By now you would have noticed my friend to the right. The little fellow filled with covers from magical books. I am Smokey Thebandito, therefore this little midgetwidget is 'Thebanditos Stash'. It is a collection of my favourite books. It is a collection that will definitely grow. Popular to contrary belief I have actually read more than 8 books in my life. At last count the notches on my bed post stand at 729. And that doesn't even count the books I read in the living room, or at work. It is supplied to me, in partnership, from a new acquaintance I like to call www.librarything.com. This is an online library! You can create an account to formulate your own personal library a la Thebanditos Stash and tag what books you like, what genres you would apply to them and even your favourite cover to use. It is akin to an online popularity contest for books filled with warm fuzzies. Groovy.
Something else I looked at is the website formally known as del.icio.us, it has now changed its name to www.delicious.com to appeal more to the mainstream market. It has sold out to the man if you will. This site really didn't appeal to me. I gave it a cursory glance and found it similar to a precocious, contemptuous version of Google. It's did you mean feature even managed to came across as a pretentious upstart where google's seems quite polite and unobtrusive. But I am very judgemental. Both websites definitely have a future for research assistance. But are they just glorified, more personalized versions of a catalogue and a browser? I will address these issues and more. But only in my mind. Here you will have to settle for a couple of sentences. Librarything could become an amazing tool for Libraries and even library systems as a whole. Imagine a future where you can log onto your RSS feed and find out the 12 most popular books from the entire Auckland regional library system. Definitively answering once and for all the question 'What is Auckland reading?' Yes, the answer will actually be either 'nothing' or 'we have finally worked our way up to Lynley Dodd' but it'll be interesting nonetheless.
Chiao
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