Tempest in a chair

Friday afternoon finds Alex and Allen reading Shakespeare, looking much more comfy than tempestuous.

Whose pink water bottle is that, anyway? I think it's been there for days.

There are always consequences

That's how Lizzy concluded the really interesting entry she wrote for the Online Gargoyle Staff Blog about her and a friend's experiences with blogging and social networking sites. Her take-home message was that, despite all the warnings about how nothing on the Internet is ever really private, you never think that you will be the one who will be outed, embarrassed, caught, disciplined, de-selected, or fired for what you (or a friend) have posted online. It never feels like what you do outside of school has anything to do with what goes on inside school, let alone with those people who are "in charge" at school. And you never picture yourself as the person whose picture gets in the paper after some casual click of the mouse.

I feel like we spend a lot of time here teaching about just these kinds of issues. But it still comes down to the "it will never happen to me" syndrome. I'll never forget "Hieronymous" who, when he did actually get caught in one of these situations, just asked: "Am I going to become a scenario?" Sigh.

Up to no good

Here's a photo to caption:



I might call it "Signal to librarian to go on red alert"

I think Richard is either trying to tell me not to worry, or else to worry Big Time...

Now HERE'S a Computer Literacy 2 project idea

We're in that season now, with groups starting to design their semester projects. Maybe someone should check out the work of this self-described "retro-futurist":



What do you suppose he'd do with an iPhone?

Anyway, these objects make me think of Neal Stephenson's books, particularly Diamond Age, which is set in twenty-first century Shanghai but features a crazy neo-Victorian culture.

Excitement about liberry stuff

I don't usually go off the deep end here about University Library goings on, but today's unveiling of the new Library Gateway has me all in a tizzy. The default "Easy Search" on the main page is actually a federated search, which means you are searching not only books, but also journals, magazines, and web sources. I tried a search on "Harry Potter" (with quotes) and found all sorts of unexpected, yet delightful sources. From scholarly databases like Web of Science and Scopus, I found articles with such titles as "Harry Potter and the Curse of Headache" (yes, a medical article about Harry's headache types) and "Harry Potter and the Structural Biologist's (Key)stone" (in a journal called Genome Biology). Google Scholar took me to 14 articles that cite a book called "Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick." Then there are the results from I-Share (books in other Illinois libraries), Google Book Search, Microsoft Live Books, Academic Search Premier (Ebsco), Expanded Academic ASAP (Infotrac), and so on... Very fun.

I'm also excited about all the digitizing that's going on. At a meeting yesterday I learned more about access to the Library's holdings in the Open Content Alliance. Mr. Sutton's history seminar students, get ready! Just do an "Easy Search" on "open content alliance" and "Lincoln." Bootiful. Now I'm going to have to rethink the way I teach searching. But I am NOT complaining!

We didn't mean this one

Aaron was just doing the usual slap-the-sticker-on-the-new-magazines thing and, oops...



Hope this doesn't get me in trouble with Bill Buckley.

Special guest

For the past three days, the Computer Literacy 1 class has had the privilege of meeting with Assistant Professor of Journalism and Law, Amy Gajda. Ms. Gajda is best known by some of us for her weekly radio commentaries on local NPR affiliate WILL AM 580. She spoke to the students about copyright and privacy law, citing one interesting case after another. In true Uni fashion, the students weren't shy and peppered her with questions. That's Tahar's hand up in the second photo.

My new role model

Who says librarians are wimps? Thanks to Miles R. and co-conspirator Michael M. for sharing Space Marines Miniatures, and most especially Space Marine Librarians. I have to admit being rather partial to the gear worn by the Librarian in Terminator Armor:


My real career goal, however, is Tigurius, Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines, "a figure of mystery possessed of knowledge that goes beyond the towering data stacks of the Chapter Librarius":


Doesn't get any better than that.

More slices

The discussion of Harry Potter 7 brought in a record crowd for RifRaf, our book club. There was a strong contingent that thought Snape got a raw deal. Y'all come back next week when we discuss life after Harry!



See the display of mysteries and thrillers in the background there? Well, here's Natalie, Jenny's successor, posing for the body outline. Ewww, gross.

Slice 'o life

It looks like second period is this year's most common free period. Here's a snapshot of a table full of sophomores who probably allowed Charley (a freshman) to sit in with them because of his awesome hat. I DO like Loic's thoughtful pose.

RTLB and LOL

Or, "Read the Library blog and laugh out loud." Especially if you link to David Pogue's recent blog entry in which he proposes a new generation of online shorthand. Some gems from the list his interns put together:

GI - Google it
NBL - no battery left
CTTC - can't talk, teacher's coming
CYE (CYF, CYM, CYB - check your email (Facebook, Myspace, blog)
IIOYT - is it on YouTube?

Some from David for parents and bosses:

WIWYA - when I was your age
CRRE - conversation required; remove earbuds
LODH - log off, do homework
NIWYM - no idea what you mean

Some I just made up:

MYL - meet you (in the) library
OCD - online catalog down
KOS - Kovacs over shoulder

So what are your suggestions?