Budge over LibraryThing, but to where?

I started adding books to Good Reads yesterday. It's quite easy to use but it doesn't have any tagging or any other indexing facility that I can see and I can't quite cope with that (spending too much time with the bearded one me thinks). I'd like something where I can have the already reads, the currently reading and the will-read-when-I-can in separate categories. I'd like something I can tag.

The Fiction_L list has come up trumps again with mention of an article called Social Sites for Book Lovers which very usefully appraises several sites. The author comes down in favour of Shelfari. It doesn't mention Gurulib though which I liked previously because it allows you to enter other media like DVDs and music. The article mentions that you can export your lists from one library to the other - makes life a whole lot easier and a little less tied to the computer.

I think at this stage, I'm going to abandon Good Reads and look at Shelfari and Gurulib again.

Oooh, I hate having to make choices.

Ho hum

I'm completely underwhelmed by both Yahoo Answers and WikiAnswers. At the risk of sounding like a complete fuddy duddy I don't like them at all.

I can see danger Will Robinson! I took a look at the health bit in WikiAnswers - Danger, Danger. How can proper answers be given to simple questions? Health professionals, like librarians, need to ask several questions and listen carefully to the answers to understand the question being asked and to give an answer in terminology pitched at the right level for the asker.

I applaud the efforts of the librarians 'slamming the boards'. Oh what a teeny weeny drop in a muckle great bucket though. We as a profession certainly need to ensure we promote the use of reliable Ask a Librarian type services, as several colleagues have noted we seem to deal with fewer reference questions in the library nowadays and the quality of answers out there can be abysmal.

Some of the questions were so purile!

I put in one question in WikiAnswers and I've already got 101 points. What's that all about?

I noted in WikiAnswers that there seems to be no clear indication of where answers end and commentary/feedback begins, eg: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_you_learn_good_table_manners

The last answer/comment made me smile though : Good table manners are learned from one's parents or nanny. If they have failed in that duty then you should purchase a suitable book on the subject. (I can see that person so very very clearly in my minds's eye!!! ) I hope my children get a nanny soon because I feel I have very little influence; no matter how hard I try mealtimes still seem like the monkey's tea party.

I did like the Taste website though. And good, reputable publishers behind the recipes.

Adding a newsfeed

We had our first (but hopefully not our last - VE???) struggle session in the lower mountains this morning. I for one got some assistance and you will see that I now have a feed from The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh on my sidebar. Thank you VE.

However, we were unable to help poor Allnew2me who has been taken over by aliens!

Feeling valued?

In the Guardian's book blog I came across an article entitled Bibliotherapy by one Stuart Evers about a London bookshop called The School of Life.

Initially I thought it might be about a great scheme which many UK councils are using whereby GPs write a prescription for a book title that their patient then takes to their library to get a copy to take home.

But no, Evers is talking about how this book shop is so different from the high street book shops with it's individualised service.

This is the paragraph in the piece that floored me:
"The idea that really marks out The School of Life from other book enterprises is their recommendation service, Bibliotherapy. For £50 - excluding books - a specialist will help you choose books perfectly suited to you; a sort of literary personal trainer, if you will. To my mind, it's a great idea. With so few of us near a bookseller of experience and understanding, it's the perfect way to pick your way through the minefield of what to read next".

As I have said in the comment I left, why does this man think it is a good idea to pay that ridiculous sum of money to have someone help him choose a book? Is that per book, or is it a life-time subscription?

Either way there are specialists in every library in the country who are able to provide this service for free - and it's us - Librarians!

You can read the full article here. See if you can read it without getting hot under the collar.


Addendum

I looked up The School of Life website and some of my questions are answered here.

Bu##er, bu##er, Bu##er

Week 6 - the most frustrating week so far. Should have been simple but because of the restrictions the IT department put on some sites (YouTube for instance) I have spent 1 1/2 hours today getting nowhere. When we do get access to YouTube the rest of Council is trawling the net and you can't get the site - I spent 25 minutes earlier waiting for YouTube to load only to get a blank screen with Done at the bottom. Ditto the Google video site. When, hooray, I did get to YouTube it was at 2pm and my next link gave me the "You're not allowed to watch this during working hours, get back to work you slacker" page. Not happy.

I have only been able to complete Week 6 by coming upstairs to Springwood branch and logging on to the public PCs. I appreciate that that's a luxury many staff don't have.

So back to the Week 6 activities. I found the choice of things to look up a little strange - anyone else get a big kick out of "Liverpool plains" or "Kogorah". Perhaps they wanted to point out what a load of guff is on YouTube & Google video. And why would you go to Google video - my search results were almost exactly the same.

I can see how video clips would be good for showcasing library activities and staff to our customers although, as one commenter on the SLNSW learning 2.0 blog said, libraries would need to ensure the production was of a high quality. I really liked the We love our NJ Libraries clip.

And what a lovely thing for local history collections - not just the audio of an oral history but video too. What a gift to the generations that come.

There is a site where people are doing book reviews via video - will add link soon - I'm not sure it adds to the quality of the reviewing but I guess for some people it's easier to speak a review than type it so more may be added - from our Readers in the Mist experience we see how difficult it is to get people to write their own book reviews.

But staff orientation - please! I don't know how many staff PLCMC has, but I'd be insulted if the Library Manager couldn't be bothered to welcome me and introduce her/himself to me in person.

I'm not sure why the SLNSW have said there is a 10 minute cap on videos in YouTube because I have watched Michael Wesch's video, An anthropological introduction to YouTube, and it's 55:33 mins long - and every last second of it makes fascinating viewing: