Library & Literary Miscellany

Learning 2.1’s most recent post Go with the flow discusses web-based tools for creating flow charts and mind maps. The tools mentioned include:

Flowchart tools:

• Flowchart.com
• Gliffy

Mind map tools:

• Bubbl.us
• Mindmeister

Rev2.org provides an annotated list of these and other similar tools in the post 9 Great Ways to Make Mind Maps and Flow Charts Online.

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Yesterday, I posted on Amazon’s new e-reader–Kindle: crackling ignition of knowledge. However, today I came across the Reader’s Advisor Online blog post about the Kindle. I am linking to this post here, because it provides some helpful tips and resources for librarians:

What to Say When Your Patrons ask About e-books tomorrow (and they will)

This is an article well worth a read–preferably as a preventative measure to when you are faced with patrons who really are asking. Another good overview of the Kindle and its implications for libraries and users is provided by Tom Peters at the ALA TechSource Blog in a post entitled Kindling.

Note (added November 27): There has been some negative feedback regarding the Kindle’s design and features which potential purchasers should note; for an overview of features Amazon might want to consider fixing in the next iteration see Robert Scoble’s video review of the Kindle.

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What is typoGenerator? This question is answered in their FAQ: “typoGenerator is a random generator for ‘typo posters’”. What is a typoPoster? Fortunately, their FAQ covers this as well: ” a typoPoster is a poster, created from images (usually overlayed by some effects) and letters/text that doesnt have any sense, just to look good.”

In essence, typoGenerator is a random and cool tool that is useful for creating professional-looking random images with text. The typoGenerator image creation process works as follows: the user enters some letters into typoGenerator, typoGenerator searches for that text in images.google.com, typoGenerator creates a background from the images it finds and uses randomly chosen effects in the creation of a random and cool finished product. If the user is not satisfied with the final image, then a new image is easily generated by selecting to “destroy” and “try again”. Also, users may choose to have the typoPoster display in portrait or landscape format.

I first heard about typoGenerator through Joyce Valenza’s post about it in her NeverEnding Search. Sometimes typoGenerator works better in creating its tyoPosters than others. The destroy and try again features definitely come in handy when you get poor images.  Here’s a sample typoPoster with my blog name in it:

Some typoPosters emerge in black & white, but many come out in vivid colors as well.  To get a typoPoster with more color, just try again, as per this try typoGenerator typoPoster:

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Google’s September 2007 press release announced MyLibrary (and popular passages) as new features offered by Google Book Search. MyLibrary has engendered love, hate, and “rate it” online discussion–from Phil Bradley’s Google’s MyLibrary: Another Google Trainwreck to O’Reilly Radar’s My Library, Your Library to Wired’s Google’s MyLibrary takes on Shelfari and LibraryThing.

Wired’s article, the aforementioned Google’s My Library Takes on Shelfari and LibraryThing, pretty much sums up the current major players in the “catalog your books online” business (other similar sites worth noting include GuruLib and goodreads). I happen to have accounts at all three book sites–MyLibrary, Shelfari, and LibraryThing; I like (and dislike) aspects of all of these services.

My take on MyLibrary:

• Search: MyLibrary’s search features have their basis in Google’s Custom Search Engine. To the extent that the MyLibrary search works, this is a handy feature for finding passages within books. Thus far, MyLibrary is the only book cataloging site that enables searching within books.
• Comprehensiveness (or lack thereof): When I imported ISBN’s into Google, Google could not find all of my books. It actually missed over 100 ISBNs of books that I had in LibraryThing; it would have taken a good deal of time to look up these ISBNs and then do a Google Book Search to see if they had any additions of the book at all (so I didn’t do it). Thus, it seems that Google needs to keep a going with the indexing and scanning. The more books it recognizes the more useful it becomes. For now, LibraryThing and Shelfari are able to recognize more ISBN’s, since they pull their data from myriad bibliographic book sites on the web (such as Amazon and the Library of Congress).
• Allowable quantity: MyLibrary allows users to add an unlimited amount of books into their library. Shelfari also offers unlimited cataloging; LibraryThing limits free accounts to 200 books (paid membership is not costly, either $10 (year) or $25 (life)).
• About the Book Page: MyLibrary provides a great deal of book and related information on the results page depending on what’s available for a particular book; this information can include links to reviews, popular passages, references from web pages, references from books, other editions, references from scholarly works, and about the author, related books, key terms (view sample About the Book page). Shelfari and LibraryThing also incorporate a great deal of book-related information (and they seem to have more active participants in tagging currently), but neither site matches MyLibrary’s extra features that come from its affiliation with the king of search (such as popular passages or outward links to references from web pages).
• Social Features: MyLibrary offers each user a public page, RSS feed capability, and options to write reviews and to rate and label books; these are nice features but MyLibrary does lack the high degree of social functionality made possible by features such as LibraryThing’s Groups and Shelfari Groups.

To learn more about MyLibrary, visit Google’s MyLibrary homepage or the MyLibrary FAQ. Or, if you prefer to abstain from using Google in at least this one aspect of life, check out the systems in place for cataloging your books at Shelfari (thumbs up for the AJAX components, ease of tagging, and groups) or LibraryThing (thumbs up for blog, the groups, and the myriad ways to add books).

Speaking of online cataloging and organization, Mashable just posted an annotated list of 20+ Media cataloging sites. Wikipedia also has a list of social cataloging applications. Go nuts!

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