LibraryThing - Lesson 4

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LibraryThing is an online tool designed to help you organize your books and connect to other readers. In this lesson we are going to set up a LibraryThing account, add books to your account, learn how to connect with other LibraryThing readers and do a little tagging.

Photo titled: Manga Reader
Photo by Poo-tee-weet
See Creative Commons license

Set up account....

Click on the url: http://www.librarything.com

Log in with your user name; make up a password and add your email address. This is important if you forget your password. Enter. You have set up your LibraryThing account.

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Add a book......

We are going to start by adding one book. Click on the "Add Books" tab. In the search screen, we will start by adding a book by the ISBN number. Please type in "0060175966" and enter. You will see the book The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester pop up on the right. Click on it. You've added a book to your library. You may delete it later.

Click on "Home" tab.

You will see that LibraryThing has created a list of recommended books for you based on your one entry. Under "Recent Recommendations" you'll see recommendations automatically generated by LibraryThing based on your choice and personal recommendations from LibraryThing members who have read the Professor and the Madman.

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Add another book.......

Grab a favorite book from your library shelf at home or work and add it to LibraryThing. Unless your book is pretty old, you'll find the ISBN number on the copyright page in the front matter of the book. Type in the ISBN number in the search box and enter.

To the right you'll see the title, any maybe an image, of the book. Click on it to add to your library. You've added another book to your library.

Click on "home" tag.


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Join a group........

Click on the "Groups" tab. In "search for groups" box, type in keyword(s) for a group that might interest you; it can be the author or a subject keyword. Explore groups and join one of them by clicking on the "Join this group" yellow icon in the upper-right side of the web page. (You can "un-join" later if you decide to leave).

Photograph titled: Le Reader, photo by Moriza
Read her Creative Commons license

You have a library of two books and you've joined a book group!

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Click on "your profile" tab at the top of the browser. Notice "Connection News" Already you have a number of connections because others have also added your same books to their library and have activity in their libraries, mostly adding books or adding comments. Click on "Connections News" and on the drop down list click on "Connections" and spend little time looking the the books recently added by your connections.

Back to the input mode:
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Add more books........

Grab any seven books you like from the Whittemore Library or home bookshelf and add them to your library. If you choose books with ISBN numbers in the front matter, this will go quickly, but it's a good practice to enter one old book from your shelf.

Take a coffee break or just play around with LibraryThing.

End of break

Make a LibraryThing friend or two.....

Click on your "profile" tab and look at the "Members With Your Books" list in the green panel on the right. Click on "weighted", "raw" and "recent" outputs. You will intuitively understand the difference by looking at the difference in the results. Click on and explore the libraries of various members. Choose one you like and click on "Add to Friends" icon in the upper right-hand side of browser. You have sent an invitation to become a friend, but it won't be official until he/she accepts your offer.

Photograph titled Attimi Rubati, photograph by seleniamorgillo
See his Creative Commons license

Add me as a friend. I promise to accept you and will check LibraryThing once a day.

Click on the "Search" tab and type "blavin" in the "members and location" box in the lower right-hand corner of the page. Click on where you see a link to "bslavin" of Framingham, MA. Click on "Add to friends". As soon as I accept you offer you will have a friend in LibraryThing.

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One more book and you are done adding books.....

Click on "Zeitgeist" tab and explore the page. Look at "Top 75 Authors" in the lower right-hand side of page and click on an author you have read. From the list of books written by the author, add one you have read to your library by clicking on "add to your library"

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Almost done...tagging next.....

Click on "my library" tab. Click on "covers" tab and look at results. Click on "list". Play with "styles" tab and find the style you like. Return to style "A". Locate a favorite book and add a tag. A tag would be a way of describing the book or the "aboutness" of the book. So A Hundred Years of Solitude might have a tags like "South American Novel" or "novel" or "Gabriel Garcia Marquez". Tag two more books in your library.

Done!

Congratulations. You've complete the LibraryThing lesson. There's a lot more to it, so please explore it's many facets and features.

Please add a comment to the bottom of this post that you have completed the assignment.

Thanks.

One more lesson to go.

Explore Flickr - Lesson 3

Flickr is a great application for sharing and organizing your photographs.

