Posted by: lynny1 on: December 15, 2008
wow, it’s great to learn about all the features on google maps. I’d been using just the basics. I love the photo and wikipedia entry features! and street view is great. I looked up some places I used to live, and had a lot of fun.
It would be easy to spend all day with google books. In just a few minutes of exploration, I came across an edition of collected George and Martha stories that includes a long introduction by Maurice Sendak (and the entire introduction is available). This by clicking on and browsing through the category ”short stories,” which apparently means adult short stories and some children’s books, too.
Re the magazine feature – has anyone found a list of the magazines they cover? All the results I get with various searches include Jet, New York Magazine, and Baseball Digest. Seems like an odd mix.
Also could spend all day with google news. I’ll have to sign up for google reader, I hear it may be an improvement over the bloglines account I use for RSS feeds. And google docs would be worth exploring, too, I’m sure.
My husband is much more techie than I am. I know that he has used a gps on a bike ride, and then somehow loaded the gps file onto google earth (not maps), and then added comments about various stops along the way. It’s on an older version of his web page and I just tried to pull it up here – could not, so he may have used a program that we don’t have on WPL computers. Anyway, it’s a great concept.
If any other librarians here are old enough to remember pre-google-image-search days, you’ll identify with how grateful I always feel to be able to find pictures of things so easily. It used to be a surprisingly difficult thing to find good pictures for patrons – esp. if there was no particular single book on a topic. Not any more!
The Lifehacker tip about finding similar things is really interesting. We have a bad fluffy white cat who doesn’t like the standard hairball remedy, and I got some good ideas this way.
Oh well, enough about google. Too bad they won’t pay me for all of this glowing praise.
Wikis
Posted by: lynny1 on: December 5, 2008
I found this wiki exercise very interesting. Some of the preliminary activities – like looking at the article about the pluses and minuses of wikis – demonstrated the pluses and minuses very well. For instance, the word “cite” was mis-spelled in the header to the article (“often site incorrect information”) – and in the South Joseph P.L.’s list of subject headings, Patricia Polacco’s name is mis-spelled in the local author section. The perils of no overall authority control! But, even so, I love wikipedia, especially for pop culture and/or very current info.
I added a book review to the great8 wiki, and also commented on a few articles. I found the interface pretty easy to use. I’ve been wanting to develop an internal communication wiki for the youth department, and this is a good motivator to do that. Seems as if it would lend itself to organizing and retrieving information very well. Thanks for a good “adventure,” Lisa!
IM
Posted by: lynny1 on: December 5, 2008
Hi – well, my askaway session went incredibly well. Granted, I didn’t choose a very challenging question -
I asked if there is a weekend farmer’s market on any weekend in January in Madison, WI. It took the librarian all of 45 seconds to send me the web page with the information. turns out there’s one every weekend in the winter!
I think that IM is great for many types of reference questions, esp. if you want to be able to send links directly. Sure beats a phone call for that! Also, the back-and-forth nature allows you to have some type of reference interview going on – unlike regular email.
I liked a lot of the acronyms – maybe especially EG (evil grin).
Cambodian water forest
Posted by: lynny1 on: November 28, 2008
Hi – On our last day in Cambodia, we took a boat ride in the water forest near Kompong Phhluk, a fishing village where the houses are on stilts that sit in the water. What a place!
Lyn on Elephant!
Posted by: lynny1 on: November 19, 2008
- In: travels
- 8 Comments
Hi! do I look nervous? Larry took this photo on our elephant ride today. Seems like a long way down!
Podcasts
Posted by: lynny1 on: November 8, 2008
When I switched from an mp3 player to an iPod, I discovered the iTunes store and the wonderful world of podcasts. The New Yorker has some great offerings: http://www.newyorker.com/ scroll down and you’ll see a link to audio in the left column.
I’ve recently discovered some old time radio mystery podcasts, too, which are perfect for walking to work, since the plots are generally fairly obvious and if a really noisy truck goes by, it doesn’t matter if you miss a word or two (or even more, in some cases).
iTunes U also has lots of free audio offerings. I listened to an interview from the 92d St. Y in NYC – Susie Esseman (who plays Jeff’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm) interviewed Carl Reiner, which was a lot of fun.
Hi
Posted by: lynny1 on: November 7, 2008
Hi from home via my iPod touch! Thank you, Larry!
Databases
Posted by: lynny1 on: October 31, 2008
Well, I did part of Adventure 4 today – looked up March 22, 1951 in the New York Times. Browsing along, at first I saw some pretty mundane stuff – like Mayor Wagner posting a new “Donut Corner” street sign in Times Square (to aid fund-raising by the campfire girls).
But then I saw this: “Bush says U.S. can use A-weapons in combat.” Wow! which Bush is that, I wonder? And are “A-weapons” the atomic bomb? (yes, that is what it meant). I thought I remembered that the current occupant’s grandfather was a politician – Prescott Bush, maybe a senator from Connecticut? Anyway, this 1951 Bush was not that Bush either – this one was Dr. Vannevar Bush, the president of something called the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Yikes! I’ll have to do some more research on him sometime to see what other ideas he came up with.
I’m already signed up for email notification and have fooled around with the genealogy databases, which can be fascinating. I can see why some people can really get into that! I used Consumer Checkbook a bit when we were looking into roofers last winter. Seems handy and easy to use.
two guys, one mouse
Posted by: lynny1 on: October 21, 2008
Our cat Dobbs idolizes Larry and copies him every chance he gets.
Youtube experience
Posted by: lynny1 on: October 20, 2008
- In: movies
- 2 Comments
Youtube is great and very fun and easy to use. I also found a clip of my favorite scene from the old (wonderful!) movie, “Picnic,” the scene where Kim Novak and William Holden dance. So romantic! If you search using Picnic and William Holden, I’m sure you’ll find it easily. Apparently I’m not the only one who has a soft spot for this!
