Oscar Weekend and TV Online from Around the World and Movie in the Library

For Oscar weekend: this is the most important database for anyone who has any interest in movies, actors, directors, gaffers, best boys, caterers and all those others listed in the never ending credits. The International Movie DataBase or imdb.com. The answers to most movie trivia can be found here.

BeelineTV.com
This site provides links to a selection of "free online TV channels from around the world." Organized by language. Listings link directly to the programming, and indicate which media player is necessary to view the content. Provided by a software company.
URL: http://beelinetv.com
(from Librarian's Internet Index's weekly update)

This came from Mary Ann Graham in Library Circulation Dept:
Join Us in Celebrating Black History Month at the University of South Alabama Library

Date: Sunday, February 25, 2007
Time: 7:00pm
Place: University of South Alabama Library Auditorium
Movie: The Bingo Long Travaling All-Stars & Motor Kings
Directed by: John Badham

Tired of being treated like a slave by team owner Sallison Potter (Ted Ross), charismatic star pitcher Bingo Long (Billy Dee Williams) steals a bunch of Negro League players away from their teams, including catcher/slugger Leon Carter (James Earl Jones) and Charlies Snow( aka "Carlos Nevada" and "Chief Takahoma", played by Richard Pryor, as a player forever trying to break into the segregated Major League baseball of the 1930's by masquerading as first a Cuban, than a Native American). They take to the road, barnstorming through small Midwestern towns, playing the local teams to make ends meet. One of the opposing players, 'Esquire' Joe Callaway (Stan Shaw), is so good that the recruit him.

Bingo's team becomes so outlandishly entertaining and successful, it begins to cut into the attendance of the established Negro League teams. Finally, Bingo's nemesis Potter is forced to propose a winner-take-all game: if Bingo's team can beat a bunch of all-stars, it can join the league, but if it loses, the players will return to their old teams.

Ironically, there is a Major League scout in the audience. After the game, he offers Esquire Joe (a thinly-veiled Jackie Robinson) the chance to break the color barrier; with Bingo's permission he accepts.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia.

Laissez le Bon Temps Roulez

Topicalizer
For writers who want to be humbled [yeah, right] this web app is the one to do it. It's from this week's Research Buzz. Enter a URL to a piece of writing or cut and paste a piece of text into its box and it will analyze it in weird ways. What are your favorite 3 word clichés? What is the reading level of your writing? Other bizarre info. "Word, sentence and paragraph count, collocations, syllable structure, lexical density, keywords, readability and a short abstract on what the given text is about." It can be humbling; take my word.

Glory, the movie, is going to be shown on Sunday night at 7:00 P.M. in the Library Auditorium in a series sponsored by the folks at the Circulation Desk for Black History Month. Free and open to anyone. This came from Mary Ann Graham of the wonderful Circulation staff.


I'll be back after the good times have rolled by--next week. Have a great Mardi Gras.

P.S. If you have an advanced reader copies or review copies of books appropriate for kids and juveniles [alleged delinquent-type] read this article. I have been going to New Orleans fairly frequently and will be glad to deliver any new books you might wish to donate. js

Top 100 Alternative Search Engines

This is from Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff and ExLibris (Subscribe here)
I'm working my way through them. but you have to try the Ms Dewey Search Engine for an experience you have never had with a search engine or a librarian before. Very Interesting! Be patient, it takes a minute to load and retrieve results, but the wait is not like any other you've experienced. Now we need a male version.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_100_alternative_search_engines.php

Academic Research Center aka Computer Lab in the Univ. Library

"O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"--a computer lab in the Library! Room 128, just inside the west[lakeside] doors opened today as the Academic Research Center [ARC] with 14 computers loaded with Word, Powerpoint, Excel, CD/DVD read-only drives, Quicktime, Flash, Windows Media Player. Bring your own headphones if you want audio. Thank Dr. Covey & Library Systems & Admin. for now being able to finish and print your papers in the Library, or print your instructor's ppt slides, or use your text's DVD to study. "He chortled in his joy."

"Beware the Jabberwock": it is only for USA students with a student ID. Two hour limit. No food or drink. Rebooting erases everything. All printing goes to the TRACcard printers in "the pit" and cost 10¢ a page. js

Photoshop Envy?

