Thing 11: A thing about LibraryThing

Podcast # 11

Are you a book lover or cataloger at heart? Or do you enjoy finding lost and forgotten gems on the shelf to read? Then LibraryThing may be just the tool for you. Developed for booklovers, this online tool not only allows you to easily create an online catalog of your own it also connects you to other people who have similar libraries and reading tastes. Add a book to your catalog by just entering the title -- It’s so easy that you don’t even need MARC record training to do it – or connect with other users through your similar reading tastes. There are lots of ways to use LibraryThing. You can even view your books on a virtual shelf, add a widget (see sidebar for sample) to display titles that are in your catalog or install a LT Search box on your blog.

So why not join the ranks and create your own library online. With over 65,000 registered (BTW: LibraryThing also has group forum for librarians users and over 9 million cataloged books, you're bound to discover something new.

Discovery Resources:

• About LibraryThing


• Library Thing tour


• MoBuzzTV Review (3rd story in the 5 min broadcast)


• LibraryThing blog (updates & news)

Discovery Exercise:

1. Take a look around LibraryThing and create an account.


2. Add a least 5 books to your library.


3. Blog about your findings and be sure to link to your LibraryThing catalog.

Thing 10: Play around with Image Generators

Podcast # 10

Generators? No, I’m not talking about those gas powered back-up things. The generators I’m talking about allow you to easily manipulate image and graphics to create fun images like these:

For this discovery exercise, I just want you to have fun. Find a few fun image or text generators to play around with and write a post in your blog about one of your favorites and display the result. Often adding the image you mocked up to your blog is as simple as copying and pasting code that the page provides. If not, you may just need to right click on the image and then save it to your hard drive before using Blogger’s image button to add it to your post.

If you’re having difficulty getting your image added to a post in your blog, ask a co-worker for help. In looking at several staff blogs, it’s easy to see that we have lots of people in the system who have figured out how easy it is to add images to their blogs.

Discovery Resources:

The Generator Blog

Letter James

FD Toys

Also try searching for online generators, text generators or image generators!

Discovery Exercise:

1. Play around with some image generators and find one that you like.
2. Post the result of your discovery process in your blog.

Note: Be sure to include a link to the image generator itself, so other participants can discover it too.

So take some time and have fun with this exercise. And remember to be tasteful too!

Thing 9: Finding Feeds

Podcast # 9

Now that you have a newsreader (your Bloglines account), you can begin adding other newsfeeds that interest you. There are several ways you can locate newsfeeds:

• When visiting your favorite websites -- look for news feed icons that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site. (Here's an image that contains a sampling of several feed icons).
• Use Blogline's Search tool - Bloglines recently expanded search tool lets you search for news feeds in addition to posts, citations and the web. Use the Search for Feeds option to locate RSS feeds you might be interested in.
• Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:

1. Feedster - One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts.
2. Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
3. Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
4. Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog.

Discovery Excercise:

1. Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some news feeds.
2. Create a blog post about your experience. Don't know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about ...

Which method of finding feeds did you find easiest to use? Which Search tool was the easiest for you? Which was more confusing? What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find? What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?

Thing 8: Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader

Podcast # 8

You’ve heard of RSS? You’ve seen those small funny tags on websites? You’ve heard co-workers and acquaintances swear by it, but still have no idea what RSS is? Well don’t worry, according to a recent survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly. In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionalizing the way news, media and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit every day. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS.

This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and setting up a Bloglines account (a free online newsreader) for yourself to bring your feeds together.

Discovery Resources:

• CNET Video: RSS – Feel the Need for Feeds (3:32) – a good over view of what RSS is and the benefits to users.


• Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet, a library cooperative.


• Using Bloglines Tutorial (how to keep up with dozens of blogs everyday) – This online tutorial walks you through how to setup a Bloglines account and add newsfeeds. Follow Steps 1 to 3 to set up your Bloglines account. Steps 4 – 9 are optional and cover how to subscribe to different types of feeds (podcasts, Flickr albums, etc).


• Adding RSS Feeds to Bloglines - A short YouTube video that I created showing how to add feeds.


• Additional Bloglines news feed subcription information.


• Your co-workers - tap into their knowledge or work through your discovery process together.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Follow the discovery resources above to learn more about RSS and newsreaders.


2. Create a free online Bloglines account for yourself and subscribe to at least 10 newsfeeds to your reader. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions.


3. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)

Newsfeeds:

• LCPL's List of Participants- Subscribe to several of your co-workers' feeds. This is as easy as typing the blog URL into the subscribe field in Bloglines. Try it, it's easy!


• Then try adding a few other types of news feeds from news sources and even PLCMC's Readers Club site. (Select at least 3 from the list below to subscribe to)

1. Washingtonpost.com - RSS News Feeds


2. Times Community Newspapers - Loudoun County - Loudoun News


3. Loudoun.gov RSS Feeds


4. Reader’s Club new review feeds


5. Unshelved - Library cartoon feed

Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions:
What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your work or personal life?How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?

How to find your public Bloglines URL:

Click on the Share tab within your Bloglines account:

Scroll down the right screen pane and locate the public URL

Be sure to add this as part of your post to demonstrate your completion of this activity.

Once you tackle this discovery exercise, you've tackled the most difficult one of the whole 23.

Thing 7: Blog about Technology


For this thing, simply blog about anything technology related. Yes, it can be anything that relates to technology! You just need to share a few thoughts.

Also be sure to add at least one comment to another participant's blog. That's what online communities are all about - connecting and communication.

Thing 6: More Flickr Fun




Like many web 2.0 sites, Flickr has encouraged other people to build their own online applications using images found on the site. Through the use of APIs (application programming interfaces), many people have created third party tools and mashups* that use Flickr images. Here are just a sampling of a few …

• Mappr - allows you to take Flickr images and paste them on a map
• Flickr Color Pickr - lets you find public photos in Flickr that match a specific color.
• Mappr– create a photo mosaic from photos found on Flickr.
  

Discover more mashups, web apps, and Flickr tools.Discovery Exercise:Your discovery exercise for this “thing” is to:

1. Explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there.
2. Create a blog post about one that intrigues you.
   

Personally one of my very favorite tools is FD Toys’ Trading Card Maker. And there’s a ton of librarians out there that have created their own Librarian Trading Card.So have some fun discovering and exploring some neat little apps. And if you're up to the challenge while you’re at it, why not create a trading card of your own. :)* Mashup Note: Wikipedia offers some great articles that explain mashups. Basically they are hybrid web applications that take features from one application (like Flickr) and mash it up with another (like a map). In this example, you get Mappr (http://mappr.com).

PS: Learning 2.0 image created by Spell with Flickr.