Thing 16: It's Your (Library)Thing

Hello Readers,

Today I share my thoughts on Library Thing (although I did mention it during my Shelfari post). It's so simple: catalog the books you own, assign tags to your titles, rate them, review them and join groups to discuss them. You can also personalize your page to include recommendations from other Thingamabrarians (as we are called), author visits in your area and a listing of members who have the same titles in their library as you. Tagging also gives you the option to catalogue your collection outside of Dewey convention. For instance, I have tags called "movie tie-in" and "tv tie-in" to designate books in my collection that have been adapted into film or television. I also use the tag for books from films and television series.

The best and most unusual features of Library Thing are the Suggester, which is basically recommendations based on your catalog and the Unsuggester, which recommends titles that are the antithesis of your library collection. Another signature feature is the opportunity to received free books from publishers to review for the site called "Library Thing Early Reviewers".

I can't really explain my collection. This collection isn't every book I own, but it does represent what I love after reading- art. Check out my Library Thing. I hope to see yours. Until then, keep reading.

Queen B.

Bonus Buzz: Shefari: Exploring Reading Possibilities

Hello Readers,

I just finished my library for Library Thing (I'll share my thoughts soon). I do like Library Thing because I can see who else owns the books I own, do my own reviews and post them to Twitter and join groups with unusual names like "Librarians Who Library Thing", "Awful Lit." and "Tea!" . But the number of books you can catalog for free is limited to 200. Does any librarian own less than 200 books? Possibly. It doesn't cost much to upgrade to an unlimited library and it's good for book swaps and insurance purposes. The only thing, I wouldn't include books I don't own on Library Thing, which is why I like Shefari.

Shefari is a social networking book site, like Library Thing. You let people know what you read, what you are reading and what you're going to read if you choose. You can choose your display shelf and just add books. You can also catalog magazines and individual comics (which is harder to do with Library Thing). I liked having a separate place to review and recommend books I read from my school library and books I checked out from the public library without taking up my Library Thing space. I also have two separate bookshelves: one for my young adult and adult reads and ones for children's books and professional books. Check it out. Create a shelf for books not in your personal library and share. I'm always looking for books to read. Hopefully you'll try out some of the books on my shelves.

My Children's/Professional Shelf:
Queen B's Children's Books

My YA/Adult Shelf:
Queen B.

Until then, keep reading!
Queen B.

Thing 14: Mmmm, Delicious

Hello Readers,

Today, I'm serving up a tasty morsel from the Web 2.0 buffet- Delicious. A social bookmarking site that allows you access your favorites when you're not at your computer. I totally dig it (which is another entry for later). This is especially helpful when you computer has to be reimaged, buy a new computer, change internet services or on vacation (you know some of you can't stay away from the internet). It helps to back up your favorites anyway, but Delicious it great as well.

I imported many of my bookmarks and I realized three things:

1. I have a lot of bookmarks, I need to delete the ones I don't go to anymore.
2. Delicious used my folder names as tags. I don't give standard names to folders, so I had to rename a few of my tags.
   
3. When Delicious asks you if you want to remove the bookmarks from you're browser, say no. I may not want to log on the site just to access my bookmarks, I may not want to share all of my bookmarks (even though you have the option not to share a bookmark) and sites go down. It would be my luck I want to go to a site and Delicious is down.

Okay, that may be more than three things. The dilemma with these Things, you can't do just one. Until then, keep reading, blogging and "tasting" these web tools.

Queen B.

Thing 10: It Don't Mean a Thing If It's Not on Ning

Hello Readers,

Today it's a social networking site called Ning. It's seems like the groups found on Yahoo, but it's more public. You don't need a Yahoo account and you can see how big or small a group is. He can see all of the groups at once and preview them. Some of the Yahoo groups I wanted to see wouldn't let me look around without being a member. The site also uses folksonomy to tag it's group, so the search engine can pull in groups that totally related to what you're searching for and what you're NOT searching for. It's also a good way to find local groups (if the location was tagged).

I did look up some groups: artist sites, manga/anime fan sites and composition art journal groups (people who only do visual journaling in those cheap marbled composition books). Some groups had interesting names:

• Many Maniacs Creating Art
• The Land of Lost Luggage Network
• Animation and Illustration Ministry (sounds like a church)

I may look into joining a group later since I do enjoy creating art and reading mangas.

Until then, keep reading.

Queen B.