#12 Roll your own search tool with Rollyo

June 26, 2007

Today I rolled my own at "Rollyo"! Rollyo? this is where you can set up your own search engines of the sites that you yourself trust. Do you need to know how to code? No, all you need to do is sign up (user name and email) and then start typing in your bookmarks that you wish to add to your custom search engine. I have not tried out my rollyo yet. I was wondering How a Library would use this sort of thing?

#11 Library Thing

What is Library Thing? Well it is a site for book lovers where you catalog your books and get connected with people who share the same interests in books.
This is a very fun site. You add your books to make your own virtual library. Next, you can compare your books to other Library Thing users that have the same interests as you. Some other things you can do: get book suggestions from the book suggester or try the un-suggester which gives you a list of books that you will most likely not like. (Very Amusing) You can join a book-group, join book conversations. It's also fun to see what Authors have a virtual library too.
I still need to learn more about Library Thing. I have only added about 9 books so far. The bonus: You can add up to 200 books absolutely free!

Online Image Generator! #10

Today I played around with the online image generators! They are kind of fun but very time consuming. Mostly I wanted to see how they work so I thought up sayings on the fly (which makes my images not that creative) I found hundreds of the generators which made it even harder to choose. Some of them, like the fortune cookie, that I tried didn't work for me. Anyway, I got a: ipod, angels & cherubs, i-love banner, intel inside logo. I am wondering about the copyright on the ipod image and the intel logo. I would hate to get in trouble by posting these to my blog. I can see the headline now " Web 2.0 challenger fined for copyright infringement!" News at 11:00!

ps. take a look at my ipod image below! This is one example of what image generators can do.

Wht the Twitter? #9

#9 of the 23 things is to sign up for a Twitter account and blog about your Twitter experience. Okay, I am not excited about Twitter. First off I don't think it is very useful. What is it? This is from the Twitter FAQ: "It is a community of friends and strangers from around the world sending updates about moments in their lives." You can send messages by text message, the twitter site or Instant message. Okay, so what? I can't think of any reason to use it. How would this social software help in a library? My answer: I don't know????? It seems to be another way for people to expose themselves to strangers worldwide. Just because it's one of the Web 2.0 23 things does not mean it is useful. Besides, people need to be careful on how much information they submit over the web.

Library related blogs #8

#8 of the 23 things is to locate and subscribe to some useful Library related blogs and add them to your bloglines account. I added: Librarians Internet Index which gives you the heads up on the newest websites that are added to the lii each week. Updates post on Thursdays. Another library related blog is: the Shifted Librarian, Shifting libraries at the speed of byte. I am on the look out for some library para-professional blogs also. PS. if you do not check your bloglines everyday they add up into the 200's.