Web 2.0 Continues

Wow!
Browsing through the Seomoz awards page (http://www.seomoz.org/web2.0#cat_117) was awesome. I saw so many cool websites. A fun one was www.hairmixer.com in which you can upload your picture and change your hairstyle, you can even see your face reduced 50 pounds!


But some of them that we can really use at the library are:
Vufind in which the Library's catalog can be customized with open source software. (I know in a meeting I went to they spoke about changing the catalog to something similar, but I don't know if it was using this same software.) Anyway you can quickly sort the search results using the categories on the right of the screen. You can bookmark your searches, add tags to the items and even leave comments. If you click on the "review" tab for a book, it will display the review from Amazon.com and you don't even have to leave the page. When the search results are displayed and you choose one of them, it's going to show you similar items. This will definitely help patrons personalize and keep a record of their search, it will definetly make it easier for them to find what they want and it will let them say their opinion about items, making their opinion count.
See it yourself:

VuFind: Social Features from Falvey Memorial Library on Vimeo.


Another one is www.docstoc.com which compiles a wealth of legal, educational, technical and business documents for you to download for free. You can upload your own files in a number of formats. So this can help patrons when they need help typing documents like an eviction letter, they can get the document from here free!