Bless You, IL Bloggers

I just wanted to send a huge "thank you!" shout-out to all the bloggers at Internet Librarian this year, who really made it work for those of us who couldn't attend. Reading the blog posts made me miss going even more, but also made me even more determined to go next year!

Since there are so many bloggers who've posted, instead of listing everyone separately you can access them via these resources: Technorati, InfoToday's ILBloggers, Google BlogSearch

The World's Fastest Librarian

Meet The World's Fastest Librarian and follow her through a typical workday, her activities outside of work, and as she trains for the Fastest Librarian competition. A humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at librarianship by the grad students of UW-SLIS. Made me laugh several times while watching it - especially the scene with all the competitors warming up. Looks like they had a lot of fun making this!

More Rex Libris

Not only is Issue #5, "Tea with Vaglox", now available, Rex now has his own figurine! (Not an action figure, but a post-action-figure.) I, of course, immediately bought them both... Rex will be a welcome addition to the toys in my office. (I also recommend the "Ordo Biblioteca" T-shirt.)

A Prairie Home Librarian

I don't listen to Prairie Home Companion myself; on Saturday afternoons I'm usually running around madly doing all the things I didn't get done during the week. After the PHC of a few weeks ago, a few folks made oblique comments to me about librarians that I just didn't get.... but now that I've read LiB's summary of "Adventures of a Librarian -- on NPR", I get it. Sigh.

Google, Google, Bo-Boogle

So. For someone who makes a living as a webmaster, I only just discovered Google's Webmaster Central. It isn't the be-all, end-all, but it's certainly got some useful tools, especially the Site Status Wizard. Also, if you haven't already been playing with them, check out some of the Google Gadgets; you can add a Google Map, a Wikipedia Search, local National Weather Service radar, and a host of other widgets (1531 to choose from!) to your web site.

Links found via Librarian in Black, who somehow is much more up to date on all this stuff, while simultaneously working, traveling and giving talks, and writing complete and well-thought-out blog postings about all this stuff. I am in awe.

Christopher Robin goes bye-bye

This is just wrong to me... wrong, wrong, wrong. Apparently Disney hasn't done enough to Winnie the Pooh... now, in a new Disney Channel series coming out in 2007, Pooh gets the CGI treatment and a new friend: a 6-year-old girl named Darby, apparently in an effort to reach a wider young-girl audience. Hmm, because there isn't already a huge market in little-girl stuff? Because little boys only want to play with trucks or guns? GRR.

Let's just say that we'll stick with our classic Milne stories with the Shepherd illustrations in our house. They're already a fave with our 18-month-old.

Link found via The Laughing Librarian. No laughing here, though...

Internet Librarian Pangs

Well, Internet Librarian starts today, and here I am, still in Tucson. Sigh. I wish the timing had worked out so I could go to it this year - I love the SLA conferences but they're more about networking with other librarians for me - IL is where I get the goodies I take back and actually use. Ah well, I'm sure next year will be different!

Librarian-Image.net Transformed

My main site "You Don't Look Like a Librarian!" has finally transformed; that'll now be the collection site for talks, essays and columns, and this site will be the latest-news site. Thanks to Grazr, I can embed my blog entries right into the web page, which is pretty spiffy. And thanks once more to Pete Marenfeld for the truly spiffy graphics! (Spiffy, spiffy, spiffy, spiffy.)

Body Art in the Workplace

The AP's Madlen Read wrote an article titled "Body Art in the Workplace" which was run by my local paper on the cover of the Business section today. (Thanks, Mark, for bringing it to my attention!) The featured body art model? Colleen Harris, a librarian from U. Kentucky. The article discusses how many organizations are rewriting their dress codes, either relaxing them to tightening them up, depending on the organization's focus. A fun read for a modified librarian like myself - I tend to cover up my tattoos in the workplace, but haven't hidden them, and it's hard to hide the nine earrings, so I don't worry about it.

Chilly for us this morning - 46°!

Search Engine UI of the future?

