Library Stuff

From CafePress

Thanks Brian!

Topix mentioned today that they now have over “5000 cities and growing and with coverage of 171 countries” in their search database You can browse the channels here. Definitely, one of my favorite news search tools. One of the main reasons?

“In addition to the international news services, which are pretty well covered in our crawl now, we also did a focused addition of world bloggers who were writing about local events in their towns. Since every blog in our crawl is editorially vetted (there is just too much spam in the blogosphere) this was a labor intensive process.”

Yup. Hand picked resources. Yummy!

I think that this article from Mlive.com (a dumb semi-registration splash page is in your future if you click on the link) is the first one I’ve seen on libraries that use Myspace. Some great quotes:

“There is more to the library than books,” said Nicole Rider, 21, a library assistant at the Meijer branch who created and maintains the account.

The library’s foray into MySpace is relatively simple — a white background with blue text, providing information on its services, branch locations and upcoming events. As of Wednesday afternoon, the library had 37 friends listed.”

Two suggestions, one to the newspaper and one for the library (one of the benefits of having a semi-popular blog is that people actually take my advice – scary):

Newspaper: Links please. It makes the reading experience more useful.

Library: One of the best ways to show of how cool and “social” you are would be to link to your MySpace account on on your teens page. Really neat video, by the way.

Fran, from the library comments on my post from the 20th:

“The READ posters have been very popular here in Skokie. We’re planning a major Skokie READS initiative and will be recruiting other community leaders and residents to appear on posters for display in the library and beyond. I did want you to know that our What’s New blog, ChicagoJobs Coaching page, and our newest member of the family, SkokieTalk all have RSS feeds. Sign up for them to find out what’s happening in Skokie, Illinois! Brought to you by Skokie Public Library… Thanks again!”

Wow! What a fantastic way to interact with and build communities. Thanks Fran.

Today, Barbie and I took a day off from parenting and drove out to the North Fork with friends for some wine tasting, cheese eating, and adult conversation. A lovely day. Now, back to real life.

More pictures here.