LibraryThing

Although I've been a member of LibraryThing since late 2006, I didn't realize that libraries could get in on the action. I think it works great for libraries, since I find it too much "work" to enter in my home collection of books, or even titles I'm currently reading from the library. I guess after all the cataloging I do at work, I've lost all interest in coming home to do it some more!

That said, I used to work at an optics library while I was pursuing my masters degree and I think that LibraryThing is a great tool for special collections (which are book oriented) because users with their special knowledge can add subject tags. This is an awesome tool that allows librarians to harness the knowledge of the users who know more about a subject than the librarian does!

Obviously, I've only sporadically used this site personally, but would love to implement it in our culinary library here at NECI to find out how useful the tag clouds are in guiding patrons' book searches.

Flickr

For the Flickr exercises, I decided to do option B: I brought in my digital camera to take pictures of the NECI Essex Child Library. I uploaded and tagged the photos, and joined the group setup for the Vermont 23 Things to share my photos.

The photos I took are of the outside of our building and all the inside rooms of the library.

In my experience, as a first time Flickr user, the process was easy. I really liked the fact that (unlike blogger) you can upload a group of photos at once and it doesn't take very long.