More Things on a Stick Thing 47: Evaluation

I'm glad that I had continued blogging between the original 23 Things and More Things on a Stick. There was a ton of new and useful information in this set that helped me build on what I knew and was using, which is the ideal. I read through every item on every Thing and noted and commented on a large portion of the examples.

The blogging tools that add visual elements will be very useful.

I think if I can work with the Screencasting tools a bit more and get both sound and voice to work, I will be able to do some mini-tutorials here. I'd like to try a little podcasting as well, though I did not get that to work this time around either.

I think that this is a great time to put tools such as are included in the 23 Things Programs in the hands of individuals who might be able to offer something new and different to the library world, even if they do not do it from within the confines of their own library web sites.

For those libraries that do embrace these tools, more power to you, I think you will find that you are now a more creative, entertaining and human presence in the lives of your customers.

More Things on a Stick Thing 46: Webjunction Minnesota

I looked at this during the first 23 Things and am digging to find my password for it..stay tuned.

It looks like I did not create an account last year after all, so I created a new one. I sent a friend request to the space guy featured on the front page and I actually found someone in our metro-ey web to ask for friending as well. Social me 101, 102 and 103...

In the online courses area I was pleased to see two Outlook courses which would be most useful to me since I read and send messages only with it like a common luddite. Hopefully one or so of these will make me the uber user I might be.

I looked at the Groups Page and Book Discussions. It doesn't look like there is alot of discussion, but the potential is there. I looked at the MN Destiny User Group as prompted. There look to be only three threads and not much discussion there at all. An active forum is going to have dozens of threads and posts within those threads. This part of Web Junction apparently needs more promotion.

More Things on a Stick Thing 45: Cloud Computing

I read the two articles on cloud computing to try to get an idea of what it actually is. The second article: Could you live in the cloud? does the best job of explaining, I think.

Making a similar list for myself (and I stole some of his headings), I can do these things virtually:

1.E-mail. Already there. I can access personal and work mail from anywhere. If I switch to the more robust gmail account I created, I can have some calendaring and document access as well. I am thankful that I do not generally take my work home or anywhere else with me so those last two are not key.

2.Web searching and bookmarking. I put alot on del.ici.ous but I still don't use it though I could. I just use my bookmarked sites for aimless browsing rather than important must have stuff so that is likely why I haven't moved to using del.ici.ous

3.Word processing. I also use Excel and Publisher for my own purposes and these are not supported virtually so a Flash Drive is still my mobility device for desktop computing and publishing.

4.Photo storage and editing. For blogging purposes the online sites are fine. I don't like the idea of my personal photos ending up with cartoon captions on someone's web site or in a document. Also, much of the work I do with photographs involves scanning files in with a scanner and then having to adapt file size and this is a problem I run into with the online sites, they don't like the file size or who knows what and I do not have the equipment necessary out in the clouds to correct that on the fly. I do appreciate however how simple some of the photo editing software is to use, especially Picnik.

5. Blogging This one is doable anytime anywhere. Mostly done at home sweet home however.

So, I can do much of my computing virtually, but I am lucky and do not spend my life on the road for my job and in my off time I am not doing work related Things, except this.

More Things on a Stick: Thing 42 Music 2.0

Pandora



I chose the Classic Rock category first and a group I don't care for cropped up. Gave it the thumbs down. I'm all social now. So a group I like is next but a song I don't care for. I "bookmarked" the group. The next few are more awful songs so I figured out how to skip them. Oops!

Unfortunately our music licenses force us to limit the number of songs you may skip. If you want to hear something else, try creating another station starting with a different artist or song.

Hmmmm. So I try Rock n Roll and get nailed on the skippy thing right off. British Invasion? No luck. Pop/ Hair metal???? What on earth is hair metal? Scary sounding but not so bad as "stoner/doom metal". Eeek.

I decide to "Create a New Station". I use John Fogerty, and Pandora finds me someone "like" John Fogerty and they give an analysis of Fogerty's style I wasn't quick enough to write down. They present Down on the Corner by John Fogerty! Boy they can really analyze. Then they branch out and give me a listen to "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival! This program is eerily good!

They branch out EVEN MORE and present "Take it Easy" by the Eagles. I actually like this song though I don't think it is stylistically anything like John Fogerty. So I give it the thumbs up, glad I didn't run into the skippy thingie again.

You have to listen to an entire song or you are a bad doggie and are SKIPPING. The beat goes on, they're offering me more John Fogerty. Life is good and I'm no doubt developing a musical profile that just doesn't quit.

I went to Ebsco Master File and read this article: Pack, T. (2008, May). Pandora Lets Users Create Online Radio Stations. Information Today, 25(5), 38-39. Retrieved June 17, 2009, from MasterFILE Premier database for some background on Pandora. I can see that they are trying to be pleasing and analyze your musical tastes and only present to you songs that fit in with what they have found to be "songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice"

I see what they're trying to do, but I do not understand why they make you listen to an entire song, and don't just let you pick titles or artists and go from there. I definitely don't understand the "skippy" thing.

Last.fm is the other musical choice in this Thing and I looked at that in a previous Thing.

If you do develop a nice list, you could theoretically share your "station" full of brilliant selections.

More Things on a Stick Thing 41: Mash Up Your Life

I looked at all of the sites for aggregating updates to your social sites and services listed in the Thing. Lifestream.fm looked most appealing. They offer aggregation of many more sites than I was aware existed, even after two sessions of "Things on Sticks".



I only entered delicious, Digg and Twitter. Twitter updates came up right off, it looks like all I have done since signing up. Nothing from the others. I will be interested to see if this blog post pops up as an update. Let's just check...Nope it only has eyes for Twitter, tsk. I honestly update even that site very little, so I can't say that this particular Thing will be useful to me.

More Things on a Stick Thing 40: Mash Up the Web

Hai hilarity, as this thing starts off with a music mashup. I haven't listened to the radio since the 1980s, and have just begun listening to music again at all a small bit, having stopped when my mom died in 2005. So...not musically up to date to be sure, except for keeping an eye out for the ever fragile Susan Boyle.

I signed up for last.fm and put in three musical selections (all I could think of before my second cup of coffee):

Tom Petty
John Mellencamp
Los Lobos

The recommendations that came back were:
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Bob Seger
Don Henley
Jackson Browne
Nobody recommended like Los Lobos? :( :(
Actually nobody recommended like John Mellencamp either. Hmmpf.

I can see why those suggestions were made because of musical style, but I am no fan of Don Henley or Jackson Browne so meh. If I ever decide to start listening to the radio again (unlikely because they do so much inane jabbering between songs) I'll race right on over here and get some suggestions.



Book Mashing



bkkeepr
This helps you mark your place in a book by letting you say what page you're on. It also obviously serves as a nice "what people reading spot". My first thought looking at it was "too much pressure" to show I'm making progress in any given book. What if my son sees it and notes I dropped reading Twilight for Eoin McNamee's The Frost Child as soon as it came in the mail? Tsk.

Lazy Library
I personally pay no attention to how many pages a book has, but we have lots of book report writers who would love a source of books 200 pages or less to work from.

Book Tour
Book Tour has one of those Google Earth maps with books piled on those lucky states which will have author tours. The east coast has piles and piles of books and Minnesota has about four books. Hey, we're the ones stuck inside six months of the year, come and talk to us instead! I do see some states have no author tours at all so...how sad for them.



Lib Worm

A library topical search engine! I searched for the topic du jour here in Minnesota, "unallotment" and got two informative articles. Very cool.



Social Mashing

Lunchbox



Nice tool for finding restaurants in a particular area by zip code. Links to the restaurant sites on the left let you take a peek at menus if they are available. Very useful tool.

Wheel of Food

Actually, the area near our library is loaded with restaurants, which this colorful tool shows off much better. It highlights at the upper left the beloved "Carbones" restaurant so we give this one high marks.



Even More Mashed Photos

Visual Headlines takes photos from Flickr and puts them in letters and you get the date. I kept waiting to see more load on the screen but nope. You could use this as your daily blog or site header. Other than that...zzzzzz



Interestingness



Not so fascinating as they think!

Flickr Memari

I couldn't get the program to grab from my Flickr, so I'm using this bold public library example. They put their staff pictures up in this matching game. Nice way to familiarize the public with staff. Libraries could also introduce new services this way on their web pages. It has that interactivity factor we're always looking for on our web pages.

