Thing #15

Thing #15 was about online gaming and libraries. I've used several online games during my long love affair with the internet. I've played on Mu*s, then moved to yahoo games like Bejeweled, and finally ending up at mmorpg's like City of Heroes and World of Warcraft.

This part of the 23 Things focused primarily on Second Life and Puzzle Pirates. As SL is very graphics intensive, I chose to do the Puzzle Pirates part of the thing. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of interaction with the other users of the site other than a couple random people hitting me up for money. The best luck that I've had with social interaction on the internet was at the very low tech Mu* sites. The text based gaming really encourages people to use easy to read English, full sentences and to form friendships, because there isn't any game play except for what you make up in your head. There are no missions that you can do solo, like in COH or WOW. It is an entirely interactive environment dependent on everyone else who logs in and plays.

I'm not sure how these games will translate to libraries. I suppose you could have LAN parties or game nights at the library, but I'm not sure how that will translate into people checking out more items or using the library for research.

Thing #14

Thing #14 was about an internet tool called Library Thing. Library Thing is a site that allows people to create their own library catalogs. I've been using LT for awhile now to manage different collections of books that I have. I've found it very handy and by looking in collections of people who have similar items it gives me ideas for ways to expand my collection.

Thing #13

Thing #13 is about online productivity tools. One of the tools mentioned in this Thing is online calendars. The one we use at our house is Google Calendars. This calendar makes it very easy to color coordinate my special events, my husband's special events and my daughter's special events. It also tracks birthdays and almost anything else that is needed. It's very handy because my husband and I can both edit it and see what the plans are for the week or month. Since I work days and he works nights, sometimes we can lose track of what events are going on with each other and this way we have a quick and easy way to check.

Thing #12

Thing #12 is about sites that allow you to rate them and recommend them to others using internet tools such as Digg. Digg is a site that I have used before that allows its users to rate participating sites. The more recommendations a site gets, the higher on the list it goes.

I can see where a library could choose to have links off of their site to sites like Digg, to give their patrons the opportunity to see popular web items. Other than that, I'm not sure how useful it will be to libraries.

Thing #11

Thing 11 was about tagging and how it can be used to direct yourself to what you're looking for. I am used to using LoC subject headings but this is user added subject heading and isn't controlled vocabulary.

I have added tags to my blog posts for 23 things, I have also tagged the posts that include pictures of my daughter and another tag that lets me easily separate out my Flickr posts. I also have a del.icio.us account and I have been using that to keep track of web pages that interest me.

Thing #10

Thing 10 was to learn about wikis. I have used Wikipedia before and found it very interesting. It is occasionally helpful for authority work when you are trying to determine what works an author has done, and also birth and death dates. I think that wikis are very useful when they are updated frequently, and I can see them being used locally to help keep track of local cataloging decisions and for quick FAQs.