Leddy Library Reference Desk Blog

Fans of local used bookstore Juniper Books will appreciate that some of its inventory is searchable through ABE books.

'They are the Muppets people.'
Wired has an interesting interview with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. He talks about Wikia: 'Wikipedia is the encyclopedia and Wikia is all the rest of the library.' Take Muppets for example. 'That's a whole different way of looking at the world.
In other words, they are slicing up the whole
world and viewing it through a Muppet colored lens.' So, are we viewing the world through a library coloured lens?

Mita's highlighting of Katchadourian's Sorted Book Project is, I think, a great example of the creative possibilities we can find within the library. And maybe one that challenges us to think about the organization of our collections and the search/research process.
This entertaining video from David Weinberger sends up the weirdness and subjectivity of Dewey's system of classification (not to mention LCSH) that librarians and patrons have to deal with. On the other hand, Everything is Miscellaneous may not be the final word. Why Web 2.0 is Leading Back to Full Cataloging suggests that tagging works because it rides on top of the foundation work of professional catalogers. Perhaps a creative, dynamic balance between the traditional and the inovative is what we need.

Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project, photographs of book spines arranged to tell short stories.(kottke)

36% of online American adults consult Wikipedia.
More than half (55%) of all online American youths ages 12-17 use online social networking sites.
28% of internet users have tagged or categorized content online such as photos, news stories or blog posts. PEW/ Internet & American Life Project is, obviously, American but can provide some insight into the habits of our user community.

has an interesting post on the first library to put LibraryThingforLibraries in their catalogue. On top of the original record, it adds: Other Editions and Translations, Similar books, and Tags and Tag Browser. They use this example from the catalogue.

As if elves weren't cool enough already, now there's Library Elf: a Vancouver web-based service that reminds you when your library books are due, before they're due. Elf is integrated with numerous public (and some academic) library systems in Canada, the US, New Zealand and Australia, and can send you reminders by email, RSS, or text message alerting you to impending due dates, overdue books, and holds available for pick-up. You decide when and how often you get the reminders, and you can also incorporate multiple library accounts so you can monitor your whole family's library book situation.