Thursday, August 16, 2007

You know what libraries really need? A perfume that evokes memories of leather bindings, brittle pages...and "a hint of mildew." I'm thinking they should also add some subtle undertones of toner, coffee, and scotch tape. Pop culture has always had a slightly skewed view of librarians, as this presentation shows, but that makes it fun. (I am excited to find out more about "edu-core" band BlöödHag.)

Ever wondered what it was like to be a law librarian? No? Well, I'm going to show you anyway. Here are the big issues facing us these days. On the flip side, a bitter law librarian burns his bridges on his way out the door. (The comments indicate that it's a male librarian. My favorite comment, however, is the one which ends "Most law librarians are weirdos, anyway." This is my new motto.)

Bringing books to the people, instead of the other way round, has been around as a concept for centuries. However, in Venezuela they've recently recruited mules to act as bookmobiles. They call them bibliomulas. Hee!

Wikipedia vs. encyclopedias, part 1742: a list of the mistakes in the Encyclopedia Britannica that have been fixed (or not repeated, at least) by Wikipedia. Every source is fallible, people. Use these resources as starting points, not final destinations!

Speaking of destinations, you can now create personalized Google Maps. Hooray! Also, for farther travels, Arizona State University and NASA are working together to bring the Apollo space images online.

Tomorrow: lots of links from others!

2 comments:

Darren Chase said...

libraries need indoor mental plumbing and hidden thought microphones. Then when god falls asleep, the librarians will shave his beard, black his teeth, and steal his tears.

Jinnet said...

Darren! Missed you!