Week Five

This week I look at 'LibraryThing' and 'Rollyo'.

Library Thing is a fun resource for bibliophiles. It's interesting to see others who have similar reading selections although my highest match with someone else was still only 4 books out of the 11 I 'catalogued'. It prompted me to briefly wonder if there's potential there for some sort of dating site based on books: people list their favourite titles, write short reviews, and so on, then they're matched with others having similar tastes. But then I realised that some people would indiscriminately list hundreds of books simply to increase their chances of a match - so I don't think that idea would work.

Anyway, although I like LibraryThing, I'm not sure I would spend the time to become deeply involved in the site. However, I thought it might be a way for smaller specialist library collections - for example, the Private Press Collection held in the Special Collections Department here at the Central Library - to gain easy Internet exposure.

At this point I'm tasked with adding a LibraryThing search box to my blog; however, I'm unable to cut and paste the html code on my work computer. Perhaps I'll try from home, but for now this task is prevented by my work computer's settings.

Next up is Rollyo.

It's a good idea. The creation of specialised search-engines has obvious library applications: for example, an 'encyclopedia' roll could be created as a first port of call for students tackling a homework assignment; then linked to from the library homepage. Specialist areas, such as family history research, would also benefit from Rollyo.

I buy a lot of books over the Internet, so I decided to create a search roll that will put together several of my most used sites. I was going to include ABE books, Alibris, Amazon, BetterWorldBooks, and perhaps a couple of others. But guess what? The Rollyo site has been down for maintenance for the past few days, so I can't: and I'm in a rush to catch up with the Web 2.0 program, so I'm going to post this now!

Time chases us all. Schopenhauer wrote that sometimes we long to be in some distant spot, when in truth we are only longing to have the time back again that we spent there - days when we were younger and fresher than we are now. In these moments Time 'mocks us by wearing the mask of space'; and if we travel to the spot, we can see how much we've been deceived.