By Jessica Merritt

Flickr is wildly popular tool for photo addicts, but did you realize that it’s full of possibilities for library use? It’s true, and there are loads of resources out there that can help you fully take advantage of what Flickr has to offer. Read on to discover guides, tools, and so much more.

Getting Started

Follow these guides to get a crash course in using Flickr in your library.

1. Why should librarians care about Flickr?: This librarian makes the case for using Flickr in the library.
2. Priceless Images: Getting Started with Flickr: Check out this post for an introduction to Flickr for libraries.
3. Get Flickr-tastic!: This guide will show you the ropes for using Flickr in your library.

Uses

Check out these ideas for using Flickr to get inspired.

4. Give a virtual tour: See how this library offers a look around on Flickr.
5. Online Outreach: Sarah Houghton-Jan suggests using Flickr to find images of your library.
6. Share event photos: This library shares photos of a Charlotte’s Web event on Flickr.
7. Advocate with Images: This article discusses using Flickr to let your community know what’s going on in the library.
8. Flickr for a Library Tour: This librarian from the University of Winnipeg describes the details she used to create a photo tour of the library.
9. Share history: Post historical photos of your library on Flickr for all to see.
10. Create custom posters: Lansing Public Library made their own READ posters with Flickr.
11. Promote events: This library promoted their book and bake sale on Flickr.
12. Libraries and Librarians: This group on Flickr is a fast growing community of librarians around the world.
13. Show off cool gear: Inspire other librarians by sharing new additions to your library.
14. Library of Congress: Visit this awe-inspiring image archive to get an idea of how powerful Flickr can be for your library.
15. Libraries that use Flickr: Check out this list to see how other libraries are making use of Flickr.
16. Murder by the Book: This Flickr set promotes a murder mystery event held at a library.
17. Flickr/Yahoo & Library Collection: Find out how the National Library of Australia is building an image bank with Flickr.
18. Steal this Idea: Flickr for Librarians: This resource offers a wealth of great ideas for using Flickr in your library.
19. Image storage: This wiki page takes advantage of Flickr’s easy image storage.
20. How nonprofits can use Flickr: TechSoup offers recommendations for using Flickr.
21. Teen Trading Cards: Hennepin County Library has used Flickr to get teens involved.
22. Create a magazine cover: One library used a Flickr tool to create a magazine cover and share it with the community.
23. Things to Do With Flickr in Libraries: This guide offers a variety of useful ideas for putting Flickr to work.
24. Celebrate new additions: This library shows off their first bookmobile patron and more.
25. Show off events: Show your community that your library holds fun events by putting their photos on Flickr.

Tools

Put these tools to work to make Flickr even more useful.

26. Flickr Storm: Use this Flickr search engine to locate images with specific Creative Commons licenses.
27. Flickr Favorites via RSS: With this tool, you can have your favorite Flickr users’ favorites sent to you by RSS.
28. Flickr Machine Tags: This tool makes linking and tagging your photos much easier.
29. Motivational Poster Maker: Create motivational posters for your library using this Flickr tool.
30. TechSoup Technology Donations: Thanks to TechSoup, you can get a free Flickr Pro account for your library.
31. Free Use Photos: This group is full of photos you can use for free and without restrictions in your library. You can also upload your own photos to share with the group.
32. Flickr Backup: This application allows you to back up your precious Flickr photos and save them locally. This is also helpful if you’ve lost photos, but have them on Flickr.
33. FlickrSlidr: Use the FlickrSlidr to embed Flickr slideshows on your library’s site or blog in a simple, easy way.
34. MyFlickr: Put this application on your library’s Facebook profile, and you’ll be able to stream your Flickr photos.

Guides

For specific instructions on how you can use Flickr, visit these guides and tutorials.

35. Let’s Play Tag: This article discusses best practices for tagging photos and more.
36. Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging: Follow these tips to make your images easy to find.
37. Flickr pornography: Discuss how you handle filtering of pornography on Flickr in this forum.
38. Social Tagging Workshop Session: Learn how you can put tags from Flickr and beyond to work in your library.
39. Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software: Michael Stephens offers a guide to using social software, including Flickr, in libraries.
40. Social Networking, Flickr, & MMOGs: You’ll find lots of information about using Flickr in this collection of podcasts and presentations for social libraries.
41. 10 Reasons to Use Flickr at Your Library: Get inspiration for using Flickr from these excellent examples.
42. 10 More Reasons to Use Flickr in Your Libraries: This post expands upon the previous one, offering even more ways to make use of Flickr in the library.
43. Flickr + Libraries = Scary, Scary, Scary to Some Folks: This blogger explains why Flickr is anything but a scary tool, and how you can make the most out of it.
44. University of Michigan: Flickr: The University of Michigan explains in great detail how to use, and what you can do with, Flickr.
45. Flickr Learning and Sharing: In this guide, you’ll see how to use Flickr for marketing and building your library.
46. Flickr for Academic Libraries: This post explains a few things about Flickr, and how you can use it in an academic library.
47. Flickr for Library Teens: Find out how to best use Flickr for your library’s teenage demographic.
48. 7 Things You Should Know About Flickr: This document explains how you can use Flickr as an educational resource.
49. Flickr & Libraries: Read over this librarian’s notes on a discussion concerning library use of Flickr.
50. Why should libraries be socially networking?: Here you’ll find out why using Flickr and other social tools is important for your library, and a few ways to use them.
51. Patrons Participating in Library 2.0: Find out how you can get your library patrons involved in Flickr.
52. Are Flickr Modules Good for Library Websites?: Joomla considers how libraries can improve upon Flickr module use.

Although many users of the Kindle will use it as a book reader and nothing else, the device is so jam-packed with possibilities that you’d be a fool not to take advantage of them. The Kindle can be used for GPS, wireless connectivity, playing music, and so much more. Read on to find out how you can squeeze every ounce of usefulness out of the Amazon Kindle with hacks, tips, and other resources.

Tips

Follow these tips to make Kindle a better, more convenient reader, or to push the limits of what the device will do.

