Booklists… Where to find them!?

It seems I find new means of gathering booklists so often these days, it makes my head spin!

One I learned of this morning is particularly nifty, and it’s called tag mashup.  I know–what a name!  I’m not talking about mashed potatoes here, folks.  According to the all-wise Wikipedia ;), a mashup is “a digital media file containing any or all of text, graphics, audio, video, and animation, which recombines and modifies existing digital works to create a derivative work.”  I suppose you could think of a digital mashup like mashed potatoes– you combine two or more unique entities (potatoes, butter, and milk) to create something new and better (yummo mashed potatoes).

Many of you may be familiar with the website LibraryThing.  It is a virtual bookshelf, where you can list the books you own, the books you are reading, books your dog is reading… you get the idea.  It’s basically an online catalog for your personal collection.

Another feature of LibraryThing is the ability to search through the titles and title lists others have created… You do not have to have an account to do this, people!!  It is F-R-E-E!!  Here’s how.

Go to LibraryThing’s Search Tab.  It looks like this:

Now, because we want to do a tag mashup, we’re only going to use the tag field, but feel free to play around with the other search options… There’s no telling what you might turn up!

So, let’s say I work in a middle school library, and I have students that keep requesting more vampire books.  I might type into the “Tags” field these words:  “middle school, vampire”.  Then hit Search.  LibraryThing will retrieve books on lists that have been tagged both “middle school” and “vampire.”  Here’s what my results page looks like:

Look at all the helpful info I received!  Not only do I get a list of linked titles and authors, but I get sidebar widgets (those green boxes below) that allow me to search for other tag mashups, suggest related tags, and suggest related tag mashups that others have used.

This is a great way to provide a quick suggested reading list for avid readers, reluctant readers, etc.  Would I suggest buying books solely because you find them on a list like this– NO!!!! Sure, it’s a great recommendation, but I would never buy a book from a publicly generated list without doing other research like checking professional review sources like Booklist, The Hornbook, SLJ, Publishers Weekly, etc.

Have you used this resource before?  Where do you go for booklists?

One last thing for elementary library folk while we’re on the topic of vampires.  I read an article/list from SLJ this morning with suggested titles for younger readers interested in vampire fiction but not ready for Twilight.  Again, I wouldn’t use it as a direct purchasing guide, but it’s a starting place.

Happy listing!

WatchKnow, Watch Out!

“Imagine hundreds of thousands of great short videos, and other media, explaining every topic taught to school kids. Imagine them rated and sorted into a giant Directory, making them simple to find. WatchKnow–as in, “You watch, you know”–is a non-profit online community devoted to this goal.”

This quote from WatchKnow’s “About” page pretty much sums it up.  The site is easy to use, allows you to search for videos according to subject and age range, which you set in a nifty little sliding number line.  Videos can be submitted by anyone but go through an approval process before they are included in the database.

Do play around with your search terms if you don’t find what you are looking for immediately.  I got no hits when I searched for “caterpillars” but when I made it singular, I got eight hits.

The site boasts that it has over 13,000 educational videos and is growing daily.  Videos are collected from YouTube, TeacherTube, Google Videos, National Geographic, eHow, SchoolTube and more.

What a fantastic resource to use in our libraries and to share with teachers!

Thanks, Liz, for passing on this tool!!