The Bunless Librarian

Nerd Up Your Christmas with ThinkGeek

2010-12-16T21:33:00.000-08:00

It's official. Christmas is less than 2 weeks away. If the geek in your life is still on your shopping list, ThinkGeek has you covered. They have tons of great exclusive apparel that will help your geek fly their nerd flag high and proud.

8-Bit Tie: A few of us monkeys at ThinkGeek had this great shared dream a few months ago. In it, the whole world was 8-Bit, just like the video games we grew up on. We found ourselves having to leap from platform to platform, to search for pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom, and to fight scary mutated plants and animals. The music was awesome (and still stuck in our heads) but the coolest part was what we were wearing: a tie. But not just any tie, an 8-Bit tie!

The Personal Soundtrack Shirt is an amazing new wearable audio solution that features a working speaker embedded into the front of the shirt. When you push the appropriate button on the pocketable remote you get music or sound effects appropriate for any situation... everything from drum roll, to cat call whistle, to western showdown. Check out the chart below to see the extensive list of built in sounds and suggestions on using them for dramatic punctuation in your everyday life.

Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt: Now you can purchase one of these fine Electronic Rock Guitar Shirts and get a little wearable ROCK magic for yourself. The Electronic Guitar Shirt is not a toy that plays pre-canned musical riffs, it is a real musical instrument that allows you to play your favorite songs and sound great doing it.

The 'ties suck' tie is one very stylish and dark blue 100% Silk tie with a grayish silver repeating pattern in binary. Should the binary pattern be translated into it's ASCII equivalent, you'll soon figure out why we called this tie the 'ties suck' tie. It is, truly, The Tie of Ties. The One Tie To Rule Them All And In The Hallways Mock Them.

T-Qualizer Shirt: Here at ThinkGeek we're constantly amazed at the never-ending evolution of new technology. Hey, it's our job. Take the lowly T-Shirt for example: In caveman times you had animal pelts... the Medieval era saw rise to the stylish burlap sack... next came lovely soft cotton and then synthetic polyester. Finally the modern space age delivers a fully functioning graphic equalizer in a handy t-shirt format. Party like it's 2999 with the glowing display on the T-Qualizer that dynamically changes with any ambient sound or music.

Zombie Attack Hoodie: For defending oneself during the upcoming zombie apocalypse, we highly recommend a hoodie. Layering is key. One minute you're going to be running, next minute you're going to be hiding in a cold, dark corner. It pays to have layers.

These pieces of geek wear and loads of other fantastic geek items can be purchased at ThinkGeek.

-Happy last-minute shopping

More Good Times with Grammar

2010-11-19T21:06:00.000-08:00

Grammar just got hi-lar-i-ous!

TheOatmeal.com has released four new grammar* posters that will literally ~~change your life~~ cost $11.95 each.

Thanks to The Oatmeal, we can learn

And don't forget the classic, How to Use an Apostrophe.

Each poster is available for $11.95 in The Oatmeal's shop.

True grammar geeks can purchase the $32.00 poster pack, which includes the Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling, How to Use a Semicolon, How to Use an Apostrophe, and When to Use i.e. in a Sentence. For math geeks, that is just $8.00 per poster!

Oh how I love cheap** grammar.

-Happy Grammartizing***

*grammar-ish
**inexpensive
***I just made that up.

found via Lifehacker's Brush Up on Grammar Rules with These Light-Hearted Resources

USB Dead Drops are Awesome . . . in Theory

2010-11-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

The Thing: USB flash drives installed into walls and columns throughout New York City, quite literally creating an amazing, street-level, physical peer to peer file sharing network.

The Theory: Plug your laptop or other portable device into these USB Dead Drops and download all the incredible files left behind by those who proceeded you. Upload incredible files for those who will come after you.

The Reality: Plug in your laptop or other portable device and download all the incredible files left behind . . . and a bunch of junk . . . and a virus that will fry your hard drive . . . and some spyware that will aid in the theft of your identity.

Of course, as creator of the USB Dead Drops, Aram Bartholl is quick to point out, downloading via the Internet is a risky proposition as well, but most of us give little thought to the danger and download freely. He implores users to always take necessary precautions to ensure the safety of their systems when using the drops.

Translation: Caveat ~~Emptor~~ Downloader

Although Bartholl's original project has been limited to New York City, many fans of the idea have been installing USB Dead Drops in their own cities. Locations of the new drops can be found in the Database and Map.

Want to create your own USB Dead Drop? Bartholl provides this handy guide to get you started.

To find out more about Aram Bartholl and his USB Dead Drops, visit the project homepage.

-Happy Dead Dropping

found via NPR's "Dead Drops:" Plugging Your Laptop Into Strange Places

Tweenlight: The Simpsons Take on Twilight

2010-11-08T22:08:00.000-08:00

In this year's Treehouse of Horrors, The Simpsons take a hilarious jab at Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.

The usually bright and sunny Springfield is transformed into the perfect gloomy, rain-soaked landscape for the unfolding love story between Lisa Simpson and Edmund, the new, handsome vampire in school.

And thus begins "Tweenlight."

From the moment Edmund saved Lisa from being run down by an out of control school bus, followed by a banana seat bicycle, followed by an old-timey car, followed by a tiny clown car, followed by a Segway, I was hooked. "Tweenlight" does a wonderful job of capturing the mood and tone of the novels and films, while infusing each scene with the precision Simpson satire. I loved all 7 minutes of it.

If you would like to watch The Simpsons take on Twilight, Tree House of Horrors XXI can be seen on Hulu or on The Simpsons' website.

Bonus: If you are a fan of Twilight parodies, Saturday Night Live's, "Firelight" is a must see.

Become a Library Book Sale Superstar

2010-11-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

Yes! You too can become a library book sale superstar. Not an all-star, not a shining star, not even a rising star, but a full-fledged superstar.

Wise Bread's 5 Tips to Get the Most out of a Library Sale by Jennifer Scott, outlines 5 simple steps to attaining your superstardum.

Get there early.
Bring your own bags.
Don't bring a ton of cash.
Commit yourself to just a few laps.
Ask yourself "Will I read this?" and answer honestly.

As a veteran of library books sales, I feel I should add what I feel is the most important tip for all book sale goers.

Always remember where you are.

You are at a used book sale. This means, please

don't gripe about the selection. We are limited to selling what has been donated or discarded.
don't gripe about the condition of the books. See above.
don't gripe about the prices. Where else are you gonna find a hardback for fifty cents?
just . . . don't gripe. It's a library books sale for Pete's sake. Just enjoy an afternoon of exploring mountains of affordable books.

Bonus Tip:

Be nice to the staff. We have been there all week getting the sale ready for you . . . and . . . we might just know where to find a stash of books by your favorite author.

With these handy tips in mind, enjoy your next local book sale and don't be afraid to become a superstar.

-Happy Hunting

Celebrate Huluween!

2010-10-28T21:05:00.000-07:00

Huluween is back just in time to bring chills and thrills to your Halloween night.

Hulu is now offering all its most terrifying television and movies to one, convenient channel, Huluween.

The channel offers free television and movies in 10 horrifying categories: Scary Slashers, Spooky Sci-Fi, Cult Classics and B-Movies, Zombie Stories, Real-Life Horror, Haunting Thrillers, Vampire Tales, Mad Monsters, Frights for All Ages, and Ghost Stories.

As usual, my personal favorite is Cult Classics and B-Movies, which this year, features House on Haunted Hill, a true horror classic.

-Happy Huluween

Quite Possibly the Most Unsettling EVP You've Ever Heard*

2010-10-06T00:07:00.000-07:00

On a ghost hunting expedition in the historic Union Stock Yard Building** in Ogden, Utah, members of the Ghost Investigators Society (GIS) recorded an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena), which can be called nothing short of unsettling.

The EVP was recorded by GIS members Bredan Cook and Barbara McBeath in a room of the building that was reportedly empty.

The EVP recording is described on the GIS website.

'I can't breathe!'
This is, without a doubt, the oddest EVP recording we have ever heard. Everything you will hear, from the kid, to the water like most EVP was not heard at the time of the recording and there was no water or kids in the building. The building hasn't had running water for almost 20 years.

(Rough Translation)
(EVP Kid) Help me, can't breathe, I couldn't breathe?
(EVP Deep mans voice) Murder
(EVP kid) I can't breathe
(EVP very low mans voice) I couldn't breathe
(EVP Kids voice continues, not sure what is being said)
(EVP woman's voice) I couldn't breathe
(just after this you will hear water thrashing around for about 15-20 seconds followed by a big thud And then silence again.

