Thing 35! Books 2.0

Plundered from book sutlers in various ports!
Originally uploaded by lunawhimsy

Thing 35 is a very useful one for me. We just finished our third year of the Minnesota West Book Club. There are about 12 people in the group, but not all are able to attend each time. We meet once a month at noon and have more staff people than faculty attending now. This year I have had our selections posted on the sidebar of this blog. After Thing 35, I am happy for new sources such as Reading Group Choices. Now I am also following Twitterlit and Book Browse on Twitter. I also enjoyed looking at Reading Trails and What Should I Read Next?

In the academic library where I work, books are checked out less often now with students preferring to find most reference sources online. Some students still enjoy reading books. This year I remember how happy a student was to find the new book OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell with our NEW BOOKS display. She said that at her public library she would be on a long waiting list for it.

I think that the sites in Thing 35 enhance rather than detract from reading. Before I did the first 23 Things, I had accounts with Library Thing, Shelfari, and Good Reads. I have Shelfari on the sidebar of this blog, and have a link to Library Thing for Thing 14. A friend invited me to use a books application from Facebook, so I plan to add that option after completing Thing 35.

(Thanks to lunawhimsey for orginally loading the photo, "Plundered from book sutlers in various ports" (Flickr)

THING TWENTY-THREE!!!

23. Complete a survey and comment on 23 Things.

Although the 23 Things have been completed, I am happy to continue a journey that gave me many opportunities to learn about Library 2.0. The most fun was the day I started my blog in May when I did an avatar and added links for Delicious and Shelfari before doing the required Things. I thought, "I can do this". Even though there were delays and frustrations along the way, the self-paced tutorial was a great format for me to follow. Although I am a person who usually likes to do things in order, I found that if I had challenges or spent too much time on any "Thing", it was best to move on and return later. After having problems posting a YouTube video, and asking two people for help, it worked fine when I tried using a different video. Now that I am completing the project, I have had fun going back to do more - like adding letters 358 from More Flickr Fun today.

I already had accounts for some of the Things, but I learned more when exploring each Thing. My favorites to continue working with are the photo ones like Flickr and PictureTrail. At work I also want to do more with the ZOHO site that we started using last spring.

Thank you for offering 23 Things again. Even though I am back at work now, I was glad to be working on it mostly in the summer when it did not matter if I was working at one or two AM. Having a dial-up computer connection at home takes more time than using the wireless that I use when I take my computer elsewhere.

Now I understand the Facebook culture better, and am happy to be a member. It has already been fun to "re-connect" with people, and I will probably use Facebook more than many of the other Things.

One of my favorite parts of 23 Things was to look at the blogs of others. After finishing a Thing, it was fun to read what others had done for it. At first I looked mostly at blogs from our SAMMIE region, but recently have looked at many others from throughout the state. I plan to continue reading them, and look forward to expanding my horizons. I would be interested in another similar experience if offered during the summer.

Thing Fourteen!

14. LibraryThing.

A few years ago, I established an account with LibraryThing, and just entered a few sample titles. After learning of the Shelfari site, I started entering books there last October, and currently have 144 titles. While LibraryThing is more geared to library folks, there is a charge after 200 books, while Shelfari is free. My Shelfari bookshelf is on the bottom right of this blog.

I opened a new account with LibraryThing, and added books that I had read this summer. Now I was excited to read that the founder will be at MLA. I plan to attend in November.

LibraryThing would be useful for student use to do lists of book titles. When I checked out the LibraryThing blog, the fist title I noticed was The Making of a Surgeon, a book I read years ago, and have listed on my Shelfari site. The author's daughter was at Girls State with my sister.

Of the five books that I completed reading this summer, 5,276 readers have added The Memory Keeper's Daughter to LibraryThing, but I was the first one with Hidden Heritage. Look for my five favorite books this summer near the top of this blog next to Thing Twenty-Two.

Thing One!

1. Getting Started: Set up your own blog.
Do your first post. Add an avatar.

This was all fun to do a few weeks ago when I set up the blog. I already had a GOOGLE account, and added my Shelfari and del.icio.us links being I had been working with them for quite awhile. Later I can change the arrangement if I want. The avatar was new to me, and fun to do. After I decided that the colors of the avatar that I selected did not look good with orange, I changed the template from an orange look. (Look for the avatar on the sidebar at the right.)

I wanted to do 23 Things On A Stick when it was first available, but that was a busy time of the school year, so I hope to be able to complete the Things this summer. On to Thing Two! (Reminds me of The Cat in the Hat!)