Books, Readers and Beyond: #52 What to Read

1. I chose THE NOTEBOOK by Nicholas Sparks to search for read-alike. In Novelist, Sparks' read-alike are: Emily Grayson's THE GAZEBO, James Michael Pratt's THE LAST VALENTINE, and Richard Paul Evans' THE LAST PROMISE.

Fiction L recommended Richard Paul Evans' THE CHRISTMAS BOX, Emily Grayson's THE GAZEBO, and Lorina Landvik's PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF CURL.

When I tried What should I read next, I got an internal server error 500; so I went to Library Booklist If you like and found read-alike in the HORSE WHISPERER by Nicholas Evans, THE LAST PROMISE - Richard Paul Evans, THE GAZEBO - Emily Grayson, A MYSTIC LAKE - Kristin Hannah, SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS - James Patterson, THE LAST VALENTINE - James Michael Pratt and BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY - Robert James Waller. Recommendations from these three sites were overlapping with one or two new titles. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY and SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS but I now additional titles to explore. I didn't encounter any problems researching this information other than the internal server error. These resources have a wealth of information which will be very helpful in recommending books to library members when they have exhausted their reading list.

2: For the fourth grade girl, I went to Library Booklist Chapter Books Animal Stories and found THE TROUBLE WITH TUCK BY Theodore Taylor, a young girl who trains her blind dog to follow and trust a seeing-eye companion dog; and BABE, THE GALLANT PIG by Dick King-Smith, a piglet that arrives at the farmyard, is adopted by an old sheepdog, and discovers a special secret to success.
Novelist helped me find DEEP AND DARK AND DANGEROUS by Mary Downing Hahn and RESTLESS: A GHOST'S STORY by Rich Wallace for her 13 year old brother who was interested in ghost stories.

3: Dean Koontz writes novels of many genre, combining suspense, horror, fantasy and sci-fi thrillers. I used the Library Booklist to find Stephen King, John Saul and Peter Straub for the customer who needed read-alike for Koontz. Novelist recommends Greg Bear, Dan Simmons, and John Saul.

4: Mid-Continent Public Library helped me with the Juvenile Series and Sequels: Song of the Lioness
Book #1. Alanna: The First Adventure
Book #2. In the Hand of the Goddess
Book #3. Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Book #4. Lioness Rampant

Week 10 / #23 Is this really the end?....

iHCPL was a rewarding experience for me and I am excited about my newly acquired skills and want to continue to expand on them. This program has been an excellent opportunity for staff to work and learn together. Creating a blog, flickr and photo editing, RSS feeds, avatars, Library Thing, Zoho writer and overdrive were my favorite discoveries. I am always ready and willing to learn new things and would appreciate more training like this in the future.

Week 9 / #22 Downloadable Media

I visited HCPL's digital site and explored the different types of materials available. Wow! A wonderful choice. Then I performed a download of the OverDrive Media to my personal computer and proceeded to check out 2 music audios and a Ronnie Milsap: Live in Concert video to enjoy on my computer. I also looked at LibriVox and Wowio but didn't like them as well. It is good to know these sites are available but the HCPL digital site is the best. What more can I ask for?

Week 9 / #21 Podcasts, Smodcasts!

I researched Podcast.net and Podcastalley.com for libraries and found an interesting podcast on Harry Potter Prognostications in Podcastalley.com and added the RSS feed to my Bloglines account. There are so may topics to choose from -- I may never get any other work done!

Week 9 / #20 Discover YouTube

I went to YouTube and watched numerous video clips relating to libraries. Even though Your life work: the librarian was dated, the information it provided was excellent pointing out that an individual who possessed a love for books and a love for people was a good candidate for librarianship. The Adventures of Super Librarian and Ninja Librarian were not only entertaining but educational too. My favorite library video was A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto as it embraces everything that we have been learning. Excellent!!

Week 8/ #19 Web-based Apps

Zoho writer or Google Docs?  Which to use?  Choices, choices, choices!  I looked at Google Docs and Zoho writer.  These fantastic online tools can be used for word processing, spreadsheet, note taking and an organizing planner.  They enable us to accomplish our work more efficiently, as we can access our documents from anywhere and we can share them with our friends whereby we can all work on it simultaneously.   This eliminates the need to email documents.  Zoho writer has many fine features; I especially liked the templates. I created an account with Zoho writer and will use its "publish" options to post this article to my blog.

 

Week 8 / #18 Social Networking

Social networking is a convenient and delightful way of keeping in touch with love ones, friends and acquintances in the comfort of your own home. My Space, Facebook and Yahoo!360 are just a sampling of sites that enable you to set up your own account and be able to search for a long lost friend. After looking around these sites, I discovered that I preferred Facebook over My Space and think the Dogster, Catster site is entertaining and may like to post one for my beagle. Wow! you can spend hours visiting with others without ever stepping foot outside your front door.