Well - real TV addicts have DVR or Tivo or some such way to get new episodes, but if you can’t afford those and want to keep up with your new TV shows, mytvrss looks pretty neat!!

Select your favorite shows below, and then click “Create feed” to generate your own personalized RSS feed. We’ll then alert you through the RSS feed the day an episode is aired. You don’t have to register!

My mother has 2 (maybe 3) VCRs in her house to record her shows - after I teach her about RSS, this might be pretty handy for her.

Found via DownloadSquad.

Last night I got to hear Stephen Abram talk about the future of SLA & librarianship. First (and most important) I have uploaded my pictures to Flickr.

Stephen started with a mini rant (a good rant) about the fact that there is no proof that the book is at risk. Reading stats are going up and book sales are going up. That said, do we hear that librarians are at risk? Ever hear this one, “Everything’s on the Internet.” The fact is that librarians are at risk even if books aren’t. In short, there are some serious issues we have to get stronger about talking about.

Stephen mentioned that we’re about to experience some huge changes. If you think about it, we haven’t had any major changes in a long while. Our grandparents had a bunch of huge changes all hit them at once (phones, tv, 2 world wars, etc) and it’s time for that to happen again. North America is way behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology. In Europe, people are using their phones for everything. They have free TV delivered through their phone and text messages for everything. I’m not a fan of this movement - maybe it’s just because of the costs associated with it here - but - I just want a phone - I don’t need it to double as a TV.

When it comes to digitization, China is only 5 years from digitizing everything written in Chinese. It’s not going to be long before everything is available in digital format. We’re going to need the tools to take advantage of this content.

So, what does this have to do with SLA? Everything! The world is changing and librarians have to change with it and SLA wants to help librarians make that change as smooth as possible. One interesting point that Stephen brought up was the fact that when someone leaves an organization one of the first things they do is clear off their computer - bookmarks and all. This means that all the great resources that long time librarians have collected are lost. We have to start storing our data in collaborative spaces so that we can all benefit from each other’s knowledge. I love this! And this is why I took so much pride in working on improving the Jenkins Law Library research links (a pre-del.icio.us project) - I wanted to make sure we were sharing our resources with any one who might need them.

Stephen asks that instead of sharing the myth amongst ourselves that we’re collaborative, why not be collaborative? I love this! The fact is that the nature of associations is changing - something I wrote about in library school. The main selling point for associations used to be networking - but now with tools like Ning, Facebook and LinkedIn - why do I need an association to find fellow peers? With these tools threatening library associations as we know them, what can SLA do to continue to be important for librarians? The answer is learning and innovation.

One way that SLA is setting itself apart (in my opinion) is their Click-U. Educational events for SLA members. What I didn’t know is that they have a regular presentation by Gary Price where he shares the newest tools he’s found for researching and they have a monthly free course available. Being a recently graduated student, I’m a bit too poor to pay for too many classes - so I love to find things for cheap or free!

SLA also offers members access to over 1000 e-books on leadership and management topics (apparently we were told about this - but I missed it somehow - after writing this I’m heading to the SLA site to check out my member profile). They also offer what they call ExecuBooks Summaries - they are 4 page summaries of new releases.

The thing I’m most excited about hasn’t been released yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open for it, the Innovation Labs. This area of the SLA site will be a testing bed for members to try out all kinds of free and proprietary software without having to install it or pay for it. Some of the big names will include Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Blogger, Survey Monkey and Confluence. It’s basically a place for everyone to play!! This area of the site will also have over 25000 software training videos from atomic learning. How great is that???

While this isn’t everything that Stephen talked about, these were the bits that I was able to write down as he sped through his awesome talk. He certainly made me pay even more attention to what the association is doing for us - I hope he did the same for some of the rest of you.

Technorati Tags: njsla, sla

Well, maybe it’s not the best way to celebrate National Library Week, but it’s always fun to look at pictures of libraries. In the features titled: 18 Sexy Trips to the Stacks Entertainment Weekly shows pictures of scenes in libraries from 18 movies.

Well - maybe not - but it totally sounds like me sometimes!!

Via xkcd.

I followed a link from Kimbooktu regarding a new way to store my books and found this post about the amazing staircase.

