Thing # 15: Library 2.0

I like so many of us feel conflicted about the idea of library 2.0. I love the traditional, nostalgic image of the library. I love books--the real tangible kind made of bound paper. And there are still many people in our area that come to us for just that. No one I know of wants to turn our backs on those people or that library. But there is a whole new generation of people who require a whole new kind of library. Why not be prepared to serve them as well? After all, we are in the business of providing people with information and the tools with which to acquire that information. Some of those tools are changing. Just because the majority of our patrons don't seem to need those tools right now doesn't mean they won't in the future. Eventually we'll have to catch up and integrate these two kinds of libraries, or we'll have a lot of empty chairs.

Thing #14: Google Books!

I already mentioned my interest in the digitization of books in my "any technology that interests you" blog entry. So it's no surprise that I am familiar with Google Books. I use it frequently, in fact. Particularly when I am looking at a book to make an order card for or thinking of buying one personally that we don't have a copy of here. The Google Library project has some amazing institutions associated with it, so I think only good things are to come from such a collaboration--particularly for people like us who live in rural areas. Most public libraries can only give you access to so much via their own collections. It's wonderful to have an alternative for accessing hard to find books other than interlibrary loan...or a trip to Oxford! And the search feature is great for someone who is really trying to narrow down within a book.

Thing #13: Del.icio.us

Aside from the nuisance of having to consistantly pause to remember where to type the periods in the middle of the word Del.icio.us, I thought it was a really brilliant idea. I signed up for a Del.icio.us account so that I can start putting it to good use. That is my goal, anyway. But I am slow to change my habits, and I do enjoy the familiarity of the good old "favorites" button. It can't compare to portable bookmarks with tags for categorizing, though! I took Kristina's suggestion (thanks Kristina!) and I checked out some of the sites referencing the growing use of this tool in libraries. Apparently several public and university libraries actually have Del.icio.us directly on their websites, giving patrons access to recommended sites and links for various topics, as well as news and assignments for local students. That sounds incredibly useful to me personally and professionally.

Thing #12: whatever I want

As far as technology related things, one thing that's always interested me is the digitization of books, especially rare ones. I am not really a fan of e-books. I would much prefer to read a tangible book, but as a total lit/language nerd I love the idea of having hard to find texts available online. You know, it's not always that easy to find 15th century French texts around here! I actually used Project Gutenberg as a college student in one of my classes. We read a variety of 19th century American short stories and didn't have a text book. These days I often use Google Books, the layout is much, much nicer.

Mp3 player for me, please!

Things #11: Digg

I've visited Digg a time or two before, without knowing much about how it functioned. The fact that the headlines and information that appear on Digg are all submitted by it's members, with only a select few being voted on to the main page, is a fascinating one. Given the popularity of Digg, it seems like that could be great advertising for some people. Imagine the kind of publicity you could get for your blog, or podcast etc...? If you campaign enough and network enough, you can recruit enough Digg members/fans to submit your work and vote for it, thereby landing it on the front page and immediately increasing your audience. Very good marketing.

Anyhow, all in all I like Digg. I definitely prefer Digg's setup to Technorati's. It seems much cleaner. I can see how it's useful in terms of bringing together a lot of fringe headlines and varied information, as well as "News of the Weird" as Abby has pointed out. But I still prefer going directly to certain sources. I guess I'm just old fashioned. And I can't imagine all the time and energy so many people put into social networking via the internet. I mean, I love my computer, but ride a bike people!

Here's a great piece with photgraphs of the world's most beautiful libraries.

Thing #10: Good Reads wins

It was Abby who first introduced me to Shelfari and also Abby who told me about Good Reads just couple of months ago. (Abby is usually way ahead of the rest of us in terms of that sort of thing.) I have been distracted by much bigger life issues of late so I haven't been spending as much time there as I did initially, but I can say that so far, in my comparison of the two, Good Reads definitely wins. There are several things about the setup that appeal to me more.

One thing is I noticed right away is that it's faster than Shelfari, which is a big plus. At times it seemed to take an eternity adding books on Shelfari. It's also easier to do basic things like tag and classify your books and edit comments or shelves on Good Reads. I have had a lot more success finding the exact book with their search option because I get a bigger variety of results. I guess they have more search engines for finding books than Shelfari has, which is nice for people like me who have a lot of obscure or foreign-bought books. Call me anal, but I like to have the right edition of the book on my shelf. I noticed that there's a way to import your entire bookshelf from Shelfari to Good Reads, which would save me some time, but I haven't figured out how yet. Has anyone done it?

I have perused the GR explore option quite a bit. I love reading the reviews! Which is also probably why I have been too intimidated to write more than one tiny review. I, like Abby, have noticed that the caliber of review writing on Good Reads is pretty high. I wonder if these people have jobs? Maybe they have jobs as reviewers or write synopses of books for magazines and book covers? I used to be much better at that sort of thing, but I'm out of practice, and it never came very quickly. In any case, it's nice to read them--especially when they come from the Fontana group. I really love the fact that I can see what fellow Fontanites are reading and recommending.

I must also confess that I frequently get sucked into the Never-ending Book Quiz. I just pick up where I left off and the next thing I know an entire hour has passed. I wouldn't recommend going too far with it, though. I've noticed that the longer you follow the quiz the weirder the questions get. Some of them aren't even complete questions, just words or phrases with a question mark tagged on like : "Blue bunnies?" HUH?