Looking for an easy, convenient way to take your personal catalogue on the road with you?  Look no further than My Library by Josh Pressnell.  This powerful and handy app for the iPhone lets you catalogue your home collection and then carry it in your pocket.

We do not often review smartphone apps here on iBraryGuy, as we know our readers use a plethora of different models and that any discussion as to which one might be better leads to some serious controversy.  Every once in a while though, a smartphone app comes along that is just too cool to ignore.  So we don’t.  My Library is definitely an app worth courting a wee bit of controversy for.  Have you ever wanted a quick and easy way to catalogue your home library and then have that information at your fingertips when and where you want it?  My Library does all of this and more.  Creating a personal catalogue is as simple as entering an ISBN or even scanning the barcode with your iPhone’s camera.  The app does the look-up and download of the book’s information for you.  You can organize your collections, back them up, and even share them right from the palm of your hand.  We loved how easy it was to use and how quickly we were able to catalogue our entire home collection.

But My Library is not just for cataloguing your books.  No, it is much more versatile and powerful than that.  You can use this app to also organize your movies and CDs.  Beyond creating just a catalogue, My Library actually lets you search, track, and rate the items in your collection.  Mark your books as having been read, in the process of being so, or even loaned out to a friend.  Make notes on what you thought about a particular book or movie.  Go ahead, librarians, have at it.  My Library is an OPAC in your pocket.  And you do not have to be a librarian to use it.  It is just that easy.

One of the coolest features of My Library is the interface.  You can actually view the covers of your books and CDs.  If an image is not available in the info that the app downloads from the internet, you can simply use your phone’s camera to snap your own.  For a really eye-popping experience, turn your phone to landscape position to browse your items in shelf format!

As of now, My Library is only available for the iPhone.  We hope to see it on other platforms soon.  As iPhone users, the iBraryGuy team have become eager and enthusiastic adopters of this app.  We highly recommend it!

It is certainly no secret that America’s libraries have been hit by the economic downtown.  They have been hit hard.  The media and the internet are constantly buzzing about library cutbacks and closings.  It is almost overwhelming to try to keep up with it all.  Yet, there is no greater sense of urgency that can be had than by seeing the full picture.  Only in seeing the full picture can we truly estimate the staggering weight of the consequences.  Losing Libraries is just the site you need to get a sense of how America’s libraries have been affected by the economic chaos.  Special thanks go out to reader Ty Webb (@tywebb75 on Twitter) for turning us on to today’s site.

Losing Libraries is a simple, stark site that delivers a powerful message.  America’s libraries are suffering and they are suffering everywhere.  The interactive map shows you which libraries have been affected and how.  The icons show whether there have been cuts, furloughs, closings or more.  You can zoom in and move around the map to get a sense of what is happening far and wide to our nation’s libraries.  You can also use Losing Libraries to report what is happening to your own libraries.  The “Link Roll” takes you directly to sites that are fighting the good fight when it comes to our endangered stacks.

The picture that Losing Libraries paints is not a pretty one.  It is a wake up call to all who support and believe in the necessity of libraries.  It is not about a story here and there.  It is the aggregation of what is happening across the United States.  If libraries are important to you, get involved in the push to maintain them today…before one of those icons is sitting on the location of your local library.  Share this site with friends and colleagues.  There is still time to change the map!

If you are a librarian, chances are two things are true about you.  First, you love your job.  You don’t just like it, you LOVE it.  Second, you are constantly being asked either why or how it is you ended up becoming a librarian.  Chances are good that you have already gotten tired of answering those questions.  Yet, they seem almost compulsory for any of us in this venerable and exciting career.  Truth be told, we librarians tend to tell our stories with pride.  Now there is an awesome wiki that is gathering those stories for posterity.  Special thanks goes out to reader Sara Batts in the UK (@Batty_Towers on Twitter) for recommending today’s site – The Library Routes Project.

