Thing 16

The RPC and the Assignment Calculator were very indepth. I was kind of puzzled as to why the Assignment Calculator even asked what topic they were research since everything it connected you to was the same. The examples weren't even topic related.

Both of these sites would be great online tools for teachers and school librarians to teach student research skills. I doubt however, that high school students would use these tools unless you required them too.

I don't see where I would use this for any kind of library project. It's more of a tool to refer people do if they want help organizing themselve for a big project or presentation. I guess if I ever had to do some sort of big presentation on a topic that was very indepth and I wanted to keep myself on track I would use these resources.

Thing 15

I took a look at the Second Life site. Its very interesting. At first I thought it would be a place were I could create my own virtual place. It would be fun to create a mini Rochester and our library, you could re-create all the different parts of the library and it could be a cool on-line tour of our library. Patrons could go to the reference desk and talk with a librarian or find out more about the nooks and cranies of the library.

I think that gaming for kids at home or at the library is good, as long as there is some balance. I don't think that people should spend their whole day or week playing games in a fantasy world and only talking to other people playing the virtual game. There is some much more to life that we need to experience that gaming can not do.

Thing 14

I used LibraryThing for quite a while last fall. Here is the link to my catalog:http://www.librarything.com/catalog/michaelynette I attempted to create a list of every book I have ever read, until I realized that if you added more that 500 titles you would need to start paying for the service, so I stopped. I loved the recommendation options. When my list was small and only included recent things I had read, it was really great for finding other things to read. I liked the comments that other could post about a particular book. Once I expanded my list to include things I might have read in High School or College, the recommendations became to broad and ineffective. As for a use as a tool for library patrons, I don't think it's for every user. However it is a great online place to keep track of what you have read and look at what others are reading and what they think of it. The site is well used by book lovers.

Thing 13

I took a look at PageFlakes. It seems to be a lot more work than I would want to do. If I have lots of time to waste I might want to us its cool layout system and templates.

My husband and I have been using 30Boxes as our shared calendar for the last year or so. Since we do not have access to each others electronic work calenders, its an easy way for us to let each other know about evening meetings, plans with friends & family, shared activites and appointments. My husband can sync it to his Iphone. Its very basic and no frills. I would recommend it to others.

I don't know that the t0-do-lists would be helpful. It might be good for a small business with 2-5 employees that could have access to the same lists. I might us it for keeping track of birthdays and anniversaries. I have a task list as part of my email program, that seems to work well for me. Backpack looked very extensive. It would be good if I did a lot of traveling and I wanted an online place to collect info on-line for easy access where ever I might be. I can't say that I was jumping up and down about any of them. I'm that type of person that doesn't us computers very much when I am not at work. At home its all about the piece of paper/list on the refrigerator.

Thing 12

I think that it would be good to have link to these website on our teen page, to give them a variety of viewpoints and outlets. I liked the Bury option on the DIGG site. The Reddit site was a bit text heavy. Teens would not find that appealing. Newsvine was my favorite. Topics are very extensive, loved the ODD NEWS category. It also have great tags/vines to follow. I didn't know that the Smithsonian has a furniture collection. MIXX was a big strange for me. The photo section was weird, categories very random and odd, Mixx was my least favorite.

I have read the NY times and BBC sites before. The NY site has some html issues with links that don't display well. BBC is great for that non-US perspective.

I think these sites are an enhancer. They are great if you have a certain interest or just want to see whats out there.

Thing 11

I can see the potential for using del.icio.us . I just don't know that I really need it. I don't have a real need for keeping track of website and blog postings. The libraries Wiki has a great deal of website lists for me to reference instead of using tags or labels. If I was a big blogger I could see where I would want to tag things for easy reference.

I could see how a library could use tagging for frequently used website. If our library didn't already have a system in place through our website and wiki, I would say the del.icio.us would be a great site to use. The San Mateo Library had quite and extensive list of site tagged by dewey number. I did see many readers advisory sites listed. (They should have more YA/teen sites tagged, especially the YALSA site with all it's book lists.)

Thing 10

Wikis are great fun. Our library has one (created by our tech savy BrianL) that we use for staff use. It is great for finding library events, policies, phone numbers, computer helps and frequently used websites. We love that any staff person can make changes or updates to the info on the Wiki. Editing things is so easy. I could see how teachers might like a wiki for use in class projects, giving password assess to anyone who might need or denying access to others. Yes, many teachers/faculty "ban" Wikipedia as a source for student research, just like they "bannned" us of encyclopedias as your primary source when I was in high school. I think that Wikipedia can and should be used. If nothing else the access it gives to users of related links and information is very handy. Any good school teacher or librarian should be teaching their students how to find accurate and reliable sources of information on the internet. Like the information in book, the information is only as perfect as the person who compiled/wrote it.

I did create a 23 things wiki account and added a few words with my name(Lynette the Library Lady) at the end. Like I said at the beginning. Our library has a wiki and I have made changes to that, so this "thing" wasn't hard at all.