wikis, and I have to say, I am not drawn to this particular kind of program. Many of them look downright messy and confusing. I would put the Pierce County and the Stevens Rural Library District in that category.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, does look neat and organized, and I have actually used it quite a bit. You do have to get a feel for what may and may not be accurate, but I have found it to be surprisingly well documented and accurate. I have noticed though, that many schools forbid their students from using Wikipedia as a resource for their research topics.

I find the FVRL wikis to be very well done. I am referring to the YA wiki, the building project wiki (which I actually could not access today - is it still there?), and the Battle Ground Library's youth services wiki.

I like the example Lee LeFever uses, of people planning a camping trip. This type of close collaboration is what a wiki would be most useful for, in my opinion. It doesn't seem to work so well when you don't know the other people, and when there isn't a clear purpose for it, as in the case of the Pierce County and Stevens Rural Library wikis. However, as one of the articles points out, Wikipedia is an exception to this. I really have no idea how they do what they do so well, but there you have it. It's an informative, interesting, ever-changing wealth of information on just about anything you could possibly want to know!

Goodreads

I have thoroughly enjoyed playing around with Goodreads tonight! I plan to use this a lot to keep track of books I have read and want to read, and to get ideas for other books to read that are similar to ones I have enjoyed.

The one thing I noticed is that it doesn't use tags...what's up with that?!! Of all places, this is where I think tags would be really useful. I will check out Library Thing next, and see if they use tags. If so, I may switch, or even try both for awhile.

I have already had an account with Shelfari for several months. It's similar to these, and it does use tags, so maybe I'll end up back there. I want it to be easy and fast, but I will probably eventually settle on the one where I have the most friends.

Incidentally, I really wish the library's catalog, ibistro, had the features of these websites, where patrons could keep lists of what they have read and are reading, along with their comments, reviews, ratings,and suggestions for similar books. Since Web 2.0 is where the world is these days, and since books are our brand, it really seems obligatory that we offer this type of feature in order to be relevant to our users.

Technorati Time

I enjoyed my evening with Technorati. This is an incredible tool for managing and organizing blogs. I signed up for an account, placed a "fave my blog" link on my blog, selected a few blogs as my own favorites, and then did a search on LIbrary 2.0 as suggested in the activities for Thing 14. A blog search turned up 665 blogs on Library 2.0, while a tag search gave 2,369 posts tagged Library 2.0, and a post search found 44,512 posts that mentioned Library 2.0.

For my purposes this evening, the blog search was the most useful. But I'm sure there will be times when I want to find references to something within a post, and definitely I will want to use the tag search regularly.

I have never read blogs very much, because I couldn't seem to figure out where to start. Looking through Technorati tonight though, gave me a much better feel for how to find relevant, fun, or interesting sites, and how to keep up with what is posted on them.

Del.icio.us is Delectable

I set up my Del.icio.uc account several months ago, and really like it a lot. It is such an easier way to bookmark and organize websites that I want to remember for future reference. It's really pretty ingenious. "Library types" who like to organize and classify information can really go for it, but if you want to stay unorganized but still be able to find websites you like, this is its real strength.

Another great thing is how you can use it to find websites you didn't know about. Just by looking at other websites with the same tags, you can find amazing things. Or browsing under "Popular", or looking at other people's Del.icio.us accounts or bookmarks. It's fun and very useful.

I think anywhere people have to collaborate, a Deli.cio.us (or however the heck you spell it..) account would be useful. I would like to see us set one up for our branch, and share websites that we have found useful.

A Del.icio.us account is like a pebble thrown into a vast pond, and creating ripples out into an everwidening circle on the internet.

I'm really happy to know about this tool!

My creation

My creation,
originally uploaded by Joylock.

I made this billboard by combining a photo of a mosque in Yazd with my own words on the Billboard generator site.

In this photo you can see the beautiful elaborate tile work that adorns old mosques throughout the country. Behind the minarets the mountains are visible. Iran is mostly a high, dry plateau, ringed by tall mountains. Colorful tiles make a dramatic contrast to the brown landscape, as do green trees and cool running water everywhere.