LibraryThing

I, er, already catalogue my books, largely because I want to be able to see them as an ordered whole and, until I moved to a new flat with Margot last week, they were stacked vertically in no order in a cupboard. I have a master catalogue, ordered alphabetically by author, and a few subject catalogues, following the Chicago Manual of Style bibliography rules. They're just Word documents for now, although I intend to convert them into XML.

I like the idea of sharing my collection with other people in LibraryThing, but not enough to add all my books (about 500 volumes) to my account. Instead I've started to transfer my biggest subject catalogue (150 volumes). It's quite good fun, although searches in a collection seem slow and unreliable, and the data is terrible.

Social bookmarking

I think Delicious is absolutely great. I wrote my library school dissertation on social bookmarking, where I considered the usefulness of tagging for academic information seeking, although I made my experiments in another system, Connotea. It's convenient to be able to reach your bookmarks from any web computer; it's interesting to view the data organised by tag or username (pivot browsing).

As I mentioned before, I've lost the habit of keeping my Delicious account current. But I've now tried for the first time importing, then 'bulk editing' one of the bookmarks folders from my browser, and it worked well. That could be a way to bring my Delicious account up to date.

Reflection on 23 Things

The Things I've continued to use after my first try are my blog and—mainly as a reader—Twitter. I'm certain I'll use Doodle again, probably Google Docs, possibly Evernote. I will make another effort to get into the habit of checking a feed reader: that must be the most painless way to top up your library current awareness. I've not used iGoogle since my Oscar Wilde quote gadget broke down.

This blog, though, has borrowed most of its momentum from the 23 Things programme. Will I keep it going after 23 Things ends? Yes, I think so. Having this platform's already invited odd items like 'Professionalism' and 'Unusual punishments', and I expect it will again.

Or as Wilde put it: 'Unable to retrieve: http://googlewidgets.net/gadgets/quotes/g/owilde.xml.php.'

Pushnote and Evernote

On first sight I thought Pushnote didn't do much that was new; that it was another social bookmarking system like Delicious. I do like those systems: pivot browsing on tags and—better—usernames can sometimes introduce you to worthwhile new sites. I've long lost the habit of keeping a social bookmarking account current, though.

Reading the Pushnote FAQ, I realised what it's for and why it's so called. The Pushnote toolbar button 'turns green when you visit a page where people have left comments', and you can click on it to read them and add your own. I've tried to install the Firefox browser extension that would add the button, but although I'm told 'Pushnote will be installed when you restart Firefox', nothing happens and I can't find a way to make it. Having read Gareth's sample of comments on the BBC website, I don't think I'm missing much.

Evernote seems more attractive. (Again the toolbar button didn't appear when I expected it, but this one I could eventually coax out.) It's not difficult to clip and save web material using Windows functions alone, but Evernote perhaps makes it more inviting: quicker, and easier to organise and reorganise. Being able to reach your notebooks from any web computer, and to share them, are great advantages.

Google Docs

This is brilliant. I quite often work on a document between different computers, and it's a pain keeping track of which version's the most recent: much better to have a single document I can reach from any web computer. I can also envisage using it to collaborate. It's reassuring to see full revision histories are kept.