Next week I am giving a presentation at Netspeed 2007 titled “Web Widgets, Gadgets, and Badges for your Library Website or Blog”. I am looking for examples of how cut-and-paste content and applications have been used by libraries for any purpose so that I can showcase them.

Most of my presentation will be about introducing the concept of widgets, and demonstrating specific well-known examples. However, I would also like to showcase what many libraries have done already with widgets. I think this will provide some food-for-thought for the audience and generate ideas about they can easily leverage cut-and-paste content for their own purposes. I have seen lots of examples, but I’d like to see many more so that I can also demonstrate which uses of widgets are most popular, most successful, etc.

• Does your library use a widget on this website?
• Have you created a badge to promote an event at your library or in your community?
• Do you post your facebook badges on your blog?
• Do you use flickr, youtube, or some other cut-and-paste media to enhance your web content?

I would like to hear about it.

Please feel free to post your examples as a comment here, or send me email at widgets@syntheticlibrarian.com

In further preparation for my talk at Netspeed 2007 titled, “Widets, Gadgets, and Badges”, I have created another web badge. This one counts down the days until the Alberta Library Conference (ALC 2008). The ALC mini-badge will display the conference date (April 24) until it is 99 days away. When it is just 99 days away from the conference, it will begin to display a countdown. When it is just one day away, it will display the word “tomorrow” and when the conference is actually on, it will display “ON NOW”.

If you are attending ALC 2008 and have a blog, why not promote the event with this badge?


<a href="http://albertalibraryconference.com/2008/">
<img src="http://winterstorm.ca/alcminibadge.png" title="Countdown to ALC 2008" />
</a>


Netspeed 2007 is just 40 days away. Netspeed is a library technology conference hosted by The Alberta Library. This year it will be held at the Carriage House Inn in Calgary, Alberta. I will be giving a presentation titled, “Web Widgets, Gadgets, and Badges.”

For the occaision, I have created a special badge to countdown the days until the conference. You can add the following HTML to any webpage to display this badge. The image will update itself automatically. Today it displays that there are 40 days left. Tomorrow it will say, “39″ days left.

If you are attending Netspeed 2007 and have a blog, why not promote the event with this badge?


<a href="http://paranoidagnostic.net/category/netspeed2007">
<img src="http://winterstorm.ca/netspeedbadge.png" title="Countdown to Netspeed 2007" />
</a>