shhhhh, YOU'RE IN THE LIBRARY!!

Library Thing to organize my reading?!

2009-02-04T15:56:00.001-08:00

I have created a LibraryThing account, and have had a Goodreads account for some time. I think the feature that sets Library Thing apart...other than the actual tagging:)

(I loved cataloging class)

Is the recommend feature...great way to tell your friends about books.

here is the link to my "library"

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/boulderlaura

Google Docs in all it's glory...

2009-02-04T15:41:00.000-08:00

What an easy way to help patrons save and email and attach and learn...Check out the document I made in only a few minutes!
http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dgh38sh5_0gw2wq5hk

This application is free to all, and the product is easy to use.

Utube is so wonderful!

2008-11-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

This makes me very happy to see...it is a video floating around the web for years now. Watch it...

Podcasting for CASH$$$

2008-11-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

Do people podcast for cash?

A money making scheme...it's perfect! Rant and rave about stuff, any stuff really...and be soooo interesting that people who listen, ACTUALLY want to help pay your bills. Fabulous scam, huh? Is that a scam or a idiotic possibility?

Anyways...on the website podcastalley.com you can find any number of topics to listen to some benign, some hilarious, some very dirty. So....be careful! Some of the titles are very creative, and so I had to look...but I ended up being embarrassed and blushing...so heed my warning!

Here is a screen shot of a bunch of things I signed up for...I used my google account, so that hopefully I'll use more of the features. CLICK ON SCREEN SHOT & U CAN SEE IT BIG!)

I signed up for a Brass band Podcast, and a Jazz podcast, called Straight, No Chaser after the Monk tune and album from 1966. Check out the Clint Eastwood documentary on Thelonius Monk if you have an interest...it's a great portrait, of a gifted individual. We own it here at BPL...781.65

RSS to the rescue!

2008-11-17T18:32:00.000-08:00

Do you RSS?? I do...well, I do...but don't really like it.

I have signed up for several feeds from sources that seemed interesting. I like the comic strip "Unshelved", and signed up for a random music feed on Jazz. Which I love...

I am finding that what I chose is getting on my nerves. Simply because of the sheer volume. I think the simple fact that I don't spend a bunch of time surfing and looking for entertainment has bogged or blogged;) me down. I use the Web for information and really enjoy reading headline news as well as science, technology and health related news. Ok, ok...you all know I read the really odd news too!
(often heard words in the Ref Office..."woah...hey Gina, check this out...) poor Gina...she sits very close to me and I am one of those curiosity killed the cat sort of people.

I simply need to take the time to incorporate the way that they work into the way that I read the news...then I am sure I would be hooked. But, I guess only time will tell on that one.

What I do think is useful...sign up for the NY Times Bestseller List, or the NPR All Songs Considered lists...now that rocks!

wiki wiki? Jam on it...

2008-02-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Did you ever go roller skating, or blasting your stereo...somewhere in the mid 1980's, and the DJ played a song that went something like this..."wiki, wiki, wiki(sort of a robot voice)...jam on it, jam on it"

I distinctly remember it at the roller skating rink. Yes, I went skating as much as possibly in Elementary school. "jam on it...joined the jam on it production crew" 5th grade or so...Jordache jeans...The blue ones with the white pin stripe down them...I borrowed them, from my neighbor... I never actually owned them. Ahhhh, Jordache. wiki, wiki...click here for a listen...WIKI-JAM ON IT!!! you won't be sorry;) wiki, wiki, wiki...

Oops, I digress...we are really talking about the joys of the wiki! So, the wiki...out of the list of wiki's we were to look at, I liked the Princeton Public Library wiki for is ease. The cleaness of it all. I think you should be able to see what you want or decipher where to go easily...it shouldn't be a quest. It should be fairly obvious.

One more thing...the derivation of the word wiki. I just can't leave this sort of thing alone. According to the grandaddy of all wiki's, Wikipedia...this is the derviation.
"Wiki" (/wiːkiː/) is originally a Hawaiian word for "fast"[4].
Now, kids...don't cite this in a paper...we all know that ANYONE can post to Wikipedia. I could have made it up myself just for something cool to say. Just because I think Hawaiians are the grooviest of the groovy. Surfing, pineapples, leper colonies, surfing, King Kamehameha, Magnum PI;)volcanoes, did I mention surfing?? Oh yeah, and the word wiki!

