Be more awesome!

Back to school lessons from Soul Pancake and the Kid President.

Snap Your Joy

Great video from Soul Pancake on YouTube: "SoulPancake set up a giant camera on the street and captured people's expressions of happiness. How will you express yourself today?"

Just for Fun: Happy Halloween

Zombies Explained - The Redux 10/22/12

*I hadn't seen the update, HT to the Distant Librarian



Google: Zeitgeist 2011

As we fast approach the end of 2011, a myriad of end-of-year reflections become available. The first I've seen is a video posted on the Google Blog earlier this morning, Zeitgeist 2011: How the World Searched.

Say Something Nice

I found this a great way to start my week. Featured on the August 26th edition of This Weeks Trends from the Official YouTube Blog is a fun video from ImproveAnywhere, illustrating if you give people a chance they just may Say Something Nice. 

My favorite is the young boy quoting Buzz Light Year, "to infinity and beyond."



I forgot to say something nice! Today is the first Sunday the library is open for the 2011 fall term; it is nice to see so many students making use of the library, picking up and requesting books, working alone, in pairs, and in groups, and generally going about their business simply happy to be here (we are happy they are here, too).

Break in the clouds

Tuesday afternoon was the grand opening for the AU Columbus Center IRC. Open for business since mid- September, the ribbon-cutting ceremony was an opportunity to meet and greet the center staff and see students are beginning to take advantage of this new resource - and the newly renovated book store next door. It was fun to see a student using the new roll-top laminating machine ...

It was also a blustery weather day; forced to pull off the road and wait out a downpour on the way to Columbus, I was relieved when only rain persisted during my return trip. Exiting the interstate I noticed the clouds, sunshine, and a phenobright light reflecting in my side-view mirror. I pulled off the highway and saw a beautiful double rainbow breaking through the clouds.

It's a book!

In the interest of full disclosure on a Friday afternoon I will preface the remainder of this post with; I love Lane Smith's books. Some of my favorite titles are John, Paul, George, and Ben, Madam President, and Big Plans. That list does not include his work with Jon Scieszka such as The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Math Curse, and best of all, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. So it is not all that unusual It's a Book was recently added to the library's juvenile collection.

MacMillan Children's Books has a YouTube channel. Here's It's a Book:

It's a Book is a comical and accurate view of the books verses media debate narrated by a mouse, a jackass, and a monkey. A technology focused jackass consistently questions the monkey reading a book about its various "functions." The patient response to every question asked is, "No, it's a book." Illustrations are crisp, clean, and colorful; a double page spread detailing hours passing as jackass becomes fully involved reading monkey's book is classic. Mouse has the final word in this argument, and therein lie the questions this book seems to be gathering.

Reviews have been mixed for It's a Book; while School Library Journal listed it as a starred review (Gr. 3-5) in their August 2010 issue, others have disagreed. I've added it to the collection of titles to be used during a Mock Caldecott session after Labor Day. I am deeply curious how a group of pre-service teachers will view the book, illustrations, use of the word jackass (as opposed to donkey), and how or if it would fit into a classroom.

Other issues aside, wouldn't the video make a great ice-breaker for a library instruction session?

2014 Mindset List

This week students have started to trickle back to campus; the RA's have already been to the IRC cutting ellison letters, laminating signs, printing in color, and other fun things preparing their dorm environment for new charges to arrive and old friends to return. It wouldn't be a new school year without Beloit College's Mindset list.

"Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall." -- Mindset List 2014

Here are a few favorites, in no particular order, from the 2014 List:

• Few in the class know how to write in cursive.
• Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
• Parents and teachers feared that Beavis and Butt-head might be the voice of a lost generation.
• J.R. Ewing has always been dead and gone. Hasn’t he?
• Having hundreds of cable channels but nothing to watch has always been routine.
• They’ve always been able to blast off with the Sci-Fi Channel.