I got this tip from Poynteronline's Web Tips. Photoshop is great if you can afford it. The web has some free utilities that let you do many of the things you can do in Photoshop--adjust contrast, saturation, reduce red eye, crop, etc. -- AND they are free.
I tried the first one on this list, Picnik.com and it works really well. I upload my photo; 'shopped it; saved it back to my desktop quickly. Try it with your digital photos and voila! You might have banished your Photoshop envy forever.
<http://www.picnik.com/>Picnik.com
<http://www.snipshot.com/>Snipshot.com
<http://www.pixer.us/>Pixer.us
<http://www.fauxto.com/>Fauxto.com

If you want to get these kinds of tip in your own email, go here http://www.poynter.org/profile/subscribe_info.asp js

Feb. Government Docs and Spring Newsletter

HOT DOCS for a cold Feb. Day
Vickey Baggott, in the Documents Dept., invites you to check out the new HOT DOCS at USA page and discover newly acquired documents for perusing on a cold winter's day."

And Jan Sauer invites you to peruse the latest University Library Newsletter.

Multimedia for the Weekend

two from the weekly Scout Reports

Independent Short films
Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival [Macromedia Flash Player]
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/insideindies/shortsfest/index.html

"Included are a film that explores a Parisian secret from 1951, a meditation of growing old, and an artist who created a monument out of mud, old paint, and adobe. After viewing the films, visitors are also welcome to leave their comments in the "Talkback" section, submit a film or find out more about the members of the jury for this online film festival."


StoryCorps [Quick Time, Real Player]
http://www.storycorps.net/

"Drawing inspiration from the wide-ranging projects of the Works Progress Administration, the StoryCorps project was created "to instruct and inspire
people to record each others' stories in sound."

J Number Access

The techie folks here in the library and in the computer center have now set up the login to our databases from home or off campus to accept J numbers. Each student, staff and faculty has a J number. Faculty--check your paycheck--it's on the stub. Use it without the J00.

Some long time occasional users might not have noticed but the Login Name now requires your full last name and the first two letters of your first name [not your initials-the first two letters!]

If you still have trouble logging in from off campus read this: Remote Access If you still have a problem then call or email us or come in and we will figure out the problem. js

Searching for the BEST Sites

Last Friday I made a link to the American Library Association-Reference and User Services Association Best Free Reference Web Sites. An enterprising librarian named Bill Drew has created a "Google Custom Search Engine" to assist you in focusing on the best information from these hand-picked websites for your particular need. A great time saver when looking for reliable results. Type a name, or history, or a quotation and see what happens. Who needs a million Google return when you can search within the best of the best. Make this a favorite/bookmark.
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=012681041057676717069%3Alxoys7hon_y

If you want to know more about the existence of other GCSEs, how to find them and how to make them, then read this article from Research Buzz, the list that alerts me to lots of good stuff.

BTW, I had to teach a library session for a computer science class last night so I updated the webpage Amy Prendergast has been using. If you need CS info you might want to look at this page. Research Methodologies CIS 518 js

Best Free Reference Sites & Weekend Project

OK, you must bookmark this site. It's the reference librarians' list of the best websites for reference type information.
Best Reference Sites of 1999-2006

And for your weekend activity:
http://members.cox.net/crandall11/money/shirt/

Procrastination Central

"Anyone can do any amount of work providing it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment." Robert Benchley [Like me right now]

It's early in the semester. You are starting to understand how much work you are going to have to do to make it through. This is a resource you should try. Take the assessment and see what you can do to get over the stalling and JUST DO IT!

Procrastination Central gives you:
* A formal definition of procrastination
* A list of scholarly articles, theses, and books
* A historical analysis
* Theories, treatments, and case studies

Finally, we are in the process of conducting new research. If you would like to have your own procrastination assessed, please click here or on the procrastination link under Online Studies on your left. You will get a formal assessment of your procrastination as well as some suggestions about what you can do to reduce your delaying.

Scholarpedia

Here's another attempt to create a reliable source of information with "experts" supplying the information. Volunteer if you are an expert. http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Main_Page

Stumbleupon

For your weekend's entertainment try this site. You do have to sign up, but I can guarantee that it is worth it. You can install a link on your menu bar and customize the kinds of websites you are interested in. Do "humor" for sure, because there are some hysterical websites indexed by this group. As you click Stumbleupon you can "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to rate the sites and the program learns your idiosyncratic sense of humor--or bizarre sense, as mine is. So far I have not been disappointed in the bizarre-ness of websites indexed. It is a great place to take a short break from your work. Short--right!
JS

Skepticism--A Library Virtue

Skepticism defined.

