I Love My Librarian 2008 Award

This is an opportunity for students to nominate their librarian and explain how a librarian made a difference in their lives. Nominations are open from September 2 and must be received by October 15, 2008. Up to 10 winners will be selected and receive a $5000 cash award presented in NYC by the New York Times.

"Nominees will be judged by a selection committee based on quality of service to library users, demonstrated knowledge of the library and its resources and commitment shown in helping library users." For more information, visit www.ilovelibraries.org/ilovemylibrarian.

ALA website tool

Create your own mini-Read posters. This tool offers 4 different backgrounds in which you can upload a picture. Take it for a test drive.

Kevin Kelly: Predicting the next 5,000 days of the web

This 19 minute TED talk asks "how can we predict what's coming in the next 5,000 days?"
Kelly visualizes the web as one big machine. Eventually everything will be "cloud computing". There will be embedded intelligence in every THING. This type of media convergence is where we are going. Listen to what he envisions for web 3.0 .

We Stole This Idea. Or Did We?

Davis Schneiderman, associate professor of English at Lake Forest College argues that the concept of "original content" is pure fiction. Read today's Chicago Tribune article that discusses copyright and plagiarism. Schneiderman suggests that "Our art, sometimes explicitly and sometimes quietly, continues to be made by us all."

Our we moving to an open source world?

New Search Engine Unveiled Today

You may want to give the new search engine a whirl. It's called Cuil, pronounced "cool" which is trying to compete head to head with Google. Danny Sullivan, the search engine guru says that it's got promise. Cuil indexes 120 billion web pages. Instead of showing results with snippets of description, it displays more text and pictures and provides for refining your search for more relevant results. I will, of course, start playing with it immediately to determine how useful it will be for my students. Read a review of Cuil or go try it yourself by doing a Google search :) or go to http://www.cuil.com/.

Stratford Theater Festival July 2008

I have been experimenting with Windows Movie Maker to compile a video memory of
the librarian road trip to the Stratford Festival in Ontario, CA. I added photos from Deborah Lazar, Maggie Schmude, and Judy Mitchell. Enjoy!

VoiceThreads Chinese Culture Project