Thursday, April 21, 2011
Totalitarian state?
Middle School Book Club read the first book of the Shadow Children - should lead to an interesting discussion covering everything from junk food to totalitarian governments!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Don't Blink
It's springtime in Minnesota, an incredible fast forward. Whoosh! the snow is finally gone. Pop! the tulips are six inches high. Honk! the geese are flying around everywhere, the redwing blackbirds are back, and it's finally warm enough to have windows open. I love it.
Friday, April 8, 2011
You Can Teach an Old Librarian New Tricks
You can teach old dog new tricks, but did you know that an old librarian can learn new tricks, too?
A patron asked if we could occasionally put up a list of newer videos. I thought that was a great idea, and decided to give it a try. After all, how hard could it be? I remembered that our library catalog lets you sort out videos, so that’s where I began. Just to see if it would work, I simply typed dvd in the keyword search, and limited the search to the Litchfield collection. Incredibly, this simple search was all I needed to do. (I remembered this all as being more difficult). I had 1161 dvd titles. They happened to be sorted with the newest titles first.
I decided to try making a list with a book cart, which lets you save titles and request them all at once. I clicked on the little icon that looks like a shopping cart. I added the 26 newest titles to my cart; unfortunately, you have to click on each title to add it to the cart. I clicked on view saved titles, and then chose “view and export your saved records.” The result is the information in the citation and even by choosing “brief records,” there was more information given than I needed.
The next step was to get that information into something that I could use. This wasn’t difficult, but it took some time to pare the pages and pages of catalog information down to a usable list. I sent the list to the local disk, which put it into Notepad. I copied that into Word and started deleting. Again, this was not a difficult thing to do, but it took some time, so I’m very happy to share the list with you, and may be persuaded to generate another list - in another three months.
Then there was a second new thing I learned this week. (I know, this is getting to be a lot.) Our library webpage is in transition. We’re grateful to the Litchfield Chamber of Commerce for putting a link to the catalog on their webpage of information about the library. Just go to litch.com/library and click on Litchfield Public Library. Our hours, phone number, fax number and email address are all on the page. We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused by this transition.
The next problem to solve was where to post a library article so my fans (just joking) can read it online. I revived my old blog at blogspot, http://janp23things.blogspot.com/ to have a spot to stash articles. Occasionally I update it with pithy comments, but I have learned once again that I’m really not a blogger.
That’s three things, more than enough for a week. See you at the library!
The List of movies with 2011 in the catalog citation:
127 hours
30 for 30.
The best that never was
Bambi
Black swan
Dogtooth
Downton Abbey
Elmo's World: Penguins and friends
Felicity : an American girl adventure
Howl
Inside job
Journey through the shadows
Complete guide to slowpitch softball [book and dvd]
Secretariat
Skin
Tangled
The Fighter
The Social Network
The Ten Commandments
The Wiggles: Let's eat!
Tintinalli's emergency medicine [book and dvd]
Tron: legacy
VeggieTales: 'Twas the night before Easter
Waste land
Women without men
Yogi Bear
A patron asked if we could occasionally put up a list of newer videos. I thought that was a great idea, and decided to give it a try. After all, how hard could it be? I remembered that our library catalog lets you sort out videos, so that’s where I began. Just to see if it would work, I simply typed dvd in the keyword search, and limited the search to the Litchfield collection. Incredibly, this simple search was all I needed to do. (I remembered this all as being more difficult). I had 1161 dvd titles. They happened to be sorted with the newest titles first.
I decided to try making a list with a book cart, which lets you save titles and request them all at once. I clicked on the little icon that looks like a shopping cart. I added the 26 newest titles to my cart; unfortunately, you have to click on each title to add it to the cart. I clicked on view saved titles, and then chose “view and export your saved records.” The result is the information in the citation and even by choosing “brief records,” there was more information given than I needed.
The next step was to get that information into something that I could use. This wasn’t difficult, but it took some time to pare the pages and pages of catalog information down to a usable list. I sent the list to the local disk, which put it into Notepad. I copied that into Word and started deleting. Again, this was not a difficult thing to do, but it took some time, so I’m very happy to share the list with you, and may be persuaded to generate another list - in another three months.
Then there was a second new thing I learned this week. (I know, this is getting to be a lot.) Our library webpage is in transition. We’re grateful to the Litchfield Chamber of Commerce for putting a link to the catalog on their webpage of information about the library. Just go to litch.com/library and click on Litchfield Public Library. Our hours, phone number, fax number and email address are all on the page. We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused by this transition.
The next problem to solve was where to post a library article so my fans (just joking) can read it online. I revived my old blog at blogspot, http://janp23things.blogspot.com/ to have a spot to stash articles. Occasionally I update it with pithy comments, but I have learned once again that I’m really not a blogger.
That’s three things, more than enough for a week. See you at the library!
The List of movies with 2011 in the catalog citation:
127 hours
30 for 30.
The best that never was
Bambi
Black swan
Dogtooth
Downton Abbey
Elmo's World: Penguins and friends
Felicity : an American girl adventure
Howl
Inside job
Journey through the shadows
Complete guide to slowpitch softball [book and dvd]
Secretariat
Skin
Tangled
The Fighter
The Social Network
The Ten Commandments
The Wiggles: Let's eat!
Tintinalli's emergency medicine [book and dvd]
Tron: legacy
VeggieTales: 'Twas the night before Easter
Waste land
Women without men
Yogi Bear
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
method to my madness
This was something we had to do for work - librarians call it web 2.0. I did about 8 of the 23 things. I do like the pet cube, though
I was rebellious and never finished. Anyway, I need a place to post articles, so I hope they will fit in this space. I still love my avatar, even after three years.
I was rebellious and never finished. Anyway, I need a place to post articles, so I hope they will fit in this space. I still love my avatar, even after three years.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
I'm Baaaaaack
Time to start again. A lot of water has gone under this particular bridge, but welcome to April of 2011.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Thing 8.
For thing 8, I've tried a couple of applications. One is more pictures of my cute pets, in Picture Trail. I admired other spinning photo cubes in blogs, so just had to try it. Easy to do, and easy to post.
The other application, in slideshare, seems very, very useful. This is the Power Point slide show I used for older elementary students at their spring library visits.
BTW, I linked to the library online catalog for a live demonstration for all of the elementary classes, which was both fun and effective.
The clever animations didn't post in slideshare, but you get the general idea. This was very easy to do. It took a few minutes to upload, but I like the result.
Recently, a group meeting at the library needed to use our projector with their laptop. The two simply wouldn't communicate. I connected the library laptop with the library projector, and got a live internet connection up; fortunately their information was accessible online. I think online is the way to go - computers may crash, disks may be corrupted, but usually the online stuff seems to work.
Interesting thing, thing 8.
The other application, in slideshare, seems very, very useful. This is the Power Point slide show I used for older elementary students at their spring library visits.
BTW, I linked to the library online catalog for a live demonstration for all of the elementary classes, which was both fun and effective.
The clever animations didn't post in slideshare, but you get the general idea. This was very easy to do. It took a few minutes to upload, but I like the result.
Recently, a group meeting at the library needed to use our projector with their laptop. The two simply wouldn't communicate. I connected the library laptop with the library projector, and got a live internet connection up; fortunately their information was accessible online. I think online is the way to go - computers may crash, disks may be corrupted, but usually the online stuff seems to work.
Interesting thing, thing 8.
slide presentation 2008
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