Thinking about portals

I took some time to check out Zimbio tonight. It's a site where people can create public portals on any topic. From their site:

Public portals are user-generated websites that offer a range of features including group blogging, member photos, links to favorite websites, RSS headlines, tracking of search results, and discussion forums. Zimbio members can create public portals on any topic, and members can contribute to any portal by adding, editing, and rating content.

This site looks interesting to me because of the way you can create so much dynamic content on the home page. Not only can you have a blog, but you can also set up a variety of feeds to display (blogs, search feeds, bookmark tag feeds, news feeds, image feeds, etc.). For an example, take a look at the portal created by the South Carolina State Library to share information for and about South Carolina Public Libraries. 

Many subject librarians have subject-specific blogs that they maintain. This site made me think about the feasibility of using a tool like this instead of just a blogging platform. It seems like it might be worth investigating. Not only would you have the blog, but you'd have so many other tools at your disposal. And your community of users could contribute to the site, too.

Are there other sites similar to Zimbio? Are there any librarians currently providing this type of portal for their subject areas?  

Book to check out this spring

Book to read once it’s published in March 2006:

The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide

Here is a unique resource for next generation librarians, addressing the specific needs of GenXers and Millennials as they work to define themselves as information professionals. The book focuses on how NextGens can move their careers forward and positively impact the profession.

Read about on Peter Scott’s Library Blog

Another library job search site

Here’s another website with library jobs in higher education: HigherEdJobs.com

Administrative–Libraries search

More job searching resources

Heidi at quiddle writes about the resources she uses to look for jobs in this post: How I find out about jobs. I too subscribe to a bunch of listservs that often post job opportunities. So far it seems like I read about those jobs in other locations, though. I hadn’t thought about checking state library associations for job postings, so that’s something I’ve done since I read this post.

Library job search sites

I’m starting to look for jobs. I graduate in May and, surprisingly, there are quite a few jobs posted already. Here is a list of job search sites I’ve been using:

• UT School of Information Jobweb
• Library Job Postings on the Internet
• ACRL Career Opportunities List
• American Libraries Jobs Online
• LITA Jobs In Library and Information Technology
• ALA 2006 Midwinter Meeting Job Search
• ARL Job Listings
• IFLA Job Listings
• Chronicle of Higher Education Careers – Field: Library/Information Sciences
• Academic Careers Online – Job category: Library administration, librarian
• SLA Job list

LibraryThing news

I haven’t been using my LibraryThing account. I set one up, but haven’t had the chance to actually add books to my collection. (winter break project…) But I recently read about a Firefox extension for searching and adding books to your LibraryThing collection that I can’t wait to check out. LibraryThing also recently introduced author authority control – but it’s controlled by the users. Very cool. I’ll be interested to see how well it works.

The computer guesses pretty well, presenting a list of likely aliases for in the “Also known as…” section. You can check these authors out by clicking on their names. If they’re really the same, and you’re feeling generous, go ahead and click “combine.” The authors will be smoothed together, with the more common name winning. I’ve gone through some of the better-known authors—the rest are up to you.