Social Cataloguing

At present i'm trying to triangulate a point between three fans where I can achieve maximum coolness; thus far I am experiencing mixed success (cool ankles and ears, still too hot in all areas between). Any more of this 30 celsius nonsense and i'm moving to Siberia. Oops I forgot to say hello

Hello, loyal blog readers! This week in 23 Things we are exploring social cataloguing sites.

I'm no stranger to LibraryThing and have been using it for a while. The layout is simple and you can organise books into different shelves, as well as use keywords to connect with similar books and indeed similar-minded readers. I also enjoy the 'stats/memes' function, where you can view stats for your library in a number of different ways, including: 'vous et nul autre', books shared between you and exactly one other LibraryThing member and 'controversial books', a list of your most 'controversial' books as measured by standard deviation of members' star ratings. Somewhat unsurprisingly for me, I've enjoyed several things that others haven't, but then, Angry White Pyjamas does cater to a bit of a niche readership...

In the interests of branching out, I'm now using GoodReads as well. Overall, I must admit I find the site nicer to use - the colour scheme is brighter, for starters, and I like the quotations and quizzes that are available to catalogue on the site, as well as books. The 'Listopia' function is also interesting, similar to the lists you can create on Amazon. Speaking of which, Shelfari (Amazon's contribution to the social cataloguing website medley) intrigues me, as I wonder exactly how much it is about 'cataloguing' as opposed to 'getting people to buy things.' More to follow on this, as it seems you have to sign in using your Amazon account, something I don't plan on doing at work.


If you happen to be bored, or have a spare moment or two, you can check out my 'read' bookshelf on GoodReads here:

my read shelf:


Until the next post - keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep blogging!

Online bookmarking, the world beyond old receipts and train tickets

Hello readers!

Welcome to the first blog post for July, we're now officially in the midst of the British summer and enjoying all the bounteous sunshine that it has to offer!

..........

ahem.

I have spent the last few weeks dabbling in bookmarking sites including Pearltrees, Pinterest and LibraryThing, with a side order of Delicious and Evernote, though I haven't had too much success with the latter. In terms of Perry's 'organisational thinking', this surprises me:

American philosopher, John Perry, identified two types of organisational thinking.* Vertical organisers tend to to work on one task at a time, with an uncluttered surface and make good use of filing cabinets and (in a computer sense) hierarchical folders. Traditional bookmarking sites favour vertical thinking.

By contrast, horizontal organisers like all their projects spread out in front of them so everything is close to hand. The approach is used as a memory aid to keep track of project status, and as a prompt to carry out tasks. More modern bookmarking sites, such as PearlTrees, are better suited to horizontal organisers.

 *OUCS (2011) Reserach Information Managment: Organising Humanities Material. Oxford University Computing Service, Oxford.

I would have said that I am a 'vertical organiser', working on one thing at a time in a linear, hierarchical way. (I have been known to sub-divide my e-mail and T drive folders to a ridiculous degree.) However, given that i've found Pearltrees, particularly, to be more useful in re-designing the Hair and Beauty e-maps from the old VLE, it would seem that I have 'horizontal' tendencies as well! Not like that.

This brings me to Pinterest, another real discovery for me in terms of presenting information. I've been playing around with boards largely for Hair and Beauty, my subject liaison. I found this a particularly difficult subject to be involved with initially, as my liaison roles at Brockenhurst were very academic and suited a different type of support. Pinterest is brilliant because it allows you to select useful tidbits, including photographs, and organise them however you see fit - up until recently i've been pinning onto a 'Hair and Beauty Inspiration board', something I think Holly used to do, and it works very well with this. I did manage to share it with a member of the department who was interested in showing this to students, so I'd call that a success!

Lastly, I have always enjoyed using LibraryThing as a virtual extension of my bookshelf, the online branch of my reading 'empire', as it were. I particularly like the 'connections' feature which suggests other books you might like, without the same element of rampant capitalism with which certain online retailers do the same thing. It also makes excellent widgets.

I leave you with this gem, courtesy of Pinterest. Let us not forget our paperback origins in this brave new digital world :) Until next time!