Parents could certainly use this to put their child's picture up and make a fun game of matching their photos, or even do some recognition of people you know vs strangers type lesson, or letters of the alphabet...lots of possibility here in what looks like something very simple initially.



Video Mashes

TimeTube
I typed in Vietnam War and walked away for five mintes, and still they were searching...So as not to strain its memory banks I tried searching Susan Boyle, and got this neato timeline display of her saga thus far.



It could be useful to track some current topic and present a sort of living timeline of events.

Googly Mashes

Let me Google that for you
I don't see the point. Google is simpler to use since you just type in your term and away you go. You type in your question here and then you have to follow their tiny url...I bet I'm missing the point. It can happen. I typed in that ever gnarly question:

"How much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood?"



There are 2,180,000 results for that question so it is, in fact, a burning and valid query.

Crime Reports

Another Google Maps result. It found no crimes near our library and unfortunately we know that is incorrect.




Walk Score



Shows you places of interest in your area within walking distance of the address you put in. A nice way to get a feel for an area. Who knew there was a comic store near me? Off I go! The walk score for my home is only 48 out of 100 however, and it is listed as being "car dependent".

More Things on a Stick Thing 39: Digital Storytelling

ScrapBlog was the only one of the resources that I felt made it possible to compose a scrap page easily. These digital pages can be useful for web sites and blogs as visual filler.

I do scrapbooking, and I love the color and texture of papers and embellishments such as cloth or buttons or tickets, that make the pages of a real scrapbook so much fun to compose and look through.

A library could use a program such as this to promote an event, show progress on a building project, or give an attractive overview of library services.

More Things on a Stick Thing 38: Screencasting

So...I tried the screencast-o-matic and saved it to my desktop. My accompanying brilliant audio does not seem to have been recorded. The visual steps I took are here though, so, perhaps with some tweaking to get the audio I could have a grand new secondary career creating silly but useful tutorials.

I tried ScreenToaster and am still waiting for a confirmation email from them. here we go! And voila, the audio worked. Plug your ears :)

Free online screencasting tool

I Downloaded Jing and successfully did a short video, again no sound. They have a multi-step process for posting the capture which I can't do in the time I have this morning.

I checked my headset sound playback in the Control Panel and it is fine, though I sound really wierd. Oh well. Onward.

More Things on a Stick Thing 37: Photo Tales

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A Walk through Muir Woods March 2009

Well, the music really blares and there's no choice that I saw. The slides are cut off on this blog style, but all in all, sort of nice fades and presentation.

Here is another look at Muir Woods from Slide Create:

Rock You

Yikes had to pull this one! It blasted the song as soon as you loaded my blog yowie.
The advantage of this site is that the musical selections are going to be pleasing for the younger set. I wish it had some editing ability. Also, I could only get three of my original photos to display. I put in another set of just four photographs and it worked fine.

Collagr

I had considerable trouble getting Collagr to take the url for my flickr photo. I wanted to use the full set of 12 pictures but it wouldn't let me. So here is a lovely spread of Doggie D.O.A...or not. Hmm just the code appears...ok tried again and used the mini-embed code and voila. So this could be a striking tool on a web page or flyer or brochure.




SlideRocket looks slick and professional. When I have more time I'd like to try it out for some sort of tutorial.

Captioner

This one could use a much nicer caption balloon or something than shows on their page! Wait a minute..where did the caption go? It didn't copy with the picture, yikes. If "Captioner" had actually put the caption in, it would read:

The Bunny ate my shoe!


roflbot!




roflbot did not want to use the photographs I tried from my computer. My guess is they are the wrong picture formatting though this site does not give you an informational error message, it merely says the picture didn't work, try another.

Caption Bubble

The whole page doesn't show up in this particular blog layout. Unlike some pictures, you can't click on the picture to see the whole thing, clicking just takes you to Caption Bubble's home page. On the plus side this site is not particular about picture type, so if you're using something manageable in size this might be a useful site for you. This is one site that would not let me use Print Screen to copy the picture into Microsoft Paint where I could crop it.


Create your own caption

Mosaicker

I had no idea what I was getting into on this one agh. They wanted to make a mosaic of 200-400!!!! of your Flickr photos. Like I have that many on there. So, it would let me use everybody's pictures, and I chose flowers. I had to be picky though and look like some nut through 36+ pages of photos to just find ones I liked. I didn't want bees, butterflies or other insectile creatures, and surely not the giant head of some stranger that appeared in many photos. Ya ya I know its their pictures but hey back back back. Anywho, they say they'll email me the picture. Can't wait.