I am not asking you to join Flickr; we are just going to explore its many features. We are going to start by just jumping in.

Click on http://www.flickr.com/explore

Photograph by Douglas Walker

Creative Commons license Non-commercial 2.0 Generic

In the search bar in the upper right hand page, search for "White Wagtail" in with the "full text" option and the "tags only" option. Notice how many more "hits" there are with full text.

Next, look at on of Sergey's photograph of a White Wagtail in Flickr.

Photograph by Sergey Yeliseev
Creative Commons License

• Look at his tags to the right of the picture: he keeps them simple with the scientific name and common name of the bird (in English).


• His description includes the name of the city: Moscow.
  

Go back to the explore page and search for "Moscow White Wagtail" with the "full text" option and the "tags only" option.

• Notice you will get nine (or more) results with the full text option and none with the tags only option.

Please take time to go back to Sergey's site and click on his "sets" tab. Check on the "wagtails and pipets" set. Chick on "detail" and bookmark this page in del.icio.us with any tags you like.

Go back to the original White Wagtail picture.

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• Notice the sets to the right of the picture. As we have seen, he created a set for "wagtails and pipets" for his own internal organization, but also entered his photograph in a Flickr group called "Birds, Birds, Birds".
  


• Click on the pool and and tag it any fashion you like in Del.icio.us. Notice this group or pool has over 13,000 members

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Photograph by Ahmed Rabea
Creative Commons license

Take a coffee break or spend a little time exploring Flickr on your own. Have fun and play.

End of break.
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Let's jump in again.

Let's go back to the Flickr explore page.



Photography by undercurrent_oa0 Creative Commons license


Explore in Time

• Under the header "interestingness", in the box "Select a Month", choose August, 2004. You will see photographs that qualified as "interesting" from that month.



• Choose any photo and tag it any way you like in del.icio.us.

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Explore the World

• We are still on the Flickr Explore page. On "Other places to explore", click on "A Map of the World". Spend time playing with the zoom controls and tags controls. You'll see the icons in the upper right hand corner. Explore the world.
  


• In the search box, search for "college" in the second box and "Framingham" in the third box. Enter. Click and click again on any of the pictures that pop up until you see the photograph in its Flickr context.
  



• It will be a photograph I've taken at Framingham State College. Because it was geotagged (as well as tagged) the picture is searchable on this map.

Explore a Photo

Look at the photograph of the bound journals. Notice:

• My tagging-the key words I use to describe the photograph. At this point my tagging is a lot messier than Sergey's tagging.

• My groups-the pools I've added the photograph to with the idea of sharing.
• My sets- my own system or organizing my photographs. in Del.icio.us.

Click on the group (pool) "Libraries From Around the World" and tag it in any fashion you like.

Photograph by Barbara L. Slavin
Creative Commons License

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Creative Commons

When you upload a photograph to Flickr, the default for copyright is "All Rights Reserved", which means that you retain full copyright protection. Take a moment to look at the Creative Commons website. If you decide to share your photograph by giving your photograph a Creative Commons license you are allowing others to share, reuse and remix your photographs. Look at the types of licenses in the Creative Commons page in Flickr.

Click on Flickr Advanced Search. In the search window type in anything you would like to search for. Near the bottom of the page, put a check mark next to "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content" Click on "Search". Click on any photograph and tag it in any fashion you like in del.icio.us.

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Congratulations. You've finished the assignment for Flickr. I'll look for your tags in del.icio.us. Leave a comment in this blog that you have finished. Thank you!

Del.icio.us - Lesson 2

Step 1 - Create your own del.icio.us account.

(If you already have a del.icio.us account, go to step 2)

A. Click on del.icio.us

B. Click on the green "Join Now" button.

C. You will see the del.icio.us register page. Create a user name, fill in your full name, create a password and type in your email address where prompted. Type in the word verification letters, put a check mark next to "I agree to the terms of service" and click on "register".

STOP

Open another browser and open your email. You will see an email from del.icio.us which prompts you to click on a link in the body of the email to complete registration. Click on link and return to original browser.

RETURN TO ORIGINAL BROWSER

A. Click on the "Install Buttons" prompt. You will get different responses depending on how up-to-date your browser is and what browser you use.

