June Hot Docs

Vickey Baggott, Documents Librarian, has put together a Hot Docs http://www.southalabama.edu/univlib/govdocs/hotdocs.htm list of new documents covering a broad range of college courses/programs proving that there's probably something for every student/researcher in the Government Documents Department located on 2nd Floor, South of the University Library.

Artist Reception 5 to 7 in Library Art Gallery

From the Dean:
"The public is invited to attend the opening art reception for B. J. Ray in
the University Library, Third Floor Gallery, June 1 from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

B J Ray, Photographer & Surrealistic Digital Painter, is exhibiting her
surrealistic landscapes, photographic composites and representational
waterfalls in the Third Floor Gallery, University Library. Ms. Ray is the
recipient of many awards including National Shrimp Festival; Arts in the
Park, Pensacola, FL; Fairhope Arts & Crafts Show; Meridian Arts in the Park;
Lexington Art Fest; Branson Art Festival and Minolta Photographers Award.
Her photographs have been published in "International Photographers Guild,"
"Alabama Alive" Magazine, and Ford Motor Company "Highways and Byways."
Studies include the Special Studies Summer Program Painting and Special
Studies Graphic Design Program at the University of Alabama. She also
studied three years with renowned photographer Michael Kaspareck of Brewer
State. The exhibit will be on display through July 31 and may be viewed
during library hours: http://www.southalabama.edu/univlib/info/hours.html."

Web 2.0

The reference department is starting on an excursion to explore Web 2.0 sites today. I thought maybe some readers might want to try them too. I will adapt the instructions a bit for this open forum. You are welcome to make comments on this blog about your experiences. Here's the first place we are exploring:

First Stop: LibraryThing

Let’s start our adventure in a library catalog–your own library catalog–the one you are going to create in LibraryThing.

1. Go to http://www.librarything.com. Create an account with any user name and password you like. [Think about using the same log in and password for all of these expeditions so you won’t have to worry about remembering different ones for different applications.]

1a. If you must, you may read the short introduction to LibraryThing at: http://www.librarything.com/quickstart.php

2. Once you have an account your first entry box will pop up. Enter the title or author of your favorite book or just grab a book from your desk and type in the title or author.

<>3. Add 2 or 3 tags that describe it – fairly generic words that might fit other favorites of yours, e.g. mystery, female detective, Chicago.

4. You can change the Amazon.com search to Library of Congress below the entry box if you think your book may be out of print. Amazon’s good because it will retrieve cover images too. Click on the link below the Library of Congress to see the other 78 catalogs possibly containing the book. [Mary can even search the National Library of Norway if she has a favorite Norwegian author!]

5. Click the retrieved book that you wish to save to your library, then go to “Your Library” to see the beginning of your personal collection.

6. Hover over some of the icons and numbers to see what clicking through will take you to. Try some like the “Zeitgeist” tab at the top. Check out the tag "cloud."

7. Add a few more books. You can have access to your catalog from any computer on the web [if you can remember your log in and password of course.]

Smithsonian Photo Contest Winners

The Smithsonian Magazine 4th Annual Photo Contest winners have been published on the web. And they are glorious! http://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/v4/natural6.html

Memorial Day

http://www.usmemorialday.org/

http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html

Rainiest and Ideas

Guess who ranks as the rainiest city in the United States?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070522/sc_livescience/studyrevealstop10wettestuscities

and from marylaine block:

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading
http://www.ted.com/index.php/
"Inspired talks by the world's greatest thinkers and doers." Among them:
Peter Gabriel on fighting injustice with a videocamera, Jane Goodall on
what separates us from the apes, Nicholas Negroponte on the vision behind
One Laptop per Child, Michael Shermer on why people believe strange
things, Jimmy Wales on the creation of Wikipedia, and many more.

Boating Info

Perfect weekend to be on a boat. It's best if you don't actually own one, but have friends who do. Then they have to pay to keep it up, store it, fuel it, and learn all the rules as well as run the thing. Here's a link to the Librarians' Internet Index listing for boating safety. Maybe you should brush up on some safety tips in case your hosts get tired of your mooching ways!

http://tinyurl.com/39dura

Have a great weekend!

Watching the Government

Congresspedia
Things are popping in Washington D.C. these days. Here's a website that will keep you up to date if you can't watch CSPAN all day everyday. It's a project of SourceWatch which describes itself this way:

Welcome to SourceWatch, a collaborative project of the Center for Media and Democracy to produce a directory of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. A primary purpose of SourceWatch is documenting the PR and propaganda activities of public relations firms and public relations professionals engaged in managing and manipulating public perception, opinion and policy. SourceWatch also includes profiles on think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Over time, SourceWatch has broadened to include others involved in public debates including media outlets, journalists and government agencies. Unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Congresspedia

Haunted Love [in Closed Reserve]

Dennis Guion, our Circulation/Reserve librarian just sent me this YouTube video. I might just ask the Freshman Seminar instructors to have their new students watch it in the Fall to "scare them straight" about library etiquette.
Haunted Love.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne_WXP7lUWM

Is Nothing Sacred?

Academics are taking teaching to YouTube.
Just got this video from the Chronicle of Higher Education about a professor who is using YouTube to teach cultural anthropology from the inside out.
http://chronicle.com/media/video/v53/i36/youtube/

This video references his [Michael Wesch, ass. prof at Kansas State] brilliant YouTube video. In it he raises questions that we will all need to address soon, if we are to make any sense of the phenomenon called Web 2.0--those applications that allow us to collaborate, personalize and create ourselves and our world in cyberspace.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

I've just activated the "comments" feature of Blogger. Use it!

StateMaster

Kathy Jones just sent me this website: StateMaster
http://www.statemaster.com/index.php

"Welcome to StateMaster, a unique statistical database which allows you to
research and compare a multitude of different data on US states. We have
compiled information from various primary sources such as the US Census
Bureau, the FBI, and the National Center for Educational Statistics."

Try this one under lifestyles and this one under crime---vvverrry iiinnnteresting.

HotDocs and Hollywood Librarians

Vickey Baggott, government documents librarian, has a new Hot Docs guaranteed to induce FUTURE SHOCK. These new hearings cover topics being discussed in Congress these days.
http://www.southalabama.edu/univlib/govdocs/hotdocs.htm

And

Check out the trailer for a new documentary on YouTube called the Hollywood Librarian, coming soon.