The Library Routes Project is wiki that documents and links to the personal stories of library and information professionals from all over.  Started in October of 2009, it invites both bloggers and non-bloggers to write about their library roots (what got them into the profession) and their library routes (how their careers have been shaped).  It is a brilliant concept and an excellent resource for anyone contemplating a library or information career.  Heck, it’s a great place for even us seasoned library-types to reaffirm our committment to the field or simply find a quick pick-me-up!

Getting your story onto The Library Routes Project is easy.  If you are a blogger, just post it to your own blog and then link it to their online list.  If you are not blogger, they offer the chance for you to create a page for your story right on their wiki.  Full instructions are provided.  Reading the stories others have left is as simple as clicking the links on the main page.  By our last count, The Library Routes Project was already home to over 120 personal accounts of librarianship and info-pro careers!

So what are you waiting for?  You have probably already told your own story hundreds of times.  Why not put it down one more time for all to see.  Check out The Library Routes Project and share your roots and routes today!

Citizens’ journalism, that is to say – news reported by people on the street – is quite the rage today. From CNN’s “iReporters” feature to the contributors to Newsvine’s ever-growing stream, the internet and mobile technology have turned us all into roving reporters. AllVoices champions the “peoples’ media” concept in a way that is really garnering attention.

AllVoices has actually been around since 2007. Yet its look, functionality, and approach remain as fresh and intriguing as ever. Claiming to be the first of its kind, AllVoices is striving to create a global community of people who share news, videos, images and opinions tied to news events and people. Literally, anyone can report on anything from anywhere. Reader beware though, AllVoices is open about that fact that content is unedited (except by the submitter) and unmoderated. The concept is huge and its reach is growing rapidly as people from around the world join its ranks.

What goes on behind the scenes is what is most fascinating from an information professional’s standpoint. According to its site, AllVoices “takes your reported news event, organizes it by location, time and category, and creates context by bringing together relevant news stories, blogs, images and videos. It creates a place for the community to share and discuss news, by contributing related text, video and images and commenting – adding a voice.” Contributions this do not stand alone in a vaccuum and are made more meaningful by the way in which AllVoices presents them. We info-types know well the importance of context. It is exciting to see the AllVoices does as well.

At first glance, reading the news on AllVoices may seem a little daunting. The front page is busy to say the least. With so much coming in, though this is not surprising. However, once you get the swing of navigating it, using AllVoices is easy. Choose your news interests by topic or location and enjoy.   It is also searchable.  For the technology inclined, there is even a selection of e-goodies: RSS feeds, blog widgets, etc.

Clearly, AllVoices is doing something right. It’s popularity is growing and its user base is VERY active. If citizens’ media is the future of news reporting then AllVoices is a powerful look at where that future is taking us!

These days it seems like whether you subscribe to cable or satellite, even if you are still using rabbit ear antennae, there is never anything good on television.  Hundreds, if not thousands, of stations from which to choose and yet most of us still end up channel surfing.  Many times this is because TV programming runs on its own schedule and not ours.  DVRs and other recorders can help, but you still have to know when your programs are on to record them and then remember to set the recording.  Well, why channel surf in hopes of finding a show, when you can web surf to find exactly the shows you want?  Blip.TV is a web site chock full of original programming that is available when YOU want it.

Blip.TV is NOT network television.  Nope, it is better!  This is independent creativity at its finest.  From sitcoms produced by college comedy troupes to cooking shows filmed right in the host’s kitchen, Blip.TV is unique programming by and for “the little guy”.  How expansive are its offerings?  Well, the site actually already hosts over 50,000 independently-produced Web shows.  Network TV and cable can’t touch that! 

The iBraryGuy team’s personal favorite, either because we are always on diets and like to torture ourselves or because we simply love food, is Cindy Harris’ “Nothin’ But Muffins”.  Cindy has taped almost 20 episodes in which she bakes and shares her favorite muffin recipes.  The best part of it all is that with Blip.TV, we can watch any of the episodes any time we want.  Episode 17’s strawberry muffins are on constant replay in our homes!

