Feeders, Bookmarks, and Library Sites……OH MY!

Bloglines versus Google Reader wasn’t even a contest for me.  I found Google Reader much more maneuverable and user friendly.  I liked how I could “star” items that I wanted to come back to later on Google reader.  I didn’t find a similar feature on Bloglines.  The only pro that I could find for Bloglines was the mosaic representation of images associated with the feed, when there was one.  Visually it did set the different postings apart and after looking at so much text, a change was nice.  The cons that I found for Bloglines were that it was extremely hard to navigate!  When I wanted to delete a feed there was no help button on my screen.  After clicking on every imaginable button and praying, I finally realized that when I clicked on the “go to Bloglines.com” tag there was a small help tab.  This tab directed me to the tiny gray area next to the title that had edit written in white.  White text on a light gray background didn’t exactly jump out at me.   At one point while adding a feed to Bloglines I was told that I had an “unhandled error.”  I SOMEHOW managed to notice that the URL address did not start at the left of the box.  Apparently there were two spaces which caused this error.  Ugh!   I guess I was spoiled since I had first set up a Google Reader account and found my way around without bursting any major blood vessels.  I learned my lesson slowly that while bundles of similar feeds sounded nice I spent an incredible amount of time weeding through a large number of them that I ended up deleting.  Starting small is definitely the way to go.  I had a few solid days of digital overload and after a while of looking at the text I found comprehending it even more of a challenge.  Good news, I have recovered!

I chose 5 blogs to follow in my Google Reader.  The first blog is Will Richardson's Blog because since we are reading his book for the course I thought that this would keep me current with his views on technology in the school environment.  I discovered an interesting tool while reading a Google reader feed from Will Richardson titled The Choices We Make.  In an effort to try to cut down on information overload, he uses a tool called Proxlet to sift out only Tweets with links for his Twitter account.  With all of the information streaming towards us, good filters are going to make our lives much saner.  The second blog is Tech & Learning because I liked how they offer a grade appropriate "site of the day" that support topics such as The Boston Tea Party and Kids for Saving Earth.  This can be used to help supplement the curriculum.  I chose Read Roger at first because he is a Horn Book editor.  I found that I also enjoyed his sense of humor and the books he reviewed as well.  I liked The Children's Literature Book Club because she uses the blog to post children’s books that her club will discuss along with thought provoking questions for those that can’t attend so that they can still participate.  (That and I liked her April 19, 2008 post on her visit with Jon Scieszka.)  Finally, I chose Joyce Valenza’s blog Never Ending Search because in addition to reading posts by her, in this class and my last one, her entries discuss everything from books and vokis to the library as a multimedia center in a positive way.  She is a great example of the librarian of the 2st century.  I like how she manages to cover tough topics such as “5 Reasons Why Library Aides Should Not Be Cut” and she combines it with a pop culture figure such as David Letterman to make the plea more appealing and memorable.

First came Diigo and then came Delicious.  I think if I had to choose my favorite it would be Diigo.  I really liked the fact that any bookmarks listed were saved as a snapshot in HTML and as an image in the “Diigo cloud.”  (It sounds like a pretty cool place.)  The fact that there would never be an unsupported bookmark was a huge plus.  The use of multi-colored highlighters and the ability to leave annotations or notes on sticky notes was an extremely interactive feature.  The tutorial was great on Diigo as well.  Once I realized that I needed a toolbar, it was very easy to install.  I also loved their recommended tags because sometimes I just needed a little help coming up with different words.  While Diigo focused on preserving content, Delicious was more focused on sharing links.  With Delicious, I did have a little harder time navigating, especially when it came to finding the small button on the lower left part of the screen to manage subscriptions.  Overall the look of the Diigo page was much more uncluttered and appealing.  While I am using the Delicious account for my professional bookmarking, I chose to keep the Diigo account as a great family bookmarking site.  I found that with both sites they are only as good as your tags.

The award for “Best Final Line in a Terms of Use Statement” goes to (insert long drum roll here)…..LibraryThing.com for posting the following:

BY USING LIBRARYTHING.COM DIRECTLY OR THROUGH A MEDIUM LIKE A COMPUTER WITH A KEYBOARD AND MAYBE A MOUSE ATTACHED YOU AGREE TO TAKE THESE IMPORTANT AND CONSEQUENTIAL TERMS OF USE SERIOUSLY EVEN THOUGH, OR EVEN BECAUSE, WE HAVE ONLY ONE SENTENCE AT THE END IN CAPITAL LETTERS.

That statement alone shows that these people that run this site are truly interested in the social aspect of cataloging and bookmarking and they are creative.  I thought that the Local feature was really neat.  Being able to find local events or even post local events takes the on-line social networking off-line as well, thereby creating the “face to face” interface.  I like how they allowed for various sorts and offered recommendations along with offers to receive free books in exchange for a review.  I was impressed with the large scope of this site.

Goodreads also had its appeal and therefore I opened an account there as well.  At first I was a little annoyed that I couldn’t immediately get started but instead had to take a “book compatibility test.”  I did like that they saved my responses and ratings and added them to my library.  Unlike the other two sites, I liked how within my library it was very easy to see, based on the shelf feature, which books I had read versus the to read or reading books.  I also liked that I could shelve a book under more than one shelf on Goodreads.  Under the Goodreads goups tab, I also liked that there were suggested book clubs that were also reading my book at the same time.    Like LibraryThing, Goodreads had giveaways and local events.  

Shelfari, in comparison, seemed lacking in its toolbar and choices.  While choices similar to those found on Goodreads and LibraryThing were available from dropdown menus, they weren’t as easily found.  I am sure Shelfari is as good as Goodreads and LibraryThing, but I found myself gravitating to the latter two just by visual ease.  The final reason that I found myself gravitating more towards Goodreads was that LibraryThing had a maximum of 200 books per year on their free account while there seemed to be no limit on Goodreads.  Overall, I was impressed at these 3 social bookmarking sites and can see why many people found them addictive.