Web 2.0 Project # 3 - LibraryThing Project

     For my third and final project, I chose to check out the website LibraryThing. LibraryThing is basically a virtual library shelf for you to share with hundreds of other users. The user of the website has the ability to participate in book discussions, read book reviews, and post a book review of their own. Not only that, but it is possible to search for any book made on this website, which will give you the details of the book such as who wrote it and when it was published. Here is a link to my profile: http://www.librarything.com/profile/SpencerLitten

A LibraryThing profile is broken down in the following manner:

• Profile Information
• Virtual Library Shelf
• Discussions
• Reviews

When joining LibraryThing, you are given your own profile that contains your very own virtual library shelf. Your shelf contains books that you are reading, having read, and need to read. There is the option to organize them alphabetically or by author. In order to add a book, merely type in the title of the book that you are looking for on the search bar of the website. Then, after finding the title, click the link of the title, and then click on a button with a green plus that says 'add to library.' Above this button is a grid that will say reviews, and then the number of reviews. In order to write a book review, click on the number of reviews, then there should be an option to write a review. In order to contribute to a discussion, under your virtual library shelf in your profile, click on any book that you would like. Under the title of that book will be a link to discussions, where you can contribute. A library could implement this into their community by giving each patron an account, allowing them to track what books they read. 

Web 2.0 Project #2 - Photo Sharing Project

     For my second project to complete my 50 points for the Web 2.0 project, photo sharing was my choice (as you may have obviously seen from my previous pictures.) I have been photo sharing for about two years now, and I find it to be a great form of documentation. I actually have a folder on my hard drive labeled 'My Life', that contains exactly that. I have pictures from at least the past three years of special events, seasons, and anything else marking a chapter in my life. A library could do this is as well. Already, many libraries will have a picture of their library on their website.
     One thing that libraries could do more often is take pictures of events that have occurred and post the pictures on their website. I know many libraries have pictures of the librarians that work there so the users that come in will be able to recognize them. Acquiring pictures for a library can be a very tricky process however, especially if you aren't part of the staff of a library. When I made an attempt to take some pictures inside my library, I was told that it was illegal for me to do and to stop immediately. Personally, a mixture of impatience and laziness would keep me from asking permission to share a photo from someone else, though I know it's the right thing to do.
     Usually the owner of the picture will enable sharing or not on Flickr, which is a very good indication that permission is granted to share. Even so, I think it is mandatory to give credit to the artist. Flickr was the main website that I decided to check out as well as the photo sharing software Picasa. While Flickr is a nice place to post photos, I could see myself using Picasa for just about everything photo related.

Virtual Library Tour

As a part of the Web 2.0 Projects, I made the decision to take part in a photo sharing project. For this, I had to take some pictures of my library and create a virtual tour of sorts. My library is the beautiful Grand Rapids Public Library, located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I was able to get some great photos of the outside of the building. Unfortunately, when I entered the building, I was not granted permission to take photos of the inside, so I suppose this virtual tour has a fee of sorts. I compiled my photos into a set on my Flickr account. So, form a single file line for your very own virtual tour of the Grand Rapids Public Library! (sort of)

Twitter Project-Final Blog

Wow, well, it looks like this semester is almost finished for me. For this project, I had to experiment with a form of technology that I could use in a library. I decided to go with Twitter for this project. After all, I'm one of those people who was late to getting a Twitter account, now would be my perfect excuse to take part in the Twitter epidemic. Honestly, I found Twitter to be trivial, but I never found myself checking my page constantly for updates from those that I followed. I found plenty of people to follow, that wasn't too much of a problem. There were a multitude of library organizations on Twitter to follow as well as some of the bands that I listen to and celebrities that I enjoy. I followed The Grand Rapids Public Library, Kent District Library, and OCLC, to name a few. I found that the Kent District Library page was very helpful due to the fact that they will post whenever a job opening is available on their Twitter page. The Grand Rapids Public Library gave me helpful updates of when it will close early, or what activities are going on there. OCLC helped me stay up to date on the latest edition of the Dewey Decimal Classification. I already think microblogging has been implemented into many libraries quite well. All of the uses that I could think of, such as posting job openings, hours, and program updates, are already being done with Twitter. While I personally don't check my Twitter account as often as I should, the times that I would check it, I was provided with very useful information. I think Twitter is a great why to provide this technologically absorbed generation with sufficient information.

Session 13 Skills Blog

For this blog post, I decided to use the article "Hardening the Browser" by Kathleen M. Kern. This article was published in the Spring of 2012. I found my article in the Academic Search Premiere database of EBSCHO HOST. In order to find this article, I kept the search terms rather simple by typing in library internet, all lower case. "Hardening the Browser" speaks of increasing the privacy of library users' information when they use the internet. The features of each popular web browsers are covered, and then the author describes which areas of security need to be improved in each web browser. I know that my library primarily uses Mozilla FireFox, because they believe that that browser is the easiest to protect user information with.

Picasa Project.

For the grand total of 2 people that view my blog posts, does anyone here remember the movie Fargo? You know, the movie that takes place in the middle of nowhere, and it's really snowy all the time? Well, this winter when I was out in Allendale, Michigan, I couldn't help but think of that movie when I saw the beautiful countryside that was around me, so I decided to take pictures of it. I was going to take pictures of the some of the flooding that the Grand River has done to me here, but when I saw this album, I couldn't resist but upload a slideshow of these pictures instead. What I found to be pretty coincidental is that I drive an economy car just like the character off of Fargo did, and I'm driving in a similar area. Go find the opening credits soundtrack to these pictures and it will fit pretty well. Anyway, I'm getting off topic, I just wanted to share these.

Web 2.0 Project

So for my Web 2.0 Project, I decided to do the Twitter Project. Here is a link to my Twitter page, my username is just Spencer Litten. https://twitter.com/SpencerLitten