Like normal television, the programming on Blip.TV is full of the good and the bad.  What can you do?  Some folks put a lot into their productions, others not so much.  It is up to you to choose your favorites.  The good news is that Blip.TV does enforce some fairly rigorous standards and, as part of its commitment to community relations, does not allow adult or pornographic material.  This is family-friendly broadcasting, folks.

So the next time you are tired of the television line-up, put down your remote and pick up your keyboard.  Tune into Blip.TV and take control of your programming!

To round out the week, we thought we would recommend a little fun.  Today’s site actually came to our attention thanks to the fine folks at #Fastcase and their exellent blog.  They recently featured some cool word art that they made by feeding the text of seminal Supreme Court cases into an online app called Wordle.

Wordle is a sweet, java-powered application.  You can cut and past some text into it, direct it to a web page that has an RSS or Atom feed, or give simply enter a Del.icio.us username.  Wordle will then analyze the text and tags to create a word cloud.  But what’s so artistic about a word cloud, you may ask.  Well, Wordle actually lets you control colors, layouts, fonts, languages, and even which words to include.  The results can be quite stunning!

Wordle is free to use and you can even use the Wordles you create for your own commercial or personal purposes (t-shirts and bookcovers come to mind!).  Not a bad deal!

Below is the Wordle created when we feed our own iBraryGuy RSS into wordle.  We gave it a bit of an African flare in deference to the World Cup.  Make your own.  Enjoy!

Not all that long ago, it seemed as though the search engine wars had been won and gone dormant.  Then along came Microsoft’s Bing and soon the battle to be the best search engine was again heating up.  Bingest latest offering, a vertical search for music, movies, and games is sure to throw fuel to the fire.  If you have not yet seen it, it is called Bing Entertainment, and it is pretty darned cool.

Bing Entertainment is specifically designed to not only let you find movies, music, television, and games that may interest you . . . but also to make accessing them via iTunes, Amazon, Zune and others as simple as possible.  Search for a song and you will not only get info on the song and its artist, but also its lyrics, a chance to preview the tune, and even the ability to buy it.  The same is true of movies, television shows, and video games.  You can watch trailers or episode teasers, read reviews, and link to official sites.

Bing Entertainment is more than just a search.  It has a social component.  You can comment and share you favorite media with friends thanks to integration with Facebook and Twitter.  On the search side of things, however, Bing Entertainment is pretty powerful.  Search all media at once or focus just on movies or music or television or games.  From the main page, you can even explore some of the most searched media items for the week in the nifty “What’s Hot” section.

For those looking for the latest media break-outs, Bing Entertainment is a welcome addition to the search world.  Microsoft’s latest attempt to make a dent in the Google juggernaut appears to be one of its best yet.  Not great for Google, but certainly good for the rest of us!

Does that fact that running the same search on different search engines often results in wildly different results bother you?  It bothers us at iBraryGuy.  If you are like us, you probably will run an important search in various search engines just to make sure you did not miss anything.  This can be both cumbersome and time-consuming.  Well it could . . . until Zuula came along and made power searching a whole lot easier.

What is Zuula?  The name may sound odd, but we library types know better than to judge a book by its cover.  We judge it by its content and our contentment.  Give Zuula a try and you will see that it’s got some great features that are bound to make you happy.  Let’s start by saying what Zuula is not.  It is not a mere metasearch in the classic definition.  Though Zuula searches across various search engines, it does not simply aggregate and rank results into one list.  No.  It searches other engines and brings you individual lists that you can compare and contrast without running multiple searches or opening multiple windows.  In this regard, Zuula is really one part metasearch and one part time saver!

