ALA Student Chapter at Simmons College

Mark your calendars, LibraryThing is coming to Simmons College! Abby Blachly, the librarian from LibraryThing will speak with GSLIS students on Wednesday, February 7th at 6 pm. Abby's a Simmons alum (January 2005) who landed a job with LibraryThing when it became an official company. Will Richardson, edu-blogger extraordinaire, got hooked just lately and you should too!

Here's a snippet from a series of questions we asked Abby about her experiences working at LT. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!

* Can you describe Library Thing in a nutshell?
I think the shortest description I've ever given would be "social networking for bibliophiles". But if I could expand that to a slightly larger nutshell, I'd say it's a site where you can catalog your books using library-quality data, and then also connect with other people based on shared books and tastes. (Abby Blachly, Librarian for Library Thing)

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 05:56 PM | Permalink

Be sure to avoid homework by reading, editing or composing something on LibLand, a wiki from the ALA, created specifically for library students.

Good luck with your final week of the semester!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 11:08 PM | Permalink

Just when you were thinking to yourself, "my word, the dazzling array of library blogs revealed to me through Melissa's post on LISZEN is a veritable treasure trove of information, but how, oh how, is a mere mortal to keep track of this nonstop blog-a-thon!?," along comes a way to do just that.

And just now, when you said further, "she must be joking-- surely, such a thing is the realm of computer science fiction, and has no place on a serious student activity group blog!," along comes LibWorm to rock your world, gentle reader.

Essentially, LibWorm functions much like LISZEN in the way it allows users to search for keywords amongst thousands of library-themed blogs. LibWorm takes things a bit further, however, and provides RSS feeds for the search results. "Huh?," you might say? I know I did. But listen up: let's say you're interested in what bloggers are saying about the Google Books project. If you enter the search term "google books," you'll get a list of the most recent blog entries that contain this phrase in the title, body or tag set. Neat, but you're not done! Immediately before the list of search results, a handy little RSS button is displayed. Click it, copy the file into your RSS aggregator of choice, and a steady stream of blog entries about Google Books will be forever yours. This post is getting pretty wordy, so I'll give only the briefest of rundowns of the other amazingly awesome features:

-LibWorm also provides pre-packaged feed categories and subject guides on topics such as Special Libraries (Academic, Government, Art, Medical, etc.), Wikis, Podcasts, Web2.0, Young Adult Lit, Open Access, and dozens more).

-LibWorm also functions as an RSS aggregator. After creating a (free) account, you can start saving the RSS files from your chosen feeds directly to the site (I haven't done this, as I am a die-hard Google Reader fanatic, but I'd imagine it would be a handy and convenient thing).

-You can save individual articles (called "clippings") for later reference.

-Naturally, you can upload feeds-- either from your own blog(s) or from blogs that you feel simply must be included.

Go forth and LibWorm!

Posted by Ashley Elizabeth Peterson at 04:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

So you've got several hundred pages to read, multiple papers due, and a pile of dirty laundry on your bedroom floor. What better time to play games on the Internet? Hey, it's library related, so you can justify this as time spent improving your abilities as an information specialist.

Guess the Google presents you with a montage of homepages resulting from a Google search. Your task? Guess the Google search term. Go!
You'll need to download version 8 or higher of Flash in order to play. Guess-the-Google's creator, Grant Robinson, provides potential players with a download link on his project page.

Thanks to GSLIS student Amy Sprung for bringing this procrastination device to my attention. Enjoy!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 05:05 PM | Permalink

Looking for libraries on the blogosphere? Go no further than LISZEN to search more than 500 library & information science-related blogs. Enter a search term (radical librarianship, for example) and refine the results, sorting by the type of library you'd like to read about (special, academic or school).

LISZEN is the brainchild of LIS student Garrett Hungerford of Wayne State University. Use LISZEN to participate in discussions of the issues affecting libraries today. Garrett's November 15th blog posting is entitled "LISZEN: Top Ten Searches" and is a good place to start if you're wondering what this site has to offer. If you have a blog you'd like to submit, create a username & password to access the LISZEN wiki and put those alphabetizing skills to good use.

The LISZEN blog, "Library Zen, Small Ideas for the Library World" is a great example of how life as a library student doesn't have to be limited to your school community. Others can benefit from your blog thoughts as you make your way through library school & into the professional realm.

Do you have a blog? Register it on LISZEN, and leave a comment here with the URL if you'd like to share it with the GSLIS community!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 04:06 PM | Permalink

It's like a multivitamin for librarians! Subscribe to the RSS feed or check the URL http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/ each day to get a glimpse of a current event of interest to libraries & librarians.

If you have a recommendation for a website or resouce, feel free to leave a comment!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 08:54 PM | Permalink