I hope not. Ms. Dewey , a Flash-based new search engine, is graphically very pretty (but very slow to load on all my systems), although the pouty, sexy librarian behind the desk isn't exactly what I was looking for. (The random opening scenes are amusing, though; so far my fave is the one with the big knife, although the motorcycle is a close second.) Ms. Dewey can get a bit obnoxious if left idle for a bit, yelling "Hello, is anyone there?" and tapping on the glass, but that's part of the shtick of the site, I guess, as are the quips she delivers when the search results are ready. (Sometimes they even relate to the search term.)

I'm not sure how effective a search engine it is - of the search terms I input, it took *quite* a long time (and a lot of eye-rolling and pouting) to get any results, and for a couple of my search terms it didn't return any results that were even close! The results scroll in a shaded window to the right, which doesn't stand out very much against the futuristic city background, making the results list a bit harder to read, and there are no obvious scroll bars for the search results.

All in all I'd say it's a well-presented UI without a lot behind the scenes. Personally, I could do with a lot less pouting, posturing and half-lidded come-on glances, but hey, that's just me. (On the other hand, if they deliver a version with a studly male librarian, maybe I'll change my mind...)

Show Your Librarian Some Love

Tood Gilman's article "Show Your Librarian Some Love" over at the Chronicle gives an interesting insight into the problems facing academic librarians with recalcitrant professors, and some suggestions to the professors on how to deal with it. An illuminating read for me, and one that makes me thankful yet again that I'm in the branch of librarianship I am. You public and academic librarians deserve serious accolades for dealing so well with the public and with students - I know (first hand) that it's something I don't do well. (Therefore, I don't do it!)

Ah, fall... 77° and 35%Rh. A perfect day.

Vive le Difference!

It's about time! Now, to go hand-in-hand with the female librarian calendars of the past, we have the Men of Texas Libraries calendar! What a great way to celebrate male librarians!

How to Use the Library

Filmed at my own U of A! A lovely little instructional video on How to Use the Library is definitely pro-librarian and rather amusing to watch. I hope Joe got an A on his report!

Library Aerobics

(Can you tell I'm catching up on email and notices?) Definitely good for a laugh! Check out the Betty Glover Library Workout Tape Ad - the "only medically-approved exercise routine for librarians". What would Betty suggest in these computerized days?

Code4Lib 2007

Call for Proposals: Code4Lib 2007. "Code4lib 2007 is a loosely structured conference for library technologists to commune, gather/create/share ideas and software, be inspired, and forge collaborations." I'm not working with anything snazzy enough to present, but boy, I wish I could go to this conference!

Five Weeks to a Social Library

Call for Participants: Five Weeks to a Social Library, "the first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries." Most excellent-sounding workshop - check it out!

Temporary Library Tattoos

For anyone who's always wanted a "Read or Die" tattoo but not enough to go all the way - now you can get the Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos! "Put one in a prominent place to prove once and for all that "smart" and "cool" are not mutually exclusive!"

Say It Ain't So

Oh, Target, how disappointed I am in you. Amongst all the Halloween costumes you have for sale in your stores and on your web site, how could you do this to us? Such an accurate representation for our profession you've given us with the "Naughty Librarian Costume"... complete with rhinestone glasses!

Whew.

Well, it's done... at least for now. The 3" binders chock full'o stuff and the custom-tapdancing CDs just made the 5pm FedEx deadline. Now to attend all the emails that are piling up, choice bits to blog on, and blogs & journals to read... at least for a day or two!

Whew.

Ugh.

So many things are *so close* to being done..... but not quite there yet. I think whatever part of my brain didn't go POP a couple of weeks ago might be close to doing it now. But, I survived this week, complete with three-day migraine, and even came out of it with some good news (the tests for RA and lupus came back negative, yay!). This weekend there WILL be some down time, dang it. Even if I have to combine it with patching baseboard seams.

The work on the new web site continues apace. Hopefully I'll have an announcement to post here about it soon! (Pete did SUCH a good job with the graphics.)

A lovely 76° outside right now....