This blog and I are taking a long holiday break until January 4th.  See you then! 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS and thanks so much for reading.

Finding the right picture for a blog post can be time consuming.  Not only do you have to find the right image, but you also have to make sure you are using legal images.  Even if your image is one that is legal to use, Creative Commons will require that you attribute it to the right person.

Enter Sprixi, a site that helps you search for images and then creates the right attribution statement for you.  You can either use the image and statement as one file, or get them separately for more control over how they are shown on your blog.

This is a super idea for bloggers and an ideal site to demonstrate what correct usage of images should look like.

Here’s an example of an image and attribution (done in an elegant way):

Rodd Lucier has produced this program about Creative Commons for educators.  Librarians can learn a lot from it too.  I’ve had the same conversation about Google Images and rights with staff. 

A slick way to find the hottest videos in real time.  Run your mouse over the thumbnails to see titles, then click to view the video.  Videos are pulled from major sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Vimeo. 

It is the interface here that makes it work, with little text and intuitive controls.

Via eHub.

I am an indie film and documentary film fan.  I just discovered a great place to watch documentaries.  SnagFilms offers streaming documentaries online for free.  If you are a film maker, you are welcome to submit your film as well.  This makes it a fascinating mix of professional documentaries that are fairly well-known and amateur efforts. 

It’s a very nice complement to Hulu. 

Google Browser Size is a great new tool for libraries to use to check out how people are viewing their site.  It puts an transparent layer on an image of your website so that you can see what portion of your website a given percentage of users can see.

The best part about this is that you don’t have to install anything at all.  Just type your URL into the tool and it shows the layer.  For us, we have about 90% that can view the most important part of our site without scrolling.  Whew! 

The amazing Seth Godin has What Matters Now, a new FREE ebook out.  He asked 70 big thinkers for an idea that will have impact in 2010.  I am about halfway through the book and have so many ideas percolating that it’s as if I just returned from a great conference.

Image by Tojosan via Flickr

Check out Chris Brogan’s speech at Le Web to better understand why libraries should be on Twitter and other social media.  If it inspires you, make sure you check out his new book, Trust Agents.  Also follow his blog.

Here are some of the pieces that caught my attention as I watched:

He views Twitter as a “serendipity engine.” 

One of the values of social media is the “Power of a Platform,” meaning having a place to speak from and have a voice.  I personally found this to be the power of blogging.  I started blogging from a very small library and suddenly had a voice that people were listening to.  Very powerful stuff.

Build your online community before you need it.  Brogan recommends promoting other people’s stuff 12 times more than you do your own.  This is about building relationships through giving, something that is also very powerful online.

Look at how many active followers you have rather than the number of people following you on a given social media site.  Make sure you nurture those relationships.

Brogan ends with a series of questions that will have you thinking deeply about how social media will impact your services.  Great stuff!

Image via CrunchBase

I always love lists like this because I get to take a tour of sites I may not have ever seen and get to crow with glee when one of my favorites makes the list. 

I must grip about the very first category of Blogging/Microblogging.  They list Bloglines for reading feeds, but not the great Google Reader?  Bah! 

In the Film category they got it just right as far as I am concerned.  My four favorite websites are listed.  Great choices for film buffs or for librarians who do the DVD selecting. 

I admit that I groaned when Twitter did not make the Social software list, only to grin when I saw it had its very own category.  Well alrighty then!

Bravo Guardian to a well-done list.  My only gripe is with the exclusion of Google Reader.

The Unquiet Library asks teens What Makes a Library a Library?  And boy did they get answers! 

Big congratula