Oddly enough Beavis and Butt-head, along with the Angry Beavers, were a topic of discussion at a family lunch on Sunday; they were a favorite of my nephews. Despite the fact that Sci-Fi Channel is now SyFy (and home of personal favorites Warehouse 13 and Eureka, but I digress), the list includes interesting points for discussion. See also:

• Beloit College Mindset List, Chronicle of Higher Ed (8/17/10)
• What Your Frosh Don't Know, Inside Higher Ed (8/17/10)
• Beloit College Mindset List: Wear Wristwatch? Use Email? Not for Class of 2014, Huffington Post (8/17/10)

Weebly wobbles

The final project for Introduction to the Principles of Instructional Technology is creating an electronic portfolio showcasing projects developed throughout the term and posting it on the web. There are several free resources available to students with Weebly, Google Sites, and Webs.com, the current favorites. Last week, a student was having problems embedding their video. The quickest way to understand the issue was to create an account with Weebly, build a simple page (very simple), embed a video, and send the link to the student. As the term drew to a close, I promptly forgot about the page.

This afternoon the "we haven't seen you for a while" message (pictured left) arrived in my inbox and made me laugh. Their summary of my activities are on target as the site served its purpose quickly and easily; talk about big brother! Even though I did not edit or update the single page, it is no longer 7 days, 1 hour, 58 minutes, and 2 seconds since I last logged in to Weebly.

Wonder if I'm the only one who is reminded of Weebles?

Worth another look

It's Friday and while "patiently" waiting for the Internet to catch up with my goals today (YouTube is taking forever to load an instructional video), I decided it was time for another edition of ... posts from my Bloglines account:

• Is there such a thing as social media elitism?
  "We’re developing a tunnel vision as social media is becoming the most important pillar of the online world." - Jay Dolan, Social Media Today
  
  
• Google Kills Background Images on Home Page
  "Fourteen hours into a 24-hour experiment with background imagery, Google's home page is once again stark white." --Tom Krazit, Cnet News
  
  
• Internet Procrastination at it's absolute finest. This is you, really YOU
  A cartoon originally from comics.com on The Next Web Sharables.
  
  
• Blogger Template Designer Now Available to Everyone
  "we’re excited to announce that the Blogger Template Designer is now available to everyone." -- Blogger Buzz
  
  
• City of New York Blankets Times Square with Giant QR Codes
  "To celebrate Internet Week 2010, the City of New York outfitted Times Square with giant QR codes earlier today. It’s called “The City at Your Fingerprints” and eleven New York agencies participated in the interactive billboard initiative." -- Jennifer Van Grove, Mashable.com
  
  
• PewResearch Report: The Future of Cloud Computing
  "Technology experts and stakeholders say they expect they will ‘live mostly in the cloud’ in 2020 and not on the desktop, working mostly through cyberspace-based applications accessed through networked devices." -- Future of the Internet
  
  
• This last entry features a Plagiarism Video (subtitles in English) from the University of Bergen's YouTube Channel. I found it via iLibrarian who in turn found it via Librarians Matter.
  
  
  

VHS Domino Train

A film by:

Benjamin Wheal, Symon Williamson, Carly Reimann and friends

City of Tea Tree Gully Library

"To celebrate the demise of the video collection and the now unchallenged reign of the DVD, staff felt that the remaining videos must go out with a bang. One weekend staff came in on their own time to film the final stand of the video in a giant domino train throughout the library space as a fitting homage to their service. May the videos now rest in peace. Long live the VHS!" -- TTGLibrary's YouTube Channel

It's a bit lengthy, but worth the time as the VHS trail gets increasingly complicated towards the end (you can fast forward).I had three distinct thoughts once the video was over; how long did it take to set-up, how long did it take to clean up, and I need to post this video.

