Answer Boards and Social Searching

I have never posted to an Answer Board. However, when searching online I often find the answers to my questions on Answer Boards (most recently: how to watch movies from my laptop on the tv using a HDMI cable).

I admire the librarians who take the time to 'slam the boards' as they either do it in their own time or have extremely supportive and visionary employers! Working for a small rural public library we simply do not have the resources to spend time answering the questions of those who are outside of our electorate.

Library Thing

I created an account on Library Thing and added a few of my favourite books (not all of course, the list would go on forever!) My catalogue is below:

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/karen.lowe

It was interesting to browse through the different covers that each of the titles were published under and also to see the different libraries that are contributors (including the State Libray of NSW). I can't see myself becoming a regular user but I am impressed by the sites popularity and also by the co-operation and contribution of libraries from all around the world.

del.icio.us

At the Griffith City Library we have a del.icio.us account so I'm going to cheat a little and use that instead of creating my own (which I would never use again). I think social bookmarking is a great idea, however, from experience the problem is remembering to access it! For example, the CWA country of study this year is Egypt and all of the local primary schools do an assignment on the country of study. Each year I put together a Subject Thread of the resources that are available in the library and online. This year is the first year that (using del.icio.us) I tagged all of the webpages that I found BUT I never remember to access del.icio.us when fulfilling requests. I'm pretty sure del.icio.us has fallen into disuse among the other staff members also.

The link to our page is:

http://delicious.com/grifflib?settagview=list