MySpace for Book People

At first glance, Library Thing appears to be the ultimate book loving introvert's dream. Being able to catalog according to MARC standards, publishing a cataloged collection online, and gaining search capabilities all for a nominal fee are just a few of the reasons why this website is so popular.

But Library Thing is not just for the introverted! As I delved deeper into this site, I was surprised and pleased to find a vibrant social world. Library Thing enables people to form and join groups founded around common interests. And the groups are alive and happening!

I found one specific library related group (although I'm sure there are many more): "Wadsworth Public Library Teen Loft." This group encourages teens to share their thoughts about books and the library's services. This would be a great feature for a library to add to their site.

Online Image Generators

If you've ever worked in the library, I'm sure you've experienced this picture! I could become addicted to using online image generators. One of my colleagues showed me how to save this image to my blog. This is silly and fun and great to laugh about in your office! A constructive use of venting!

Twitter: The Desire to Stay in Constant Touch

Twitter is an interesting site in that it demonstrates just how much people want to stay in communication with each other. People post messages to friends with twitter accounts and their messages are also displayed on Twitter's website. The messages are fairly trivial as they are limited to 140 characters.

I'm guessing that posting to Twitter adds importance to people's actions such as "drinking coffee and watching the sunset" or "just finished watching episode 8 of 24". People feel a sense of community, that someone cares about what they are doing, even if that person is a stranger.

Twitter would enhance a library website as a comment box: "please add more Nora Roberts' titles" or "an expresso machine in the lobby would be great." An interesting site! But not one I'd use personally.