Changes to YouTube

Yesterday YouTube announced the second phase of their page redesign described as "one of the largest redesigns in YouTube's history: we're simplifying the look and functionality of the video page." I have not used it enough yet to form a strong opinion either way, but admit it was more challenging to find a video embed code earlier today; something I will look at a bit more closely as I upload, and embed videos for use in LibGuides and Angel.

Just for fun, and because today is April Fool's Day, here's a new release from the Muppet Studio YouTube Channel (wait for Statler and Waldorf at the end).




In case anyone's interested, here's a link to PC World's Top 10 April Fools' Fake News Items for 2010.

Weather for the Birds

Adding to Diane's recent post of her snowy views from her office, I have to say I have had my share, too.

This morning, I watched a flock of robins decimate the berries that were hanging on a tree right outside my window. Within two hours or so, the robins cleaned the tree completely of the berries.

I imagine that they felt they hit the all-you-can-eat buffet motherload!

It was interesting to watch the teamwork (and occasional fighting) that took place. Some would perch in the tree and knock berries off; other would simply pluck and let them drop. Friends below scurried around the tree, grabbing whichever one they could reach; sometimes there was a tussle between two if they both grabbed for the same one.

I guess happiness for a robin in the winter is finding a tree of berries. At least someone saw some joy in all this chaos of snow!

From my window

Like many areas in the mid-atlantic region, it's snowing in Ashland, Ohio. It is February, after all. I'm lucky to have window views in the resource center, my office, and the library in general. As the snow continues to fall, I've seen olympic worthy snow-pile-hurdling from students going to class and talked with an increasing number of smiling faces working in library as late afternoon and evening classes are cancelled. Here are photos from my little corner of the world.

Unshelved: Pimp My Bookcart

Take a few minutes and check out the winners in Unshelved's 2009 Pimp My Bookcart contest.

"This year's contest had amazing entries that fell into a few familiar categories (vehicles, Dr. Seuss, pirates, Halloween, animals), one that straddled two categories (a Catbus), and a few that we don't remember seeing before (Alice in Wonderland, a GIANT book cart, a camera). Gene was delighted to see so many carts with an environmentally conscious theme (like our new shirt) and others that used recycled materials. Entries came from as far away as South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K." Unshelved Pimp My Bookcart

The Shep Herding Books by Lexington Public Library is particularly creative and amazing.

Unfriend? A sign of the times

The New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year for 2009 has been announced:  unfriend

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: unfriend.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.” -- OUP Blog

Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it?

Wasting Time for a Good Cause

Ever have just a few minutes that you need to fill and don't want to start a new project?

I found a cool website that allows me to improve myself AND contribute to a good cause, even if I have only a few minutes.

FreeRice.com is a nifty little site where I can improve my math, English vocabulary and grammar, my favorite foreign language and a few other subject areas. For every answer you get correct, you donate 10 grains of rice to the UN World Food Programme.

It adds up, believe me! And you can switch subjects when you are tired of doing math multiplication - just jump over to geography or art.

I can tell you - some subjects I fail miserably and others I do brillantly! But for every answer I get correct, the rice grains add up!

Check it out - it's now my favorite way to end a day!

Wear Red This Friday!

This Friday, help highlight awareness of heart disease by wearing red. Wear Red Day, part of the American Heart Association's Go Red for Women Campaign, brings awareness of heart disease, especially in women.

We have a special assistant in our library who helps us out on occasion with various events and activities. Monique is visiting our library this week to help us to encourage patrons to wear red on Friday.

Won't you join Monique and my staff by wearing red this Friday???!!!!

A New Year with 99 Things

I am not a big fan of email forwards or blog meme's, but this one from Walt at Random (though he refer's to it as a blogchain) via Ruminations caught my attention and is an interesting way to start the new year.

The 99 Things Meme

Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to - leave in plain font

1. Started your own blog.
Several, it's fun.

2. Slept under the stars.
Camping when I was a child, it's fabulous.

3. Played in a band.
A serious band geek ... I played several instruments, but not always well.

4. Visited Hawaii.
5. Watched a meteor shower.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.

7. Been to Disneyland/world.
I was in Disney World the first year it opened, again as a senior in high school when our band marched down Main Street (very cool), and once more as a grown-up. I love amusement parks, so I can't say which was best. Last summer I had dinner in Disneyland while at ALA.

