#16 wikis

I like the idea of the reader reviews on the book lovers blog, the wiki format makes it easy to manage- but it could have been done on a blog too I think? The subject guide blog is not very attractive visually- & the news item was about the 2006 winter olympics! Which I guess proves that the golden rule applies no matter how hi tech you are- if you can't maintain it, forget it! But I really like the way you can list links at the side, in categories. My goodness I can't believe the illustration on the library best practice wiki is a card catalogue!!!!!!!!!What an incongruous image. I really do think that if we are going to use wikis in public libraries we are going to have to make them look more appealing. We have started an ideas wiki for staff, called the Idea Box. We will also be creating an Information Services wiki to try to cut down on emails flying back & forth

# 13 delicious

This is what I call delicious!
Photo by Darren Hester (Macon, Georgia USA)

Well I have learned one thing already - the interface for Fiction Connection is a tag cloud!So now I know how they do it. Very clever. Fun, but I don't really think it is that useful- who has the time to keep up with all these alerts etc once they are set up? I do like the visual representation of the groupings, rather than using folders, & I suppose it might be useful to share tags but I found the rss & blogrolls have a lot more potential. But anything that can take a creative approach to what is basically indexing is all right by me- I HATED cataloguing!

# 13 Technorati

I'm not sure about the usefulness of technorati, though I like its name. But it isn't what it suggests- to me it sounded like a sophisticated group of tech savvy glitterati- but no. My search on travel brought 250,000+ blog posts up & going by the first page they were mostly completely self indulgent & uninteresting. So I did a blog search- 29,890 but more of the same.
A more specific search on Vanuatu was better, 804 posts, & I did enjoy some photos of the market at Port Vila which looked just as I remember it, but really I don't know if I would bother with this again

# 12 rollyo

Wow! I love this tool. From a personal point of view, how cool to be able to search all the travel related websites I usually use AT ONCE! I could spend hours searching for holidays I'll never take....try it, the search box is on the right & it was very easy to install.
From a library point of view well- homework help searchrolls about popular topics; info about books, authors etc; library technology; current events. I wonder if it would work with the GULLIVER databases- have to try it.

#11 Library thing

What a great product! I have only had a quick look but can already think of ways to use this- for example, as part of a book blog on the library website where patrons & staff could share their reading experiences, make recommendations, create booklists...the possibilities are endless.
The chiclet linking to my catalogue is on the right, but there are not many titles in it yet . I loved the widget, it was so easy to use & displays the selected titles so nicely. I'l be coming back to this one.

# 10

This is my librarian avatar. Don't mess with me!

This is from http://www.doppelme.com/create/step2.asp

#10 Play around with image generators

These image generators are fun!

This is from http://www.says-it.com/record/