This was recorded in an empty room, so nothing should have recorded. The voices have been broken down and looped at the end of the track.

WARNING: To call this EVP unsettling may be a gross understatement to some readers. Listen at your own risk. Don't email me that I didn't warn you.

EVP provided via MorrisseysMonkey.

To listen to other EVP's recorded by the Ghost Investigator's Society, visit their media gallery.

*Apparently there is an EVP out there that has been dubbed, The Most Horrific EVP Ever Recorded. The brave and strong-stomached can read about and listen to the EVP here.

**The Union Stock Exchange Building is currently the site for the haunted attraction, the Lazarus Maze. To enhance the attraction's spooky appeal, the owners created a fictional history of the building as the former site of the Bellshire Mental Health Hospital, complete with its own deranged mad researcher, Doctor Vikor Natick. This concocted history has made its way into the haunted lore of Ogden, Utah and as a result, the Union Stock Exchange (or Live Stock Exchange or Exchange) Building is often erroneously cited as the former "Institute of Horrors," The Bellshire Mental Health Hospital.

Big Thrills and Chills on the Small [Computer] Screen

2010-10-03T19:22:00.001-07:00

Celebrate this haunting season with some good scares from the comfort of your own computer. With free web services like Hulu and Fancast, a treasure trove of spooky television is at your fingertips this Halloween season and The Bunless Librarian is here to guide you to the good stuff.*

Destination Truth:

Josh Gates travels the world in search of the truth behind the world's urban legends.

Paranormal State:

Delve deep into the strange and the mysterious with Paranormal Research Society founder Ryan Buell and his team of investigators as they attempt to unravel inexplicable paranormal phenomena.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer:

Buffy Summers is a teenage girl who is gifted with the strength and skill to hunt vampires.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents:

Alfred Hitchcock presents short stories filled with elements of horror, comedy, and suspense.

The Addams Family: **

Tarantulas, torture racks, and tombstones have never been so much fun! Join Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Thing, Cousin Itt, and the rest of the gang for a fiendishly funny and altogether kooky experience.

Monsterquest:

The series explores strange and unknown creatures that have been allegedly spotted by witnesses in various parts of the country and the world.

The Twilight Zone:

Examine strange worlds, endless possibilities and mind-numbing truths as you explore. . .The Twilight Zone

American Gothic:

Life in Trinity, South Carolina isn't what it seems.

The Outer Limits 1963, 1995:

There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission....

Night Gallery:

Set in a shadowy museum of the outre, the weekly series unspools disturbing portraiture as preface to a highly diverse anthology of tales in the fantasy-horror vein.

Fringe:

An FBI agent, brilliant scientist, and his estranged son investigate the paranormal.

Supernatural:

Two brothers battle evil forces.

The Vampire Diaries:

The vampire brothers Damon and Stefano Salvatore, eternal adolescents, having been leading 'normal' lives, hiding their bloodthirsty condition, for centuries, moving on before their non-aging is noticed.

Netflix bonus:

The X-Files:

The truth is out there ... and the search begins as FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully team up to solve mysterious cases involving the paranormal.

If you have a Nexflix account, they currently have the entire run of the series available to watch instantly.

-Happy Hauntings***

*The "good stuff" is of course limited to the television series that are FREELY and LEGALLY available online. I have many personal favorites that didn't make the list for this reason.

**I know. I know. The Addams Family isn't even a little bit scary, but it is macabre and soooooo good.

***I know. I know. I left off Ghost Hunters and its spin-offs, but there is just way, way, way, way, way too much dirty pool going on with that show.

Creepiest Dip Bowl Ever!

2010-10-01T21:24:00.001-07:00

What better way to celebrate the reopening of The Bunless Librarian than with the Third Annual Halloween Extravaganza? (Rhetorical question)

Let the Extravaganza begin!

Ryan McFarland, at zieak.com has come up with a dip bowl that is sure to [impress or disgust or shock or repulse or wow] start conversations at this year's Halloween festivities.

The Doll Serving Dish is a must for anyone with a dark sense of humor. After all, what better way to serve up delicious treats than by making your guests feel like they are nibbling on baby guts in and autopsy bay?

The process of creating your own version of this macabre serving dish is surprisingly simple. McFarland's instructions for the project can be found over at Instructables.

Combine this gruesome bowl with some thorax cake, and your dish is guaranteed to be the talk of the party.

-Happy Dissections

How Do You Laptop?

2009-12-28T20:41:00.000-08:00

Bad news. It turns out that pretty much any way you sit/stand/lounge while using your laptop, you are risking some pretty serious repetitive stress injury (RSI).

Lifehacker has a great article, Common Laptop/Netbook Positions to Avoid discussing the work of a Dave Malouf, Professor of Interaction Design at Savannah College of Art & Design. Malouf's case study, Freescale Netbook Design at SCAD produced the handy chart pictured.

How do you laptop?

I'm guilty of six of the ten laptop positions, none of which is the one position without the bright red dots of RSI goodness, which means I have some serious joint pain to look forward to. Position 2 is starting to look more and more comfortable.

--Happy sitting/standing/lounging

Thank's Thanks Apostrophe.Me!

2009-12-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

Adams . . . Adam's . . . Adams' . . . Adams's

Who the heck knows?!

Apostrophe.me does!

Even though Apostrophe.me threatens to put a dent in the giant apostrophe business, which is clearly booming, it's a fantastic resource to cut down on apostrophe confusion.

While the website offers an easy-to-use flowchart on apostrophe use, for $9.95, you can also pick up the perfect gift for the grammar geek in your life.

Because I know you're dying to know.

Adams Apple: A little boy with the unfortunate name, Adams Apple.

Adam's apple: Adam showing you the apple from his lunch box. Alternately, the distracting lump in Adam's throat.

The Adams' apple: Mr. and Mrs. Adams showing you their joint-custody apple.

The Adams's apple: Mr. and Mrs. Adams showing you their joint-custody apple, while also flaunting their overabundance of the letter S.

I hope that helps.

--Happy possessing

Librarians are Like Biker Gangs

2009-11-06T19:30:00.000-08:00

"The library is the worst group of people ever assembled in history. They're mean, conniving, rude, and extremely well-read, which makes them very dangerous."

Leslie Knope
Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation
Pawnee, Indiana

In this week's episode of Parks and Recreation, Leslie and company take on the most hated and feared department in Pawnee, Indiana,

::cue sinister music::

The Department of Library Services,

or as Leslie prefers, The Department of LIEbary ServicRs.

Watch all the hilarity here on Hulu.

Halloween 2010: Impress with Your Very Own Big Head

2009-11-03T21:40:00.000-08:00

3D artist, Eric Testroete has come up with what can only be described as the coolest homemade Halloween costume ever.

Yes.

Ever.

As a tribute to the "big head" mode found in some video games, Testroete created a giant papercraft sculpture of his own head. As his website documents, he donned the surreal creation around town.

As a kind-of gamer, I just think this piece of papercraft is awesome.

If you would like to try making your own "big head," Testroete outlines his process and the computer programs he used to craft the head on his website.

--Happy Papercrafting

Found via Make: Online

11 Things to Do with Your Leftover Halloween Candy

2009-10-31T22:19:00.000-07:00

Whether your kids took in an especially large haul this year, or you subscribe to the idea that "it's better to have too much than not enough," you probably have a pile of Halloween candy sitting around right about now.

If you happen to be one of those infuriating people who actually has the willpower to only eat one piece of candy a day, feel free to just "mark as read." If you're like the rest of us, below are some helpful ideas to rid yourself of your extra Halloween candy before the late night sugar binges begin.

Wisebread has come up with 10 great ideas to creatively use your extra Halloween candy.

10 Things to Do with Leftover Halloween Candy

Infused liqour
Baking and sweets
Cooking
Crafts
Bribery
Donations
Send it to our troops
Take it to the office
Emergency stashes
Advent calendar

What is the 11th thing, you ask?

If you just happen to live near Athens, Tennessee then give Dr. Dale Kennedy a visit. He will buy kids' Halloween candy for $1.00 a pound. He then matches those dollars and makes a donation to the United Way, but wait . . . it gets better. All the candy he buys get mailed off to troops overseas to thank them for their service.

You can read the whole story here at The Daily Post-Athenian.

It's like I always say, some dentists are geeks, but some dentists are awesome.

--Happy Offloading

Celebrate Huluween!

2009-10-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

Hulu has just made finding spine-tingling television episodes and movies a whole lot easier. This year, they have compiled all their scariest videos and created Huluween.