1. Subscribe to magazines and newspapers for early delivery: If you sign up to receive subscriptions to print products on your Kindle, you’ll often get access to them before they hit the newsstands.
2. Print screen: Make a screenshot by pressing Alt-Shift-G.
3. Activate Kindle’s picture viewer: Create a "pictures" folder and "book," and you’ll be able to view images on your device.
4. Turn off your wireless when the signal isn’t great: If you’re in an area where you’re not getting a good wireless signal, be sure to turn the function off or you’ll drain your battery quickly.
5. Kindle supports multiple formats: You can read .mobi, .prc, .txt, .jpg, .gif, HTML and Word files on the Kindle.
6. Preserve your book collection: Keep a digital copy of your literature in case of fire, flood, or theft.
7. Skip more than one page: You can fast forward though pages by pressing and holding Alt plus the Next or Previous page keys.
8. When in doubt, reset: If you get an "Unexpected error" or other troubles, try giving your Kindle a quick reset to see if it will solve the trouble.
9. Find the web browser: You can find the Kindle’s web browser under the "Experimental" banner.
10. Check out Wikipedia: If you’ve read about something and would like more information on it, simply hit Kindle’s Wikipedia search for an answer.
11. Send IMs: You can use Yahoo! Messenger on the Kindle.
12. Use it for reference material: Load reference books that you read frequently for work on the Kindle, and you’ll be able to access them in a searchable, portable format.
13. Use Kindle NowNow: With this human-powered search system, you can get information on the go.
14. Turn off your wireless anytime: Although a bad connection will drain your battery, just turning wireless off any time you’re not using it will help your battery charge last much longer.
15. Use the calendar: You can download a calendar for the Kindle at a minimal price.
16. Access your readings on Amazon: Amazon keeps a copy of your subscriptions and books online, so if you accidentally wipe everything out in an upgrade, you can get it back again with relative ease.
17. Select between sizes: The Kindle offers six different font sizes.
18. Avoid hitting the "Next Page" button: Try pressing a key on the keyboard to keep your crip, or slide a rubber band into the slit behind the page turning bar.
19. Take advantage of the search function: Easily find the information you’re looking for by searching electronically on the Kindle.
20. Read RSS feeds using Bloglines: Instead of paying to download subscriptions, set up your RSS feeds on Javascript-free Bloglines for free.
21. GPS: You can use the Kindle’s CDMA mobile coverage to find your location on Google Maps.
22. Use it as an MP3 player: Did you know that the Kindle doubles as an MP3 player? Put this functionality to use with its headphone jack and speakers.
23. Make reading accessible: Try resizing text to make reading easier for the elderly or other visually impaired persons.
24. Minesweeper: By pressing Alt-M, you can access Kindle’s Minesweeper game.
25. Get free conversions: If you send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com, you can have files converted and emailed to you, and then transfer the document to your Kindle.
26. Use the dictionary: The Kindle comes pre-loaded with the New Oxford American dictionary.

Tutorials & Guides

Follow these documents for step-by-step instructions on Kindle hacking.

26. Getting the Console: This tutorial shows you how to access your Kindle’s console.
27. How to fill your Kindle for FREE: Check out this guide to learn where you can find free content for the Kindle.
28. Ideas for Hacking Kindle WiFi: In this guide, you’ll get a number of ideas and resources for hacking into WiFi on the Kindle.
29. The Kindle Browser-Wireless Information Tool?: SamSpeak considers the use of the Kindle browser.
30. Jump pages in the Kindle: Skip ahead to a new location in your Kindle using the instructions in this tutorial video.
31. Gmail on the Kindle: This resource offers instruction and a few tips for reading Gmail on the Kindle.
32. A Beginner’s Guide to Kindle Content: Read this resource to learn how to find content for your Kindle beyond the Amazon store.
33. Adding your own pictures to the Kindle Screensaver: Check out this tutorial to learn how to put your own photos in the screensaver rotation.
34. How hard is it to return an ebook?: Visit this guide to learn how to handle returns with Amazon.
35. Amazon Kindle-A Value Investing Tool: Fat Pitch Financial considers how you can use the Kindle for investment.
36. Feedbooks Kindle Hack: This tutorial shows you how to use the Feedbooks Kindle Download Guide as an on-demand library.
37. Listening to Audio Books: Find out how to get audio books from Audible in this guide.
38. Bootloader and firmware updates: Here you’ll learn how to get into the interactive shell and perform firmware updates.
39. Amazon Kindle Disassembly and Take-Apart Guide: Check out this tutorial to see how you can get into the guts of the Kindle.
40. Creating Folders on the Kindle’s SD Card: Check out this guide for tips on Kindle folder management.
41. Wanna Read Manga on Your Kindle?: Use the Kindle’s photo function to flip through manga and other image-based books.
42. Play music on a Kindle: Check out this video to see how you can play MP3s on your Kindle.
43. Getting Free Books: Here you’ll learn a few resources for finding books and a number of different ways to get them on your Kindle device.
44. How to transfer and convert lots of documents to the Kindle: This library expert discovered that emailing her Kindle address would result in perfectly converted and available files.
45. The Amazon Kindle: As a RPG Resource: This reviewer explains how you can use the Kindle for role playing games.
46. Root shell and runtime system: Get into the root shell and runtime system with this tutorial.
47. How to view PDF files on the Kindle: Check out this tutorial to learn how to read PDF files using your Kindle.

Shortcuts

Use your Kindle with ultra quickness by learning these handy shortcuts.

48. Keyboard shortcuts: This resource offers, among other gems, a number of keyboard shortcuts for the Kindle.
49. Jump to the Beginning or End of Home Menu or for a Book: This resource explains a few navigational shortcuts.
50. GPS shortcuts: This resource has a bunch of different shortcuts to use with Kindle’s GPS.
51. Search commands: Find some secret and not-so-secret search commands in this resource.
52. Home screen time: If you press Alt-T, you can show time on the home screen.
53. Kindle Keyboard Reference: Check out this reference sheet for keyboard shortcuts and commands.

Tools

Make use of these tools in order to hack and otherwise use your Kindle for extraordinary purposes.

54. MobiPocket: Format PDFs into .mobi files that you can read on your device using MobiPocket.
55. Kindle Coverage Tool: Check out areas of coverage with this tool that graphically indicates wireless availability.
56. eBookSearchr: Use this ebook search engine to find material to put on your kindle.
57. Mighty Bright XtraFlex2 Light: This little light clips on to the back of your Kindle whenever you need a little extra light for reading.
58. Gutenmark: This utility easily formats Gutenberg books to a format that looks nice on the Kindle.
59. Tubby: Using Tubby, you can convert CHM to HTML.
60. AudibleManager: With the AudibleManager, you can transfer Audible audiobooks to your Kindle.
61. PDFCreator: This program installs a printer on your system, and you can use it to create Kindle-readable PDFs from any program with a print function.
62. Mobi scripts: Use these scripts to be able to use mobi files on your Kindle.
63. Book Designer: With this conversion tool, you can output files in a number of compatible formats.
64. Project Gutenberg Conversion Template: Using this macro template, you can convert Project Gutenberg txt files into a more friendly format.
65. Python interpreter: You’ll need to download a Python interpreter to read Mobipocket books.
66. DailyLit: DailyLit will email you portions of books to read on your Kindle.
67. Beam-ebooks Converter: With this web tool, you can copy and paste text into the form field and get a .prc or PDF file.
68. ABC Amber LIT Converter: This free tool can convert the .lit format to a Kindle-readable .prc file.
69. Use your Kindle as a EVDO WiFi Access Point?: This thread discusses one way to use your Kindle for WiFi.
70. Google Book Search: With this Google function, you can read the classics online.
71. ABC Ambe CHM Converter: Convert .chm format files to .prc using this tool.

Book Sources

Use these sources to find free or cheap ebooks and audiobooks for use on the Kindle.

72. Fictionwise: Fictionwise offers thousands of different ebooks, from romance to science fiction.
73. Online Books Page: UPenn hosts more than 30,000 different books that you can read online.
74. Audible: Check out this site to download audio books. You can use them to listen as you read along in print.
75. Flazx: On this site, you’ll find computer and IT books to read on your Kindle.
76. Diesel eBooks: Diesel has more than 750 free ebooks from authors like Jane Austen and Lewis Carroll.
77. Mobipocket free books: This resource offers a number of different Kindle-compatible ebooks for free.
78. Free Kindle eBook: This blog offers the occasional link to downloads of wonderful Kindle books.
79. ManyBooks: Here you’ll find a large collection of ebooks.
80. FreeTechBooks: This site offers free computer science and programming books.
81. Well Told Tales: Listen to short, free audio books on Well Told Tales.
82. Project Gutenberg: Download books in the public domain from Project Gutenberg.
83. MobileRead E-Book Uploads: This community shares a number of ebooks that you can download.
84. PinkMonkey: Pink Monkey offers free access to study materials and book notes.
85. LibriVox: Visit this publisher to find more than 1,000 full length audio books recorded by volunteers.
86. FreeComputerBooks: Get access to loads of technical information on your Kindle using this resource.
87. Baen Free Library: This publisher puts out a selected collection of no-strings-attached titles for download.
88. Wowio: Wowio is home to a large collection of free ebooks, comics, and graphic novels.
89. WebScriptions: This site’s ebooks are compatible with the Kindle.

