Library Thing

Library Thing looks like a fun site. Of course, I'm a librarian, so I'm biased :) I belong to a site called Shelfari and this looks very familiar. You can list and rate books that you have read/are reading. You can have friends and talk about books. It's fun. I used it for a little bit, but I haven't played with it in a while. It can get tedious trying to list all the books you have read, but the books clubs can be interesting. I honestly just don't have enough time to use this right now.

Digg

So - Digg... I liked it for the most part, especially the fact that users decided which content is on the front page. You can vote on what you like. Although, I did find that much of the 'popular' content wasn't really something I wanted to read. Again, like Delicious, I think that this is a site that would be something to look at when I'm bored - but not something that I would religiously use.

Delicious

So I checked out Delicious tonight - the sight where you can share and save bookmarks. I found a couple of sites that were funny - like one that was called "Overheard in New York" - that one was pretty good. It was simple to sign up for and easy to search the tags. However there are so many sites listed and so many of them that I could care less about. It felt like an arduous way to search if I was actually looking for something. Although, I guess that if I just wanted to casually browse for fun one afternoon, it might be interesting. I probably won't keep using that site regularly like I do with Facebook though.

Tagging...

I like tagging for certain things. For example, I was putting some art up on a website and it allowed me to enter tags for people to search for the art. And I think that was a totally appropriate place for tagging. However, I don't think that patron-tagging belongs in a library. I think that the structure and standardization that we get with subject headings is one of the great contributions of libraries.

Twitter

Again, this is something I've used before. I find it interesting and I think that it would be a good way to advertise programs and let people know what is going on in the library. We should use any avenue that we can to reach people.

Instant Messaging

Well, I have been IMing people since I was in high school, so I'm pretty familiar with it. The library that I'm working in now is the first one that I've been with that has a closed IM system for the staff. And it's Awesome! It's so nice to be able to ask someone a quick question or get help with a ref desk question - I think that every library should consider it.

Ning

I had actually never heard of Ning before - so it's pretty interesting. It seems to fulfill a lot of the same things as Facebook and other social networking sites. It does allow for more group forum discussions, pictures, events, etc. But then Facebook does have groups. I don't know whether I would start a Ning site for my library - but it might be a helpful way to meet other area librarians and discuss programming, etc.