Just featured this link on our library website:

Newsweek has a fascinating list of books that speak to what is great reading for our times.  There are surprising books in the list, but that just makes it all the more enjoyable to browse through.  The list was designed for people with limited time to read who want to get either perspective on our times or see themselves in new ways.  The list is a tantalizing mix of nonfiction and fiction, old and new.

I love a list that mixes and mashes genres, topics, interests into something new and better than a themed list.  This list expects readers to be bright, informed and interested in learning more.  What a great thing to offer our patrons!

Blindsearch compares three leading search engines results for your search and displays the results with all of the search engine branding removed.  After looking at the three sets of results side-by-side, you vote for which one you like best and the search engines are all revealed.  The site searches Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

I found myself trying to guess which was which rather than which was better, but it is equally interesting that way too.  I find that I like the results of Google and Yahoo! interchangeably and have yet to select Bing as the top choice.

Definitely of use for classes on searching, this is also a nice tool to have to personally figure out which search engine works best for you.

This is a very interesting little Twitter-related site that builds a psychological profile of a person based on their tweets.  They analyze the last 1000 tweets you have done.  You get both Cognitive Content and Emotional Content.  Here are mine:

Cognitive Content

1. Education
2. Positive emotions
3. Social processes
4. Number
5. Upward motion
6. Occupation & work

Primordial, Conceptual and Emotional Content

1. Glory
2. Social behavior
3. Order

I like the education up high and the positive emotions.  But heck, does Glory have to be #1 for emotion?  Perhaps it’s telling me something I’m just not willing to face yet? 

The site uses just a profile name to run the analysis, so you can run it on friends and famous tweeters.

Wordnik is a new online dictionary that capitalizes on social networking for its content.  Search for a word and you will get a definition, and much more.  You get examples of the word in a sentence, real time results from Twitter, images from Flickr, and recorded pronunciations.  As a user, you can tag the word with other words and record your own pronunciation.

This weekend (and I assume the last one too) our website did not update to the summer weekend hours.  Meaning that we had people check the website, drive to our library, only to be met by a locked door.  Not what you want when trying to serve your community to the best of your ability! 

This morning, I got one angry email and then a phone call where the person was amazingly kind about it but firm in saying that she expects better from us.  I responded by saying that I do too!  I apologized profusely to both the email and call.

In the old days, that would have been it.  Apologize to those who complain, hope there aren’t too many, work to fix the issue, and then forget it.  But today, I got the chance to do more than that.  I took responsibility publicly.

I first Tweeted apologies via our library account.  Then I placed an apology on our website.  Front and center, prominently located. 

We expect better of ourselves.  We expect not to have things like this happen.  But when they do, we need to be open about it, take our lumps, be responsible, and not try to hide it. 

Yes, now my board will see that we messed up, now others who did not get caught in the error will notice that we made a fairly big mistake.  My hope though is that they will see beyond the mistake and to us doing the right thing.  And that they will want to use a library that is open, honest and forthright about its shortcomings and glories. 

Two very different but equally intriguing services for Twitter fans:

LocalTweeps is a site that lets you register yourself under your zipcode and be listed in local lists.  You can browse by most recent additions, top cities, or top states.  You can search by zipcode, username, city, state or keyword.  Enter a search with a location and you will then have the option to browse by city or state.  Very slick. 

Libraries who are tweeting will find it useful to connect to local users with this tool.

TweetReach is a service that lets you see how far your tweet traveled.  It is only useful if you are tweeting about something fairly unique, following a specific URL, or using a hashtag.  Enter the item you want to search for and you will get to see how many countries it reached and how many people tweeted about it.

Very useful for searching news on your library, hashtags you actively use or start, or your URL.

Yes, Microsoft’s new search engine.  Looking to replace Google in our hearts and clicks, it misses by seeming to be just a clone rather than a revolutionary new tool.  But that is first glance.  Dig a little deeper, and it does offer some very nice features. 

You have to move to Images and Videos to really see what Bing is offering.  With its Images search, Bing offers faster results, a cleaner screen, and more on each page.  Mousing over the image gives the image size, URL, and an option to see similar images.  Great when you are close to the image you need, but not quite there yet. 

In Videos, Bing really rocks.  Just their mouse-over preview feature will have me returning.  Again, the results are offered with minimal information resulting in a cleaner screen.  All you get is the website hosting the video and its length.  Click through and you will get the full URL for the video. 

I don’t know if enough people will look deep enough to see the nice simple design.  More general searches are so close to those of Google that they are unremarkable.  While I will return for images and videos, something just as simple and yet clever has to be done for general searches to even have this be a contender at all.

Typing tutors are always nice to be able to offer the public.  Not only is it a really important skill to learn and practice, but it’s also great fun.  This site offers free registration, but for those patrons who just want to sit down and use it, that works too.  If you register on the site, it will track your progress and give you some additional content at no charge. 

The typing tutor is very easy to use with colored boxes telling you when you have made an error.  At the end of any lesson, you get to see your typing speed and number of errors. 

Unlike many typing tutors, this one lets you set your own difficulty level, so there is no need for advanced typists to work their way through the beginning levels. 

This site fills a service niche for libraries who may otherwise have purchased typing tutors to have them on hand.  It’s also a nice service to promote when talking about job-related services in general. 

Directions are very handy when you are traveling to a new city.  HopStop fills a special niche for those of us traveling without a car.  Their directions are for subway, busses or walking.  The site covers New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC and London. 

You enter your starting and ending addresses and tell the site how you would like to travel.  You can limit it to both bus and subway, or just one mode of transportation, including walking only.  You will need to give your departure time if using bus or subway.  The site will also give you a taxi cost/time as an option.

Full confession, there is no way in the world that I could be considered a crafter.  None.

But this site intrigued even me.  It is an online gallery where anyone can upload images of their art, crafts and photography.  The images are large and offer great inspiration for other crafters to draw from.  When you click on any image, it leads you to a webpage.  Some sell the item in the image, others offer crafting information, so you get a variety of websites attached.

Now, I am a much better cook than a crafter!  So I get very inspired here.  Again, they have large images that will lead you to recipes, blog posts, conversations, and much more. 

Both sites are perfect for explaining social networking to novices.  Both subjects are inviting and tangible, making the social piece more approachable.  I’d use either of them in a Web 2.0 course.