Publishing

Don’t just read other works, get your books and other publications available on the Kindle.

90. Digital Text Platform: With this platform, you can publish your books to be read on the Kindle.
91. Scribd: On Scribd, you can upload documents, publish, and more.
92. Use hyperlinks: Share links to interesting resources and further reading in Kindle-published works.

Resources

For even more information on Kindle hacking, be sure to check out these resources.

93. Kindle Hacking: Charlie Tritschler, director of Kindle, discusses the possibility of hacking the Kindle.
94. Tips and Tricks of Kindle: Amazon offers a few different tricks for their device.
95. Amazon Customer Discussions: Learn about tricks and tips from other Kindle owners here.
96. eNews Content Available on Kindle: This list offers a collection of full feeds you can read on the Kindle.
97. Amazon Kindle Hints and Tips: Mobility Today discusses a number of tips and hints for the Kindle.
98. The Kindle Site List: KindleChat maintains a list of Kindle resource sites.
99. Contact Amazon in an emergency: Here you’ll find useful contact information for Kindle owners.
100. Share Kindle Tips: Check out this Amazon forum thread to find a list of useful tips for the Kindle.
101. Yahoo! KindleKorner: Visit this community for ongoing tips and tricks from other Kindle owners.
102. Tips, Tricks, and Hints: Visit this thread to learn about all of the different tricks Kindle users have come up with.
103. A Million or so Kindle books available now: where to get them and how: Check out this resource for loads of information on where you can find titles for download.
104. 30 Benefits of Ebooks: This resource takes a look at a number of different ways you can use ebooks.

 By Laura Milligan

All kinds of writers, including poets, biographers, journalists, biz tech writers, bloggers and technical writers, take a unique approach to their jobs, mixing creativity with sustainability. Whether you’re a freelance writer just scraping by or someone with a solid job and more regular hours, the Internet can provide you with unending support for your practical duties like billing, scheduling appointments, and of course getting paid; as well as for your more creative pursuits, like developing a plot, finding inspiration and playing around with words. Turn to this list for 100 useful Web tools that will help you with your career, your sanity and your creativity whenever your write.

Getting Organized

Thanks to the Internet, disorganized writers are no longer a cliche. Keep track of appointments, interviews and deadlines with these handy web-based tools.

1. Writing.com: Join this community to get access to your own online portfolio, e-mail services, writing tips, writers workshops, contests and more.
2. ubernote: Remember all of your workshops, meetings, social events and deadlines with this tool, which can manage task lists, contact information, bookmarks, and more.
3. Google Calendar: Share events with your editor or partners with this online calendar that works with many other productivity and CRM tools.
4. Evernote: Evernote is an attractive tool that lets you take notes and clip certain websites from your computer or your cell phone. It also comes with a search tool so you can easily find photos and notes from your desktop.
5. Notesake: This tool is marketed towards college students, but its note organizer is also good for writers.
6. Wridea: Keep track of your brainstorming ideas, places to send work and anything else you need to remember on this remote access site.
7. EssentialPIM: Manage events, to-do lists, reviews, notes and writing ideas with this comprehensive tool which can sync up with your iPod, Google Calendar Outlook or Palm device.
8. ajaxWrite: Firefox users can use this Web-based word processor that can also recognize Microsoft Word.
9. TreePad Lite: This all-in-one organizer is free to use and can host notes, e-mails, links, and text.
10. Tellico: This open source tool organizes collections, including poems, bibliographies, chapters, book series, blog posts and more.

Finding Inspiration

Beat down writer’s block by using these online idea prompts and inspirational tools.

11. The Imagination Prompt Generator: Click through the prompts to generate different ideas in response to questions like "Is there a God?" and "If your tears could speak to you, what would they say?"
12. Fire Under Your Butt — Inspiration for Writers: This page has inspiring quotes, tips and photos to get your brain going.
13. Inspiration for Writers: Visit this website often for encouraging writing tips and even a writer’s prayer.
14. Words of Wisdom: Children’s book author and illustrator Tammy Yee put together this page of humorous and encouraging quotes to inspire herself and others to keep writing.
15. Geoffrey’s Automatic Story and Idea Generator: Fill in the blanks to construct an outline of three simple story ideas.
16. Writing and Blogging Prompts: Click through the photos and prompt ideas to get inspired to write about holidays, the weather, geographical locations, food and more.
17. 31 Ways to Find Inspiration for Your Writing: This list has lots of tips for generating new ideas, including online forums, eavesdropping, social media sites and people watching.
18. 7 Can’t-Miss Ways to Kick-Start the Writing Habit: From writing headlines to writing crap, this list has realistic ways to get you out of your funk.
19. 1,000 Quick Writing Ideas: This e-book does come with a small fee, but you can download a sample for free.
20. Creative Writing Prompts: Hover over a number from 1-302 to get a different prompt. Examples include "write about a weird day in your workplace" and "write about someone you would love to see put in jail."
21. The Story Starter: Click the button for the first sentence of a random story and then finish it yourself. There are over 345 million ideas!

Getting Gigs

For many writers, finding a gig is the hardest part of their career. Stalk the listings on these sites for improving your chances at connecting with employers.

22. Guru: Guru is a freelancers’ job board and supposedly "the world’s largest online service marketplace."
23. Ed2010: Check out Ed’s Whisper Jobs section, which posts internships and paid jobs for magazine gigs around the country.
24. Places for Writers: Learn about contests, publishing awards, grants and jobs on this site.
25. Elance: Connect with employers on this site, which currently posts nearly 500 writing and translation jobs.
26. Freelance Switch Job Board: Visit this site for copywriting and writing jobs.
27. Online Writing Jobs: Find full-time, freelance and internship writing opportunities here.
28. Freelance Writing Jobs: Learn effective ways to design your portfolio, pitch story ideas and contact editors on this site.
29. iFreelance: This job site lets you post a project or a profile while you search for freelancing jobs.
30. Poe War: Search jobs by state or by categories like online/web, journalism, technical writing, copywriting, editing, general writing and others.

Communicating with Vendors, Editors and Partners

These project management and collaboration tools will help you stay in touch with everyone you work with over the Internet.

31. Highrise: Manage all of your employers, vendors, designers and partners with this CRM tool.
32. eFax: If you work at home, you probably don’t have a lot of extra room for bulky fax machines. Use this web tool for easy faxing all over the world.
33. PDF Online: If one of your employers or editors needs your writing in a PDF format, you can convert it to this online version for free.
34. Backpack: This 37 Signals tool organizes group calendars, announcements, files, task lists and more, perfect for writers who frequently work with or manage others.
35. WriteWith: Manage your pieces online with your editors and agents using this tool.
36. Campfire: Another 37 Signals tool, this collaboration solution lets you set up secure chat groups where you can send and share files.
37. Loose Stitch: Share outlines for your pieces with writing partners and editors with this totally free collaboration tool.
38. Teamspinner: This beta tool is especially useful for those working on longer pieces like novels or biographies. You get to design the structure for each project you work on, making it easy to stay true to your theme based on your outlines, design and work process.
39. WhosOff: If you work at home, it’s probably difficult for you to remember which of your colleagues are in town and which can’t be reached. Use this tool to straighten it all out.
40. Central Desktop: Utilize the web conferencing feature as well as the group workspaces and screen sharing capabilities on this project collaboration tool.