The flat occupies part of the shared top floor of an existing Victorian mansion block. Our proposal extended the flat into the unused loft space above, creating a new bedroom level and increasing the floor area of the flat by approximately one third. We created a ’secret’ staircase, hidden from the main reception room, to access a new loft bedroom lit by roof lights. Limited by space, we melded the idea of a staircase with our client’s desire for a library to form a ‘library staircase’ in which English oak stair treads and shelves are both completely lined with books. With a skylight above lighting the staircase, it becomes the perfect place to stop and browse a tome. The stair structure was designed as an upside down ’sedan chair’ structure (with Rodrigues Associates, Structural Engineers, London) that carries the whole weight of the stair and books back to the main structural walls of the building. It dangles from the upper floor thereby avoiding any complicated neighbour issues with the floors below.

Now I have to move again! I need a 2 story house so I can do this!!!

I know this has nothing to do with technology or libraries - but I’m proud of my little baby so…

Look who’s on Sheltie Nation today. This is our baby Coda. And have you seen her other famous posts? One from when we moved and the other from when she was a baby

See more of our babies (yes there are two now) here and here.

Technorati Tags: shelties, shetland sheepdogs

The Library: Originally uploaded by teofilo

This is awesome! Kimbooktu posted this picture of a biker bar in New Mexico. How cool is that??

You can see what the book titles are here! I have to find this place - and buy a motorcycle

If Meebo isn’t your thing - there’s also doof. A social gaming site that I’ve been meaning to try out - but just haven’t had the time yet.

doof is all about playing games and meeting people, we like to call it Social Gaming.

Bursting with games and cool ways to meet and beat others, doof is a cutting edge social web application wrapped up in a visually stunning package.When combined properly, the fun and excitement of casual gaming together with the friendship and rivalry experienced in social networking makes for a truly explosive cocktail"¦..which doof knows exactly how to make!

Meet and Beat at doof.com, the home of Social Gaming.

Technorati Tags: gaming, doof, social networks

What a great combo:

If you’re looking for a killer app on the Internet and are unwilling to get into pornography, gaming is your best bet. So when Meebo opened their platform last month to third party developers, it was clearly only a matter of time before they let game startups in. That time has come.

Twenty games launched on the service last night, ranging from chess and checkers to Texas Hold ‘em. Launch Meebo chat, click on a friend and start a game. And of course, chat with them real-time while you do it.

Read more at TechCrunch.

My husband is an avid gamer and has tried over the years to get me to join him in his role-playing sessions - but I never get into it. Now, Terence J. Fitzgerald writes in Library Journal that I should use role-playing games to help me be a better librarian - a more playful librarian!

More playful techniques such as role-playing, mapping storyboards, creating visual collages, and writing personas may seem unscientific and hard to justify, but for librarians these methods can be powerful tools to study users and conceptualize and develop new services and programs.

There are other issues I want to address in this article, but it’s time to leave for work.

I mentioned Dean Chickering’s opening to the EMA Conference earlier this week. In it he had a bunch of quotes about the future - including ones that people woudl probably regret saying if they were still alive (and probably do if they are). There is now a list of the Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future that fits nicely in with this. Some of the quotes on this list were on Dean Chickering’s - like:

«The ordinary “horseless carriage” is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.»
Literary Digest, 1899.

Give the list a look for a good chuckle.

So, this is what Librarian Hell looks like ….

I don’t know if these books are any good, but I do know that I know nothing of taking “good” photographs. This series of books listed on Amazon, sounds like it might be pretty interesting … maybe one of my local libraries will get it and I can check it out

Technorati Tags: photography

I love Vladstudio for desktop wallpapers - but I especially love their backgrounds for librarians:

• Tree of Books
• Google Library
• Google Data Center

Browse around - you might even find more!

I just read this awesome post over at CrunchGear about smart shopping carts:

Shopping carts rigged up with a touch screens and barcode scanners might find their way into London supermarkets soon, according to Reuters. You'd simply scan an item and get a readout of how many calories, fat, and whatnot it contains. It'd be similar to looking at the back of item with your eyes except with a few more steps involved.

