I found the entries in the Mashing Up the Library Competition. There are 11 so far. They are located on a forum at the Talis site. Interesting that many of the people who can do amazing stuff like make a mashup don’t have blogs, so haven’t tagged an entry on technorati.

The one that caught my eye was Lillian, a chatbot who is meant to tell you holdings in a library near you. After exhausting the cities I knew in the UK, I entered London, but she still didn’t know what I meant. Looks nice, though.

There’s a cute little cover display that shows all the Mystery items added to the library in the last 6 months.

There’s an entry from the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 It’s just so uber.

Some were created just for the competition by non-library folk. Some were already in use. I think that both are great – people are thinking about using these things in libraries and those who already are can get acknowledgement.

All I can say is – cha cha cha!

Category: mutl06

MeeboMe just didn’t feel like my kind of widget, so I’ve taken it off my sidebar. It felt a bit like I was looking over my readers’ shoulders.

And I tried to show it to someone today and I couldn’t log in to meebo. Probably a liveware failure. So I’m sulking.

Now, a Worldcat search box is much more my style. And they published super instructions about how to add it in their It’s All Good blog.

So now, even if you can’t have a good goss. here, you can find a good read.

I thought I’d have a peek at the entries in Talis’s Mashing up the Library competition that I blogged about on July 2nd. It closes tomorrow. One thousand pounds is up for grabs.

Now, maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I can’t find the entries. They are supposed to be tagged on technorati with MUTL06 but I can only see 21 postings under this and only two are entries.

One finds a string that looks like an ISBN from any web page and shows what can be done with it (eg. search Amazon, show your library’s holdings, cite the item in whichever citation style you specify). The other bundles RSS feeds that a library might want to provide to patrons (eg. New books, contents of current issues of specified journals) and presents them using an OPML browser. They are both created by Tony Hirst. I like them very much, particularly the first one.

Some possible explanations other than “that’s all the entries there will be this year”.

1. Everyone is waiting until the last moment to enter, so no-one else can create a smarter cousin to their idea
2. I’m just not looking in the right place. A search of Flickr shows nothing under that tag, and del.icio.us has just four entries.

I know that there are people with the skills to make wonderful library mashups (Note to Talis: next year don’t ask them all to be judges). I also know that lots of people are just stretching their wings in these areas. I think that next year, or the year after there will be floods of entries. Even better, there will be people entering things that they just had hanging around because they made them for work.

I also feel much, much better about where I am with mashups, APIs, OPML, Ajax etc. I know their names and what they do, but we haven’t really met yet and certainly haven’t tangoed. Seems like I’m not the only wallflower in libraries. Let’s get dancing!

I made a post about adding the meebome widget to my sidebar, republished and now the first post is something I posted three days ago. No further posts appear, but I can find them by clicking on the archives for August.

Novel.

I’d be interested to know what others are seeing.

Sevice will resume after the kids are in bed tonight.

Wanna chat?

I’ve just installed the meebome widget on my sidebar. Still testing right now. If it says I’m online, then you can type in something and we can chat. Bit like having a brand new car in the drive without a license I’m afraid. I’m still learning to drive it, so please don’t think I’m rude if I ignore you.

Meebo allows people using different Instant Messaging systems to talk to each other using their own logins. Someone using MSN Messenger could talk to someone using AIM without needing to be in the same system.

I was as excited as Peta when I read over at Inn0vate that Blogger Beta has been released.

Google has begun stamping its own mark on the site. It now allows google ID login. I wonder how long before it’s google login only – like Flickr is now yahoo login only (unless you are – and I quote -“Old skool – rock on” ).

They are switching accounts to beta bit by bit, so if you want to play with the new features, you need to get another login and create a new blog. I did this last night and had a play.

