Thing #30: And the Webby goes to....

As you may have noticed, we are late in posting our Thing for November. So this month, we have what we hope is a quick, fun activity for our Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants.

Throughout our Learning 2.0 programs, you've been exploring many of the new internet technologies and websites that are empowering users with the ability to create and share content. But there are so many more emerging every day. And although time will only tell which of these new collaborative, social networking and information tools will remain on top, one thing is for sure, they're not going to go away (at least anytime soon).

For this discovery exercise, participants are asked to select any site from this list of the 13th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners and explore it. The Webby Awards honor excellence in interactive design, creativity, usability and functionality on the Internet in over 100+ Website, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Web categories.

With so many to choose from, it might be handy to first select a category that interests you, like Education, Social Networking or Youth, and then select a tool/site to explore from that shorter list.

Be careful to select a tool that is Free. Some services may require a plug-in or download.

Assignment:

1. Select any site/tool from the list of the 13th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners.
   
2. Explore the site/tool you selected.
3. Create a post about your discovery. What did you like or dislike about the tool? What were the site’s useful features? Could you see any applications for its use in a library setting?

Thing #29: Book-Based Social Networks

In the past, Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants have explored LibraryThing (Thing #12) and WorldCat.org (Thing #26).

LibraryThing, which describes itself as “an online service to help people catalog their books easily,” offers members many opportunities for socializing and sharing book-related information with other members. It is considered by many to be the granddaddy of all social book sites.

WorldCat.org, the public interface to OCLC’s famous union catalog, has also recently been enhanced with social networking functionality. While the social features of WorldCat.org aren’t nearly as developed as those in LibraryThing, their addition to the service signals an understanding by OCLC developers of the public’s growing demand for a participatory, social online experience.

One interesting similarity between LibraryThing and WorldCat.org is that they both started out as catalogs, but they have become (or or striving to become, in the case of WorldCat.org) social sites where book lovers congregate.

That leads us to this month’s Thing #29: Book-Based Social Networks. For this Thing we will focus on services that were designed from the ground up as social networking sites for book lovers. Your assignment will be to explore at least one of these book-based social networking sites in greater depth and then blog about it.

Here are a few popular book-based social networking sites that you might choose to explore for Thing #29:

• Visual Bookshelf -- Visual Bookshelf is a popular Facebook application that allows users to share what they are reading not only with other Visual Bookshelf users but also with Facebook friends. It boasts 684,661 monthly active users.
  
  Book lovers who want to access the functionality of Visual Bookshelf without going through Facebook can do so at LivingSocial: Books, by creating a separate Living Social account or signing in with Facebook Connect.
  
  So what can you do with Visual Bookshelf? You can:
  
  
  • Search for books by title, author, or ISBN
  
  
  • Add books to your collection with the status of “Already read,” “Want to read,” or “Reading now”
  
  
  • Rate and review books
  
  
  • Share your book lists, ratings, and reviews with Facebook friends who also use the Visual Bookshelf application
  
  
  • Display your visual bookshelf on your Facebook profile, so friends who don’t use the application can still see what you are reading.
  
  
  • Publish what you are reading to your Facebook Wall. (This is a particularly good way to start conversations with Facebook friends who have read the same book or are interested in reading it.)
  
  
  • Receive recommendations based on your reading history.
  
  
  • See which other Visual Bookshelf users have read a book, and then see what other books they’ve read.
  
  
• weRead – weRead is another book-based social networking service that is available not only as a stand-alone web site but also as a Facebook application (395,005 monthly active users). weRead includes many of the same functionalities as Visual Bookshelf, including the ability to:
  
  
  • Add books to a personal bookshelf
  
  
  • Apply a status of “Read it,” “Reading it,” or “Want to Read” to books
  
  
  • Rate and review books
  
  
  • View friends’ bookshelves
  
  
  • Get personalized book recommendations.
  
  Unique features of weRead include Author pages, book quizzes (including The Never Ending Book Quiz), the ability to create or join public or private book clubs, and to read free online books.


• Goodreads – Goodreads’ mission is “to improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world.” Like other book-based social networking sites, Goodreads provides users with the opportunity to share their reading tastes with not only “friends” but also other Goodreads users.
  
  Goodreads provides users with three default shelves to which they can add books – “Read,” “Currently-Reading,” and “To-Read.” Users can create additional, self-defined shelves to further categorize their collection.
  