B. Say "yes" to prompts that ask permission to accept del.icio.us. When you have returned to your browser, you should see two new buttons on your browser toolbar:

1.. Square button: del.icio.us

2. Tag shaped button: tag

Congratulations. You've installed del.icio.us on your browser.

Step 2 - Tag with Del.icio.us

A. Link to the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.

1)Using the tag icon, tag the link: "library" and click the green "save" button.


2) Return to your delicious page. If your link is not displayed, make sure you click on the "bookmarks" tab next to the "home" tab at the top of the page. Take time to explore the features and facets of your bookmarks page and your tagged item -The Mercantile Library.

3) Go back to the Mercantile Library home page, look for book groups, choose "Mystery and Suspense" and apply three tags separated by a space "library librarybookgroup mysteryandsuspense".

4)Click on the green "save" button. Look at your del.icio.us account under your bookmarks and notice how your tags are organized on the right side of the page.

B. Link to the London Library . Tag it "library". Click on the "Shop" tab in the library's website and tag the page "shop" and "library_shop".

C. Tag your own favorites. Look at five of your favorite websites and tag them any way you like, whimsical and zany or organized and thoughtful, anything that works for you. Explore and play with del.icio.us features as you like. ( This is the part where I marvel at the tags column on the right and marvel at how much better this is than the old bookmark system. )

Step 3 - Add Others to Your Network

Add the the Whittemore Library and me to your network.

A. Click on the " Network" tab at the top of the page and click on "add new user to network" on the top right-hand-side of page.

B. Add "barbaraslavin" to your network.

C. Click again and add "librefdesk" to your network.

You now have me (with my jumbled lot of crazy links) and the Whittemore Library (with its links well ordered by discipline) added the your network.

Step 4 -Subscriptions

Subscriptions are a way of keep up on a topic, no matter who tags the links.

A. Click on the "subscription" tab and look for the "edit" tab on the right hand side of the page.

B. Add "catfish" to your subscriptions and save.

C. Click on the "subscriptions" tab and see all the other Internet sites that others have tagged with "catfish".

D. Play around and add two more categories of your own to the subscription list.

Step 5-Recommend a site to someone in your network.

A. Look at your del.icio.us bookmarks and choose a link. Rather than clicking on the link, click on the "edit" tab next to the link.

B. Click on "full screen edit". At the bottom you will see a blue tag called "tags". Click on the "people" tag next it it. You will see my name on the "your network" list.

C. Click on "barbaraslavin" and save. (Green button). You have sent this link to my "links for you" list. I check this tab in my own site to see if my contacts have links they would like me to see.

Congratulations!

You have finished the del.icio.us lesson. Please add a message to this lesson with the address of your del.icio.us site. i.e., http://del.icio.us/melvilledewey (not a real site) Please add a comment to this page that you have finished and or any other comments you would like to make.

Thank you!

Five Things

• For those who haven't already dipped their toes into the 2.0 Web world, and for those who already have, this summer is a good time to explore. Before Labor Day rolls around you will have had a chance to explore a few the most useful and most engaging social media applications. There are five assignments to be completed five weeks. Those who want to play with the new technologies and who complete the tasks (all simple and fun) will celebrate with a breakfast buffet in the Archive Room on September 5, 2008.

• Post messages to this blog to let me know when you have completed a task. For example, the first assignment will be to create a blog in blogger.com. After you do that, go to the lesson page on this blog and post your comment there with the address of your blog.
  The Five Things are as follows:

1. July 28, 2008--Creating a blog- Lesson 1
2. August 4, 2008--Organizing with del.icio.us-Lesson 2
3. August 11, 2008-- Exlporing Flickr - Lesson 3
4. lAugust 18, 2008--Having Fun with LibraryThing-Lesson 4
5. ra August 25--Ultimate Mashup-Lesson 5
6. Assignments should be completed by Friday August 29.

• As you complete your assignments you will get an email from me with your progress shown toward the Five Things project. When all tasks are completed you will be cordially invited to the celebratory breakfast buffet. We are still working on prizes and surprises. I would like to contribute a few of my famous Whiskey Cakes and Apple Pies as additional prizes.

If you need help with any of the tasks, I'd be glad to help you. Please email me at barbara.slavin@comcast.net