Week 6, Thing 13 & 14: Del.icio.us & Technorati

After viewing Del.icio.us it was information overload! All those tags, all the links. I did explore Del.icio.us but I felt that my searches were not yielding the information I wanted or was interested in. Now Technorati on the other hand, I can definitely see myself using, especially for professional development and interests. Searching under YA literature and teen books, I found several blogs dedicated to that subject. I also searched for for my own blog and surprise, I am not the only everythingbagel out there! Through Technorati I was also able to find the blog Pop Goes the Library-one of my favorites

http://www.popgoesthelibrary.com/

This blog was founded by Sophie Brookover who is an amazing teen librarian in Camden County, NJ. Lots of great ideas on how to use pop culture for programming at your public library.

Week 5, Thing 12: Rollyo

I explored Rollyo and created a search roll titled What's For Dinner, which lists severals recipe websites. (Epicurious is one of my favorites) While I think Rollyo is a good idea, I couldn't see myself using it for my personal searching of the web. Yes, I would still wade through google. However, I think Rollyo would be useful is if one was searching for more obscure information such as rare books, statistics etc. And if a library customer wanted a list of websites on a specific topic, then Rollyo just might be the place to look. I also agree with Chicken Amuck's comment that your Rollyo is only as good as the websites you put in it.

Week 5, Thing 11: Library Thing

I have found Library Thing somewhat addictive. Once I created an account, I just kept adding titles, trying to remember all the good books I have read. I really enjoy doing reader's advisory so this may be a good tool in helping me organize the titles. It seems easier than keeping a spreadsheet which was something I had considered. I probably wouldn't use Library Thing to interact with other readers but instead use it to keep a list for my on personal use.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/kwarhaftig

Week 5, Thing 10: Image Generator

I had so much fun creating an avatar! It took me a couple trys to upload the image but I finally figured it out once I found the directions on the yahoo avatar homepage. There are a lot of clever generator blogs out there. I am going to try out the Simpson Generator next.

Week 4, Thing 9: Merlin & other related blogs

I had no idea that a site like Merlin existed. After subsribing to the feed, I am thinking that maybe I can stay more up to date on the technology. Anyway, I went ahead and checked out the list of search tools. Out of the four, I really liked Topix.net. I found this the easiest to search and the yielded the best results, especially for news related stories. I really liked the interactive graph that allowed you to access news items from individual months-NYC, L.A and London keyword searches produced this graph. On the downside, I had a difficult time searching Feester and Technorati. By using a keyword search, I received feeds that did not relate to the topic and I found pages difficult to navigate and a bit overwhelming.

Week 4, Thing 8: RSS Feeds

I had often heard the term RSS but I never knew what it meant. So after an extensive reading and listening to the tutorials, (found the tutorials helpful for this discovery exercise) I feel I have a better understanding of this technology. Now, when I use the internet to catch up on my news, I generally search website to website. I have only 4-5 websites that I regularly search, so at first I couldn't really see making a large list of bloglines. But I find the more I look at my blogline account, the more I'm starting to like it. And by listing several professional feeds (Yalsa, shifted librarian, popgoesthelibrary) I think it will be easier to keep up on the library trends.

Week 3, Thing 7: Anything Technology

This past December I received an ipod which I had been wanting for some time. I usually don't spend a lot of money on technology, which is why I tend to be on the tale end of things, technology wise. But now that I have an ipod I absolutely love it! The best part is that you can pick and choose what songs you want to download. No longer do I have to buy a CD for only 1 or 2 songs. I even have the special armband so you can bring your ipod to the gym. And now when I go on long car trips, the ipod comes along too.