  Goodreads doesn’t offer personalized “recommendations” the way some of the other social book sites do, but it does provide some unique ways to find books, including the ability to browse lists such as “Thickest Books Ever,” “Most Proactive Female Protagonist,” “Books That Should Be Made Into Movies,” and “Interesting and Readable Nonfiction.” Members can also browse books via categories such as “genre,” “popular shelves,” “popular bookclub books,” and “recent reviews.”
  
  Other notable features include a particularly active author community and many active Groups. Goodreads’ Groups page lists “recently active groups,” “recently popular groups,” “groups in [your city, state],” “new groups,” and “goodreads author groups.” It’s also possible to browse by group categories. Take a look at the Organizations -> Libraries groups subcategory to see how some libraries are using these groups! Groups can be public, restricted, private, or secret.
  
  Like weReads, Goodreads is also available as a Facebook application (90,455 monthly active users).


• Booksprouts – If you are particularly interested in finding an online social site to support a book club, check out Booksprouts, which claims it is “making book clubs and reading groups easy, online.” For more information about Booksprouts read their FAQs or watch one of their Demo Videos. One promising feature of Booksprouts is Book Choice, a process designed to help book clubs decide what to read next. Book Choice supports nominations and voting by club members.

Tip: Adding Applications to Facebook

Several of the services listed above are available as Facebook applications. If you already have a Facebook account, but aren’t sure how to add an application, here’s a brief overview of the process:

1. While logged in to your Facebook account, click on the “Applications” button that appears at the left end of the Chat Bar at the bottom of your screen.
2. Click on “Browse More Applications.”
3. If you know the name of the application you want to add, type its name (e.g., Visual Bookshelf) in the “Search Apps” box that appears at the top left corner of the “All Applications” page.
4. Select your application from the Search Results page.
5. Click on the blue “Go to Application” button on the left side of the application page.
6. Click on the blue “Allow” button to add the application to your Facebook account.
7. If you’d like, you can bookmark the application so it appears on your Applications menu. To do this:
   
   1. Click again on the “Applications” button that appears at the left end of the Chat Bar at the bottom of your screen.
   2. Select “Edit Applications.”
   3. Click on the “Edit Settings” link to the right of the application you want to bookmark.
   4. Click on the “Bookmark” tab.
   5. Click the box to the left of “Bookmark [application name]” to add a check to it.
   6. Your application should now appear as a bookmarked application on your Applications menu.

For additional help with applications see General Application Support in Facebook’s Help Center.

Assignment

After exploring at least one of the book-based social networks, write a blog post about your experience with the service.

Here are some blog prompts if you’re having trouble thinking of what to write about:

1. Did you find the site easy and intuitive to use?
2. Do you feel that services like these compete with or complement the programming offered by libraries? Do you see ways in which libraries could use these services to further their own mission?
3. If you completed Thing #26 (WorldCat.org) discuss the similarities and differences between WorldCat.org and the social book site you explored for this Thing.
4. In exploring the service you chose to explore, did you stumble on any new books you’d like to read?

Thing #28 : Google Reader

Thing #28 is all about Google Reader. Google Reader is an RSS reader. If you already know what RSS is, then skip down to the section on Getting Started with Google Reader. If you are new to RSS feeds, then keep reading to learn what they are and how you can use them.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. RSS is a file format that is used to deliver regularly updated information over the web. In order to read this RSS information, you need to use some type of RSS reader. There are tons of them out there. If you participated in the original Nebraska Learns 2.0, you might remember in Thing #6 you used the Bloglines reader.

The great thing about using RSS feeds is that it brings information from many sources to one central location – your RSS reader. When you have been out surfing the web, have you seen any of these funny icons? When you see one of those icons it means there is an RSS feed available. In addition to the icons, you may simply see wording that says RSS, Subscribe, Posts or other creative wording. RSS feeds are all over the web, but some of the common places you may run across them are on blogs and news sites. Here are just a few sites where you can find feeds:

• Omaha World Herald
• Scottsbluff Star Herald
• Kearney Hub
• Nebraska Library Commission
• Unshelved (Library cartoon)
• Library Journal
• You can even set up an RSS feed for search results from the Wilson OmniFile database. After performing a search, look for the RSS icon towards the top of the screen.

RSS in Plain English (3:44) is a short video that does a great job of explaining what RSS is.