For Better
I like the fact that you can now:

• tag a post, using a “labels” option.
• restrict who you want to see your blog by specifying email addresses, via a new “permissions” tab.
• do more fiddling with the templates – although I couldn’t see the new templates they advertised.
• change my template by dragging and dropping boxes around the screen.
• preset the default font and colour by selecting buttons. (Too lazy to change my template, I manually change the colour and font of each post)

For worse

But, in the “publishing” settings for my new blog there is one little line missing.This one:
You’re publishing on blogspot.com
Switch to: FTP (publishing on your ISP server) Or SFTP (secure publishing on your ISP server)

You are locked into your blog address being at blogger and cannot use your own domain name.

Why would this disturb me? Well, a couple of days ago I went out and bought a domain name and some hostiing to use for this blog. I had just read this article at How to Blog advising anyone starting out to ensure their blog had its own domain name…and if you already have a blog to switch to your own domain name. This is so your readers can find you regardless of where your blog is based. If the blog host starts charging for what was a free service (like Typepad did), or makes changes you don’t like, you can switch.

I’m still planning to use my own domain name so I’ll stay on the old version of blogger while I decide whether to switch to WordPress on my own domain. Rock On!

Apologies to Mrs S Milligan Manby.

3. One book that made you laugh. What the papers didn’t mean to say: a scandalous collection of clangers, misprints and other typographical disasters by Fritz Spegel
A teeny tiny book published in 1965, full of clippings of typos from British newspapers. Also the companion volume, What the Aussie papers didn’t mean to say.

4. One book that made you cry. What the papers didn’t mean to say: a scandalous collection of clangers, misprints and other typographical disasters by Fritz Spegel

No, it didn’t just mildly amuse me, it had me in gaping great gusts of laughter, falling to the floor, crying and actually having an asthma attack.

5. One book you wish you had written. A suitable boy by Vickram Seth
I could pretend it was for the preciseness of the structure, the detailed research, the absolutely consistent internal world, the grammatical exactness of the language, the preciseness of expression, or the playful way it is all intertwined with the lightest touch. Actually, I just fell in love with the people.

6. One book you wish had never been written. Thomas and the birthday party
See last night’s post. I may add that the kids LOVED the cake….but Mr3to4 had me perform an act that may have traumatised every child at the party. He had first choice of the cake, and decided he wanted Thomas’ face. In front of a 9 small children, I decapitated Thomas.

7. One book you are currently reading. The Meaning of Tingo: and other extraordinary words from around the world by Adam Jacot de Boinod

8. One book you have been meaning to read. Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software by Michael Stephens

9. One book that changed your life. The Optimistic Child: Proven Program to Safeguard Children from Depression & Build Lifelong Resilience by Martin Seligman
My mum died of cancer almost six years ago, with very little time between diagnosis and death. All the books I read said “people with positive attitudes live longer with terminal cancer”. Boy, did that piss me off…she hadn’t had time to absorb it all and knew that she was going to die and leave people she believed couldn’t survive without her. She hadn’t had time to get to sweet, gracious acceptance. She was mad and confused. “This stuff is all just blame the victim”, I thought.

Seligman was president of the Amercican Psychological Association. He uses psychological method not to treat problems or abnormality, but to define what happiness is and how we can attain it. Reading his books restored my faith in optimism and in positive attitude and made me less angry at the “just smile and accept it” school of thought.

10. Now tag five people:

• Morgan – tag!
• Tom Goodfellow – your turn.
• Jan M S – I know you don’t blog, but email me and we’ll save it for when I convince you to start one!
• Peta – you’re it!
• Bronwyn – can’t duck.

I was quietly minding my own business, enjoying CW’s list of books meme describing those that made her cry,laugh etc. when I was tagged . The list is already written in my head and I’ll post it soon, but there is one question I MUST answer tonight.

What book do you wish had never been written?

How I spent my evening.

Thomas and the birthday party (ISBN: 043497616).

A seemingly innocuous book about Thomas the Tank Engine attending his first ever birthday party, held for his driver. The driver’s wife greets them at the engine shed wearing her special best dress and shares a birthday cake in the shape of Thomas.

WARNING: Encourages three year olds who are turning four to point to the page and say “Mummy, THAT’s the cake I want for my birthday party”.