Things are getting spooky around here. Huluween, our ghoulish guide to the scariest videos on Hulu -- with more titles coming everyday -- adds a little fright to your life. So queue up a slasher flick, a zombie movie or a cult classic, dim the lights, and brace yourself: it's gonna be scary.

Though there is plenty to choose from, I recommend stopping by the Cult Classics and B-Movies section. I mean where else will you find Giant Spider Invasion?

--Happy Huluween

Take a Drive Down One of America's Creepiest Roads

2009-10-16T19:05:00.000-07:00

Take a road trip to one of the creepiest roads in America. Digital City has compiled a great list of roads from across the country that promises to take brave motorists on some bone-chilling rides.

Unexplained Happenings on America's Creepiest Roads

Maybe you've heard an urban legend about a creepy road in your hometown where if you drive with your lights on, you'll see a ghost. Or maybe you'll see phantom lights if you flash your brights. Whatever the case, there are some odd happenings taking place on dark roads around the country.

Digital City has put together a great list, but also be sure to scour the comments to find information about more spooky roads. My favorite find was a comment that led me to Pennsylvania's legendary Seven Gates of Hell. Yes, the legend is as sinister as its name suggests. Actually, it's much, much more sinister than the name suggests.

At this point, I would love to lament the fact that I don't live anywhere near Pennsylvania, but I can't kid myself. I would never have the guts to test the Seven Gates legend. There's just something about willingly walking a path that is rumored to lead straight into the mouth hell that reeks of insanity . . . and not garden variety insanity either, but insanity, insanity . . . building-a-gigantic-hibernation-nest-out-old newspapers-and-your-own-saliva insanity.

--Happy Legend Tripping (yes, it has a name)

The Cure for the Common Jack-O'-Lantern 2.0

2009-10-07T09:29:00.001-07:00

Let the Second Annual TBL Halloween Extravaganza begin!

First up on our month-long journey toward Halloween greatness is what can only be described as the creepiest pumpkin ever.

Yes, that's right. You too can master the art of growing pumpkins with human faces.

No, I'm not making this up. Just check out Popular Science, Jan. 1938 or this link.

Yes, it's too late to grow these pumpkinheads for this Halloween and yes it would be super time-intensive, but it would be awesome to have one of those things on your doorstep.

For more crazy Jack-O'-Lantern ideas, don't forget to check out The Cure for the Common Jack-O-Lantern 1.0

--Happy Moulding

In order to comply with the FTC's new freebie guidelines, I must explicitly state that no, Popular Science did not provide me with a free copy of their January 1938 issue, nor did the family of Mr. Czeski send me a pumpkin in my likeness in exchange for writing of this post.

I Can Hear the Fangirl Hysteria from Here

2009-07-17T23:55:00.000-07:00

Fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight have one more reason to break into frenzied shrieks of excitement. EW.com has announced that Yen Press will be publishing a manga [more accurately, a manhwa] version of Twilight.

No release date has been set for the adaptation, but Korean artist, Young Kim has been chosen to create the art. Though only the Twilight adaptation has been officially announced, Yen Press has reportedly acquired the rights to the entire Twilight Saga.

As EW.com reports, ". . . Meyer herself is deeply immersed in the project, reviewing every panel."

To read even more about the new adaptation, pick up the July 17th Entertainment Weekly, which promises to provide a sneak peak of the new manga, including a preview of more art panels.

--Happy Swooning

Library Awesomeness

2009-07-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes librarians are geeks, but sometimes

LIBRARIANS ARE AWESOME!

Found via The Effing Librarian

The video comes courtesy of the National Library of Australia's 2008 Christmas Party.

To see the real thing in all its original awesomeness, check out the King of Pop's channel on YouTube.

This is one of my personal favorites, but I still remember saving up to buy this cassette single.

Yeah . . . yeah, I know. They're strange choices, but remember, I was born in the 80's. I'm a child of Michael Jackson, circa 1995.

--Enjoy

You are Choice

2009-05-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

Seriously?

It's reassuring to know that not all industry is shrinking in this economy. The giant apostrophe business is clearly booming.

This boom is indeed good news because as one of my favorite economists once said, "As goes the giant apostrophe business, so goes the world."

On a (not so) recent trip, I was treated to this sign outside a casino. I've found errors in three of the five lines on this sign. Can you find more?

I know. I know. People in glass houses and all that, but this was just too good not to share.

Rest assured. Any grammar errors, typos, or misspellings you may find in this post were most definitely intentional for the sake of irony. I swear.

Are you choice? Just remember, the ------ Casino thinks you are.

It Isn't Irish. It's Italian: Author Name Pronunciation Guide

2009-03-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

My first professional experience with the mispronunciation of an author's name was Lisa Scottoline. The Lisa was obvious, but the last name, that was a tougher one. I was not the first; however, to assume the last name was some interesting combination of Scottish and Irish; I had heard coworkers pronounce her name Lisa Scott-O'Line as well. Eventually though, a casual conversation about the author and her last name led me to Scottoline's FAQs. It was there I learned that "Scottoline rhymes with fettuccine, or scallopine. . . ." Imagine my surprise.

Unfortunately, Lisa Scottoline isn't the only author with a name that leaves us guessing and hoping for the best. Fortunately, TeachingBooks has a solution. The Author Name Pronunciation Guide provides a huge list of authors accompanied by short audio files of the author pronouncing his or her name. As a bonus, many authors offer tidbits about mispronunciations, name origins, and even handy rhymes to help you remember the correct pronunciation. Did you know Scieszka rhymes with Fresca?

The guide isn't comprehensive; it focuses on young adult and children's authors (this is why Lisa Scottoline didn't make the list), but it is a good and helpful start.

The next time you stumble across one of those books by Lara M. Zieses, give the Author Pronunciation Guide a try.

--Happy Pronunciations

Sarah has Dysentery

2009-02-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

When I read 2009 is going to be a dull year in gaming, my little inner gamer stomped her feet childishly and started heading into what can only be described as an old-timey conniption fit. Controllers were thrown, CDs scattered, memory cards crushed. Needless to say, it was ugly.

I was able to tame her 128-bit bloodlust though when I came across a thread in LibGaming discussing a Java Oregon Trail you can play in your browser. Yes, that Oregon Trail!

You can play the game here at Virtual Apple.

Those of you unfamiliar with the game, Oregon Trail is only the most awesome computer game elementary students were allowed to play after they finished their typing assignments, circa 1990.

Players assume the role of a pioneer wagon leader trying to get his party safely from Independence, Missouri to Williamette Valley, Oregon. Along the way, you contended with thieves, wagon fires, and broken bones, to say nothing of measles and cholera.

Oregon Trail may not be a the newest, slickest FPS, but man, oh man life in a Conestoga wagon is still one fantastic ride. Assuming of course, you can avoid . . . the dysentery.

--Happy Trails

All of 2008's Musical Goodness Crammed into One Awesome Music Video

2009-01-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

DJ Earmworm has taken Billboard's top 25 pop hits of 2008 and created a fantastic video mashup. His video, entitled The United States of Pop, features songs from Coldplay, Pink, Finger Eleven, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Alicia Keyes, Flo Rida, Usher, Chris Brown and tons of other great pop artists.

I know what you're thinking, "A 25 song mashup? That must be a mess!" Give it a try though. DJ Earthworm has done a great job blending the music and video.

If you like this mashup, and would like more information on the art of mashing, or links to more great mashups, visit The Resonator's post Internet Music -- A Myriad of Links and Information & Mashups! (for those counting . . . that is 3 "mashup(s)" in that sentence. 4 if you count "mashing").

A personal rec if I may, my favorite mashup is Wonderwall of Broken Dreams. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that when you click this link, the audio will still be a part of the video.* If it isn't, do some digging on MetaCafe . . . it's worth the work.

*Is it just me, or is the music industry ruining everything that is fun in this world?!

-Happy Mashing

A Response to "How You Blog and Confidence Levels"

2009-01-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

*Please be sure to read the update below.

For those of my readers who may not have come across it yet, Walt Crawford wrote a post entitled "How You Blog and Confidence Levels" addressing the results found in my post, How Do You Blog? on his blog Walt at Random. Wishing to ensure that my perspective was heard on his analysis and comparison of my survey and his research, found in The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008, I posted a reply, which I have included here in its entirety.

UPDATE: Walt has since replied to my response. You can read his response here. It is important for me to point out that, despite how it may have felt on this end, he was not, in fact, “taking far too much pleasure in pulverizing my oranges and credibility with his apples." He was instead just writing a comparison of the two surveys, with a beginning half that I mistakenly allowed to color the way I interpreted the tone of the rest of his post. After reading his response, it is clear that I misinterpreted the spirit of his post.