The front or "master" picture I chose was a purple Russell Lupine. You can almost make out that shape if you look hard. These mosaics might work with a more distinctly outlined subject, but it takes alot of photographs and effort for a just an ok result. I see that posters of your mosaic are available. Perhaps in that larger format some of the tiny photographs that comprise the mosaic might show up more.

Animoto

Animoto does a unique mix of your photos and it syncs them to music they make available on their site. It then presents it as what looks like a short video. It is frustrating to use in some ways, because it does not always "see" the pictures that are on my computer, and it doesn't "see" all of the pictures that I load on Flickr either. This may be a file size issue, but the program is not helpful enough to give you any sort of message that lets you know why you're not getting the pictures you want to include. Highly annoying! Nonetheless, from the pictures of my father that I could get Animoto to load and use, here is a photo collage of my father, in life sequence, you can see how short his story was by how young he was in those last photographs.

More Things on a Stick: Thing 35, Books 2.0

You might think Books 2.0 represents a move towards replacing books in some robotic, relentless manner. In fact, Books 2.0 is a celebration of books, a means of sharing what you read and enjoy, and finding other people who love the same kind of books you do.

I'm creating accounts on each of the suggested sites for this Thing to see what they offer.

lib.rario.us




The site allows you to catalog and review your Books, DVDs, Music and Games. Tags can be added to further identify your items.

The tagging here is like del.icio.ous, you need to use underscores to get phrases, or else your tag words will sort alphabetically. The phrase will be smooshed together as one word, but at least you can get the idea across. My example is science_fiction_films which comes out sciencefictionfilms on screen. You will be able to edit and change your tags if they aren't what you had in mind.

A text box is provided for your written review of the item. Unfortunately, once you post the review you are unable change it, you cannot even delete it and start over.

Here are the two entries I did as an experiment:

http://lib.rario.us/media/librariandoa

Use the category tabs at the top of the page to see what others have added from their collections. Choose "My Collection" on the right to see only your own collection.

lib.rario.us is in its "Alpha" stage, meaning it is very new and it will likely change with its users.

bookjetty



bookjetty's main page says "I am a Reader" in large letters, and it then offers a sort of "Proclamation of a 2.0 Reader":


And I...
I need to keep track of good books I want to read.
I would love to check books availability in my local libraries (from over 300 libraries in 11 different countries).
I want to know what my friends are reading, view Google Books preview, Amazon rating and sales rank, bookshelf widget on my blog, and probably more.

When you log in to bookjetty, you see what books are popular, what has been recently added by other users, and snippets of the latest reviews. You'll need to select "My Books" in order to see your own books or add new ones.

To add a new title to your library (or in my case I'm putting in my "To Read List"), type the title in the search box at the top of the web page. Amazon is searched and a mockup of the cover appears. Clicking on that can confirm for you that you have the right book. Just select "add to shelf" to put the selection in your library list. The search box seemed more forgiving of typos and variant title searches than most such search mechanisms.

Add tags by mousing over the book title.

I cannot see where to add reviews or book description. I must just not see it since there are reviews aplenty on the left column of the screen. This site also has a discussion board where you might discuss particular titles or ideas.


iTrackMine



iTrackMine allows you to add a wide variety of items to your collection pages. Books, DVDs, music, and wine. (Although after you've swilled your collection you'll have to go to the trouble of taking it off iTrackMine.)

Because iTrackMine has a Home and Garden category and an "Everything Else" category, I thought this might be a place to enter the plants from my garden. As it turns out, the Home and Garden category is subdivided into such categories as "Kitchen", "Musical Instruments" and "Automotive". No garden plants and no "Everything Else" choice.

Charging onward anywho, I selected "Kitchen" and typed in my plant name, leaving the UPC, Manufacturer ID and other descriptive spots blank. To my surprise I could upload a picture and there were fields for description. I wasn't sure if my entry would be rejected so I didn't fill those in. Finally, I selected the big "Create a Custom Item" arrow and voila! a box popped up pleading with me to make sure my item was unique and not something already included in the catalog they had worked so hard to create.

