OK, here’s another of those things that I heard of long ago (honest!), thought was totally cool, had lots of potential, combines two of my favorite things – tag clouds & graphic design – and then I promptly forgot about it … until today!
And I owe to Mary here in the NMRLS office for showing it off by using Wordle as a way to sort the context of some recent survey results.
Find it, use it, bookmark it here: http://www.wordle.net/
Wordle is fascinating even in black & white just to see what words actually are being used most often whether it be survey results, a strategic plan, a resume, or a blog posting (see below).
In case image doesn’t load (thanks WordPress!), try this link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23683499/null
personal stuff, tech stuff, library stuff 
The Reuben Hoar Library staff made Wordles of books we read for our readers’ advisory study of the mystery genre. Lots of fun and useful for displays. Using the autho’rs name and book title multiple times in “”s along with appeal characteristics and plot elements gave the best results.
We love Wordle and use it for all kinds of things. One exercise we’ve done is to have everyone at a meeting write down a single word or brief phrase describing what they want to see in our next library system. We go around the table and each person gives their word and a brief explanation, while someone transcribes these into Wordle. When we’re finished, we project a Wordle that beautifully shows illustrates the group’s priorities.
Here’s my blog post on about Wordle with a few other ideas:
http://www.noblenet.org/ethomsen/wordle/wordle/