The Public Library of Science has just published a study on the objectivity of "sponsored" research: "Relationship Between Funding Source and Conclusion Among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles."

• Much of the money available for doing medical research comes from companies, as opposed to government agencies or charities. There is some evidence that when a research study is sponsored by an organization that has a financial interest in the outcome, the study is more likely to produce results that favor the funder (this is called “sponsorship bias”). This phenomenon is worrying, because if our knowledge about effectiveness and safety of medicines is based on biased findings, patients could suffer. However, it is not clear whether sponsorship bias extends beyond research into drugs, but also affects other types of research that is in the public interest. For example, research into the health benefits, or otherwise, of different types of food and drink may affect government guidelines, regulations, and the behavior patterns of members of the public. Were sponsorship bias also to exist in this area of research, the health of the wider public could be affected.

Resolve this year to evaluate all information, whether it is a simple webpage or supposedly objective scientific research. Evaluate our own opinions too, as we are always tempted to choose that which will benefit us, rather than that which is true.

Excellent Career Choice

Looking for a career? Judy Burnham of the Biomed Library sent this article from US News & World Report. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/061218/18librarian.summary.htm

We're back!

Ah! All my emails of last year have been archived. My files are cleaned up. My office is stripped in preparation for moving--if we should ever fill the new Instruction/Technology/Reference Librarian. And I'm ready to begin afresh. If you haven't noticed, the SOUTHcat library catalog has been updated so it is time for all of us to relearn how it works. But let's start the year with some Librarian New Year's kind of websites.

Kathy Jones sent me this website: Earth Calendar
http://www.earthcalendar.net/index.php"The Earth Calendar is a daybook of holidays and celebrations around the world. For the purpose of this web site a 'holiday' is any day that
recognizes a cultural event." By date, country or religion and the phases of the moon.

Now you need a calendar to on which mark up your holidays. Voila! Google Calendar is an online calendar you can maintain and share with your family, friends and work colleagues. Take a tour, then sign in to gmail or register for an account at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/googlecalendar/tour.html.

"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."- Shakespeare, King Richard II, Act V, Scene V

And a website with tips to help motivate you to get organized this year:

I Need More Time / The Time Manager http://www.ineedmoretime.com/ The site will try to sell you books on organization, but there are a lot of free tips also.

And last, what words NOT to use this year:
The 2007 list from Lake Superior State University of words that you should avoid in the New Year. List of Banished Words. http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php

Best Books for Gifts

A great Christmas is a stack of brand new books. Each one is a adventure just waiting to be started. Here's are some lists that might help you decide what book to get for those you care about.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,4809,00.html
http://www.amazon.com/Must-Read-Books-for-2006/lm/F7VGP5ZHI84Z
http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/awardsscholarships/childrensnotable/notablecbooklist/currentnotable.htm
http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/booklistsawards/bestbooksya/06bbya.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2003477626_bestbooks170.html
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6395088.html
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/books/review/20061210tenbestbooks.html
http://www.playlibrary.com/2006/12/10/new-york-times-notable-childrens-books-of-2006/

Happy Holidays
Merry Christmas
Happy New Year
js

50 Coolest Websites of 2006

Here's a real time killer--better wait till next week and all your holiday preparations are finished! 50 Coolest Websites of 2006 http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/. From Time magazine and CNN. I haven't looked at them yet but the homepage looks like a lot a penguins resembling Homer Simpson. js

Ask City

Ask.com is becoming a very interesting competitor to Google. Here's their answer to Google Maps. Try Ask City to find businesses, movies and events in almost any city and it links you with a map to the location, contact info, reviews, booking agencies, and more.

Thoughts for the Christmas season from a new study called The World Distribution of Household Wealth:

• The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth.
• The richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000.
• The richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total.
  
• The bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.
• The research finds that assets of $2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000.
  
• To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, and more than $500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%, a group with 37 million members worldwide.

Cell Phones and Marketers

I got this today and sent it to about 20 people: "Marketers will soon be able to call you on your cellphone. If you don't want them to use up your time or money (your cellphone charges will still apply) call: 888-382-1222 or go online to http://www.donotcall.gov and register your number."

Oops! I probably got snookered by an Urban Legend. If you don't know about Snopes.com, I suggest you try it whenever you get email that encouragesyou to pass it on to everyone you know (even if the email is from your children or maybe especially from your children -- and other relatives). I seems that this has been circulating on the web for several years.

On the other hand, I called the number and registered my cellphone--and no harm was done. js