OCLS and Library 2.0

I think of libraries and librarians as connection-makers. Whether connecting a community with the world of ideas or connecting a single reader with just the right book, we strive to be the medium facilitating that connection.
The Orange Seed and Orlando Memory are important to me and important to the Library because they are both uniquiely suited to connecting people and ideas. The Orange Seed provides a tariff-free virtual marketplace for innovative ideas to be shopped, discussed and shaped. Orlando Memory is a conduit for sharing and learning about all varieties of local lore.
Making these sorts of connections possible is our bread-and-butter.

Web 2.0 Continues

One Web 2.0 application that I find useful is the LibraryThing (http://www.librarything.com/) social cataloging application. You can catalog up to 200 books for free and if you choose to make your list public you can find others with similar reading tastes. Worldcat (http://www.worldcat.org/) has begun to offer a Facebook plug-in that will allow you to do most of the same things. Worldcat allows users a maximum book list of 250 items, but they allow users an unlimited number of lists. In addition, Worldcat contains DVD and CD records in addition to print source records.
VuFind (http://www.vufind.org/) may also be of interest to those in the library environment. VuFind is an open-source modular portal to a library's holdings. It allows catalog searchers to search beyond OPAC cataloged records and find, for example, locally held documents, reading lists and bibliographies, tutorials, classes, or just about any library resource that you might want to search for. VuFind also supports "More Like This" suggestions, and allows users to creat and organize resource lists. Pretty exciting stuff!