Networking and Marketing

Meet new agents, publishers, editors and readers by taking advantage of these web tools.

41. Book Marketing Network: Book authors can join this network to find publishers, agents and marketers, check out the network blog, join groups and view photos or videos.
42. The Web-Savvy Writer: Visit this blog often to learn how to market your writing online and attract new readers and publishers.
43. 1000 Keyboards: Short story writers can connect on this website, which lets them browse stories and comment or critique them.
44. Facebook: The marketing possibilities through Facebook are endless. Get a profile and start posting about your favorite books, your new stories and more.
45. LibraryThing: Talk about all types of books and collections on this social networking site, where you’re sure to meet other writers with similar interests.
46. Business Paper: Use this application to "manage and order business cards, cutting the administrative overhead and making quality control easier than ever before."
47. Professional on the Web: Freelancers can get their portfolios listed on the Internet and manage a profile through this tool.

Just for Writing

Practice your writing and get language tips here.

48. Writeboard: This collaborative writing tool also works with Backpack to keep all of your notes and pieces organized.
49. English Forums: Get answers to your grammar questions here.
50. yWriter4: A novelist and programmer designed this word processor solution that helps writers move around scenes and chapters while generating reports of your plot and themes.

Staying Grounded

A writer’s life can be fulfilling, but it’s also often lonely. Stay grounded by reaching out to other writers and contacts through these websites and social platforms to share your work, make new friends and maybe even earn a little extra cash.

51. WriteWords: This online writer’s community has job listings, an events calendar, interviews with writers, inspirational tips, a writer’s forum and more.
52. HupPages: HubPages gives writers the chance to get published online by writing about whatever they want. It’s a great tool for brainstorming, getting practice and keeping busy between gigs.
53. Xomba: This online community of writers also offers some paid gigs.
54. Booksie: This site lets you share your poems, short stories and other writing pieces with other writers and visitors to the site. You can also browse other stories and help promote your favorite authors.
55. Writers’ Dock: This forum just for writers features a comedy department, poetry department, and radio "station."
56. Poetry Soup: Poetry Soup is "the FREE international poetry community," and offers lots of writing guides, inspirational resources, blogs, contests, publishing news and the opportunity to publish your work.
57. Editred: Editred is another writing community that has a forum, contest links and support for publishing your writing.
58. Coffeehouse for Writers: This online coffeehouse offers writers a safe space for finding encouragement, taking online workshops, talking about books, and learning about the writing and publishing industries.
59. Critique Circle: Visit this online writing center for writing tips that will improve your projects. It’s free to get an account, and you’ll receive between 7-10 critiques for each piece you submit.
60. Today’s Woman: Women writers can turn to this writing community for a forum, plenty of writing resources, a place to submit stories or poems, and other support services.

Productivity Tools

Up your productivity with these tools, which manage your task lists, force you to practice and keep you connected to your clients and craft.

61. Toodledo: Become more productive with this task master tool which offers mobile access and collaboration features.
62. FreeMind: Stay on point with this open source mind mapping tool.
63. Remember the Milk: Create a separate to-do list for each writing project you’ve got going on with Remember the Milk.
64. Resources for Writers: Turn to this "front page" to learn about writing classes, writing tips and managing your career.
65. Daily Writes: Sign up for this free 31-day e-mail writing workshop that sends you a different tip and writing exercise each day for a month.
66. TeamViewer: Access your desktop and files from anywhere with this free tool.
67. Word Count Plus: Use this Firefox add-on to give yourself an extra push and finish your work.
68. PingMe: If you don’t have an editor or agent reminding you of deadlines, set up automatic alerts with PingMe so you’ll stay on task. Reminders can be sent via e-mail or text message to your phone.
69. ClientScribe: This tool will keep you organized and on top of your assignments by keeping track of all of your communications with your clients, managers and partners.
70. ProjectStat.us: If generating status reports and progress reports to your editor take up too much of your time, you can use this quick tool that lets you "easily manage your customers’ project info and allow your customers to see up-to-date project information at any time," without bothering you.

Getting Paid

Stop trying to hunt down your customers or agents for your next paycheck. Use these online tools for easy and fast contract signing and bill pay.

71. FreshBooks: This popular tool helps you bill hours and send and receive payments online. It also works with PayPal and other similar services.
72. LessAccounting: This tool helps non-accountants make sense of their finances and invoices online. You can also use other Google and Basecamp tools with LessAccounting.
73. yaTimer: yaTimer is another time tracking tool that displays as a small window on your desktop. yaTimer can also support several different projects at once.
74. EchoSign: Get your contracts and bills signed through this online service.
75. Fluttervoice: This highly customizable invoicing tool lets you use your own logo and manage your finances "without the buttpain." It’s also free if you send no more than 3 invoice per month.
76. Saasu: This "web finance engine" works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Mac, Windows and Linux so that you can manage invoices and other finances on any computer.
77. Seamless Online Signing: This is another tool that lets you send and receive electronic signatures.
78. Time59: Use this tool for billing your customers and tracking your billable hours.
79. invotrak: invotrak lets you track invoices for free so that you can keep your finances in order and follow up with late customers.
80. SimplyBill: If invoicing customers and crunching numbers is your least favorite part of your job, use SimplyBill to save invoices as PDFs, e-mail invoices, subscribe to your invoices with RSS, send reminders and thank you messages and more.

Fun Little Extras

From international slang dictionaries to character tools, these fun tools are actually very valuable.

81. The Alternative Dictionaries: Look up slang words in all types of languages, including Egyptian Arabic, Cherokee, Cantonese, Norwegian and many, many others.
82. Blockbluster Plots: Martha Anderson helps writers develop story plots here.
83. txt2tags: This document generator helps you create HTML codes for your work.
84. The Social Dictionary: With this dictionary and thesaurus, you don’t ever have to "leave your browser’s address bar." You can also upload photos for definitions, which helps with brainstorming.
85. StoryMash: If you aren’t in the mood to start a whole new project but want to stay in practice, join this collaborative fiction group, where you only have to write one chapter at a time.
86. Protolize: Bookmark this page to search and discover all types of web tools that you can use to jazz up your projects. Categories include Java, Inspiration, Flash, Ruby and others.
87. Character Questionnaire: This tool offers a fun and clever way for developing your characters.
88. My Fonts: Give all or part of your text a little something extra when you play around with this stock photo site.
89. World Wide Words: Learn the history and true meaning of phrases and words like "cock and bull story," "moniker" and "wiseacre" on this site.
90. askCHARITY: Journalists benefit from this free contacts service that grants you access to contact information and more for charities all over.

Protecting Your Livelihood

For health insurance, file backup systems and copyright tools, turn to this list to protect your livelihood.