Zuula’s real power is not as much in its search (which is great!) but in its functionality and customization.  Run a search in Zuula and you will get a series of results tabs.  Each tab is a results list from a different search engine.  Simply click the tabs to compare and contrast the results.  Want to specify which engines are being searched and in which order?  No problem!  Zuula can be customised to poll only the search engines you trust and in an order ranked by you.  You can even set these prefernces by type of content being searched (web, images, video, blogs, etc.).  It does not take much to make Zuula work for you and save you a good bit of legwork and time.  Zuula even saves your most recent searches for you for easy recall.

In a world where web search has almost become ubiquitous to our daily lives, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a search engine to stand out from the crowd or compete with the major players.  Zuula, which is still in beta, is off to a great start.   More than just a fresh approach to metasearch, it is practical and powerful alternative to search engine overload!

Looking to make your home and life a little more eco-friendly?  Being tech saavy and earth-conscious no longer has to be an oxymoron in practice.  No sir.  Let Envirogadget help you green up the world with a little bit of fun and flare.

From water-powered clocks to bug zappers that get their power from the sun, Envirogadget has green gadgets for every tech toy lover!  Seeking to stem the tide of throw-away consumerism, blogger Dan Harrison has created a site that showcases the latest in eco-friendly technology.  Not only are the products he features fascinating and fun, they are also practical and affordable.

Appropriately enough, the site itself is clean, friendly, and easy to use.  The main page features the gadget of the day.  Links on the top provide access to the Envirogadget archives and gadget galleries.  In the interest of full disclosure, Harrison does let readers know that he is compensated to review products.  However, he is also very clear that the compensation does not affect the review or his honest opinions on the site.

With so many environmental mishaps making the headlines these days, we can all do a little more to help heal our wear planet.  Luckily, even those of us who are gadget-obsessed can do our part as well.  Thanks to Envirogadget, our love of technology just got a bit greener!

There are many ways to find folks worth following on Twitter.  You can use any of the Twitter search engines to find people using specific hashtags or words, such as “#libraries” or librarianship.  You can follow specific Twitter lists, such as our own “Librariana” (http://twitter.com/iBraryGuy/librariana).  There are even sites such as WeFollow.com that are dedicated to classifying and ranking Twitter users.  Perhaps one of the easiest means of finding tweeters worth following, however, is to simply look at who is following the tweeps you already know and trust.  Google’s new Follow Finder aims to make that method of finding folks to follow even easier.

Using Follow Finder is as easy as entering the name of anyone Twitter.  For instance, you could search for “iBraryGuy” (no “@” required).  Click the search button and you will get results in two columns.  The first column, labeled “Tweeps You Might Like”, is a list of recommended Twitterers based on the tweeps whom the person you searched follows.  The second column, “Tweeps with Similar Followers”, actually looks at the relationships between the person searched and folks with similar lists of followers.  Sound confusing?  Follow along . . .

How Google arrives at that first list is interesting. Follow Finder compares the list of people the person for whom you searched follows, finds others with similar lists, and then identifies accounts you might also want to follow based on that comparison.  These are the “Tweeps You Might Want to Follow”.  In other words, if iBraryGuy follows Resource Shelf and other folks who also follow Resource Shelf additionally follow Read Write Web, Follow Finder will recommend Read Write Web to you.

The second list, “Tweeps with Similar Followers”, involves a similar comparison.  Only here Google is looking at the users who are following the person you searched.  So if you search iBraryGuy, Follow Finder looks at who is following us and then compares their lists of followers and makes recommendations to you based on recurring names.  Think of it as the flip side of the social coin.  When you enter a name into Follow Finder, it looks at both the folks whom that user follows and the folks that are following that user.

Google’s Follow Finder is a quick  and easy way to run a two-dimensional search for new Twitter users  worth following.  When we say quick, we literally mean that it takes split seconds to get your results.  And when we say easy, we might as well point out that Follow Finder even provides you with links under each name that allow you to simply click and follow.  It doesn’t get much easier!

Still in Google Labs, we look forward to seeing where this new search tool ends up in the long run!