Although shopping for groceries is not necessarily a library or research function, the iBraryGuy team recently came across a resource that was too good not to share with our professional colleagues.  Besides, we know that you all take your shopping seriously and that, as a whole, librarians are an uber-organized bunch.  Thus, today's review and recommendation – ZipList.

 

ZipList is a hot, new set of tools designed to make the task of creating a grocery list not just easy, but also interactive.  Create lists online, using a free account, and then share them with friends and family via the web, e-mail, and even text messaging.  They can then add things to your list or even do some shopping for you.  Your list is accessible on the go from your laptop or smartphone browser.  An iPhone app is on the way!

 

There is much more to ZipList than just making and sharing lists, however.  It is literally designed to make list creation easy, help you plan meals, and even save you money at the store!  It comes with thousands of recipes already built in.  Add them your online "recipe box" or just have ZipList create a shopping list directly from the recipe.  Don't like the recipes they offer or want to add in some of your own?  ZipList has a recipe clipping function that will import recipes from other web pages!  Other awesome features include the ability to designate the stores from which you want the items, setting item priorities, adding reminders to items for which you have coupons, and even filtering your lists by stores or priority.  AND . . . if that is not enough to win you over, ZipList is an intelligent solution . . . it learns!  It remembers your lists, allowing you to add favorite items, and will even warn you when you add something to the list that you recently purchased.  ZipList can help you reduce waste and expenses!

 

We may be librarians, but we cannot live by our books alone.  We have to eat and we have to shop (we are human after all . . . ok, superhuman maybe).  Using ZipList, we can take a little of our library know-how and put it to some really practical use!  Enjoy!