91. ZManda: This open source backup tool will make you feel more secure about keeping your docs on the computer.
92. Poets and Writers: This website supports poets and writers by advertising gigs, supporting an online community and helping with funding for writer’s events.
93. Get in a Good Habit: Back Up Your Data: This article from PC World highlights several tools which will allow you to back up your files so they’re never lost.
94. Sonar: Sonar is a submission tracker that offers "free manuscript tracking" capabilities so that you can organize rejections, publications, contests, markets and more.
95. National Writers Union: This website has some free access resources, but becoming a member will grant you access to health insurance, writer alerts, a copyright guide and even lawsuit and contract information.
96. The Authors Guild: Use this organization’s contract tools and legal support each time you start a new project or have a disagreement with your client.
97. MyNewCompany.com: The free tools on this website instruct you on how to set up a business plan, find investors and come with a business or branding identity.
98. Freelancers Union: Freelance and contract writers may want to consider joining this union, which posts jobs on their website, as well as discounts on everything from travel expenses to gym membership to drugstore purchases.
99. Creative Commons: Find free tools on this site to copyright any of your work 100% or as a "Some Rights Reserved" project.
100. Squarespace: Even if you aren’t technically an online writer, you can use this service to help you design a website to advertise your services or keep a blog that will help you practice.

 By Laura Milligan

Facebook users, take note: this is the ultimate list for multitasking, productivity and shortcuts. Read below to find out all the cool things you can do with Facebook that you never knew about — saving you time and letting you combine all of your address books, contacts and calendars, advertise, and of course, meet new people and reconnect with old friends.

Facebook and…

Use these hacks to combine your Facebook account with your other social media accounts or online organizers, like Google calendar, Twitter and others.

1. Facebook events to Google calendar: This Greasemonkey hack lets you quickly add a Facebook event to your Google calendar with one click.
2. AIM Plugin: When you’re signed on to AIM, this plugin also lets you know whenever you’ve been tagged, poked or messaged on Facebook.
3. Digsby: Digsby is another tool that combines your Facebook, Google Talk, AIM, MSN, and other accounts.
4. Flock: This web browser works with Windows, Mac and Linux, and it features a sidebar that "pulls in your friends from Facebook (and Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube) so you can keep them with you as you surf the Web."
5. OutSync: Microsoft Outlook users who have this Facebook app will find that their friends’ profile pictures also appear in their Outlook address book entries.
6. My Photo Index: Easily organize and manage photos on Facebook and Flickr with this joint hack.
7. Timegram: Send pre-set Skype and Chat messages with this scheduler.
8. Twitter2FB: Update your status only once with this tool, which displays the same status on Twitter as it does on Facebook.
9. FeedBurner Facebook: This popular app displays headlines from your FeedBurner blogs and feeds on Facebook.
10. ma.gnolia: Display your latest ma.gnolia bookmarks on Facebook for maximum social media.

Access Hacks

Get around privacy settings and annoying Facebook updates with these all-access hacks.

11. Facebook View Photo in Album: Use this script to view a photo in the original album, even if you’re not friends with the person who made the album.
12. Cleaner: Get rid of some of the Facebook advertising and "sponsored by" sections with this tool.
13. FB People Redirect: If you’re logged in, you can view real profiles from the Facebook people pages.
14. Undo New Facebook Redesign: If you hate some or all of the new Facebook changes, undo them with these scripts.
15. View All Photos: Search for pictures of a Facebook member who has tight privacy settings with this hack.
16. More Friends: This smart hack goes through your list of friends to find more friends you may have forgotten about or didn’t know were on Facebook.
17. box: With this box widget, you can share files from your computer through Facebook.
18. Jobster: This application gives Facebook users unique access to job information, networking opportunities and other career resources.
19. Private Wall: The Private Wall combines the best of both worlds of Facebook: online convenience and communication with more serious privacy settings.

Hacks with a Cause

Give your Facebook experience a little more meaning when you try out these applications.

20. (Lil) Green Patch: Invite your friends to save the rainforest with this patch, which shows a running count of the square feet preserved from this app.
21. iThink: iThink is a more focused networking portal for Facebook users, letting you vote on opinions, start discussions and more.

Finding Facebook

Make it easier to find and access Facebook from your toolbar, desktop or anywhere else on the Web and in your computer.

22. fbquick: Get notifications for friend requests, event invites, group invites, messages, shares, wall posts and more on your desktop.
23. Dashboard Widget: Mac users get a constantly updated Facebook widget in their dashboard that gives a preview of your inbox, friend requests and more.
24. friend photos: This app automatically designs a screen saver slideshow of your friends’ Facebook pictures.
25. Friend Explorer: This hack offers a new way to view your friends. You can organize the list by picture, first name, last name, birthday and other cell choices.
26. EventSync: Link up your Facebook events with your iCal with this hack.
27. Synchronizer: This is another Outlook - Facebook hack that lets you import and export birthday, contact and work information.
28. FizzBoost: This niftly little box sits on your desktop and alerts you every time you get a poke, friend request or anything else on Facebook.
29. Fosimo: This desktop client for Windows users lets you keep track of all of your account changes while syncing up Facebook friends and your Outlook contacts.
30. The Social Bar: Internet Explorer users can view Facebook features and notifications in a special toolbar with this app.
31. DeskBook: Access Facebok features like friend lists, friend searches, profile information and more with DeskBook.
32. Facebook Photos Plugin for Wordpress: Easily blog your Facebook pictures with this smart hack.

Facebook Apps

We’ve searched through Facebook’s developer apps and official hacks to bring you the best shortcuts and add-ons around, making it easier for you to get in touch with friends, make your references more available or explore your family tree.

33. Facebook Toolbar for Firefox: This toolbar lets you do a Facebook search wherever you are online, get instant notifications whenever you get a friend request, poke or invitation, and you can easily post an interesting link or page to your profile from the page itself.
34. Sparkey: Sparkey is sort of like an online dating app for Facebook. Users can find out who’s interested in their profile and rate other members.
35. Hatching Egg: This "gift" hatches over a period of four days, so your friends get to guess what you sent them. There are over 200 animals to send, including penguins.
36. Testimonials: Testimonials can be used for business or school purposes, letting you organize references from friends, co-workers and teachers.
37. Meet New People: If you’re having trouble making new friends with your standard Facebook profile, use this app to find friends in your area and bolster your business contacts.
38. Sticky!: Design your own sticky notes to tack onto your friends’ walls with this app.
39. We’re Related: This family tree organizer lets you keep track of your relatives through Facebook.
40. U.S. Politics: Get involved in the presidential campaigns by networking with other activists, getting updated on political news and even participating in debate groups.
41. Who is your neighbor?: Learn about your neighbors with this hack, which shows you where your friends are on a map.
42. Translations: Use this hack to translate a page or lend your language skills to edit translations for other countries.
43. Facebook Exporter for iPhoto: Mac users can more easily switch their photos back and forth between Facebook and their iPhoto library by using this shortcut.
44. Lost Mobile: If you’ve ever lost your cell phone, you know how frustrating it can be to track down all your friends and contacts to trade numbers again. Use this very secure hack as a shortcut over Facebook.
45. Shots and Drinks: If you can’t make it to a friend’s birthday party or happy hour, send them a virtual drink with this app.
46. Reviews: Get feedback from your friends, colleagues, students or customers with this hack.

Cleaning up Facebook

Eliminate bogus adds and distracting accessories with these no-nonsense hacks.

47. BBC Ad Remover: This script specifically removes ads from the BBC news website.
48. Remove All Facebook Ads: Ignore Facebook ads by totally removing them from your pages with this hack.
49. UnFuck Facebook: Clean up Facebook with this hack, which removes third party apps and spam.
50. Facebook: This simple hack makes your Facebook pages a little wider and cleaner looking.
51. Re-Title: This neat hack makes titles of websites that you share or post shorter and less messy.
52. Bearable Facebook Wallpost: Increase the size of wall post text boxes with this app.