I have still included my response in full, and do believe it was important for me to state the facts of my method and results in my own words, though in light of Walt's response, my tone was clearly a mistake.

Mr. Crawford:

The Bunless Librarian here. I’m flattered that someone of your caliber has spent his time dismantling a survey of mine, even if you were less than gentle about it.

I could have saved you the effort of writing this post had you simply waited for me to reply to the comment you left on my blog.

Excerpts from my reply,

“The discrepancy between the popularity of Blogger and Wordpress is interesting. Blogger coming out ahead in my survey is most likely the result of LISZEN as my population . . . . As many of the blogs listed in LISZEN are now defunct, it may be better categorized as an archive. . . .

Curious about Blogger’s dominance on LISZEN, I compared my sample to “Blogs in The Liblog Landscape.” 131 (nearly half of my sample) do not appear on your list (probably because they are defunct or inactive) . . . . the blogs that do not appear in your list lean heavily toward Blogger. . .

I knew that many blogs were defunct or inactive, but chose to include them because my information does not reflect “current” blogs, but blogs that are or have been authored by librarians. . . .”

http://thebunlesslibrarian.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-do-you-blog.html

“95% confident, 100% wrong…” This, of course, is assuming that only your work on blogging statistics is valid. While I respect the time and effort you put into your work, as I demonstrated in my reply, you were measuring apples and I was measuring oranges, which accounts for the discrepancies in the results. I must stand by my 95% confidence level and my results overall. Though I do recognize that more clarity about what exactly I was measuring may have avoided this conversation. In retrospect, I would have titled my post “How Do You Blog (Or Perhaps More Aptly, Did You Blog?).”

Mr. Crawford, to date, I have 68 readers of my blog, 35 (a generous estimation) of which read my survey results. That is 35 people who would have read my blog and perhaps thought, through no intention of my own, “hmmmm . . . these number’s are different from those found in Walt’s book-length study.” I would have happily written a second post clarifying the difference between your work and my survey had I known the passion behind your short comment would bring us here. I did try to accomplish that clarity in my very long reply to your comment, which was unfortunately posted after “how you blog and confidence levels” appeared here.

You have hundreds of subscribers through Google Reader, to say nothing of other feed readers. My post, which never claimed to contradict or compare to your work, was read by 35 people. This post, in which you seem to take far too much pleasure in pulverizing my oranges and credibility with your apples, was read by hundreds, maybe thousands.

I would like to challenge you to help repair any damage that may have been done to my reputation by this post. I ask that you post this reply to your blog, in its entirety, so that I may defend my results to those who have read this post. I will gladly post it on my own blog, but as I have stated, my audience is a humble few compared to yours.

–Sarah Lovato

Again, I invite you to read the update above.

Say It Ain't So WebbAlert. Say it Ain't So!

2009-01-22T16:13:00.000-08:00

Sadly, January has given us yet another "say it ain't so" moment. Morgan Webb, of X-Play fame, announced today that she will no longer be producing her daily technology video blog, WebbAlert.

For those of you not familiar with WebbAlert, it was a fantastic little gem in the tech news world. Each day (mostly), Morgan delivered an entertaining 7 minute (or so) technology newscast that was crammed full of the latest tech and gadget news.

Morgan writes,

I really appreciate all the support you've shown me over the past year and a half, and I've had a great time making WebbAlert and sharing my love of technology . . . . I need to make a little time for other opportunities, as well as make a little time for life itself. Thanks for understanding and I hope to bring you a number of new projects in the future!

For Morgan's full good-bye letter, visit WebbAlert.

Oh WebbAlert, WebbAlert, I will truly miss your technology news mixed with just the right amount of sarcasm, wit, and deadpan delivery.

(To Morgan Webb)
--Happy new-projects-in-the-future

(To the rest of us)
--Happy . . . Yeah . . . I got nothin'

American Adults are Reading More. Wait . . . . Whaaaaat?!

2009-01-20T21:02:00.000-08:00

Reading is on the rise among American Adults.

Anyone familiar with the National Endowments for the Arts' To Read or Not to Read or Reading at Risk, might react to this news with the same . . . whaaaaat? This is because the NEA has been reporting a steady downward trend in literary reading among adults since the 80s. In 2008 though, the NEA's new study, "Reading on the Rise" indicates adults are picking up more novels, or turning on their computers . . . as the case may be.

But . . . reading is reading and at the end of the day, as librarians, that is a very, very good thing.

If you would like to read "Reading on the Rise" in its entirety, check out the PDF.

--Happy Reading

How Do You Blog?

2009-01-19T18:26:00.000-08:00

Inspired by The Blog Platforms of Choice Among the Top 100 Bloggers, found via Stephen's Lighthouse, I decided to determine which blogging platforms are the most popular among librarian bloggers.

The Method: I used the 780 blogs listed in the LISZEN Wiki as the general library blogging population. I then randomly selected 275 blogs as a sample and recorded the blogging platform used for each blog. This gave me results with a 5% error margin and a 95% confidence level.

The Sample: The blogs included in the sample were both active and defunct blogs. Though one option would have been to exclude defunct blogs, they do represent librarians who have had blogs and have actively blogged in the past, which for this purpose, I have decided qualifies them as "bloggers." The sample also includes foreign language blogs and blogs which are sponsored by groups or organizations. Organizational blogs were included because, at the end of the day, it is most likely librarians who provide the content.

Granted, LISZEN is not the entire library blogging community, but I thought it an acceptable representation.

The Results: Although the more prominent bloggers (we all know who they are) don't tend to use Blogger, it is by far the platform of choice for the general population (as represented in LISZEN) followed distantly by Wordpress and even more distantly by Typepad.

The numbers shook out as follows: Blogger 150, Wordpress 70, Typepad 16, Moveable Type 12, LiveJournal 6, EduBlogs 3, Drupal 2, Blog-City 2, tBlog 2, and Other 12.

-Happy Blogging on Whatever Platform You Call Home

Say It Ain't So, Google. Say It Ain't So!

2009-01-17T17:59:00.000-08:00

Sadly, it is so. On January 14th, the Official Google Notebook Blog made the announcement that Google will stop development on Notebook.

At Google, we're constantly working to innovate and improve our products so people can easily find and manage information. At times though, we have to decide where to focus our efforts and which technologies we expect will yield the most benefit to users in the long run.

Starting next week, we plan to stop active development on Google Notebook. This means we'll no longer be adding features or offer Notebook for new users.

There is a bit of good news for current Notebook users though.

But don't fret, we'll continue to maintain service for those of you who've already signed up. As part of this plan, however, we will no longer support the Notebook Extension, but as always users who have already signed up will continue to have access to their data via the web interface at http://www.google.com/notebook.

Despite Google's assurances, I feel as though I should fret or at the very least, knit my brows together. I have been an enthusiastic and loyal Notebook user since I first read of its launch and it has since become an important and convenient way to organize web content, reference tools, reading lists, memos, and work flow notes. Google will maintain the service, but for how long? Certainly, I will eventually have to abandon my trusty Notebook for something with new, even more convenient functionalities. I will have to transfer my mountains of Notebook content into whatever product will best meet my needs, and that is a move I am not looking forward to making.

Would "et tu, Google" be too dramatic here?

Oh . . . what the heck.

Et tu, Google!

For those of you not willing to hang in there until the cold, watery end and go down with the ship, check out CNET's Seven Worthy Google Notebook Replacements.

--Um . . . Happy Ship-Jumping?

Getting Older Has Some Definite Benefits, for Rizzle (or Shizzle?)

2009-01-14T15:26:00.001-08:00

If we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit getting older has some serious drawbacks. Our knees start to groan in protest as we kneel, or stand, or kneel then stand. Large chunks of our paychecks are suddenly diverted into something that must surely be some kind of end-of-days cipher known simply as 401(k) . Our personalities grow more crotchety and the death clock seems to suddenly tick louder and faster. This, of course, is only to name a few, but getting older also has some definite benefits and one benefit in particular.

As we get older and grow into responsible, productive adults, we can freely, and without fear of spitballs to the back of the head, become unabashedly articulate. Nothing, no matter how awe-inspiring or fantastic will ever be off the hook, chain, or heezie. We will never have to tell a stressed out coworker to slow her roll. And finally, we will never . . . ever inquire as to a friend's state of wellbeing with a simple, guttural wasssssssssuuup. In other words, we get to grow out of slang and speak in proper English, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

So as we sigh deeply, looking into the mirror, noting a new crop of gray hairs, we can take comfort that our first thought isn't "getting old is some whack, weak-sauce, G." Instead, as we floss, we can merely shrug and think "getting older has some serious drawbacks, but it's manageable."