I was able to add the rose. I could in fact enter my entire garden here, but I would feel guilty since it is clearly not what they intended for the site. There is almost a mini-eBay feel to it, as they ask you to describe items in detail and say where you got it and how much you paid, and would you be willing to loan it out?

aNobii




They really need to rewrite this paragraph:

Once you've created your shelf, you can find out who have the same books as you do, see what they have on their shelves, and see who else have what they have on their shelves, and what those people have on their shelves, so on and so forth ...

Also "Add your first book (in a breeze)" did they mean "Its a breeze"?

You are encouraged to enter your books by ISBN and are told you can use title but it will take an extra step! That is not very user friendly. As it turns out, searching by title brings up a picture of the book cover, just the way the other book collection sites do. In fact, the site design is identical to bookjetty's, but the language and choices offered are less well thought out.

Booktagger



Booktagger appears to share a site template with another book collection manager called Shelfari. There are plenty of variations however, offering the ability to make booklists (though I'm still working on this function) and create a Book Club in addition to the typical list of books that you own.

Living up to its name, Booktagger has the best tagging options I've seen so far (outside of LibraryThing). It keeps phrases together so I could use "19th Century Novels" and "Psychiatric patients" to tag Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White and those words stayed together as I entered them, without any underscore shenanigans.

The instruction for adding your book to your shelf is to search for it, then drag the cover to the subtopic you wish to use. This can awkwardly slip your book into an unintended category (you can fish it out but it isn't easy). It is also possible to carefully mouse over the title, allowing a set of check boxed categories to show up. Check the correct box, and hit save. Nothing appears to happen (nothing on the screen changes,) but the item will indeed be added to your collection.

I added a Book Club with the titles my msytery book group is reading , or tried to. I could not figure out how to add titles so I ended up slipping them into the "Mission Statement" box and they now are displayed right up front. Lots of possibility with Booktagger, I'll just need to play with it somewhat.

Books on Your Phone

I looked at these sites and can see the value in them for someone who uses their phone for many purposes. I do the old fashioned making and taking calls on mine. Last fall some kid was mistakenly texting me such message gems as "hope you're not late for school, lol!" My husband said he thought I'd be charged every time I looked at one of these witticisms, so I didn't take the time to learn to respond.

I am following Twitterlit on Twitter so I am not a total loss on this part of the Thing.

Reader's Advisory

Reading Trails



This is a good place to compile a booklist to share and allow others to add to it. I created a list of garden writers with 43 titles.

Reading Trails allows you to search for titles in their database and add to it. There are not many covers available so they put up those plain colored covers in many cases. You are able to easily add a title if it is not in their existing list.

There is some sort of venn diagramish trick to the site that is supposed to allow connections between these lists. I'm not sure what to make of that part of the site.

BookLamp.org



I watched the tech demo, which was impressive, and read the forums a bit which made me feel as if the project were sort of stalled. I think it would be a great addition to any book related site. They seem to be figuring out funding as well. I would think a fee for using the software would be reasonable. If it worked as described it would be a great tool.

What Should I Read Next?



If this is the same company that our library subscribed to at one time, it really isn't up to date enough with its authors and titles to be useful. It was also very weak on local authors.

What's Next? Books in Series



Produced by Kent District Libary this slick series search tool allows for search by Author, Title, Series Name, Book Title, Reading Level and genre.

I did two searches:

Author Name: Tony Hillerman (I can never remember the series name) and a nice numbered list of his Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee books came up.

Series: I always recall the series name "The Edge Chronicles" but not, alas the author, who is Paul Stewart.

Whichbook



Whichbook has an interesting slider selection tool. Pick from each interest range and use the slider to indicate how strongly you feel about any particular attribute. Here are your choices:

happy/sad
funny/serious
safe/disturbing
expected/unpredictable
larger than life/down to earth
beautiful/disgusting
gentle/violent
easy/demanding
no sex/sex
conventional/unusual
optimistic/bleak

I chose the far left sliders for happy, funny, safe, expected (the other sliders were not available) and got these results:

My Latest Grievance
by Elinor Lipman
Reader comment
A light but warm touch delivered with minute observation and an obvious enjoyment of words. This novel has just enough tartness to keep it sharp rather than sugar sweet. I found Frederica - one time college mascot and precocious resident teenager endearing, amusing and wise, when she could have been irritating and clever-clever. For readers who prefer humour to make you smile with subtle recogonition rather than laugh out loud.

