Thing 16: LibraryThing

LibraryThing offers users a chance to catalog their personal books in one place. It is used by many, hence the reason for some strange groups that I found while searching for a group that I might be interested in (exotic male dancers - I don't really want to know what they read). I did find a useful group that is an elementary school. Teachers go on LibraryThing and catalog classroom books so that others in the building can locate a specific book for a lesson they are teaching. Not a bad idea. I wonder if LibraryThing is blocked by my district.
I also found a group called Children's Fiction that has some interesting posts that might be helpful to me.
When adding a book to your collection you are able to search by title or ISBN. By allowing ISBN searches, the exact format and copyright information will be displayed.

Thing 15: digg

I signed up for a digg account and linked it to my facebook account so my friends can see what I digg. Then, I began exploring the content. At first glance, I am not overly impressed. The idea of digg is great, but what I found is that the most popular "news" articles are sometimes biased so you are not always getting the true story. It is definitely a site that you can get lost in, especially in Entertainment and Offbeat. There are some crazy things on the Internet. My friends are not digg members yet. Maybe after they read my article that I dugg, they will join and I will find more relevant articles.

Thing 14: del.icio.us

I have used del.icio.us before. Luckily, I have had a few LIS courses that have explored web 2.0 concepts. It comes in very handy when I am writing a paper, especially when I need to share resources with a partner. The tagging feature lets me quickly find what I am looking for and groups several websites together under one common tag. I also like that I am able to see other people's del.icio.us bookmarks.

Here is a link to mine:
http://delicious.com/sstatler

Can't wait to visit some of your sites.

Thing 13: Tagging

I have found tagging to be both helpful and a nuisance at the same time. It is helpful because you can logically group things the way your mind thinks about them. However, if your mind doesn't think like someone else's mind, you may never find what you are looking for. I have noticed that as I have used tagging I have become better at creating more tags that might lead searchers to find what they are looking for. But my first blogs and pictures were sparsely tagged. Do I go back and add tags? No thank you.
Tagging in the library? Yes!!! Especially if it is in addition to subject headings. Why not make it a little easier to find what you are looking for?

Thing 12: Twitter

Okay, I set up my account on Twitter, but I don't know anyone using Twitter other than celebrities and people on the news. I don't really care to follow them. I will have to convince friends to join. Maybe I will entertain myself a bit with what Ellen is doing. She mentioned yestereday that she tweets.

Thing 11: Instant Messaging

I have used Yahoo Instant Messenger. I have found it to be a great communication tool while I am wasting time at the computer. I have yet to use it with my phone. Most of my friends have moved to Facebook, so they would not be available for chatting on IM.
I can see some uses for IM in the library, mostly as a communication between a patron at a computer station and the librarian. It could be a quick method for asking a question without leaving your computer. It could even be a way for teachers to communicate with the school librarian about resources or technical issues without the librarian leaving the library unattended.

Thing 10: Ning

I have never heard of Ning. I think that means I'm getting old, or maybe just too busy. I like the sound of the second one.
I didn't actually join Ning or a network on Ning, but I did check out a few. Here is what I found:

• TeacherLibrarianNing - a great network of school librarians, it even has groups inside of the network like Instructional Technology and New SLMS's
• Inspired Blueprints - a network for scrapbookers that includes a weekly sketch and uploaded pics of how the sketch was turned into a page
• TCEA 2009 - a page of events, photos, and videos from TCEA 2009. I was disappointed to find advertisements for colon cleansing in the blog posts.