--Happy Conversing

Visit the slang dictionaries featured in this post: The Online Slang Dictionary and the Slang Site.

The Urban Dictionary is probably one of the most comprehensive and varied slang dictionaries around, but be warned, the content is user generated so the definitions are . . . colorful.

Find Great Horror Films This Halloween Season

2008-10-29T20:24:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my October 11th post, The Scariest Places in America and How to Find Them, I absolutely love good scares. One of my favorite ways to freak myself out is to sit down with a bowl of popcorn and watch a really scary horror film.

Unfortunately, as any horror film fan can tell you, for every 10 scary movies made, 9 are guaranteed to be complete garbage. In my quest to find great horror films, I have come across some real stinkers and others that are off-the-charts stinky. Fortunately, there are some great websites out there to help horror fans navigate the cow-patty-filled pasture that his the horror film genre.

All Horror Films
This site offers a five star rating system for horror films in a variety of categories including, Acting, Violence, Humor, Gore and Predictability. The Blood, Violence, and Torture ratings are fantastic for the horror fans among us who prefer psychological horror to slasher, blood and guts flicks.

Bloody-Disgusting
This site has a two, five skull rating systems based on staff and user ratings. It also offers formal, informative reviews.

Killer Reviews
This site includes staff and user reviews along with ratings for each film.

Wooden Spoon's Obscure Horror Movie Reviews
This site offers reviews for tons of horror films you've probably never heard of. It's a great resource for the horror fan who feels she has exhausted the genre.

--Happy Screams

Give Your Trick-or-Treaters a Good Scare

2008-10-27T18:16:00.001-07:00

In just a few days, our porches, vestibules, and porticoes will be full of ghosts, goblins, and ghouls screaming the traditional "trick-or-treat." What better time than on this night of mischief to give your neighborhood trick-or-treaters a good scare?

Below are a few links to great Halloween pranks that are sure to give trick-or-treaters something to scream about.

8 Ways to Scare the Heck out of Kids This Halloween

Extreme Pumpkins: Candy Traps

Give Them a Good Scare This Halloween

--Happy Spooking

Last Minute Halloween Costume Ideas

2008-10-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's official. We are in the 11th hour when it comes to picking out and putting together a Halloween costume. For those of us who have yet to decide on a costume or were just haplessly roped into attending a Halloween party, below are some links for quick and easy costumes.

Fast and Simple Costumes

Last-Minute Quick Costume Ideas

Homemade Halloween Costume Ideas

Nine Awesome Last-Minute Halloween Costumes You Can Make from Junk

Six Inexpensive Last-Minute Halloween Costumes

Top Ten Totally Lame Halloween Costumes
(yeah they're lame, but procrastinators can't be choosers)

--Happy Scrounging

Zombies: The Coming Plague and How to Survive It

2008-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows (those in the know . . . know) October is prime zombie season. Every year, reports flood in all over the country of cemeteries littered with deep, crudely evacuated graves and streets overflowing with the famished undead. The hobbling mobs of zombies are cranky, stinky, hungry and their meal of choice is brain . . . human brain.

Those lucky enough to live in cities and villages with working zombie alarms quickly take shelter in their reinforced tree houses (as zombies are notoriously poor climbers). Those unlucky enough to live in towns unprepared for zombie attacks are left to fend off the undead with nothing more than their wits and whatever weapons they can get their hands on.

This year, don't let yourself become one of the unfortunate victims of the coming zombie plague.

Prepare yourself.

Brought to you by Common Craft.

If you're positive you can finish a book before the coming infestation, give The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead a read . . . and take copious notes.

--Happy Hunting

And remember . . . heed those zombie alarms you may here in the distance.

Thorax Cake and Other Revolting Halloween Recipes

2008-10-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to throwing a truly ghoulish Halloween Bash, the standard menu just won't do. There's no better time to freak out your guests with some truly revolting treats.

I have compiled a small list of websites that have some of the most gruesome Halloween recipes around.

Family Corner: Gross Halloween Party Food
Halloween is Here: Rancid Recipes
Halloween Recipes
Recipe Source: Halloween Recipes
Thorax Cake

Don't miss a few of my favorites.
Awful Arachnids
Boogers on a Stick (Scroll down)
Freaky Witches Fingers
Kitty Litter Cake

--Happy Baking

The Scariest Places in America and How to Find Them

2008-10-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about the Halloween season is the crop of haunted attractions that spring up all over the area. I'm a total junkie when it comes to getting the stuffing scared out of me.

In my quest to find the best haunted attractions in my area, I came across three great resources.

Haunted Houses

Haunted House Online

HorrorFind: Haunted Houses

Each website lists haunted attractions in each state and provides staff or user reviews. Though a quick check of Utah listing revealed none were completely comprehensive, the use of all three provides an impressive catalog of both large and small attractions.

--Happy Haunting

The Cure for the Common Jack-O'-Lantern

2008-10-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first annual Bunless Librarian Halloween Extravaganza. In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I will be showcasing some fantastic Halloween resources throughout the month.

First up is Extreme Pumpkins. This website is full of great information about pumpkin carving techniques and preservation. By far though, the best part of this website is the photo gallery full of scary, funny, and sometimes disturbing jack-o'-lanterns.

This site is great for anyone looking for some good jack-'o-lantern ideas that probably won't be showing up anywhere else on the block.

The creator of Extreme Pumpkins, Tom Nardone has also written two books on the topic, Extreme Pumpkins, and Extreme Pumpkins II.

Curious about how Jack-'o-lanterns got their name? Check out the legend of Farmer Jack.

--Happy Carving

Technically, I Read It: In Praise of Skimming

2008-09-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Find out about all the great uses for skimming over at Shelf Space.

Technically, I Read It: In Praise of Skimming

The Reader's Advisory Secret Weapon: The Read-Alike

2008-08-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

Find out about read a-likes over at Shelf Space.

The Reader's Advisory Secret Weapon: The Read-Alike

Librarianship and the Loss of Sanctuary

2008-08-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

How does this librarian leave her profession at the door and allow herself to reconnect with the uncomplicated, joyful refuge of the stacks?

Find out over at Shelf Space.

Librarianship and the Loss of Sanctuary

When Should You Give a Blog the Boot?

2008-08-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

When exactly is it time to boot a blog from you Feed Reader?

Find out over at Shelf Space.

When Should You Give a Blog the Boot?

The Bunless Librarian Takes a Field Trip

2008-08-08T11:11:00.001-07:00

I have been asked to guest blog for ForeWord Magazine 's Shelf Space. I will be posting four articles there throughout the month. Although I will try to post some different content here, I will also send out small posts linking to the full text articles.

In keeping more with the established tone of Shelf Space, my posts will be more commentary and original content. This is definitely a shift from the normal tone I have established here. Please let me know what you think about the shift in tone and if you would like to see more of it appear here at The Bunless Librarian.

Get All Your Favorite Book Lists in One Fell Swoop

2008-07-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

The American Booksellers Association has put together an extremely handy media guide which compiles and presents major publishing book lists. Bookselling This Week, provides one-stop-shopping for book lists including The New York Times Book Review, Washington Post Book Club, and The Los Angeles Times Book Review.

The site also includes tons of information about what books will be promoted on television and the radio. It also has listing for upcoming book tours.

There is one HUGE drawback to the website. The site has no RSS feed, which is very unfortunate considering this type of useful, fluid information is perfect for RSS distribution . . . but sometimes we get the cake, and sometimes we eat the cake. In this case, the cake just isn't delivered right to our doorstep.

Become a Firefox 3 Power User

2008-06-17T22:15:00.000-07:00

If you are one of the millions of people who have downloaded Firefox 3, then give A Field Guide to Firefox 3 a look. This online guide gives users information on the new and improved features of the new Mozilla browser. While it's true, most of us will make a smooth transition to the updated browser, this handy field guide gives us some nice keys to the Power User Kingdom.
Found via Lifehacker

I Wish I Were Making This Up . . . We Probably All Do

2008-06-05T13:16:00.000-07:00

So . . . yeah . . . we might need to work harder on strengthening our presence in our communities.

Get Rich Slowly came across a sad little post at the FailBlog. The author of the post longs for a nifty "video rental store but for books."

