Monday, January 28, 2008

Week 8, Thing #19, Library Thing

Note Number One--I notice I mistakenly titled my last post as week 6 instead of week 8, but I can't find a way of going back and editing it. So I guess the lesson is "once published, it stays"?

Now, for Library Thing. Of course, I love this program. Maybe it is because this kind of work is familiar, but this site makes cataloging and organizing a collection SO easy. I like that you can display the list in different ways, add tags and that it displays the covers. I found the site easy to use and the explanations of what you could do and how to do it good. I'll definitely be a frequent user of this site.

As test cases, I did 2 of my historical fiction books and 3 of my textbooks from a favorite college class. I'd have to say that using the Library of Congress records instead of Amazon worked better for the textbooks. The information is more complete. Of course, my fiction books were more popular and had more reviews. There were a few people who had my textbooks, though. I would assume that those people have a similar interest in this field to mine. Why else would you keep the textbooks? Using the social part of this site could link me with them so I could pursue learning more about the subject.

In the library, I can see using this tool to create and feature collections such as new books. I will have to check out how I can use it in conjunction with my library web page. I hope the district controls allow it through! At home, I can see using it to organize my personal library. I especially like the idea of comparing with others who have similar books. That is what I need--ideas for more books to get! You know what I mean!

3 comments:

Jackie S, 2.0 project manager said...

By now, I'm sure you've figured out how to "edit" a previous post. However, blogger and other web 2.0 tools sometimes do weird, counter-intuitive things. Enjoy!

Becca said...

The ability to go back in and edit, or to write a draft so that it is all ready to post but hold off posting until the moment is right (like, you've prepped something for a class but you don't want it to appear until you're teaching that class, for example) is a great feature about blogs. You can't go in and change comments (but you can disallow them or remove them) but you can edit your posts.

When you want to edit something you've posted, at the bottom you will see a little pencil. Click on that. Ta da! you can now edit anything in that post.

christobel said...

Thank you, Becca, for the editing tip. I didn't know what that pencil was for. Now I do. Thanks!