Library Stuff

DSC00334
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.

Hallie and Adam celebrating Chanukah

browsr
Originally uploaded by stevenmcohen.

Despite the typical missing ‘e’ in the title (poor little ‘e’ – missing out on the new Web) and the one word/phrase slogans (People. Powered. Directory), the concept of browsr is something that I’ve been anticipating for quite a while.

From the about page:

“From the public or social side, users can tag their favorite sites to Browsr allowing others to comment on them. These tagged sites can focus on products and services or other well-known sites and weblogs.”

“From the private side, users create their own directories. Much like bookmarking, users add their own categories populated with their favorite sites. These private directories can be shared with select audiences. It is like having a mobile “favorites” or “bookmarks” directory. As an added feature, owners of private directories control whether other users can blog the sites they have tagged. (Note: private directories are not yet implemented in the current beta version but will be in the next version).”

One big issue, however. (Or maybe I say: One. Big. Issue.) No RSS? I can’t be kept up with new resources that are added to each directory? Oh, how I would love to see RSS implementation here.

Even though this is similar to del.icio.us, I like the ratings and commentary features (in fact, this is like a digg/del.icio.us tool – diggil.icio.us?). In any event, I’ve subscribed to the blog (one of these days, I’ll create a Bloglines account with all of the development blogs from all the resources I review – would that be useful?) and will be interested to to try out the private directories when they come out. (link via Steve RubelLinkBlog)

Note: This will be my last diatribe. For now on, Library Stuff will contain content on resources, tools, and other information on keeping current. You will no longer see any posts like the ones that I wrote this week (comments like this will be reserved to others’ blog entries on these topics) about getting paid to present or a non-post about something that I want to say but can’t. I’m also not taking the rest of the year off and will be blogging throughout the next week right into 2006. So, without further gabbing, here is the Top 5 Reasons Why I’m Not Doing a Top 10 List for 2005, with no apologies.

1) I don’t want to be seen as one of those “blog-people” who “have created an alternative universe in which they are ‘stars’ to each other and, reciprocally, ‘fans’ of each other” who are also “proverbial legends in their own minds.”

2) I don’t want to continuously link to the same library bloggers over and over and over again and, by doing so, actually egg on those who make comments like the one espoused in number 1 above.

3) I don’t want to link to any of my own posts from the past year, thus increasing my inlinks and outlinks, which, in turn make me feel better about myself that people actually link to me, even though it was a self link.

4) I don’t want to be part of library blogging cliques that only address those in their respective cliques and do not allow others into these cliques because they are not writing about topics that are interesting to those in these cliques, which, in turn, egg on those who make comments like those espoused in number 1 above.

5) I don’t want to be seen as pompous and self absorbed because I have 10 thoughts on what transpired in 2005 and feel that my list will be seen as so important that others will hopefully look at my list and republish their own thoughts about my list and say nice things about my list.

I hope that 2006 will be the year of non-cliques, openness to others ideas, more dinners at conferences with people whom I’ve never met before, the long-tail of the library blogging community becoming THE library blogging community, and future collaborations with those whom I have yet to shake hands with.

+ World 66 – “We have setup World66, an open content travel guide, where people from all over the planet can write about the places they love, the hotels they stayed in, the restaurants that have eaten. Every part of the travel guide can be edited directly, just click the [edit] button and go ahead. You can change the info you find, do a write up, add a complete city or just a bar or a restaurant.”

+ Teacherly – From the guy who gave us Feedmarker. An online grading system for teachers. Looks neat…