Read extract
Published: 2006

Parallels
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen


The C Words
by Mark Mason
Reader comment
Bridget Jones for men - Brigham Jones perhaps? Chap Lit. rather than Chick Lit. Light, stylish, and very funny this is a fine romantic comedy. Told from a male point of view, it follows two guys getting increasingly stressed out trying to get into bed with the right girl. It seems its a lot harder than I'd ever appreciated.

Read extract
Published: 2005

Parallels
Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding
Dinner for Two by Mike Gayle
The Food of Love by Anthony Capella


Blessed Art Thou a Monk Swimming
by Miriam Dunne
Reader comment
A young Catholic girl growing up in Ireland in the 1960s. Highly entertaining and surprisingly poignant. A great first novel.

Read extract
Published: 1997

Parallels
The Snapper by Roddy Doyle
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

A Matter of Fat
by Sherry Ashworth
Reader comment
On a diet? Obsessed with food? Then this is the book for you! The women in the book are members of a Slimming Club and all have their different reasons for being there. Great fun, but not without a serious side - an entertaining read.

Read extract
Published: 1991

Parallels
Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes
Rosie Meadows by Catherine Alliott


Diary of a Househusband
by Carl Peters
Reader comment
If you enjoyed Bridget Jones's Diary you'll probably enjoy this. Written from the point of view of a young, black man. Funny, entertaining and ultimately warm. Perfect read for the train or the bus.

Read extract
Published: 1997

Parallels
The Snapper by Roddy Doyle
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

I did not see the first time I looked at the site that this is a British site and it links to British libraries. I'm not familiar with many of the recommended titles called "Parallels" so I can't judge how well this system really works. It certainly is intriguing.

Book Stumper



A fine idea, to have a place people can get the titles of lost but not forgotten books figured out for them. An old List Serv, Stumper-L used to do this for free, whilst the bookseller running this charges $2.00 per query. It is possible to read solved queries and help answer queries for free. Here is a sample of the path to non-Stumperdom featuring an old favorite book of my own:

13th is Magic
Joan Howard
Harper & Row, 1950
out-of-print
There are two books I loved as a kid--this goes back almost 50 years, and no-one seems to have any idea of either book. The first was called The Thirteenth is Magic, and involved a couple of children who, on the 13th of each month, could get onto the otherwise non-existant 13th floor of their apartment building, and the magical adventures they had while they were there.

Sounds like: Becker, Eve. Thirteen Means Magic. Harper & Row, 1976. Sound right to you?
That's too late. Try this one instead (although it's very difficult to find!) Howard, Joan. The 13th is Magic. Illustrated by Adrienne Adams. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1950.
Thank you so much! I'm reasonably certain that's the book. Now, if I can just find it, I'll be very happy. Oh, nostalgia....
Hi. So many books I didN'T read as a kid! But there are just as many I did read and want to find again. To start with: Do you or anyone else remember a book about a boy and a girl, possibly siblings or cousins, who are sent back in time via a unicorn tapestry showing a well in their aunt's garden? The boy's name was Ronald and he was called Roland when in the past. The girl's name was Jill? Possible title: The Thirteenth is Magic? Possible author: Patricia Gardener? As I might be confusing this with some other books I'd read and would like to reread, if those strike any chords please let me know. Thanks for running such a great site.
Joan Howard (pseud. Patricia Gordon) , Thirteenth is Magic. NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, '50. The children are named Ronnie & Gillian. The Summer is Magic came out in '52: same publisher & illustrator (Adrienne Adams).
Howard, Joan. The 13th is Magic. Illustrated by Adrienne Adams. Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1950.
Joan Howard/Patricia Gordon wrote other children's books, do you know their names? (One was about a boy going through a dangerous journey where, if a ghost touched him, he would freeze)

Book Calendar



This resource introduces the reader to a book a day. These aren't reviews, but sort of "spot announcements". Non-fiction, as far as I can see, a reader might enjoy having these emailed to themselves daily.


Online Book Commmunities

Overbooked



Devised by a librarian, this site has the hot new books in multiples categories. This is mostly a reader's advisory site. If you dig quite a bit at the bottom of the home page, you are led to an Overbooked NING page with discussion forums. There aren't many discussions going on that I see. I think that this aspect should have its own tab at the top of the page in order to be used more.


Readerville



Announces in its current post it is going under: "Every year when June rolls around, I try to find some way to mark the anniversary of the official launch of Readerville. I’m sorry to announce that this year, instead, I’m suspending operations." So much for this part of this Thing.

Reader2 and Gabbly Chat!



The forums for this site led to one of those dead doggie/can't load the page pages. The Chat loads up Gabbly Chat! Maybe its a free little chat box program or something, but it flashes FIND A FRIEND! FIND A DATE!

Bookmarked




This online book club and possible book club management tool is aimed at the young, hip, having-a-snorting-good-time-over-their-books reader. (Note the photo below). What is long term problematic here is that it promotes Target's limited selection of books.



Living Social

Available on their site or as a Facebook application, Living Social attempts to connect you with other readers based upon the books you input as being your library. Outside of Facebook, I'm not certain how useful this would be.

Book Group Resources



Litlovers is a great resource for groups looking for "serious" reading. For book groups, they offer questions for discussion and themed booklists.

Reading Group Choices



Reading Group Choices offers a wider range of titles for groups. It also offers a monthly newsletter, interviews, and reader comments on guided topics of the month.

Reading Group Guides



Reading Group Guides is similar but it has a relatively active discussion forum. The interface and overall look of Reading Group Guides is a bit more bare bones than Reading Group Choices.

Booksprouts



This will be useful for book groups who might want to make their choices available online. The formatting is attractive. A list of Hot Books shows what other groups are reading. Nice way to get an interest group going, I saw one in particular based on reading books on a specific management style.

Wired for Books



From Ohio University, this features audio interviews with writers, and audio readings from various authors works. The tie in forbooks groups would be...author bios?

Audio Books

I listened to a selection from each of the offerings in this section, curious about a volunteer reader. I had to lean over and stick my head under the reference desk in order to hear a little. The readers did admirably.

I was a bit put off by a long (over a minute!)ad for a suspense novel when I started the recording for The Wizard of Oz on Podiobooks.

Open Culture's site with its informative articles and forward looking philosophy was particularly enjoyable.

Book Swaps


BookMooch's lovely front page graphic

These sites can be a great bargain for those who aren't collector types. If you are attached to your collection(s) as I am, no way you'll try this.

Book Review Sites



The Complete Review caught my eye in this section: A selectively comprehensive, objectively opinionated survey of books old and new, trying to meet all your book review, preview, and information needs.

A tall order! The books reviewed are not your run of the mill bestsellers. I found only one book I had hear of, in fact, Jedediah Berry's "The Manual of Detection". This labyrinthine novel of spies and identity and secrets does not get the "complete" treatment". Here is what they say:

Why we haven't reviewed it yet:

Gave it 100 pages, just didn't take to it -- despite the promising premises and literary flair it just didn't keep me in any suspense

Chances that we will review it:

Very slim



I loved Book Browse for its timeliness, variety of age and reading choices, and the slick layout of the site. I was admiring some of its extra features such as the ability to search by geographical location and time period (key for fiction lovers!) when I noticed you need membership to access those and it costs $34.95 per year.

The One Minute Critic has one minute video book reviews. Most entertaining without sound, especially the review of the "Eyre Affair". I think this is a great idea, and a reviewer can potentially give a much meatier review with voice and body language included than the usual printed review.

Children's Books

LookyBook is dead: Regrettably, we have come to the last page in our exciting adventure together. It would not have happened without your enthusiasm, support, and patronage.

Lookybook is closed simply due to lack of resources.



Storyline has a "web page not found" message. :( :( :(



The International Digital Children's Library is a really creative teaching resource as well as an online source of stories. I liked their idea of looking at a book written in a language you don't know and writing your own story to go with the pictures.

Just One More Book



Nicely designed site, great resource for finding new children's books and series to read. I thought the background noises in the coffee shop were a bit distracting but these reviews are something the parent and child can listen to together and it may promote book discussion and review in its listeners as a fun thing to do.

Tonight's Bedtime Story



As far as I can tell, these are downloadable files (the stories are not on the site itself for viewing) of public domain stories. I think that might discourage use somewhat.

I thoroughly enjoyed working through this long long Thing!