Seeking web coolness, budget=$0

Thanks to the Librarian in Black blog (you know the one - http://librarianinblack.typepad.com/librarianinblack/), I "found" the June 2006 CIL article by Rachel Singer Gordon and Michael Stephens "Online Cool on a Budget". It's a great lineup of free tools that you can integrate into your web presence to bring your library website into the 21st-century (if not into "coolness"). Read the original (not too long) article for more(/better written) details. To wit:

• Blogging (a blog facilitates the quick and easy publication of information and - in fact - the commenting feature allows for patron interaction - very Web2.0-y) [Sharon's addition - use of term Web2.0-y ... take that, O'Reilly!]
• Flickr (online photo sharing/storage - get those graphics quickly incorporated into your blogs and websites)
• Google maps - create an interactive map to your library locations
• del.icio.us - social bookmarking to help organize your online resources via subject - share among your fellow librarians [Sharon's addition: Furl is an option for this, too, and no doubt, there are many more]
• Wikis - build a wiki to aloow staff to jointly create content
• Try MySpace or Facebook - get social!

The list of resources from this article is here for your convenience:

Blogger: http://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jun06/%20http://www.blogger.com
del.icio.us: http://del.icio.us/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/
Google Maps API—Signup: http://www.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html
Google Maps EZ: http://bluweb.com/us/chouser/gmapez
Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki: http://www.libsuccess.org/
Morrisville College Libraries MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/morrisvillecollegelibrary
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/ PBwiki: http://pbwiki.com