I was just thinking. my sister does -alot- of reading, and spends like $1000 a year on just books alone. most of them she reads once then never looks at again. is there any kind of like…video rental store but for books? would make things alot cheaper, plus once one person had read one the next person can get enjoyment from it etc

Wow . . . in the words of Seth and Amy . . .Really!?!

There is no word on whether this post was actually authored in earnest; one would hope not. I did a quick Google and the post can also be found on a WoW forum, in which the author claims it a joke and also on Forum Basketball, though it would seem the dates of the posts suggests they are copycat reposts.

So perhaps it’s in our best interest to drop the stuffy moniker, Library and rebrand ourselves as Video Rental Stores but for Books; it really rolls off the tongue. We would also have the added bonus of being able to call ourselves Video-Rental-Store-but-for-Bookarians, which really, really rolls off the tongue.

One Item All Libraries Should Offer

2008-05-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

Most librarians have been there, hunched over an out-of-print tome, carefully erasing the notes an overly-engaged patron scribbled in the book's margins. If we are lucky, the patron couldn't find a highlighter and they had to settle for underlines in pen or pencil.

There is good news for librarians though, 3M has the answer. They have developed new Post-Its perfect for library patrons with a penchant for marking books. Sheer Post-Its are clear post-its that allow patrons to mark up the pages of library books through a protective clear barrier. The idea is ingeniously simple: every time they find a passage worthy of note, they slap down a clear post-it and underline, circle, note, critique, or cross reference to their heart's content. When the book is due, they just remove the post-its, taking their notes with them.

Though it might not be feasible to give away the handy post-its, (we politely give bookmarks to patrons who return books dogeared), these handy products would be a great addition to library lobby gift offerings.

BTDTGTTSAWIO <-- Have No Idea What that Means? AOL Has the Dictionary for You

2008-05-12T20:08:00.001-07:00

It turns out that BTDTGTTSAWIO is an IM acronym for "Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt and wore it out." How do I know? Is The Bunless Librarian an IM maven . . . well not exactly. I just consulted the handy AOL Acronym Dictionary.

Containing over 100 IM acronyms, the AOL Acronym Dictionary defines AAK (Asleep at Keyboard) all the way to ZZZ (Tired or Bored).

Parents might be especially interested in the P's
P911 (Parent Emergency)
PAW (Parents are Watching)
PCM (Please Call Me)
PIR (Parents in Room)
PLS (Please)
PLZ (Please)
POC (Point of Contact)
POS (Parent over Shoulder)
POV (Point of View)
PRW (Parents are Watching)

Change the Parent to Boss and bosses might be interested in the P's as well.

For even more text, IM, chat, and email acronyms, try a few of the following resources.
Chat Acronyms and Text Shorthand
Text Messaging and Chat Abbreviations
Email, Online Chat, and Text Messaging Acronyms
List of Acronyms and Text Messaging Shorthand
Lingo 2 Word: Txt Message Translator

--Happy IMing

Is Your Library Card a Collectible?

2008-04-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Are you the proud owner of a collectible library card? Well . . . unless you happen to own some obscure Carnegie Free Library library card, chances are you aren't. And lets be honest, even then, people aren't sniping one another on eBay trying to acquire old library cards; it's true, try a quick search.

There is, however, one young man who thinks library cards are great collectibles. Cory Peterson, a 15-year-old from Suisun City, California is the owner, operator, and curator of what just may be one of the largest personal library card collections in the world, The Great Library Card Collection.

My collection started in the summer of 1999, when I was 6 years old. I was visiting my grandparents, who live in Washington State. I had always liked to go to libraries and ask to look at their library cards, just to see what the design looked like. When I went to the Anacortes Public Library, in Anacortes, Washington, I asked to look at their library card, and they said I could have it. This started me on a journey that would involve long hours on the computer, addressing envelopes (can you believe the cost of stamps!) and believe it or not, traveling across the country. Since I started collecting library cards 8 years ago, I have accumulated over 3,000 library cards from all 50 states and 74 countries.

This collection is definitely worth a look. Though I wont specify, you will definitely come across a few cards that inspire the ol' "what where they thinking?"

A big thank you goes out to Cory Peterson for preserving this little slice of library history.

--The Bunless Librarian

Legally Download Copyrighted eBooks . . . for Free!

2008-03-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Found via Lifehacker, WOWIO provides free and legal access to a library of copyrighted eBooks. Users can download up to 3 books a day and up to 30 books a month. The books are in PDF format, making them accessible across a wide variety of devices.

So how do they manage to bring free copyrighted material to their users? Easy--sponsors.

Authors and artists work hard to create their books and should receive fair compensation. WOWIO introduces sponsors as the primary source of compensation. Readers get books for free. Sponsors get opportunities to establish valued relationships with readers. Authors, artists, and their publishers get fair compensation. It's a win-win-win for the WOWIO community — where each group willingly gives a little to get something in return.

Though the WOWIO library is currently pretty meager, it's a free service definitely worth giving the once-over.

The Salt Lake City Public Library Selects a New Director

2008-03-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

The Salt Lake City Public Library has finally selected a successor for their much-loved former director, Nancy Tessman. After a long selection process, Elizabeth Elder of the Denver Public Library has been chosen for the post. Elder beat out in-house, acting co-director Britton Lund and Kathlin Ray of the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

As many of you may remember, the City Library (pictured here) was Library Journal's 2006 Library of the Year.

For more information about The SLCPL's selection of Elder, check out this article from The Salt Lake Tribune.

The Bunless Librarian is One Year Old

2008-03-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

The Bunless Librarian has officially passed the one year mark!

Despite my predictions that my attention span would kill The Bunless Librarian after about 7 posts (the seven-post itch), and that my first subscriber, the ever-loyal Manfredo, would lose interest after 3 posts, I'm still posting and Manfredo is still reading . . . and a lot more of you are reading too!

On March 22, 2007, The Bunless Librarian invited its readers to rip out their bobby pins and jump feet first into the technological, virtual, and online environment that is the 21st century and I am eternally grateful for my readers who have decided to take that plunge with me. Hopefully you have discovered a few tools to help you manage that pesky 21st century.

I thought it fitting to celebrate The Bunless Librarian's birthday by looking back over the past year and reintroducing you to a few of my favorite posts.

Turn Eye-straining ebooks into Custom Paperbacks
Although I haven't created a personal library of custom paperbacks, I do use this technique to create notebooks from old printer paper. My TBL notebook was created with this method.

The Thrifty Librarian: A Few Places to Find Free Digital Audio Books/Recordings
My personal favorite is Old Time Radio Shows. The radio shows really are a slice of American media history, and the recordings are just a hoot to listen to.

A Word about . . . The Bun
Yeah . . . sometimes I just like to fly my geek flag.
Update: My hair is now so long, often my ponytail gets twisted up into a nice tight bun.

The Thrifty Librarian: Free Documentary Films Available Online
Of all the resources I have blogged about, FreeDocumentaries.org is by far the one I use most often. Many of my lunch breaks are spent watching great documentaries online.

How to Get out Of Your Speeding Ticket: Free Legal Resources Online
While not technically a personal favorite, this post gets the most views and clicks by far.

Avoid Linguistic Blunders with the Eggcorn Database
What can I say? I just like the idea of lack toast in tolerant and Winchell factor.

It has been one heck of a year, and I am looking forward to many more as The Bunless Librarian.

Thank you again for your readership.

--The Bunless Librarian

Improve Your Web Search Skills in 13 Easy Lessons

2008-03-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

About.com is offering Web Search 101, a free online class composed of a series of lessons and search tasks that arrive in your email. The class is structured into 13 weekly tasks which focus on exploring different types of web searches.

The thirteen lessons are broken down as follows:

Lesson 1: Introduction to the Internet and the Web
Lesson 2: Basic Search Techniques
Lesson 3: Web Browsers
Lesson 4: Introduction to Search Engines
Lesson 5: Search the Web with Metasearch Engines
Lesson 6: Introduction to Online Shopping
Lesson 7: Find People on the Web
Lesson 8: How to Use RSS to Search the Web
Lesson 9: Search the Invisible Web
Lesson 10: Reference Search on the Web
Lesson 11: Find Multimedia on the Web
Lesson 12: Web Search Safety
Lesson 13: The Social Web and Web 2.0

The lessons can be delivered in daily or weekly doses, depending on how much time you want to devote to the program.

