#9 - Tags, Del.ico.us and LibraryThing

I have looked at the various sites suggested - although some I am already familiar with through working on AskNow and SLVChat. I do like the concept of all of these and how you can use them to tap the collective knowledge of others to help you identify new resources. My main "contact' with LibraryThing has been through the Boroondara Library catalogue and have often used it there to see what others who read like me are reading. I am pleasantly surprised by how often titles I have read, or are considering reading, appear as "recommendations" - which makes me keen to explore the others listed as well.
I had also noticed that some blogs I have looked at have a bookshelf (that looks like a bookshelf)on their page that shows the books they are reading/have read and that this was identified as being "courtesy" of Shelfari. ( I gather this might perhaps be a widget? ) I wasn't sure how this might compare to LibraryThing as they seem to be pretty similar. Not sure how this will all pan out eventually as it seems that Amazon has acquired Shelfari and also has a stake in LibraryThing. However Rob Lewis, writing on Techvibes, states that "Speculation about Amazon supporting one or the other or even merging the two services didn’t make sense as they serve different types of communities: Shelfari is focused on the casual reader that is interested in talking about what they're reading while LibraryThing is much more focused on serious bibliophiles that love cataloguing their personal libraries. Think “social reading” versus “social cataloguing”.

# 8 - Exploring Podcasts

I have never really even thought of exploring podcasts before as I don't own any sort of iPod or similar - and so read my book on the train. However, I have occasionally found things I am interested on the internet which only exist as a podcast without any transcript available and, of course, I also can't listen to the radio at all the times I might want to so to take away a podcast to listen to does have it's attractions. Mind you I've had someone listening to something on their headphones cross the road in front of my car oblivious to their surroundings or danger but that was probably (very) loud music.
I had a look at the ABC site and listened to the StarStuff podcast http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/ of Tuesday 22nd September. I would see some appeal in being able to listen to programmes that interested me while I was doing the ironing or hanging out the washing or - as we used to be able to do - watering the garden.
As far as libraries are concerned I imagine there would be potential for use in library tours and in being available for patrons to access to guide them through such things as catalogue use etc.