What a fun exercise for a lazy Sunday...thinking about books! My LibraryThing has just a few selections so far, and not many tags yet: http://www.librarything.com/profile/jamglam

The "Members with your books" feature is fascinating! It really makes me understand the importance of the long tail. I first posted some relatively unknown books (Fevre Dream, River Notes) and found that I had a lot in common with the members who also posted those books. Then added some more popular books (Harry Potter) and found less and less synchronicity. I can't wait to explore further.

For Rollyo, I created a search engine for young adult books: http://www.rollyo.com/jamglam/

This brings me to the question of the week: What are some innovative ways that libraries and librarians could use custom search engines?

As demonstrated above, libraries could set up custom search engines so that patrons could find award-winning or recommended books. With so much emphasis on cataloguing, OPACs haven't had many features that make browsing easier, though keyword tagging has helped. So, for example, if I do a subject search for "dragons" to find books for my son, a federated search can also come up to help the user sort out the results.

Also, going back to week four, a custom search engine could be added to a library's start page. Local news or history sites could be aggregated, making research easier. If the library were an academic or corporate library with a particular focus, a custom search would provide a way for patrons to search multiple reviewed sites for timely information. Finally, an elementary school librarian could restrict searches to make it easier for children to find the information they need to write their reports.

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