Cumbersome? Yes! But pretty nifty

There is a cute comic over at Penny Arcade that asks “…so you’re saying men can be librarians?”

The latest Unshelved is just too funny not to share. Using the MAC/PC commercial theme - it starts with “Hi I’m the Internet” .. “And I’m a library”. Go check it out for the rest.

I was just handed an article in today’s Wall Street Journal titled “A Job Interview You Don’t Have to Show Up For.” Apparently some big companies are experimenting with holding interviews in Second Life!! Personally, I think it’s a bit silly - but I guess I can see the merits if the job is for a programmer or tech savvy person.

But on Second Life, job seekers who are less tech-savvy are finding they can wind up shooting themselves in their virtual feet. When they start, some people have a hard time designing and controlling their avatars. Stephan Dowler, 37, a chef in Frederick, Md., went through an online training course offered by TMP before the recruitment event.

“I spent six hours working on the character and figuring out how to get around,” says Mr. Dowler, who applied for a job as an executive chef at Sodexho.

He named his avatar Estephan Dollinger. “I gave him a big nose and brown eyes like me,” he says. But he couldn’t figure out how to dress the avatar in a suit for the interview, so Estephan showed up wearing jeans and a pullover.

Mr. Dowler didn’t have any major technical problems, although during the job interview, he couldn’t figure out how to manipulate the avatar to sit in the chair — so he sat it on top instead. (Others at the event began floating in the air while doing their interviews.) It sometimes became confusing when different Sodexho employees asked him questions at the same time, he says.

I guess if you’re interviewing for Google and you can’t get your avatar to stay on the ground you might not be cut out for the job … but I still think you should see and talk to people in person - even if it is just for their second interview

I have to be honest - I didn’t want to be tagged in this one I don’t know if I can come up with 8 things - anyway Rachel tagged me.

1. I was in the color guard in high school
2. I moved every 3 years as a kid cause my dad got bored - now, after I’ve lived somewhere 3 years I start to get the itch!
3. My favorite comfort food is grilled cheese and tomato soup
4. My most favorite place in the world is Venice, Italy
5. I have twin sisters
6. In college I used to play 3D pinball all the time - I had the highest score in our dorm!! (I think I still have the screenshot somewhere on a backup disk)
7. My husband is throwing a temper tantrum cause he didn’t get 300,000 points in his peggle level
8. It has taken me 20 minutes to come up with 8 things!!

8 Random People I’m Tagging

Chris Schwartz, RayAna Park, Brian Engard, Jennifer Lang, Darlene Fichter, David Lee King, Michael Sauers, Cliff Landis

I love it!

Hugh McLeod, gapingvoid.com (Creative Commons)

PEW has a quick quiz to help you figure out where you fit in with other Internet users. Thanks Steve for pointing it out for me.

My results are not surprising. I’m an Omnivore!

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

What are you?

Okay, here’s a little bit about me that you probably didn’t know. I am not a big gamer - I never was. In fact, until college my favorite games were Sim City (the original) and Oregon Trail (also the original). In college I met my husband and, gamer that he is, he introduced me to StarCraft - my all time favorite game!

Now, he has just informed me that after 9 years of waiting, StarCraft 2 is finally in development and it won’t be an MMOG (which I was worried about)!

I’m almost as excited about this as I am about the new Harry Potter

I just read this funny dialog between a board officer and a web developer.

US/Canada Border Officer: "Are you coming for business or pleasure sir?"
Me: "Business"
Officer: "What is the nature of your stay?"
Me: "I'm a web developer and I'm meeting with a client in Oregon to discuss a project."
Border Officer: "What's the name of the client?"
Me: "pMachine."
Officer: "Are you bringing any websites with you?"
Me: Blank stare
Officer: "Do you have any websites in the car, sir?"

It’s funny and a little sad. You can read the entire dialog at the Digital Web Magazine site.

I found out about dnScoop on DownloadSquad. It’s a nifty little tool that tells you how much your site is worth.

What’s mine worth?

The estimated value of http://web2learning.net is: $12,420

So, what’s your site worth?

I know there are a ton of different geeky options out there, but my husband just sent me this geeky T-shirt and I wanted to share it with you all.