Flickr user American Graffiti (Shannon LaBelle) FlickrMailed me to ask permission to use a picture of some talking books I took. Little did I know it would end up in such a nice looking presentation.
No, not your hair on a Monday morning. Natural disasters! If you have some time to spare, check out Stop Disasters which is a joint project of the UN and International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
Each scenario is a different location with a specific natural hazard against which you must protect a village or town. The game does a great job of educating the player about making good decisions regarding fortifying the environment without being boring or dry. Another solid explicitly educational game to add to the list I put together at my post “quick educational gaming links.” No, maybe not as addictive as line rider, but still fun.
…make them like this. Clever, humorous, and polite. Signs like this are the best because there’s added value. The reader takes something else away from the sign other than the primary message.
Kudos to Rochelle for the inspired sign. See her post “Library Flyer: It goes to 11″ for her take, and a link to a Word document that you can download to have your very own template to alter! And importantly, are there really enough Bears fans in Wisconsin to argue loudly with Packers fans?
Here’s a goofy German car advert that takes place in a library, posted partially because it is slightly funny and partially because the librarian is so damn mean. How’d we get that reputation?
Here’s a goofy German car advert that takes place in a library, posted partially because it is slightly funny and partially because the librarian is so damn mean. How’d we get that reputation?
Imagine my surprise earlier this week when I went to the Multnomah County Library Catalog and found a big, bright orange RSS icon.
They’ve rolled out III’s RSS product, and have 15 feeds coming out of the catalog:
Audiobooks,
Children’s fiction
Cookbooks
DVDs
Fiction
Gardening books
Graphic novels
Music
Mysteries
Non fiction
Science fiction
Teen fiction
Teen graphic novels
Travel books
Picture books/ easy readers
I subscribed to a half-dozen feeds in Bloglines to see how many subscribers are listed (not that this figure is the be all, end all) and found that DVDs is the most popular feed with 34 subscribers. Other feeds have 4-10 subscribers.
I like that they are promoting their RSS feeds in a prominent place. I also like the nice What is RSS? page they’ve put together.
Gripes? Ideally patrons would be able to create their own feeds for specific searches (like aadl.org) but, to my knowledge, this isn’t a feature available from III. I’m guessing that most “2.0″ solutions coming from vendors will be watered down like this. I’d be more than willing to eat my words though!
Having the feeds available is a great first step, and I hope to see MCL take further action integrating the library into the community by helping other organizations get feeds displayed on their websites.
The ever resourceful Librarian in Black breaks a huge story about hennepin county library’s bookspace which is an online community based around books. I’m going to copy her list of things readers can do at bookspace:
* create their own account for Book Space
* sign up for e-mail alerts on new books
* get daily book excerpts via e-mail
* listen to audio eBooks
* create book lists
* browse subjects and genres to find good books
* get e-mail and RSS feed updates on new books
* post comments about what they’re reading
* find book events and book clubs
* sign up for Book Space eNews
This site approaches a hypothetical/magical/mystical/unrealized library website I often describe in my presentations about social software in libraries. I don’t want to detract from just how neat the site is, but I see one glaring missing feature: user profiles. It is a bit difficult to have a community without meaningful interaction, and it is difficult to have meaningful interaction without people. Here’s a screenshot of what happens when you click through someone’s username:
It is great to see all of the booklists the user has created, but I was hoping to see a user’s “homepage” in the community. You know, a space for a picture, a place for conversations, all of that stuff.
One other thing I noticed is that the site isn’t limited to HCPL patrons. I’m sure this was a deliberate choice, and it was the right one. It isn’t my site, but I’m still going to encourage you to get an account and see how more of our sites should be featured.
The ever resourceful Librarian in Black breaks a huge story about hennepin county library’s bookspace which is an online community based around books. I’m going to copy her list of things readers can do at bookspace:
* create their own account for Book Space
* sign up for e-mail alerts on new books
* get daily book excerpts via e-mail
* listen to audio eBooks
* create book lists
* browse subjects and genres to find good books
* get e-mail and RSS feed updates on new books
* post comments about what they’re reading
* find book events and book clubs
* sign up for Book Space eNews
This site approaches a hypothetical/magical/mystical/unrealized library website I often describe in my presentations about social software in libraries. I don’t want to detract from just how neat the site is, but I see one glaring missing feature: user profiles. It is a bit difficult to have a community without meaningful interaction, and it is difficult to have meaningful interaction without people. Here’s a screenshot of what happens when you click through someone’s username:
It is great to see all of the booklists the user has created, but I was hoping to see a user’s “homepage” in the community. You know, a space for a picture, a place for conversations, all of that stuff.
One other thing I noticed is that the site isn’t limited to HCPL patrons. I’m sure this was a deliberate choice, and it was the right one. It isn’t my site, but I’m still going to encourage you to get an account and see how more of our sites should be featured.
