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Tools for assisting patrons

April 6, 2012

I often find the one area that I need to stay on the absolute tip of the sword has to do with websites and web tools. I get far more questions about things like YouTube and WordPress than I do about finding an academic resource. I am not the kind of person who really cares about what I feel are high tech time wasters but this might be starting to change. Recently I have seen a lot of new media sites that have been highly adaptable to library uses. The most obvious one is the explosion of the Twitter Ask-A-Librarian model that is popping up at a lot of libraries. I have also seen incredible adaptations of Pinterest for use in libraries, a virtual guide that goes along with the monthly suggestions or readings displayed in the library. GoodReads is an interesting model, almost serving as a source of recommendations when I cannot come up with suggestions for patrons on my own. This however is an incredibly annoying process and although I do not mind walking someone through the process its not a fast fix. I typically recommend this to students who are avid readers and are looking to develop their GoodReads bookshelf for the long run. That is why I was excited to stumble across Whichbook (interstingly I found it via Stumble-another awesome web tool you should all check out) Whichbook requires no login to use and is quick easy and painless. The user simply adjusts a slide bar based upon ten or so set criteria and then generates suggestions based upon this. I like this because I am able to tailor this to my (or a patrons) mood or whim. I have not determined whether or not there is paid placement within these suggestions yet because I have not performed enough searches using the tool. So far it has generated quite a bit of recommendations for classics so its been hard to tell. If you work at the desk and frequently field questions about books and authors this might be a handy thing for you.

 

http://www.whichbook.net/

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One Comment leave one →
  1. dreamercsr permalink
    April 6, 2012 10:25 pm

    I checked out the site and with the four settings I chose, I was intrigued by the results given back to me. I especially like that I do not have to set up an account/login. Great resource! Thanks!

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