Thing11 - LibraryThing

I actually joined LibraryThing right after hearing Angela Semifero's presentation and have found it very useful. For example, I have used it to try to find books when patrons know the idea of the story, but not the author or title, by using the tag search. I also used it just the other night when a student had misplaced his book for a school book report. He'd read the book but couldn't remember some of the details. I pulled up the title and some reviews to help him complete his assignment. I also love the idea of My Library! I have read so many wonderful books that I often don't remember those I want to recommend. I was glad to sit down and add them to my collection (http://www.librarything.com/catalog/SMAGNUSON). Now I just need a little more free time to try to find all my favorites to add to my collection, plus make a list of those I definitely need to get to. Absolutely love this Thing!

Thing10 - Library 2.0

Well I have read 3 perspectives: Away from Icebergs, Into a new world of librarianship and To more powerful ways to cooperate. They are all very interesting to read. The Ways to Cooperate article was a little too "techie" for my poor brain but I definitely agree with the ideas that are presented. I am new to the library and have grown up with the WWW link to everything and found it very difficult to be responsible for ordering J NF titles. My first thought when faced with all the choices was "why would we pay for this collection when we can find all that info, plus some, on-line, in seconds?" Of course, I understand the need for info on demand and the need for print sources on hand, and I hope the Web never fully replaces books in the search for info. But we definitely need to balance our collections and our future budgeting with the Web in mind. Rick Anderson's article says all that needs to be said about Library 2.0 - place the info in the user's preferred environment, which like it or not, is now the on-line world. More training, more user-friendly links, and maintaining updated technological resources is of the utmost importance now.