When I was getting my undergraduate degree, I was always looking ahead to a graduate degree. Instructional Technology and Library & Information Science were my two callings, and it would’ve been a much harder choice to make if Maine had an MLIS program. I loved my Instructional Technology program, and am excited to be working in the field and using the degree.

I still love books, though, and I love sharing books with my daughter. That’s why I joined LibraryThing. LibraryThing allows you to index your personal library, and see what others are reading, and get suggestions based on what you already have. I’ve only set it up for the daughter’s books (she owns more than me; I’m more of a borrower than a buyer for adult books) but even she loves to see her library in the covers view. It allows you to tag (I’m still working on that, but have tagged all the books she’s gotten from Maine’s Raising Readers program) and add your own info, and it is accessible by other family members who might be wondering “does she have that book already?” One can also tag books with “wishlist,” and use that to help prevent duplicate gifts. It’s free for the first 200 books, and then you can upgrade — $10 for a yearly membership, and $25 for a lifetime membership. If you have a huge library to catalog, they will also sell you a USB barcode scanner that makes entering books easy, for just $15. An extra pro? LibraryThing is a Maine business.

LibraryThing

Google is so much more than just search, as many people know, and one of their services that I’ve been playing with recently is Google Forms. There are many uses for setting up a form — you can create a survey or poll, have folks self-populate a contact list, enter all of your travel expenses — and google makes it very easy. The results are stored in a google spreadsheet, accessible from anywhere, and there is even a tool to analyze your answers.

My first public form is set up to survey people about the price of heating oil here in Maine — a concern shared by most everyone I know.  I embedded it into a page to make it easy to find, and easy to fill out. Check it out! (And if you are a Mainer who’s bought oil, fill it out, too! It’ totally anonymous.)

Maine Oil Prices