Games and Multimedia

Turn to this list for help embedding videos, sharing music and combining your Facebook and online gaming experiences.

53. iLike: Add music, music videos and concert listings to your profile with iLike.
54. Facebook Video: Download, convert and embed videos from other sites with this script.
55. Facebook Monsters Enhancer: Monsters players can add their favorite actions and applications to Facebook with this script. Features include auto-attack, player organization, auto-feed monsters and more.
56. Texas Hold’Em Poker: Invite your friends to play Texas Hold’Em on Facebook.
57. Birthday Greeting Cards: Design or browse birthday greeting cards with this easy hack that helps you remember and celebrate your friends’ birthdays with minimal effort.
58. MindJolt Games: This simple hack hides over 300 different games to play on Facebook.
59. Nations: Set up your own nations in this simulation game via Facebook.
60. Scramble: Play this addicting word game on Facebook.
61. Pandora: Pandora for Facebook lets you share and search new music, create your own radio stations and organize your musical and artist favorites on Facebook.
62. Watch This Video: This tool lets you quickly share, search and comment on videos from around the web. Get friends to rank your videos so it will appear in the top ten list.
63. Scrapblog: Pull videos, audio clips and photos from around the web to create a scrapbook blog on Facebook.
64. Facebook Music Player: Upload your own music or tracks from your favorite artists to share and listen to music directly from Facebook.
65. urPics - myPics: Quickly pull all photos that you’re tagged in on Facebook and save them in a .zip file on your computer with this hack. It’ll save you all the time you would spend searching for and saving each one.
66. Mixlister: Give yourself a personal theme song with Mixlister.

Advertising Hacks

Facebook offers a multitude of advertising opportunities for big businesses, entrepreneurs and even independent artists and freelancers. Use this list to discover advertising hacks for every budget.

67. ShopCreator: This ecommerce software works with Facebook Marketplace.
68. viagogo: Buy and sell tickets to events through Facebook with this tool. Artists can also advertise their gigs by maintaining a list of events to share with friends.
69. Sponsored Groups: Attract friends, put up photos and videos, and advertise special events or sales by creating your own sponsored group on Facebook.
70. Facebook Ads: Design ads just for Facebook members and target very specific niche audiences with this system.
71. Marketplace: The Facebook Marketplace lets anyone sell and search for apartments, furniture, or anything else, kind of like Craigslist or another classifieds site.
72. Events: Create an event on Facebook, and then invite all of your friends or people in your network to advertise a sale, business opening or concert.
73. Badges: With this feature, you can send Facebook friends and followers to other websites, including your company site.
74. Share Partners: This hack makes it easier to share content from other sites on Facebook. That way, you can broadcast press releases, news stories, product reviews and more.
75. Facebook Insight: Learn more about Facebook demographics, your target audience and the success of your Facebook advertising campaign with this tracking tool.
76. Gydget: Gydget is a widget that lets "bands, teams and other organizations…connect with fans." You can embed one on Facebook to reach even more people.
77. Groups: Start your own Facebook group to invite people to browse pictures of your band, products or staff and start a following.
78. FunWall: Send mass announcements and greetings to all of your friends at once with this hack.

Productivity Hacks

This productivity hacks can let you manage phone calls, stocks, meetings, and more from your Facebook account. Other productivity tools included in this list make it easier to navigate through Facebook thanks to larger imaging, faster refresh times and more.

79. Facebook Refresh 2 Alpha: This in-the-works script refreshes your Facebook page every 30 seconds.
80. Facebook Mini-Feed Collapser: Get around the annoying mini-feed display by collapsing it with this script.
81. inYOf4aceBook: This hack brings up larger images of thumbnails when you mouse over them.
82. Shoes!: Make shopping for shoes more fun and productive by browsing styles from your Facebook account.
83. Notes QuickEdit: This hack adds a styling and formatting bar to your messages so that you can quickly italicize, boldface, insert a link, insert an image or change font size.
84. Birthday Calendar: This customizable birthday notification hack lets you export and import dates from other platforms, select holidays from 200 countries and more.
85. Forbes and Facebook: Trade stocks and track companies through Facebook through this Forbes hack, making it easier to take care of business whenever you log on.
86. ether: Have friends and business associates call you by clicking on this button that can appear on your profile.
87. QuikProfile: If you just want to quickly scan someone’s profile, you can utilize this hack, which lets you get a quick preview while hovering over the profile link.
88. Discussion Boards: Educators and business professionals can use discussion boards for easy and remote collaboration, homework help, class projects and more.
89. Interactive Friend Thing: Find contacts and understand how to approach new clients or customers by using the Interactive Friend Thing, which shows you how friends of friends are connected.
90. Studicious: Studicious is a shortcut study aid that lets you share and edit class notes with other students.

Just for Fun

These hacks are just-for-fun timewasters that let you tap into all of the games, networking and frivolity of Facebook.

91. Transfer and Add Friend Invites: If you’ve used different e-mail addresses over your Facebook lifetime, you may have lost some friend requests or notifications along the way. This hack will help you out.
92. Superlatives: This is Facebook’s version of your high school yearbook’s "Most likely to…" awards, but you’ll find edgier and sillier categories here.
93. Texas 1: View your Facebook account in a Texas theme with this hack.
94. Bathroom Wall: Post anything and everything from poems to secrets to confessions on the Bathroom Wall without revealing your identity.
95. Pieces of Flair: Make like Jennifer Aniston in Office Space and show off your pieces of flair via Facebook with these buttons.
96. Sketch Me: This neat little hack constructs a sketch version of your profile picture.
97. Make a Baby: Fill in your hair color and other traits to see what your baby would like if you had it with different friends.
98. UK Friends Plotter: Figure out where your UK friends live or work by viewing them on a map with this hack.
99. EZPoke: Start using this script to set up automatic pokes for different friends.
100. Facebook Autologin v2: Get on Facebook faster with this autologin hack.
101. Matchcookbook: If your school or office has Facebook blocked, you can get around the firewall or blocked page with this hack.

 By Laura Milligan

College students have multiple accounts with different social media outlets, like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Twitter. Twitter, though, offers something that is vital for college students: the ability to log on from anywhere and make instant, continuous updates and receive feedback from their posts or questions around the clock. For tips on how to make the most of Twitter, check out this list of 25 new ideas.

Educational Hacks

Twitter is generally considered a social media network, but it provides several academic advantages as well.

1. Chat with professors and students whenever, wherever: If your professor has Twitter, you can send him or her questions whenever you want, even if office hours aren’t in session. You can also participate in a conversation with your classmates so everyone is involved and constantly contributing to a class discussion, outside of class.
2. RetweetMe: Set up alerts and reminders so that you don’t forget to study, attend class, or take a final.
3. Track a professional: If you’re interested in pursuing a particular career and want to learn more about a certain leader in that field, you can "follow" a professional’s tweets.
4. Collaborate on a project: Whether it’s a formal collaboration or you just want some extra feedback on a project, get your classmates and friends involved to help you out and start a shared conversation on Twitter.
5. Start a second discussion in class: A very understanding professor may encourage students to Twitter each other about the lecture or "out loud" class discussion to fuel more ideas and start a second discussion.
6. Quick reference: Do a keyword search for virtually any topics, and you can fit in a quick review for a test or presentation, or get a head start on your research project even if you’re away from the library or computer.
7. Start a dialogue with students around the world: You don’t have to limit your project collaboration or class discussion to the students who are in class on your campus. Open up the dialogue to students from around the world, and you can instantly get a new perspective.
8. Get the inside scoop on other teachers and classes: Before you sign up for a class, post a question about that class to learn about the teacher, homework load, grading style and more.

