Keeping up with search engines

It's not easy. They are forever getting married and divorced, and otherwise morphing into new and different creatures. I'm fascinated by what's come out of the Teoma and Ask.com (formerly AskJeeves) merger. I tried a couple of searches students have done here recently. Take a look at the results for a search on earthquakes. Right at the top -- information on recent earthquake activity and a box for entering other locations! And check out what happens when you pass your cursor over the cute binocular icon next to each citation. Very cool indeed (though perhaps not quite as useful as the "sneak-a-peek" feature in Wisenut, which opens a little browser window right within the search results page).

The results for a search on author Kurt Vonnegut are also interesting. There's his photo right at the top, with links to his official site and reference-type sources (yay, Internet Public Library!). It is sort of odd that one of the suggested ways to narrow your search is to click on Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Death, which makes it sound as if he's dead (which he's not). This high-level link I attribute to the search engine picking up on the many times the words "dead" or "death" appear in relation to Vonnegut's works. But as to the overall goodness of the new Ask.com, I am sure that some of the credit goes to their wise decision to appoint real live librarian Gary Price as their Director of Online Information Resources. He's also the compiler and editor of the trusty ResourceShelf.

The circus comes to town

Today Ms. Patton brought in bales of clown noses that were given to her by a VERY friendly clown representing Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey (aka "The Greatest Show On Earth!").

I spotted a few of the clown spawn in the library today:



That's T.J., Al, Ben, and Mr. Russell.

Competitive indexing!

Why not? There's competitive eating, after all. I've just spent two days teaching (for the 3,746th time, at least) the benefits of using Library of Congress Subject Headings when searching the online catalog. Of course, I always wonder how to make these lessons more interesting and compelling. Then I opened up the new issue of School Library Journal and found this article about a game involving the use of tags (or subjects) that users have attached to their images on Flickr, "the popular photo-sharing program that allows members to post their pics to the world." The game is called Fastr and loads 10 images that share a common tag. The images come up one at a time at 4-second intervals. The faster you are at guessing the correct tag, the more points you get.

Let me tell you, it's brutal. After a solid 15 minutes of play I accrued maybe 27 points. Compare that to Zargoth, who racked up 1,776 points on Sunday. One thing this experience tells me is that assigning a subject heading like "cookery" to cookbooks is no stranger than the way many Flickr users classify their photos. It's amazing what people will label with tags like "Einstein," or "pirate," or "dots." (Or maybe it's just amazing how many people have dogs they've named "Einstein").

Books on the chopping block

Okay, I threatened to do this once, and now we're actually doing it. Having arrived at the end of this season's weeding cycle, we've put a number of to-be-tossed books out on display. The humongous (and garish) sign above them says: HELP! Should we keep these books? Here you will see some of my selection miscalculations -- like the many Christoper Pike books that never circulated. And then there are the old Star Trek paperbacks. They used to have quite a following, but no more. I don't get it. Who can resist a cover like this?

Spring break!

Lots of people in today checking out books to read over the break. I'm packing three: Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (Fiction F684e 2003), I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League by Keith Giffen & J.M. Dematteis (GN G366i), and Howard's End by E.M. Forster (Fiction F77h1986). Some wildly different choices there. During the week I'll be in Denver visiting family, so the blog will be relatively quiet. I'll sandwich the week with two great dance events: the English-American Dance & Music Weekend here and the (wonderfully named) Pigtown Fling in Cincinnati. Should be a good break.

Oh yeah, everybody can see it if it's on the Web

Sometimes I forget about that. But I was reminded this week when I got a request from a well-known publisher of non-fiction books for young people. This company is publishing a book about author Orson Scott Card, who wrote Ender's Game and many other wonderful books. In 1998 and 2000 (a million years ago in Internet time), Mr. Card visited our fair city while on book signing tours. Both times, I went with a group of RifRaf (book club) members and later documented the occasions in our photo gallery. So now the publisher is writing to seek permission to publish those photos in the book. Wow.

So some questions come to mind. Are our visits with OSC more immortalized by being published in a hard copy book than they are by being published on a website? Which instance of documentation will live longer -- the online one or the paper one? Which instance will be seen by more people? And why am I thrilled at the thought of those photos seeing hard copy?

