I wish this would have covered Twitter more thoroughly. It's briefly mentioned at best, and I think it's an important source of information for information professionals: both about our profession and as a way to find pop culture information (as in the case of Michael Jackson's death, as is mentioned in the book). Still a helpful and interesting tome overall. ( )

I requested this book through Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program, so I can only blame myself if the book wasn’t intended for me. It turns out that “Information Professional” really means librarian and those of us who are book lovers, blog writers and information junkies don’t make the cut. Here is a touch of condescension while the author defines his audience. To be fair, though, Tomaiuolo doesn’t exhibit any more professional self-importance than any other expert in any other field would exhibit—perhaps less, while making clear his audience is the professional librarian.

So was there anything here for me? You bet!

Tomaiuolo defines UContent as “the production of content by the general public [such as bloggers] rather than by paid professional and experts in the field”, and not generally considered a reliable source of information. But Tomaiuolo recognizes that there can be nuggets of information out there that can be used by “information professional.’

The material is presented in a logical manner. Each chapter considers a separate UContent source. Topics include blogs, Wikis (including the grand-daddy Wikipedia), podcasts, online product reviews, self-publishing, and citizen journalism. The author also considers information sources within Facebook, Yahoo!Pipes, Flickr and custom search engines. He explains tagging & folksonomies, as well as cybercartography.

Tomaiuolo discusses in some detail the source of information in each category of UContent. His research appears to be extremely thorough (there are copious endnotes in each chapter). He includes an interview in each chapter with a professional in a related field – a professor of journalism, a self-published author, and so on. He also includes well-established on-line sources that will provide updated information before another print edition of this book could be published.

Next, Tomaiuolo performs a surprisingly balanced assessment of each subject’s use, and its relevance for the information professional. He describes how libraries might contribute to the Content (for example, having blogs or being on Facebook) and also how librarians might find relevant information and use it in their own environment, both for their own use and use by the public.

Each chapter of UContent is a veritable goldmine of information. I enjoyed reading it through like narrative non-fiction, although it isn’t that. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about using the Internet and finding information thereon, but Tomaiuolo taught me lots I didn’t know (what is/are folksonomies anyway, and why should I care?)

This book should become the bible of UContent reference for libraries. It is also a first-rate handbook for students doing research using the web. You’ll want to buy it and refer to it frequently. It's well worth the investment.

For the rest of us non-professionals, it’s a valuable overview of web content for any blogger or generator of other UContent, plus it’s interesting to read, and it’s full of useful data. For us, I rate it a solid 4 stars. ( )

Provides a cursory introduction to a variety of prominent web sites and services that collect and distribute content contributed by volunteers. Also offers a snapshot in time regarding how selected librarians are using or contributing to various web services, such as YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook. The author spends a lot of time describing how librarians can contribute to mainstream user-content oriented sites, but largely neglects to discuss how librarians can utilize user-generated content to enhance library web sites and services. This is a real disappointment and missed opportunity. Overall, the book suffers from a lack of refinement and synthesis. It often feels like reading somebody's notes for a book, rather than a finished book. The quality and level of synthesis would be appropriate on a blog, but I expect more out of a commercially published book. Many of the sources cited were published in 2008-2009, rendering the information rather dated. Perhaps more significant and useful are the book's companion website, which provides links to most of the resources listed, and the author's UContent blog, both of which are freely accessible.
Companion website: http://web.ccsu.edu/library/tomaiuolon/UContent/toc.htm
UContent blog: http://web20librarian.wordpress.com/ ( )

This detailed and well written book, provides a chapter by chapter breakdown on various user-generated content sites, such as Project Gutenberg, Wikis, Blogs, and more. The author provides first hand experience in a number of chapters of how he submitted an item, such as to Project Gutenberg or Wikipedia, allowing the reader to follow along as he navigates how the products work. He also provides background and history to the products, as well as interviews with people familiar with the material. For those that are like me, experienced with new technologies and navigating ucontent, then the book really doesn’t have a lot of new information, but the interviews are interesting. However, for those that are new to the area of user generated content, then this is the perfect book to follow along and discover something new. ( )

I was impressed by this book because it spanned experience levels so that whatever your familiarity with social media, you could learn from it. Often these books are horribly out of date -- after all the world of social moves far faster than book publishing. But this book did a great job of balancing current info with a curated view of the core fundamentals of social. As such it is a welcome resource! ( )