--Happy self-directed learning

One More Reason to Shake Your Fist at the Bush Administration

2008-02-22T13:16:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have been receiving very disheartening notifications from Reading is Fundamental (RIF) regarding the future of their organization. For those of you who aren't aware of the work RIF does, it is the oldest nonprofit literacy organization in the country. Each year, RIF provides funding for organizations to purchase paperback books which are distributed to at-risk students within the sponsor organization's community. Every year, RIF funds the distribution of over 16 million books to 4.5 million children all over the country. The books are given freely to the students and they are then theirs to keep. Unfortunately, as my notifications have alerted me, President Bush's 2009 proposed budget puts this extremely important literacy program in danger by completely eliminating funding for RIF's Inexpensive Book Distribution Program.

President Bush’s proposed budget calling for the elimination of Reading Is Fundamental’s (RIF) Inexpensive Book Distribution program would be devastating to the 4.6 million children and their families who receive free books and reading encouragement from RIF programs at nearly 20,000 locations throughout the U.S.

Read the entire statement here.

As a local program coordinator, I work with RIF and distribute thousands of free books to the most at-risk students in my community. At each book distribution, I personally witness the gratitude and joy students express as they each choose books to take home and keep as their own. I can state from personal experience that RIF programs positively impact the lives of the students served.

Currently, the RIF program is in the middle of a letter writing campaign in order to demonstrate support for the continued funding of the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program. If you would like to support the reinstatement of RIF funding in the 2009 budget, visit the RIF Act Now webpage and send a letter to your congressmen and senators.

The RIF Inexpensive Book Distribution program is an extraordinarily valuable program within communities all over the country. Please lend your support to help save it.

Avoid Linguistic Blunders with The Eggcorn Database

2008-02-12T16:39:00.000-08:00

So what exactly is an eggcorn and why does it have its own database? Most simply, eggcorn is the term used to describe those fantastic linguistic confusions that make us believe purposes are intensive, lines are towed, and motives are alterior.

More complexly:

In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker's dialect. Characteristic of the eggcorn is that the new phrase makes sense on some level ("old-timer's disease" for "Alzheimer's disease"). Eggcorns often involve replacing an unfamiliar, archaic, or obscure word with a more common or modern word ("baited breath" for "bated breath").

The Eggcorn Database is a huge repository of common eggcorns found in (or technically outside of) the English lexicon. Each eggcorn includes variants and citations. The database is good for a few chuckles and it also might prove to be quite enlightening.

Some must see entries are lack toast in tolerant and Winchell factor.

Possibly the Coolest Online Archive Ever!

2008-01-21T20:49:00.000-08:00

Okay . . . Okay . . . so it isn't the newest archive around, but it sure is the funniest (if you like slightly dry humor delivered in a fake news format . . . but really . . . who doesn't?). Just in case you missed it, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has created a fantastic archive that contains online video of all the show's commentaries and interviews dating all the way back to its pilot in 1996. The site doesn't allow single access to an entire episode, but the fact that the episodes are broken down into self contained segments makes it easy to find and watch your favorite snippets . . . especially if you have a slow internet connection.

With the writer's strike dragging on . . . and on . . . and on . . . give The Daily Show with Jon Stewart a try.

--Happy Laughing (or at the very least . . . chuckling)

NetworkSolutions and Registering Your Domain: What You Need to Know

2008-01-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

Today's WebbAlert discussed NetworkSolutions' practice of automatically registering domains searched on its site and then charging up to three times as much in order to purchase said domain. So basically, NetworkSolutions sees you want a specific domain, they snag it up, and then they jack the price up for you to register it.

I did my own investigation, just to see for myself.

Step 1: Searched the domain NetworkSolutionsIsATotalRipOff on GoDaddy. NetworkSolutionsIsATotalRipOff.com was available for $9.99.

Step 2: Searched the domain NetworkSolutionsIsATotalRipOff on NetworkSolutions.

Step 3: Waited 30 seconds.

Step 4: Searched the domain NetworkSolutionsIsATotalRipOff on GoDaddy. NetworkSolutionsIsATotalRipOff.com was only available for backorder and was now $18.99.

It should be noted that NetworkSolutions believes they register the domains for our own good, but I just don't see how charging more for a domain that was already available for cheaper helps us out at all.

The whole story on WebbAlert can be seen here.

Hassle Yourself into Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions

2008-01-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

If you are like most of us, as you watched the New Year's ball drop in Times Square, or if you happen to live in Mt. Olive, the pickle drop, you were probably busy making all kinds of well intentioned New Year's Resolutions. Well a few days have passed and our fierce determination to meet our goals may be waning. If you think all you might need is a little gentle, or maybe not so gentle nagging, give HassleMe a try.

HassleMe is a free service that will send customized hassles to your email of choice as often as you specify.

Currently, I get an email hassle every 3 days nagging me to "write a freakin' post already!" Every 14 days I get hassled to "empty your freakin' mail pile!"

The service isn't designed to send reminders (a single email sent on a specified future date). They really are just tapping into the market comprised of those of us who just need a little kick in the pants at regular intervals.

--Happy Hassling

Boost Your Geek IQ with Geekipedia

2007-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

Do words like cloudware, mobisode, and crowdsourcing leave you scratching your head? If so, Wired magazine has just the supplement for you--Geekipedia.

Wired's latest supplemental issue, Geekipedia gives you brief write-ups on "149 people, places, ideas, and trends you need to know now." The entries range from J.J. Abrams to Zillow with tons of nerdy goodness in between.

If you don't have a print subscription to Wired, check your local public library. Geekipedia is also available online here , but the online version is missing a great entry and illustration on the blogosphere pecking order. Plus the print version is just a whole lot nicer to look at. So again, check your local public library.

--Happy Geeking

Back to Publishing Basics: The Zine

2007-12-13T12:48:00.000-08:00

The November release of Amazon's Kindle set the biblioblogosphere abuzz with commentary on this new "wireless reading device." Like everyone else, I took notice, but the accompanying discussions of wireless coverage, DRM, and PDF compatibility (to say nothing of pricing) made me truly appreciate the less complex, grassroots end of the publishing spectrum.

And you just don't get more grassroots than the zine.

In its most basic form, a zine (pronounced zeen) is a self-published, non-commercial booklet, novella, magazine, journal, story, essay, newsletter, etc. Though there are eZines which are published electronically, many are small, short paper (sometimes underground) publications that are handwritten, illustrated, and constructed. As with anything, the zine world does have its "rock stars," but many zines are pretty low key and have a relatively small audience.

Because zines are self-published and the goal of publication isn't massive, widespread distribution, the writers and illustrators are free to create edgy, niche, and sometimes controversial content that wouldn't otherwise find mainstream publication. In other words, because zine writers/illustrators aren't under the thumb of "big publishing" they can pretty much write and print whatever they want . . . and they do. This creative freedom results in a truly diverse zine landscape full of wonderfully alternative viewpoints covering a huge array of subject matter.

Although most libraries don't own zines, some notable public libraries have very impressive collections. Among the pro-zine libraries are Baltimore County Public Library, Kansas City Public Library, New York Public Library, and the City Library in Salt Lake City.

If you are interested in learning more about these fascinating publications, check out The Book of Zines, Zine World or Mail Art and Art Stamps. All three of these sites provide tons of introductory information about the realm of the zine.

If you think a zine might just be the perfect grassroots bullhorn for your unique voice and perspective, check out a few of these guides to creating, constructing, and distributing your very own zine.

DIY Mini 8 Pages Pocket Zine

DIY Zine Guide

Single Sheet Zine

Technical Tips for Zine Makers

wikiHow: The Zine

Zine Distribution: The Realities

--Happy Zining

The Perfect Gift for the Eccentric Techie in Your Life

2007-11-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

For all of us out there who didn't manage to pick up a gift for the techies in our life while elbowing our way through vicious crowds on Black Friday and grabbing for discounted iPods, thumb drives, and digital picture frames, there's still hope.

ThinkGeek is selling the Wi-Fi Detector Shirt. As the name suggests, it's a shirt with a removable electronic panel that actually detects and displays the Wi-Fi strength of the current location. The panel is dynamic and changes as the Wi-Fi strengths increase and decrease.

Product Features

Glowing animated shirt dynamically displays the current wi-fi signal strength.
Shows signal strength for 802.11b or 802.11g
Black 100% Cotton T-Shirt
Animated Decal is Removable (with hook and loop fasteners) for Easy Washing
Battery Pack is Concealed in a Small Pocket Sewn Inside the Shirt
Runs for hours off three AAA Batteries (not included)

The Wi-Fi Detector Shirt is surprisingly well priced. Each shirt will run you around $30.00 and $33.00 if you would like batteries included. The electronic components are all completely detachable, making each shirt machine washable.