Applications and Twitter Tools

To speed up your Twitter time and combine Twitter with everyday chores or tasks, use these applications and fun Twitter tools.

9. TrackThis: This Twitter tool lets you track your FedEx, UPS, USPS and DHL packages so that you know when your books or dorm decorations are arriving.
10. Email Twitter: If you’re uneasy about logging on to Twitter from your laptop in class or the library, use this app to access your account through your e-mail.
11. The Twitter Blacklist: Avoid spammers and annoying Twitter users by checking and updating this list.
12. Twi84: Use this tool to more quickly post on your blog and translate text shorthand to English.
13. Tweet what you eat: Sometimes it’s hard for college students to stick to a healthy diet. This tool helps you keep track of meals, snacks, beer, and exercise. You can even search the database for calorie content.

Smart Tips

Keep these tips in mind when posting and sharing on Twitter. You’ll make more friends and meaningful contacts, and will be able to make Twitter work with the rest of your life, not against it.

14. Network: Twitter is a social media tool, so use it to network. Just posting random status updates won’t give you the same kind of exposure to new friends, study partners, and even job or internship opportunities that joining a conversation will.
15. Share Links: Give your friends and readers something to respond to by sharing links instead of only logging on to let your study mates know you’re already at the library.
16. Use a desktop client: Make your Twitter time more efficient by using a desktop client like twhirl. twhirl works in English, German, Italian, and Spanish, and it gives notifications on new tweets, has a timeline filtering feature and more.

Social Twitter

From searching for new friends to quickly adding pictures to your site to using Twitter for RSVP tracking, using these Twitter tools is perfect for busy but social college students.

17. Twitter Troll: Use Twitter Troll to quickly search for Twitter posts and find new friends. Twitter Troll works in real time.
18. Moby Picture: College kids are addicted to their cell phones and their Twitter accounts, and this beta lets you post photos from you cell phone directly to your blog.
19. MobiFeedLive: Instantly find out what people are saying about you on campus or about a certain topic by setting up a keyword alert system.
20. TwitterSnooze!: If you’re too busy to keep up with all of your Twitter friends, you can hit the Snooze button on them to avoid procrastinating.
21. @eventtrack: Before you sign up to attend a club meeting, study group session or party, check @eventtrack through Twitter to see who else is planning to go.
22. TwitterCard: Give your readers an easy way to learn a little more about you by putting a short bio and photo on a TwitterCard. It’s great for networking and can act as a virtual business card.
23. Update all of your friends and family at once: Instead of sending a mass e-mail full of irrelevant information, you can quickly update your parents back home, your brothers and sisters, and friends at other colleges through your Twitter account.
24. foodry: Quickly and easily update your friends about a favorite (or not so favorite) restaurant via your Twitter blog with this application.
25. Don’t just use your Twitter for fluff: In April a graduate student from UC Berkeley sent an update to his Twitter friends that he had been arrested in Egypt during an anti-government protest. Thanks to his loyal following of readers, the student, James Karl Buck, was released from being detained after his Twitter friends notified the school, which then hired him a lawyer.

By Jessica Merritt

These days, it’s not enough for libraries to just share information, they must be a part of the creation of new information, too. And in the Internet age, everyone’s a content creator. Embracing the trend of user-generated content allows you not only to spread even more information, but to engage library users as well. Read on to find out how to go about doing this, and pick up some handy resources along the way.

Tips

Follow these tips to make user-generated content as helpful as it possibly can be.

1. Allow things to be messy: User-generated content just isn’t going to be as organized as something the library puts together on its own, but seemingly unimportant tags may help users find what they’re looking for.
2. Know when to moderate: Although you should allow lots of freedom in content, it’s important that you keep some sense or organization and order, so don’t hesitate to correct spelling errors, misleading content, and other troublesome items.
3. Get all of your staff involved: In the early stages, it’s important to get started with a strong community, so encourage interaction by asking library staff to participate in creating content.
4. Create tags and encourage users to adopt them: If you’re creating a class tag, for example, make sure that the students in that class know how to use them.
5. Encourage corrections: With many eyes on your content, users are bound to point out when you make a mistake, so allow user-generated content to provide good feedback.
6. Don’t call it "user generated content": Focus on terms like people and members to make creating content more appealing for patrons.
7. Grow your own: Instead of relying on Web 2.0 platforms, you can create your own technology, like a blogging platform specifically tailored to your library, or a photo sharing database just for your patrons.
8. Don’t charge for access within your network: Some libraries charge a usage fee for using the Internet, but be sure that any usage within your library’s official tools is free.
9. Specifically ask users to contribute: Make sure that library patrons know that your user generated content exists, and ask them to contribute.
10. Create a question and answer section: Encourage participation by designing an area where users can ask for specific help and information.
11. Enable notification features: Keep your users coming back and contributing by letting them know when there’s a response to something they’ve created.
12. Be useful outside of the library: Make your content accessible everywhere, so that users can plug in from the road using mobile devices or their computer at home.
13. Host a contest: Nothing will get users contributing faster than a little friendly competition. See who can collect the most useful links, or just refer the most friends.
14. Add viral features: Be sure to make it easy for library users to pass along their contribution with features like "email a friend."
15. Respond whenever possible: Get the discussion ball rolling with a comment or some other type of response to any content that’s created.
16. Create a poll: Spark discussion by creating a simple poll with comments enabled.
17. Create a space for content creation: Draw attention to content creation by using a specific workstation for taking photos, uploading files, and tagging items.
18. Make things personal: Don’t just offer information, offer personal service, too. Give feedback and offer conversation to the users who are creating content for you.
19. Give them a reason to participate: Whether it’s working off library fees or just online brownie points, provide some sort of motivational compensation for users to contribute.
20. Be commentable: In order to get users to make comments and provide other content, you have to get things rolling with interesting content yourself. Instead of writing blog posts listing new items in your collection, take it a step further by providing reviews, opinion, and other interesting commentary that others will respond to.
21. Treat your users with respect: Recognize that your users aren’t just that– they’re owners now, too.

Tools

Check out these tools that make your job as a user-generated content administrator incredibly easy, and dare we say it, even fun.

22. Wetpaint: This wiki software allows users to easily add content, plus has great tools to let them know about new information.
23. LibraryThing: Allow your patrons to review, tag, and rate books in your collection with LibraryThing, plus be able to offer recommendations and translations through the service.
24. LibMarks: This tool makes it easy for library users to tag and bookmark items in your catalog, online databases, and the Internet, which is all shared with others.
25. ChiliFresh: Using ChiliFresh, you can allow your library’s users to share book reviews via your website.
26. Forums: Forums offer an easy and organized way for your patrons to discuss topics with each other. Check out Forum Matrix to find the one that’s right for your library.
27. Facebook: With Facebook, you can allow users to connect, post events, helpful links, photos, and loads more content.
28. Flickr: A perennial favorite, Flickr has been successfully used by the Library of Congress to offer historical photograph collections.
29. Drupal: This content management system offers everything from blogs to entire community-driven websites.
30. LibGuides: With this tool, you can create guides, which can then be rated and commented on, and even integrated with Facebook.
31. CiteULike: Using CiteULike, you and your library users can create a group full of excellent resources.
32. MySpace: Encourage users to contribute comments with photos, video, links, and more by setting up a MySpace profile for your library.
33. Second Life: Set up a Second Life library, and you can conduct virtual classes, discussions, and more.
34. Connotea: With Connotea, your library community can share useful reference links together.
35. GotVoice: Using GotVoice’s message system, you can allow patrons to leave mp3 phone messages to be used as podcasts.
36. Ning: Ning allows you to set up your own network that library users can contribute to.
37. Notecentric: Encourage your library’s users to share notes about books, classes, and collections on Notecentric.
38. PBWiki: With PBWiki, you’ll get a custom subdomain, RSS alerts, search capabilities, backups, and a lot more.
39. Blogger: Create a blog for your library to encourage comments and interactive discussion with your library patrons.
40. del.icio.us: Encourage your library’s users to bookmark useful resources that everyone can use with del.icio.us.