Your parents' rock and roll

And mine too. Courtesy Shirl at the Resource Shelf, I've been made aware of a new project at Vault Radio. Here's the blurb:

Bill Graham and his concert promotion company, Bill Graham Presents, produced more than 35,000 concerts all over the world. His first venue, the legendary Fillmore Auditorium, was home to many of rock's greatest performers - Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Prince - and the list goes on and on.

Graham taped thousands of live performances and stored the tapes in the basement of the BGP headquarters. These tapes and the concerts they captured lay dormant until the Bill Graham archive was acquired by Wolfgang's Vault (Bill Graham's given first name was Wolfgang) in 2003.

Now you can stream selected tracks from these concerts by listening to Vault Radio. But wait, there's more. You can purchase vintage posters, tickets, and handbills. And for absolutely free, you can install the likes of Summer of Love screensavers and Phil Lesh wallpaper.

Funny, in an earlier post, Shirl quoted the bumper sticker that says "Yes I'm old, but your music really does suck." Thank you, Vault Radio, for bringing on the good stuff.

Manga from the heart

Our first issue of Shojo Beat arrived today. The subtitle is "Manga From the Heart" because the target audience is (surprise!) girls. Inside, find episodes from "Absolute Boyfriend," "Baby & Me," "Kaze Hikaru," "Crimson Hero," "Godchild," and "Nana." Sharp contrast to its counterpart, Shonen Jump, which we started getting just about a year ago.



It's very pink, dontcha think?

Google video: from the ridiculous to the sublime

Google Video is a great place to find the worst/silliest/most pointless/most offensive/most fun video clips, such as this 22-second ode to a cat on ice ("But those fish are right there. Why can't I get them???"). But in a nod to Meaning and Purpose, Google and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration have launched a pilot program to make NARA's video holdings available free. There's some really interesting stuff here: the newsreel showing the soldiers raising the flag over Iwo Jima, motion picture clips depicting the history of space flight, a 1933 film on "Rebuilding Indian Country" (love the sound track on that last one).

But wait, there's already a good dose of interesting documentary history scattered around the rest of the Google Video warehouse. Check out this TV commercial for what used to be the latest technology. Another case for why "recreational" web use shouldn't be prohibited in schools.

Feeding the beast

Hope I never get desperate enough for blog-fodder that I follow Colleen's lead (see today's Unshelved episode) and blog my everyday conversations.

I make no promises about my un-everyday conversations, though.

Comics rot your (literary) mind

Okay, buoyed by the comments on yesterday's post, I feel inspired to post this image from the new Simpson's book I bought during my recent shopping spree at Pages. It's from a story called "Lisa's Adventures in Wordland" and seems to be a nice amalgamation of elements from both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.

I don't get it

Last Friday I was in the Chicago area to give a talk for the DuPage Library System. As often happens at these events, I find out that things we at Uni High do as a matter of course are on the forbidden list at many, many other schools. For example, it seems that an awful lot of schools do not allow their students to use the web except for school-related work. No open web surfing, no personal information seeking -- even when no else is using school computers for school work. Here's the disconnect. Most school libraries carry magazines like Motor Trend, Sports Illustrated, and Seventeen. Where's the "school-related work" in browsing those? Yet students who read those magazines cannot also browse the ESPN website or the Seventeen website. Virtually all school libraries provide fiction and encourage its circulation. Yet students who are avid readers cannot also browse fan fiction websites at school or check in on a Harry Potter web board.

Can someone explain this to me?

Don't look over your shoulder

My sister, who works at the Federal courthouse in Denver, sent me a link to this story about an employee there who was arrested for spilling coffee in the X-ray machine. It's hard to say if the spill was accidental or intentional, even though the video captures the action from two angles. As my sister explains, everyone has to go through security, even employees who have been there for years and years. They have to show their IDs (to guards who know them well) and pull out cell phones, cameras, and other electronic devices. Drinks have to go through the machine too. I guess this woman had had enough.

The surveillance cameras at the courthouse made me think of the great book I just finished reading, I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak (Fiction Z89i). Ed Kennedy has apparently been appointed a "messenger" by someone who is clearly watching his every move. He gets his cryptic orders on playing cards. Other actors are sent in to not-so-gently get him on track when he strays from his main task. Who is watching and why?