8. Climbed a mountain.

9. Held a praying mantis.
Lot's of fun with the neighborhood kids.

10. Sang a solo.
11. Bungee jumped.
12. Visited Paris.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
15. Adopted a child.
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
18. Grown your own vegetables.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.
20. Slept on an overnight train.

21. Had a pillow fight.
... on more than one on those camping trips.

22. Hitch hiked (not going to happen).

23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill.
More of a mental health day ... sometimes I miss those college days.

24. Built a snow fort.
Though it was more of an igloo, it took forever and I had help.

25. Held a lamb.
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Run a marathon.
28. Ridden a gondola in Venice.

29. Seen a total eclipse.
Cool

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
Especially beautiful over the ocean.

31. Hit a home run.
32. Been on a cruise.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.
An awesome sight, from either side of the border.

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.

35. Seen an Amish community.

36. Taught yourself a new language.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.
39. Gone rock climbing.
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person.
41. Sung Karaoke.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant.
44. Visited Africa.

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
During summer and winter, it's somehow more peaceful during the winter.

46. Been transported in an ambulance.
Ties in with #78 broken bone, I have never been particularly graceful

47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing.
49. Seen the Sistene chapel in person.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling.

52. Kissed in the rain.

53. Played in the mud.

54. Gone to a drive-in theatre.
We used to go as kids in the back of the family station wagon.

55. Been in a movie.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia.
60. Served at a soup kitchen.

61. Sold Girl Scout cookies.
Many, many, girl scout cookies ... once we were the pick-up house for cookies.

62. Gone whale watching.

63. Gotten flowers for no reason.
The best reason to get flowers is for no reason at all.

64. Donated blood.
65. Gone sky diving (why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?)
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp.
67. Bounced a cheque.
68. Flown in a helicopter.

69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
I had a doll named Velvet, if you pushed her belly-button you could "grow" her hair. She had a knob at her back that pulled the hair back inside. My grandmother used to make her clothes.

70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial.
Several times, including a seventh grade trip to Washington, DC.

71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt.
73. Stood in Times Square.
74. Toured the Everglades.
75. Been fired from a job.
76. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London.

77. Broken a bone.
Several, many, whatever word is more appropriate (sigh).

78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person.
80. Published a book.
81. Visited the Vatican.

82. Bought a brand new car.
Once, many moons ago, and I drove it until the engine fell out. Loved that car.

83. Walked in Jerusalem.
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible.

86. Visited the White House.
On those same family vacations mentioned previously (back when you were allowed inside).

87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.

88. Had chickenpox.
Along with my sisters.

89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury.

91. Met someone famous.
I met author Susan Elizabeth Phillips at ALA last summer, she was very gracious.

92. Joined a book club.

93. Lost a loved one.

94. Had a baby.

95. Seen the Alamo in person.
Traveling with family and - wait for it - at ALA midwinter several years ago.

96. Swum in the Great Salt Lake.
97. Been involved in a law suit.

98. Owned a cell phone.
Still own, though it's not my favorite toy.

99. Been stung by a bee.

It's Friday and Nature Calls

It's Friday and the sun is shining and I am grateful for that, since we are doing collection inventory this summer and I've been working on it today.

I've been noticing more wildlife floating by my window and around my building lately. A young groundhog wandered by earlier this week but I wasn't fast enough to snag a picture of him. I did, however, catch a wild canary who has been repeatedly banging on my window for the last two weeks.










I also caught a great picture of a moth resting
on the ground just outside my building.






and a chipmunk just darted by my window as I am writing this!


There are great advantages to having a pond right outside your building and windows in your office!!