Getting Started with Google Reader

Before we dive into the Google Reader, let’s start off by watching this short video.

In order to use Google Reader, you will need a Google Account. If you don’t a Google Account, don’t panic – if you have a Blogger account that username and password should work with Google Reader. Let’s get started by going on to Google Reader (http://reader.google.com/) and logging on. As I just mentioned you can use either your Google account information or your Blogger account information. If you do not have either of those, you will need to Create an Account.

Next you need to add some feeds. There are many ways you can do this.

• If you know the URL of a feed, copy the URL. In Google Reader click the Add a subscription button and paste the URL in the box.


• Do you have a favorite website that you visit regularly to check for new information? See if the site has an RSS feed.


• No idea what feed you want to subscribe to? That’s OK. Click on the Add a subscription button in Google Reader. Now enter a search term and click Add. The system will return a list of feeds matching your search term. The result list includes helpful information including the number of subscribers and number of posts per week. To view the feed before you subscribe, click on the feed name. To subscribe, click on the Subscribe button.


• In Google Reader you can also Browse for Stuff. On the left hand side of the screen is a link to Browse for Stuff. You can locate individual feeds or grab a Bundle. We’ll talk more about Bundles later on.


• Already have your favorite feeds set up in Bloglines? You can easily export them and then import them into Google Reader. In Bloglines go to My Feeds – Edit - Export Subscriptions. Save the OPML file to your computer. In Google Reader go to Settings – Import/Export and upload the OMPL file.

Reading Your Feeds

Now that you have feeds it’s time to read them. This Google video does a great job of explaining how to read feeds.

The video is seven months old and during that time they added a new feature I wanted to make sure you’re aware of. There is now a small arrow on the Mark All As Read button. Clicking the arrow allows you to select if you want to mark everything as read or only those items that are older than one day, one week or two weeks.

Stars and Like

An easy way to keep track of an item that you enjoy or want to reference in the future is to star it. When viewing an item, there is an outline of a star next to the title of the item and a star and the wording Add Star at the bottom of the item. Clicking on either star will turn the star yellow. In the future, you can go back and view the items you starred by clicking on the Starred Items link on the left hand side of the screen.

Did you read an item you liked? Would you like to tell the world, or at least other Google Reader users, that you liked it? Click on the Like button located underneath the item. Keep in mind that everyone who reads that same feed as you do in Google Reader will be able to see that you Like an item. Check out Google Help to learn more about this feature.

Sharing Items

Now that you’re reading all of these feeds maybe you want to start sharing some of the great information you've read. Google Reader offers a number of ways to share information. The Share and Share With Note options located at the bottom of each item allows you to share an item with the world or with a selected group of friends simply by clicking on either of the links. Before you start sharing, you should check your Sharing Settings. In this area you can also search for selected friends. Sharing Settings is located under the People You Follow area on the left side of the screen. If you don't see the Sharing Settings link, click on the small plus sign next to People You Follow wording.

Another way to share an item is to email it. At the bottom of each item there is an email link. Clicking on it will create an email.

On August 12th, Google Reader introduced another way to share items. It’s called Send to… It’s an easy way to share a post to other sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger, to name just a few. Read the post on the Google Reader Blog to learn how to use this feature.

In addition to sharing individual items, you can also share a list of feeds with your friends. A list of feeds is called a Bundle. If your friends have created any bundles you will see them listed in the Browse for Stuff area. You can access it by clicking on Browse for Stuff on the left hand side of the screen. In this area, you can also create your own bundles. If you would like to see how bundles work you can add me (librarianallana) as a person you are sharing with. Then you will be able to see the two bundles I've created. One of the Bundles is a list of feeds from libraries across the state. (If you know of any feeds I've missed, please let me know.)

Assignment

1. Sign up for a Google Reader account.
2. Add the feed for Nebraska Learns 2.0 to your reader. (Follow the link, copy the URL and add the URL to Google Reader.)
3. Follow two of your fellow Nebraska Learns 2.0 participants' blogs. The list of blogs can be found on the Participants page. Before adding a feed you may want to look at their blog and see how actively they are blogging.
4. Add three more feeds of your choice. They can be anything you want.
5. Set up and use the Send To option to share an item to your blog.
6. Blog about your experience using Google Reader. If you have used another reader, how does it compare to Google Reader?