Acquisitions librarians and collection development committees might make use of LibraryThing to refine or initiate the decision process about what items to purchase. Librarians might be able to get hints about their profession by joining groups, for example "Librarians who LibraryThing." If patrons have requested more books about a certain topic, LibraryThing might be helpful in finding items to add to the collection.
There are now 19 books in my library at LibraryThing. I have found several groups formed around some of my books. There are many groups that include discussion of Le Morte D'Arthur but they include Arthurian legend in general or are Celtic fantasy discussions. In Search of Lost Time does not have a group by that title, but since that is the work by which everyone know Marcel Proust, the group "Proust" is equivalent; there are 72 members of this group. In looking up a Dickens title, the results are too numerous and various to make much sense, but looking for groups under the author I found "What the Dickens...?" which sounds like a fun discussion of any of his works. There is a discussion group with eight members that includes works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Peruvian literature), but chances are I won't join it because the title and all topics are in Spanish and my Spanish isn't that great. The group "Children's Literature" is the most active one I looked at with 589 members; when the semester is over I'll probably join that one.
2. What might be a possible use for The Generator Blog, Hulu, and Rollyo in libraries.
The Generator Blog is entertaining, but within the time constraints of this assignment, I can't come up with any practical uses for a library (or any other serious pursuits). After further exploration, maybe I'll have some ideas. OK, I came up with one idea: decorating for displays could be enhanced using this site. For example, there is a "Candy Hearts" link to a site where you can create your own message on a conversation heart. In putting together a Valentine's Day display, pictures of candy hearts with book titles, authors, or other ideas could be printed out to decorate the display.
Hulu is a great source for people like me who do not have TV reception at home. Wow! I can still catch episodes of Nature and my favorites from Animal Planet. Uses for educational purposes in libraries seem almost unlimited. Library programs are the most obvious place to use Hulu. For example, a short film made from a children's book might be included in a storytime program. A literature series could use the clip of John Steinbeck accepting his Nobel Prize in their Steinbeck Night.
Rollyo! What a great idea; I'm so happy to know about it. Just as Matthew Fisher ("What Will the Library of the Future Look Like?" LATimes Blog) found it frustrating to sift through many irrelevant search results to get to the primary source, being able to restrict a search to known and trusted sites would be a great time saver. A library could make its own search engine through rollyo. The advantages of this are especially evident for school, academic, and research libraries. School libraries could allow students to get results from sites trusted not to soil the students' innocent little brains (and keep parents happy). Academic and research libraries could help researchers reduce the amount of time sifting through google results by including only relevant sites in certain searches. The disadvantage of the idea is the time it would take to create the Rollyo search engine. Possibly using someone else's or collaborating would make this more practical.
3. Name a site that you found through Best of Web 2.0 2008 that a library (in any form) may use.
The best of Web 2.0 is a little--truthfully a lot--overwhelming. It seems like each site I go to opens a whole new realm of possibilities (and technology I'd have to learn to employ the possibility). I feel like I'll never catch up. Anyway, one thing I found that could be helpful for libraries is "Office Live Workspace." Especially in big-city library systems, the opportunity to hold system-wide meetings without the disadvantage of traveling across town would be a huge time saver. In large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles or Seattle where traveling within the city is very time consuming, holding a meeting online would be great for administrators.
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