THING 40. MASHUP THE WEB

I liked Lunchbox. You plug in a zip code and find a place to eat. Wheel of food is fun and colorful, but hard on the eyes with all the spinning. I searched TimeTube using the keywords "CDC H1N1." Imagine my surprise when I pulled up a single video called "Swine flu rappers." After looking closely, I saw I typed in "HiNi" instead of "H1N1." I searched with the correct spelling and pulled up a timeline with several YouTube videos. I tried to embed it in my blog but it didn't work. Couldn't view the terms and conditions.

Crime reports lets you plug in an address to pull up crime reports in that area.

I tried Walkable to find out the walkability score of my neighborhood. The score was 35 out of 100--"car dependent"--only a few destinations within walking range. No argument there. I sometimes go for a walk in my area, but I don't run errands by walking. I tried my old address in Roseville and the same score came up--35. I have to disagree with that. I lived across the street from a movie theater and a grocery store. I was within easy walking distance of a drug store and the bank. I walked to Como park. I even walked to the library sometimes!

THING 39. DIGITAL STORYTELLING

This Thing was fun. I used Scrapblog to create a page using pictures from the Japanese Cultural Fair held at the library in August. Scrapblog was easy to use. After uploading, you click and drag the photos to make the layout. I played around with cropping the photos and the arrangement. I added a simple background and text balloons. You can change the type style and size for each balloon. I didn't embed the finished result in my blog because of privacy issues with the people in the pictures.

THING 38. SCREENCASTING

I had never heard of screencasting, but after reading through this Thing, I can see the usefulness of it. Perhaps many of the tutorials I've watched online were done with screencasting and I didn't know it. Screen-cast-o-matic looked good, but it requires a different version of Java. I was all set to use Screen Toaster for embedding a tiny tutorial in my blog. Then I read their privacy agreement. Not private enough for me. I looked at the screencasting sites that require a download. Our Computer Services people frown on downloads. I decided to go on to the next Thing.

THING 37. PHOTO TALES

For the giraffe picture on the left, I used Tiltshift. This creates photos that look like model miniatures. You do this by making some parts of the picture in focus while other parts are softer. This picture didn't work too well to get the effect. I didn't have the right kind of picture to use. The giraffe's legs are out of focus, but it doesn't look like a model miniature.

I used Image Mosaic Generator for the photo on the right. Same picture, different effect. This generator uses jillions of tiny pictures to create a mosaic. The mosaic is more interesting when it is big. Then you can see the little pictures that make it up. I couldn't upload the big size to my blog. When I changed the zoom from 100% to 25%, it worked.

THING 36. COMIC RELIEF--GENERATE SOME FUN

I liked this Thing. It was a change from the last two which were mostly reading. I tried several generators. I liked the Tiny Tags, the talking squirrel in Newspaper Front Page (talking cats and talking owls are also available) and the Tartan maker. I even liked the forms generator. I couldn't get the stripes to work.

I don't know how I would use these beyond adding them to my blog for fun.

THING 35. BOOKS 2.0

The next time I get the question "What can our book club read next?" I can go to Reading Group Choices (in addition to suggesting my library's Book Club in a Bag). The Top Book Club Favorites has titles for 2002-2008. Featured Books has summaries and reviews of titles published in 2009.

I tried watching three of the video interviews in BooksVideos.tv, but they kept starting and stopping, so I gave up.

I don't have an iPod or MP3 player so I didn't spend a lot of time on Audio Books. I did find an interesting article in Open Culture called "10 unexpected uses of the Pod." One professor has used his iPod for storing the entire 3 human genome (3 billion chemical letters).

I looked at a few of the video reviews in One Minute Critic. I was surprised by how much could be said in one minute. I didn't find a way to search books by title or author.

Lookybook sounded promising but is gone because of the economy. I looked at Storyline from the Screen Actors' Guild foundation. Busy parents can park their kids in front of a computer screen while actors read books to them. The list of stories available is buried in the FAQs. I watched Me and my cat by Satoshi Kitamura, read by Elijah Wood. Pictures from the book are displayed with shots of Wood every now and then.

BookCrossing sounds like fun-- but also a time waster.

What's the future of reading? Judging by the traffic in the library, the popularity of book clubs, the summer reading program, and the rise of Amazon, books and reading are still here. The article "Literacy Debate: Online R U Really Reading?" discusses how many teenagers spend more time reading online than reading print. Is the Internet the enemy of reading or has it created a new kind of reading? What I wonder is what happens when these teenagers grow older and they take on more responsibilities-- family, job, a home. Will they spend as much time on the web? Will they get tired of the web? Will they look elsewhere to spend their time? In 10 or 20 years will they join books clubs? Will book clubs even exist? Will the Internet be vastly different?

THING 34. ONLINE ANSWER SITES

People use online answer sites to get answers quickly. They might not know where else to go or whom to ask. They don't think of calling or visiting the library. Or perhaps because the web is such a big part of our lives, we just naturally go online to find answers to questions. One of the questions on WikiAnswers is "Why do some people ask this community when they could have found an answer themselves by doing an Internet search?" There's a lengthy answer that starts out by saying people are too lazy to search by themselves. It goes on with other reasons: not everybody uses search engines easily, many people don't have good research skills, many questions asked at Wiki Answers aren't asked elsewhere.

If I have a question I often try a Google search. Many of the questions won't have answers that can be quickly found in print sources or found at all. I haven't searched the answer sites deliberately. I have only been vaguely aware of them. Until I started working on this Thing, I didn't realize there were so many of them.

I looked at the answer sites. Many of them are a mix of pop culture trivia and more practical information. ChaCha has a list of popular topics (Michael Jackson questions & answers take up several screens) as well as browsable categories. Under business I found two Mall of America questions: What is the Mall of America's address and What year did the Mall of America open? Is someone in PR at the MOA planting questions? Are many of the questions on these sites planted? I found many home improvement and car questions on different answer sites.

Could the questions on these sites be directed to a library? Some yes and some no. Some of the questions ask for opinions or advise. (Should I rob a bank? Is now a good time to buy GM stock?)

I read about Slam the Boards but didn't participate. I think it's a great idea. On July 10 (the tenth of every month is Slam the Boards day) I looked at some of the answer sites to check for responses tagged by librarians, but I didn't find any. I don't know if there is a way to quickly pull these out.