Guides

Check out these guides to learn the nitty-gritty details of putting together user-generated content in your library.

41. Wikis and libraries: This guide offers a look at how wikis can be a useful tool in libraries.
42. User-Generated Content: Read this post for an excellent summary of a discussion focusing on using user-generated content in the library.
43. Privatising Information by Stealth: This poster discusses the implications of using online services, and discusses why and how you should create your own library-led solutions instead.
44. Community Dev: Get Your Patrons Coding: In this guide, you’ll learn why it’s great to have patrons doing programming for the library, and how you can encourage it.
45. SL2.0: Examples of a Vision: This post has a number of ideas for user-generated content, like blog reviews, and voicemail podcasting.
46. Telling Your Community’s Stories: Walt Crawford discusses using the library as a community publisher.
47. Libraries in Social Networking Software: Check out this post to learn how you can leverage social networking software as a content tool.
48. Library 2.0 and User-Generated Content-What can the users do for us?: This paper discusses how user generated content can be used in libraries, and how to get started.
49. User-Generated Content: Check out this presentation to see how you can put user generated content to work in your library.
50. Online Communities: This wiki document has great information for creating online communities in libraries, like connecting all of the people on a reserve list for a book.

 By Alisa Miller

One thing is for sure, those studying or teaching law sure love to write. And they do it very well. The Internet is full of informative, compelling legal blogs (also known as blawgs). Here are the top 50 blogs that, each in their own way, relate to law school. Broken down by category, the following numbered list is not ranked.

Law Within and Beyond Academia

Most of these blogs are written by law professors and cover a wide range of the political, academic, and just plain fun. Anyone attending or teaching law school is sure to come away from these blogs with more knowledge than they started.

1. The Volokh Conspiracy. This popular blog features UCLA professor Eugene Volokh as well as contributions from others. The topics tend to focus on Volokh’s specialties, so look for legal news as it pertains to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, criminal law, and church-state relations.
2. Prawfsblawg. Seven professors from seven different law schools collaborate on this blog. Recent posts included breaking into the academic job market, adolescent sexuality and the law, and the value of a foreign employee’s job in respect to free trade with the U.S.
3. Law Culture. Visit this blog if you enjoy a wide range of legal stories ranging from academic gossip, torture, popular culture, and racism in the presidential campaign. Even those outside the law school environment will enjoy the posts written by professors from such heavy hitters as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Georgetown.
4. BlackProf.com. Focusing on "race, culture, and society," this blog touches on more than just the law. A few recent posts report on the gangsta lifestyle going to court and a controversial cover of Vogue.
5. Legal Theory Blog. This blog provides links to published papers focusing on various legal theory topics. Lawrence B. Solum, professor of both law and philosophy at the University of Illinois keeps this running list of papers up to date.
6. Law Blog. This blog is a part of the Wall Street Journal and covers the overlap of business and legal subjects. While technically not a law school blog, the WSJ tends to be a favorite among lawyers and law students.
7. Concurring Opinions. Describing itself as "a general-interest legal blog," the professors who contribute to this blog cover a wide variety of legal topics. Also included are postings with recent cover pages and links to several prominent law reviews.
8. The Becker-Posner Blog. These two well-known experts each offer their opinions on the same topic. Recent posts have covered the airline industry, the food shortage/biodiesel debate, and executive compensation. Don’t worry if you lose the link to this popular blog–it’s available on several blogrolls.
9. Balkinization. With a heavy dose of academia, this blog covers current legal topics. Due to the nature of several contributors frequently all commenting on the same subjects, this blog offers a variety of prospectives.
10. Empirical Legal Studies. This site is devoted to bringing together "empirical methodologies and legal theory." It’s not all statistics and data here, though, as they also offer news from the world of legal empiricists.
11. Above the Law. On a decidedly lighter note, yet still a serious site, this "legal tabloid" offers distractions such as Jobs of the Week, Judge of the Day, and Nina Totenberg sightings.
12. Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports. This interesting blog will draw you in with news, links, interesting facts, and even details of professors’ comings and goings among law schools. You are sure to enjoy reading this popular professor from the University of Texas Law School.
13. Law School Academic Support Blog. What law student couldn’t use some practical advice on how to cope with the stress of school? While the focus of this blog is intended for law professors in Academic Support departments, it offers practical advice and news for law students and professors alike.

Types of Law

With the huge number of legal fields out there is was difficult to narrow this section. These blogs either enjoy a huge readership or offer great information.  Don’t let your own personal field of interest stop you from exploring some of the types of law listed below.  There is good reading among these blogs.

14. Lessig. A professor who has written several books about technology and the law, Stanford Law School’s professor Lawrence Lessig pens this blog. Topics frequently focus on the current political state of technology and copyright issues as they pertain to the law.
15. Health Law Prof Blog. Find all the latest news in health law in this blog written by professors. The posts range from Medicare to genetic discrimination.
16. TaxProf Blog. This popular, informative, and easy to read tax law blog, written by Paul Caron, a professor at the University of Cincinnati Law School, offers topics touching on a range of issues that will be of interest to students, professors, and practicing lawyers alike. There’s even a post about Wesley Snipe’s failure to pay taxes and how the decision in the case could affect future tax enforcement.
17. The Sports Law Professor. Written by Jeffery Standen, a law professor at Willamette University, this blog provides a peek into the world of sports law. Not only does he cover timely topics in sports law news, he also includes more academic topics, such as "Why Study Sports Law?"
18. Election Law Blog. Written primarily by Rick Hasen of Loyola Law School, this blog focuses on the many aspects of election law such as voters’ rights, campaign finance, and redistricting. In this highly active election year, you are sure to find some interesting reading at this blog.
19. Info/Law.  Read about the latest in information law such as public domain, ISP privacy issues, and companies enabling censorship. Written by three professors who met at Harvard and current teach at three separate law schools, the information in this blog will keep you informed.
20. Contracts Prof Law. A collaborative effort by several professors in the field, this blog focuses on contract law current affairs. Such big names as Southwest Airlines, CBS News, and 20th Century Fox TV make their way into this roster.
21. Feminist Law Professors. In addition to the extensive information on current feminist topics as they pertain to law, this blog also includes a list of law professors who identify themselves as feminists, links to recently published books on feminist topics, and information about upcoming conferences.
22. Media Law Prof Blog. With a decidedly international flair, this blog will keep those interested in media law updated. The result of a collaboration of several professors, topics cover recent laws as they apply to TV, movies, music, the Internet, and more.
23. Wills, Trusts, and Estates. The housing industry, the cremation industry, women and estate planning, an