So you wanna be a rock-n-roll star??

2008-01-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

Do ya...wanna be a rock-n-roll star...A ha..."not bloody likely!"

But you can read about them in a wide array of really cool books @ BPL! Books about musicians, and groupies and the music.

I will list a few that I think are neat, a bit different maybe or something you should at least know we have...because we have a lot of cool stuff (my opinion, of couse). When you feel yourself say "I would never read that"...maybe that's EXACTLY the book you SHOULD read!! It's free, and might expand you mind...at least expose you to a different point of view. Good thing is...if you hate it, just drop it in the book drop and never think of it again. That simple.

KC and the Sunshine band would be proud..."I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes" don't know the song?? Ask a reference staffer how to help you look it up!

Do skunks hibernate?

2007-11-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

I have a dog, and I walk around the neighborhood at all hours of day and night. In our travels we have come across a few skunks. My dog is a crazy maniac...although she is aging, her love for chasing small animals has not. Seriously...that dog will chase anything EXCEPT a ball...that is beneath her...(at least that is what her dirty looks tell me)

We encounted a skunk on the sidewalk at night...I thought it was a cat, but then realized the waddle wasn't a cats waddle?!? I mentioned it was dark, right? Don't want you to think I am more of a dingbat than you already might;) It kinda freaked me out, actually...got the adrenaline jiggles. I asked around and found that Skunks in my town have apparently been warring for the entire Summer...a War of the Roses sort of ongoing, drag out, mess up your sleep due to stench sort of thing. So questions came up in my mind about these little beasties...

1) How close to do you have to be to a skunk, to get hit with it's super stink??

2) What does take the smell out if you get skunked?

3) Do skunks hibernate? If so my worries may be over soon...when the snow comes...they probably hibernate, they'd freeze if not...I better check.

4) Did Pepe Le Pew in the cartoons ever really catch that poor cat, that ran under the newly painted white fence...but wasn't really a skunk at all?? Did he catch her and really get his kiss...

oh Mon Cherie, oui, oui...(that's pretty much the French I know, all from cartoons)
Hanna Barbera ROCKS!! I will go to the Grizmeks(sic) you know the book...it's green, and it talks about mammals, reptiles, fish, natural habitats, etc...I'll never be able to spell that guys name. Good books though. Keep you posted...

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Answer: To Hibernate or not to hibernate?!?

Apparently skunks don't hibernate. They go into a state called torpor. A slow and sluggish state where they don't move around much, but they can if need be. Kinda like you'd feel after a Happy Hour @ Rio Grande with margaritas!! They can hit you with their super stink from 4 feet away! I was WAY too close!

Just so you know, something I learned on this hunt...some scientists argue that certain bears also enter this state, torpor and not true hiberantion.

To be a librarian...

2007-11-15T14:03:00.000-08:00

Ever wonder how we got the librarian stereotype? Check this out...you will most likely laugh out loud, I know I did!

So you want to be a librarian...

This is an open access occupational film about the library profession, and becoming a librarian. It was shot in 1947, and I think it holds up quite well in the world of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 (hehehe)

Guess What? bet you never knew....

2007-11-14T11:55:00.000-08:00

Did you know...that I think Ernest Hemingway is a terrible writer. I swear...I am not making it up. I wouldn't make that up. We (meaning I with my public school education) have always been told he is a great American writer. Well I say I hate him...I know, I know...hate is strong, but I feel nothing other than loathing when his name comes up. His stupid short, choppy sentences.
(fake Hemingway quote, by laura) The tree is green and shining. The sky was blue....agh....great American writer, really??

He has no panache at all...how can he be great?? Why is he great? Because he was a big and boisterous white dude who traveled the world? Shot at stuff in various continents, and drank a bunch of firewater in his time...is that why?? It doesn't even matter where or when his name comes up either...even if my Gram...(god rest her soul) said he was her favorite and that he hung the moon. I would even tell her my theory! And no self respecting grandkid tangles with the all-knowing Gram, she might stop making peas for you or that wonderful cinnamon applesauce... That's real hate, right? a non-tangle with grandma sort of hate. When I hear someone tout the chams and elegance of Hemingway it makes me want to puke in my shoe! I wouldn't wear those shoes ever again, if I did puke in them, just so you know. But, it makes me want to puke none the less. Here is a good one of the Papa...holding a big firearm AND swilling a cocktail!! Live on big boring American writer.