Week 8, Assignment #16 Explore a site from the awards list

I went straight to the "short list" on this one. After that last assignment, I was ready for something quick and easy, and I was glad to be able to complete this assignment very quickly!

Books and classifieds. Seem like reasonable things of interest to our patrons. I know there are several job seekers in the learning commons looking up job ads on the public computers, or pretending to at least. So I checked out Oodle, and that looked like a great place for finding employment ads because it pulls classifieds from other websites. Instead of having to go to each website HOPING to find what you are looking for, you can just read Oodle and get the listings all in one place. Great idea, and very convenient!

I also checked out Craigslist. Craigslist seems to be very hit and miss, because the listings are posted in chronological order, it's easy to miss something. I tried selling some books a couple of times on Craigslist and didn't have any luck. Ebay worked better for me. Still, I know that Craigslist has some very local ads for meeting people, selling stuff that you might want to get rid of or put in a tag sale, and finding apartments and things like that. It is free and accessible and good for finding LOCAL stuff posted by people, not companies for the most part. Probably not the best job finding tool.

I was excited to see something called "Parking Search" as one of the sites. What a great resource that could be! If you are going to a meeting somewhere, or a big conference, or maybe you just want to take your kids to a museum, or go shopping somewhere... great.. One problem though, I couldn't get any hits for Amherst, Northampton, Holyoke, or even Hampton Beach, NH. So I guess this site isn't so great afterall.

Books, books, books. Here's something we can all relate to. I think the librarians use WorldCat regularly, don't they? Isn't that the public side of OCLC? So that's a natural.

Biblio.com is like Alibris & Abe. It's another source for rare, used, and out of print books. I might have used them occasionally, but they aren't usually my first stop in my searching process.

Finally, Lulu... I (heart) Lulu. Lulu is for print on demand. It makes it easier for people to publish their books and sell them. It's a great way for non-bestselling authors to print and distribute their books. Since Lulu takes credit ards, the library can even purchase these books with no hassle. The downside is that fulfillment of orders might take a little longer than a book already printed, but RUSH delivery is available. My husband and his business partner have published their book on Lulu, available for only $19.99!!

We've explored all teh news and blog guides already, so I won't rehash those. There really is a lot of stuff out there, and I might revisit some of the sites I skipped later on, but that's all on this for now.