the librarians ultimate guide to search engines

you dont have to be a librarian to find that  the librarians ultimate guide to search engines might be quite useful to you.  particularly if you use the net for research. the ultimate guide contains some easy to understand descriptions of internet and search terminology which, if used correctly, could possibly make you sound like you know more than you actually do about this stuff.  stop words and boolean operators will be rolling off your tongue in no time.

I thought that the ’site operators’ section was quite good. ie:

Site Operators
These are powerful operators that most engines have but which are not always well-known. While there is a common set of operators, a few engines have their own variations. Here is an amalgamated list. A few references are included after this section, if you are interested in finding out more. All of them consist of a predefined keyword and a semicolon, “:”, character, which are then followed by a word or URL or domain name, etc. There should be no spaces on either side of the semicolon.

allintitle: , intitle: – Use allintitle: to specify one or more words that must all be in the title of a web page. Use intitle: to check for a single word in the title, and one or more words in the document body.
Example: allintitle: librarians

domain:, site: – Use with a domain name to limit searches to pages on that site.
Example:site:stanford.edu.

filetype: – Use with a media file type (e.g., PDF) to limit SERPs to that type of document.
Example: library filetype:xls

good books can be judged by their covers

 

listen to this 5 min vodcast by some guy from Vintage who has done covers for the likes of  mcsweeneys and haruki murakami.

john gall’s 5 rules of book design

1. read the book
2. inspiration is everywhere
3. be thrifty with fonts
4. practice sound time management
5. rules are meant to be broken

sushi kitty

mobile phone dangly things featuring hello kitty masquerading as a piece of sushi…

 

audience questions to authors that make you roll your eyes at the person sitting next to you

as observed at a tim winton reading/book signing/QA last week.

• do you sometimes feel that you don’t want to write?
• do you have a set writing routine that you follow every day?
• what do you use to write with (ie a pencil or a computer)?
• how much of  [insert name of character in novel] is based on your own experience?

nagambie

nagambie is a country town in the goulburn valley. it is famous for fruit and also for a lake by the side of the highway. 

one of the joys of my job is getting to travel to different parts of victoria to attend meetings at different library services. it was nagambie library this week to discuss our library computer system.

it’s not a joy, though, when you get TWO SPEEDING FINES IN THE  SPACE OF FIVE MINUTES travelling back to melbourne down an unfamiliar freeway ( i was going about 120 in a 110 zone im certainly not a speed freak).

in retrospect the signs were all there but i didnt notice them.  nagambie library was closing at 1pm and as the doors were being locked some weird guy wandered in, not to borrow anything but to tell the staff that he had spotted a speed camera on the road nearby. we thought he was a local freak. 

if only i had taken more notice of his words.

does nancy pearl’s rule of 50 apply to book groups?

as the sole librarian representative on our city council book group i was quite embarrassed to rock up to our book club meeting yesterday and say i hadn’t read the designated book (the bell by iris murdoch). we were given 6 weeks to read it, but every time i started it i got bored and couldnt continue. 

(super librarian) nancy pearl developed the rule of fifty, which I have quoted below. i don’t know if it applies to book groups though, where there is perhaps an obligation on the member to struggle through the book so s/he may  contribute to the discussion?  if everyone said ‘the book sucked so i couldnt read it’ it could make book group talk difficult.

“Believe me, nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren’t enjoying but think they ought to read. I live by what I call ‘the rule of fifty,’ which acknowledges that time is short and the world of books is immense. If you’re fifty years old or younger, give every book about fifty pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100. The result is the number of pages you should read before deciding.”

our next book is ‘the nanny diaries’ (chick lit).  we didnt have a choice in the title. the one male member of the group demanded a brown paper cover for when he read this on the tram.

penguin classics and my reader development plan involving RSS

penguin books have recently opened up a blog where readers can register to review a penguin classic then have their review posted on the blog site. ive just added the url to my rss feed reader so i can have reviews delivered to my igoogle home page every day rather than me go out and find them.

there are 1400 titles under the penguin classic banner, so thats a lot of review reading to be done. i think that this will be beneficial for my reader development, something which all librarians should be dedicated to, as many of these so designated classics I have never heard of.

bike fashion

apologies for all the bike related posts. but theyre a nice change from the recent surfboard/running frenzies, right?

a new york times slideshow of people on bikes in NYC

i am loving my recent 2 wheeled aquisition not only because of the pure riding experience that it brings me, but also because it also doesnt compromise my lifestyle (meaning that i can still wear dresses and skirts whilst cycling).

there is a flickr site dedicated to bicycle fashion as well, called velecouture, where people stand next to their bikes and list their outfits. For example: vintage dress, handbag, cowboy boots. My question, though, is why do people have the desire to list their clothing when ITS FREAKING OBVIOUS FROM THE PHOTOGRAPH?

the opposite of life

is, like, death???

NO – it’s becoming a VAMPIRE!

set in inner city melbourne, melissa [lissa] is a librarian and ’21st century geekgirl’ . her library manager is a cool fitzroy lesbian who breaks all the moulds of what librarians should look like.  lissa’s library passion is shelving books and shelf reading [this is an industry term for making sure that the dewey numbers are in the correct order] even though she is a qualified librarian. because we qualified librarians are WAY above shelving that aren’t we. 

lissa has goth mates that hang out in laneway bars in melbourne. and of course where there are goths there are VAMPIRES.

i must admit that i have been reluctantly drawn to the urban fantasy genre. for some reason, starting last year a work colleague thought i was into this genre and kept leaving these books on my desk.

 

 

bikes for princesses

the pashley princess sovereign, the chanel bike, the gucci bike (2008 beijing model), chanel bike cuffs