CCLS 23 Things #13: Technorati

To me, the blogosphere seems like cable TV -- all those choices and still (almost) no content. The time you need to invest in exploration just doesn't seem worth the return. And from my limited exploration, I don't think Technorati would help very much with this problem.

I'm interested in music, so I clicked the music link in the Technorati Blog Directory. The first page of results included blogs focused on the gay male lifestyle, celebrity gossip, and electronic gadgets, none of which interests me. Presumably all these blogs include music in their list of topics somehwere?

I tried the suggested search on library 2.0 and found the results similarly frustrating. Apparently the default is a full text search, and none of the results on the first page was even related directly to libraries. Changing the search to target tags produced results that were at least a little more relevant.

I checked out the top 100 most Popular Tags, and found that library was not among them. I guess that shouldn't be a surprise! Sort of keeps our work in perspective...

This is not to say that I never read blogs. I receive a daily email digest from ArtsJournal that includes a number of blogs. I'm OK with a choice among several targeted blogs like this -- I'm not OK with pages and pages of mostly irrelevant search results.

CCLS 23 Things #11: Library Thing

I set up a Library Thing account and added eight books. I deliberately chose a variety of titles, which probably makes it less likely that certain features on the site—the recommendations and similar libraries functions—will be able to figure me out.

I always have more than enough titles on my "must read" list, so I doubt I would go to Library Thing for suggestions. However, I might use the site to keep track of my current and future reading, especially books borrowed from the library. I don't see much point in duplicating my home library in an online version, but I would like to have a list of things that I've read that I don't own. The tags and comments could be useful for reminding me what a book was about—these days it seems I can't remember anything about the books I've read except whether I liked them or not!