Today, I finally maxxed out my 200 free books in LibraryThing and paid the unassuming $25 for a lifetime membership.  If you click on the LibraryThing category in the right column of this blog, you’ll know that I’ve admired LibraryThing for a long time. 

My familiarity with LibraryThing began when I wrote about it for SLMAM at Deb Levitov’s request a few years ago- available via EBSCO or ProQuest databases; Worldcat entry here. 

But it wasn’t until I told our children’s lit class last fall that I would hold myself to reading 50 books over the term just as we expected them to that I became a consistent LibraryThing user. 

I am surprised at how it’s been helpful:

• When I can’t remember the name of something I’ve read recently, so I can recommend it to someone else, I look it up.  Being able to tag with my own language helps.
• By giving me aplace to document what I’ve been reading, I get a reality check on how much I’ve been reading (it’s often more than I think) or what I’ve been reading (for example, how much YA to keep up with things for the children’s lit class vs. how much elementary material for my school library or where my own reading biases are).
• Having each entry date-stamped helps me set mini-goals for reading. My summer goal is 60 items.  (Lucky for me, I work in an elementary school, so keeping up with picture books and short non-fiction makes this possible.)
• I’ve used it to get man-on-the-street reviews to supplement the review publications for books that I’m unsure about buying for my elementary readers.

There are other features I don’t use (I don’t apply for advance reading copies via LibraryThing, for example.  I just don’t think it’s fair when I don’t even make it through the ARCs I get at ALA twice a year.)  Paying $25 was a small price to pay when I reflected on how much it had impacted my practice as a university adjunct and as a practitioner.Â

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The computer world is buzzing about Google’s demonstration of Wave.  What’s Wave? It’s hard to summarize in just one sentence.  You’d better watch the video of the official demo to find out for yourself.

It’s more than email, more than a collaborative conversation, more than a way to share photos into a single collaborative photo album.  You can have an email conversation that publishes to your blog and makes your blog and email a two-way conversation.  You can have email conversations that track over time, add participants as you go (and give them full access to past history), and have private chats within the conversation.  All within the same conversation - make a change anywhere, and the change is updated everywhere.  Move between mobile and desktop/laptop devices.

Collaboratively author documents and discuss them.  Show your conversations as you type to reduce waiting times.  Real-time updates on your collaborator’s screen as you do them on yours - no need to refresh screens. Spell check that sees words in context. Embed your social networks.  Play interactive games without leaving Wave.  Embed maps (and add icons/mark them up), videos, polls, forms, Twitter (including ongoing Twitter monitoring for topics that interest you), and gadgets.

And it’s all open source, so developers can build on the Google team’s ideas.

I’m sure that when the time comes, we’ll discover that the EULA gives Google the legal option to harvest what we do, but I’m amazed at the ease with which I say, “Oh, we’ll deal with that later” as the video unfolds.

This video of the demo at Google IO is blowing me away.  This is more than Web 2.0.  I have a feeling that Wave is going to change everything.  If only I could get a beta account … though I signed up to find out when it was available here (where, in addition to requesting notification when Wave is ready, you can leave a little poem or piece of art for the Wave developers - oh, how I love when the left and right brain merge).

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I don’t know if it’s the changing economy or merely the next iteration of Web 2.0, but it seems like the number of “free” services turning subscription is, well, no longer free. 

For those who were nervous about podcasting, I used to recommend Gcast.com.  Pick up the phone, type in your ID numbers, and record a voice mail that auto-converted to a podcast.  Free!

As of mid-April, this service now costs $99.

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