Thing #11 - LibraryThing

This site is really neat. Setting up my account and adding books to my collection was extremely easy. I found it similar to the GoodReads site but I like the layout a lot better, especially how you can view the covers of the books in a collection, which comes in handy since I'm a very visual persona and like to look at cover art. This site would be extremely useful in the library as it could be used to set up a variety of collections online for students and staff to view. It could be a way of starting a book club or creating a collection of titles for certain classes and collaborative lessons. It could also be good for personal use to share titles with friends, family, and other librarians and also to catalog your personal collection at home.

Thing #10 - Online Image Generator

The online image generators are just plain fun and the ones I tried out were very easy to use. I used an existing photo from New Year's Eve and created a picture within a picture using the Dumpr website. I thought the name of the site was interesting and decided to check it out and see what it could do. Although I awas already familiar with Wordle, I had never actually used the website so decided to try it out and make one using Bicycling Magazine's RSS feed. Click the link to check out my Cycling Theme Wordle and oops! I accidentally spelled "wordle" wrong in my title. The last online image generator site that I explored was Comic Strip Generator, by doing a search for some of there pre-existing strips. This site was really easy and fun to use. All of these sites would be useful in the library for several different types of things such as creating bookmarks, promoting titles, or generating brochures with book reviews.

Thing #9 - Useful Library-Related Blogs and News Feeds

Since recently learning about RSS feeds this experiment provided more tools to help me in finding reliable RSS feeds and sources of information on the web. The easiest search tool was Technorati. I liked the layout and it was easy to navigate and simply click on topics that took me to a list of various blogs on the topic. I also liked Topix.net because it immediately identified my location and provided up to date news information for my area of town. The most confusing were Atomic Learning since it required you to setup an account and seemed more on the business side of things (selling and promoting products) and Syndic8 which had a boring layout and required more searching versus providing easy links. The most useful thing I discovered was the Gadgets Channel on Technorati which provided links to lots of technology blogs about current and future products in the technology market.

Thing #8 - RSS Feeds and Readers

Let me just start by saying "I love Lee LeFever!!!." The Common Craft "In Plain English" videos are great and I'm a dork who likes the little cut-outs. So I finally know what RSS stands for and what RSS feeds actually are now. I signed up for Google Reader and it was a piece of cake to search for and add subscriptions. I like the all-in-one concept and email style setup of an RSS feed and the fact that everything you need is right there with one click and automatically updated. This technology would be great for me personally to be able to keep up with things that I'm interested in like cycling and currently what is going on with the Tour de France. At school it would be useful by finding blogs related to my subject matter and creating a public page for my students. Libraries could use the RSS feed technology to create public pages with tons of information for almost every subject and it would be perfect for setting up a current events feed for history classes. Check out some of my favorite items in Google Reader from the feed on the left.

Thing #7 -Cool Google Tools

The two Google tools I chose to explore for this "thing" were Google Calendar and Google Docs. While I do have an email account through Google, I rarely use the site for anything other than a quick initial search for things. Last semester I briefly learned about Google Docs but it wasn't until this semester that I actually used the tool. Google Docs would be a great way for me as a librarian to communicate with teachers and administrators about happenings in the library and also a good tool when preparing a collaborative lesson with a teacher. Google Calendar would be very helpful when scheduling classes and research time in the library by allowing it to be public, teachers could access it and see what is going on and when in the library. It was very easy to create and make public. Please click here to view my Google calendar!

Thing #6 - Mashups and 3rd Party Sites

These sites were really neat and gave lots of ideas and possibilities for their use in the library. Mappr is cool because you could create a map and find postcard images using Flickr's Creative Commons section to map where your students, teachers, or staff have been during summer vacation. The Mosaic Maker and the FD Toy's Trading Card Maker would be great tools to help promote titles in your library by putting a spin on the book trailer concept. I especially liked the Flickr Color Picker because it produced some very beautiful images according to almost every color on the color palette and would be great way to collaborate with an art teacher.

Thing #5: Flickr

Prior to beginning the 23 Things Experiment, I was familiar with the Flickr website since 2005. A friend of mine told me about the site and was hosting his photos there. After revisiting the site for this blog post, it has developed a lot in the last five years. The most interesting aspect of the site is the Creative Commons and the fact that it is a great website for librarians and teachers to find usable photos. It is also a great way to find others that have similar photography interests.