Ideas: Brevity is a Virtue

I saw this post on the EDTECH list referring to a newspaper article that encourages people to write a novel of their life story in six words. I immediately envisioned six-word life stories from all over the world coming through a Twitter feed since its short format and international reach provides a great medium for this type of publishing.

So, here’s my attempt at my life in six words:

Learned a lot, but still learning.

You can find it on Twitter.

So, what’s your life story – in six words?

Update: I also found Mary Ann Bell’s post about this on her blog, which is a great blog to read, by the way.

BAM Challenge: January Review – A Wrinkle in Time

Well, I confess I’m a bit late on my January review for the Book-a-Month Challenge. But, alas, circumstances beyond my control intervened, and I am now catching up.

The January theme was Time for Challenge #1. I chose A Wrinkle in Time by the late Madeleine L’Engle. This is a fiction work aimed at a juvenile audience, but it’s certainly a book adults can enjoy as well. I had not read any of her books before this, but I now appreciate the loss that was felt in the world when she passed away last year. She has certainly been added to my list of favorite authors.

*Warning! Spoilers ahead!*

A Wrinkle in Time is a sweet story of courage in the face of evil and fighting for loved ones. Time (and space) travel is possible by traveling through the fifth dimension, which is the wrinkle in time. Meg Murry, her brother, and their friend travel through time and space to save her father from evil. I love that the author had the children work together using their individual gifts to accomplish their mission. I think this can be a great lesson to young people.

Thanks for the challenge! Now, on to the February challenge…

Library of Congress and Flickr – What Does This Mean for Other Libraries?

As you may have already heard, the Library of Congress and Flickr recently launched a pilot project in which images from LoC’s collections have been added to their Flickr page. The purpose of this project is to increase access to the collections and to obtain more metadata in the form of tags for the images.

In order to do this, Flickr created a new model of publication for publicly held collections, which they call “The Commons.” This is how anyone is able to tag images on LoC’s Flickr page.

And, the response has been awesome! Look at all the tags!

Since I read this news story, I’ve been pondering if this may encourage smaller libraries to upload their special collections to Flickr as well. I recognize that digitizing photos requires cost, particularly for smaller libraries with limited resources. However, unique collections of historical and cultural items are certainly an asset of our nation’s libraries, and I hope this makes it easier to show them off. We’ll see what the future holds as we continue to watch this project.

Tech Blog: SEGA Tech has Great Tech Tips

I try to keep up with good technology blogs from people in Georgia, particularly if they are related to education or libraries. I found SEGA Tech (Southeast Georgia Technology) a few months ago. I learn something every time I read a post, but there have been two particular posts that have helped me solve endlessly frustrating tech problems.

1) My home laptop is a few years old. I have particularly noticed that Firefox has been running quite slowly the last few months. Along came this post, The seven steps to a faster Firefox. Browse faster! I followed the steps, and, although Firefox is still a little slow on my laptop, I have seen a big improvement in performance. YAY!

2) Since I do some limited tech support at work, I need to be familiar with both Firefox and IE since they are the most common browsers among our users. Although my preference is Firefox (and, oh, let me count the reasons), I often use IE7 at work (and have kept IE6 on my home laptop in case we need to do testing or troubleshooting). With IE7, I have been quite frustrated that I cannot change the homepage. My homepage comes up, but I can’t navigate to another site – argh! Then, I found this post, Fix for Internet Explorer Runounce Error. Ahh! The joy of finally finding the fix to an annoying little problem!

Keep up the great work, guys! I’ll be reading!

New Blog Feed – Now in FeedBurner

I just started running my blog feed through FeedBurner so I can track statistics. Blogger is supposed to redirect my traffic through FeedBurner automatically, but please resubscribe to this feed if you have any trouble. Thanks!

Since I’m on the subject, I should mention that setting up my feed in FeedBurner was quite easy. All I had to do was plug in my blog URL, create an account, and make a few clicks, and now I can track number of subscribers, number of hits, and some other feed information. FeedBurner also provides several options for a “chicklet” (or widget) to place on my blog for users to subscribe. It’s nice when something is so easy!

Outreach Ideas: Putting the Library in the Path of Its Users

I posted this message to the PUBLIB-L list not too long ago and decided to go ahead and add it here as well. My message was in response to a poster discussing his library’s recent community survey and their findings from that survey.

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My response:
I had a random – though related – thought as I read Paul’s email.

Paul said the community is interested in what the library is doing, but he also said that their primary means of reaching people isn’t as much as they would like.

It occurred to me that it may be helpful to offer tailored information for some area business and outreach groups. For example, I was working out at my local fitness center (Curves – love it!) the other day thinking I really needed some good books with health recipes, meal plans, and other tips for planning healthy meals (and now would be a good time for it – gotta catch people before they give up on that New Year’s resolution!). If my Curves trainer could have handed me a list of health/fitness related items at my local library or a flier promoting library services that would help me find health/fitness resources, I would be quite likely to go check them out.

Now, I know this won’t work for most businesses and organizations. I know this wouldn’t work in some communities. I know some businesses wouldn’t be willing to keep a list of handouts/fliers.

But, what about local daycare centers? Maybe a promotional flier or a quarterly list of new resources to let parents know they can find parenting books, children’s books, etc. would be welcome.

Maybe the local gardening club would like to know about the gardening resources at the library.

Or, if the library has access to an automotive repair database or repair manuals, maybe the local mechanics would like to know that.

Would a local travel agency be willing to let their customers know the library has travel guides available?

Maybe religious organizations in the area would appreciate finding out about any religious fiction or nonfiction in the library.

If there are community centers in your area that serve persons with disabilities or senior adults, it may help if they know the library has large print books, or Braille books, or books on CD, or that the library offers certain services for those groups.

OK, I’ll stop rambling now. The ideas just started flowing, and I started typing. It just seems this could be an opportunity to reach users at their point of need. It is also a way to put library resources in their daily path. Their daily path may not be to the library (or they may not even know the library can help them with that particular thing). But, if we put something in their path to show how we can help them, maybe they’ll try it out.

So, is anyone doing this type of outreach? How do you do it? Is it successful? Do people appreciate it?
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You can see the thread here at the PUBLIB Archives

Tech Tips: Book Art

Need a headline for a flyer? Looking for Friday fun? Amaztype is a fun service from Amazon that lets you search for a word in the title or author’s name of books, music, or videos. Amaztype then spells out the name in books.

I think this could be fun for headlines on websites, flyers, etc. I’m not sure how well these images would print out, but there may be a way to use this for displays of themes or particular authors.

found via A Library By Any Other Name

Reading: Book-a-Month Challenge

Well, I decided I needed a challenge for the new year, so here we go.

Book-a-Month Challenge

A new theme is posted each month, and participants choose a book related to the theme. Ideally (and this is the most challenging part for me), we read the book and post a review on our website or blog. So, while I don’t consider myself much of a review writer, I’ll do my best to keep up and post reviews here over the next year.

Anyone else up for the challenge? I’d be happy to have a friend to keep me accountable.

Tech Tips: Kwout – Grab a Screenshot and Quote

kwout | A brilliant way to quote via kwout

This is a snazzy way to grab a quick screenshot and add to a website or blog. Kwout gives you the code so that you can embed the screenshot image (with a link – see image above) to a blog or website. All I had to do was add the bookmarklet to my browser, and I now I just click the bookmarklet to grab the screenshot.

Hmmm…now I have to think of some more ways to use this…

Georgia News: Gov Gab Appreciates Georgia

It’s always nice for your state to be appreciated for its authors, among other things…

Curl Up With A Good Book This Winter