At $30.00 a pop (assuming you have some AAA batteries in your junk drawer), the Wi-Fi Detector Shirt may just be the perfect gift for the techie in your life who tends to sit just a little left of quirky.

UPDATE: If you follow the link provided in the November 26th post on WebbAlert and use the promo code provided, you can get $10 off orders over $50 and $5 off orders between $25 and $50. The offer is valid through November 30th, but they are trying to get ThinkGeek to extend the offer.

Isn't WebbAlert Fantastic?!

How The Bunless Librarian Scooped American Libraries

2007-11-17T22:50:00.001-08:00

Yes, it's true. The Bunless Librarian scooped American Libraries . . . almost. While sifting through a huge electronic pile of posts many months ago, I came across a very interesting piece of furniture featured on TreeHugger. Pictured left, the Bookinist is a chair/bookshelf/push cart/cup holder/reading lamp. As the designer, Nils Holger Moormann explains, "Bookinist is a movable chair designed especially for reading. It is based on the principle of a pushcart and can be rolled to a favourite spot...Bookinist invites you to read and think at your leisure."

When I stumbled upon this chair, my first instinct was to jot down a quick post for this blog. Although the chair looks uncomfortable, and not all that conducive to leisurely reading, it is surely, at the very least, an interesting art piece for any bibliophile. Alas, my gut instinct to share this quirky chair was trounced as I instead focused my energy on tracking down more "substantive" topics and I chose not to write the post. Because of that rather snobbish trouncing, The Bunless Librarian missed a prime opportunity to scoop American Libraries, which features a brief writeup on the Bookinist in its November 2007 issue.

The lesson here:

The Bunless Librarian's Fourth Tip for Avoiding Blogging Burnout
4. Go with your gut!

Happy Scooping

Extinguishing the Flames of Burnout

2007-11-02T13:58:00.000-07:00

Over 40 days, ladies and gentlemen.

It has been over 40 days since my last post.

I would love to launch into stilted explanations about work hours, personal crises, or extended vacations, but what we have here, my loyal readers, is just a good ol' fashion case of burnout . . . blogging burnout.

When I started this blog, I had not adequately considered the fact that by writing a blog steeped in my profession, I would be bringing my profession into my lunch breaks and home life, as my free time would increasingly be consumed with digging around for new and interesting online reference resources and services (which is what this blog is slowly, or perhaps not so slowly, beginning to focus on). I would love to say I am a Librarian 24/7, that I reside in the world solely as The Bunless Librarian, but I'm not and I don't and trying to is a little exhausting at times.

I have also started to find my Google Reader subscriptions less fruitful as of late. I am just finding less and less that makes me sit up and scribble ideas in my blogging notebook. This may also be a case of burnout . . . feed burnout. I currently have 68 subscriptions that daily send me over 300 items and if I miss a few days, forget about it . . . I get the dreaded 1000+. Even some of my favorite feeds routinely get the old "mark as read" treatment.

All is not lost, however, just as I am not ready to give up the playful flames of my loyal commenter, Manfredo, I am also not ready to be consumed by the flames of burnout. I return to you today, my loyal readers, my Google subscription list trimmer, yet hardier, and with a renewed commitment to writing, molding, and improving this blog.

I have been pleasantly surprised by my steady subscription numbers during this unexpected drought, and would like to thank all my readers for sticking with me through my unscheduled hiatus. Your loyalty is greatly appreciated.

As a part of my renewed commitment to The Bunless Librarian, I would like to interject a little bit of my own content.

The Bunless Librarian's Top Three Tips for Avoiding Blogging Burnout

1. Speak with your authentic voice. Trying to constantly maintain an artificial tone will only leave you feeling drained and ultimately a bit fraudulent.

2. Write about topics you find genuinely interesting. Focusing on trendy, yet personally uninteresting topics will make writing your blog feel like more work then it should.

3. Cut yourself some slack. For most of us, writing a blog isn’t part of our jobs, but sometimes it can take up just as much time. Allow yourself regular downtime to recharge your blogging batteries.

Because it would be very un-Bunless of me to post and not provide a list of resources, I have compiled a small list of websites that provide suggestions for avoiding and overcoming blogging burnout . . . I personally would suggest the "avoiding" route.

6 Blogging burnout Cures
7 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout
12 Ways to Avoid Blogging Burnout
How to Avoid Blogging Burnout

Happy Blogging

Find the Perfect Read to Satisfy Your Mood

2007-09-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

Ever get a craving for a short, unpredictable, optimistic, funny book? Or maybe you are looking for a book that takes place in South Africa, has lots of plot twists, and has a main character who is female and under the age of 25.

If you have ever found yourself with a hankering for a book that just can't be uncovered using subject headings and keyword searches in a standard catalog, you should give Whichbook.net a try. Whichbook.ne t allows you to search a large catalog of books by selecting desired plot, setting, content, structural, and literary preferences.

As Whichbooks.net explains,

You may be reluctant to take a risk on something different because you're not sure it will satisfy you. You have your favourite writers who can be trusted to deliver the goods. But there are thousands of books out there. One of those might satisfy you even more but how can you tell? Whichbook.net enables you to search for a book that up to now may only have existed in your own mind!
Instead of looking for a crime novel, you can look for a book that is unpredictable, very romantic and a little bit sad. Or a challenging book that's also funny with plenty of sex. Whichbook will find titles which match your preferences. If you don't fancy any of the books offered, change your choices and try again - there are 20 million different individual permutations possible!

The site offers twelve preferences that are equipped with sliding scales that allow you to truly personalize just how much of each preference you want in your book. After the scales are set, the site then provides a large list of books that fulfill the preferences specified.

Whichbook.net does have two noticeable drawbacks. The first is that the site is operated in the U.K. so many of the titles are British. This sometimes makes locating desired books difficult. In addition, the site only allows four preferences to be set at a time. This can be frustrating when you have lots of desired preferences.

Despite these two drawbacks, Whichbook.net provides a personal preference search that is typically extremely hard to duplicate with traditional catalogs or other keyword searches. For this reason, Whichbook.net is definitely worth exploring.

Google Gets Back to What It Does Best . . . Searching

2007-09-06T15:26:00.001-07:00

Google has finally added a much needed search feature to its Google Reader. The new search allows users to search all items, starred items, and folders. It also allows users to limit their searches to specific subscriptions.

The lack of a search function was a glaring omission I noticed the first time I had to wade through hundreds of past items to find a post I had erroneously not starred. The realization that Google Reader did not include a search feature was a rather shocking and puzzling one considering searching is arguably what Google does best, but it seems they have corrected the mistake quite nicely . . . finally.

If you prefer Bloglines, LibrarianInBlack has a great post about the new features included in the recently released beta of the next update.

Read Less. Get More.

2007-09-05T16:37:00.000-07:00

Found via Library Stuff, LazyLibrary is an online catalog of books featuring only titles that are 200 pages or less. The goal of the site is to provide listings of books by authors who "would rather have a concise and effective book than a lengthy and diluted tome . . . ." The site can be keyword searched and each book listing includes title, author, page count, summary, price, and review information.

Although this website is not an eLibrary and books listed are not ebooks, the site does provide enough information for users to locate the items. Each title is also linked to the corresponding Amazon listing so that users have the option to purchase the book. Savvy users can use this catalog in tandem with their public library's online catalog in order to obtain many of the books for free.

In addition, this website has great potential as an online ready reference resource as a compliment to the ever-popular 100 World-Class Thin Books or What to Read When Your Book Report is Due Tomorrow.

Although the title of the site is LazyLibrary, its content will appeal to many readers who, though not lazy, may just simply prefer brevity.

The Thrifty Librarian: Free Documentary Films Available Online

2007-08-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

Keep a few extra dollars in your pocket by watching documentary films online for free--and legally. FreeDocumentaries.org has recently been released in beta. The website provides legal access to over 70 mainstream and obscure documentaries.

At freedocumentaries.org we believe strongly that in order to have a true democracy, there has to be a free flow of easily available information. Unfortunately, many important perspectives, opinions and facts do not make it to our televisions or cinemas (you can watch movies in our media category if you want to know why).

For this reason we decided to start freedocumentaries.org, a site where anyone with an internet connection can watch a movie and educate themselves or simply explore another perspective whenever they want.

The website provides free streaming access to their library of documentaries. The films included fall into several categories: Media, War, 9/11, Domestic, Election Fraud, Environmental, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, George Bush, Latin America, Globalization, Politician, Religious, Activist, Africa, Societal, Human Rights, Health, and Animal Abuse.

The most impressive thing about this website is that it's not just full of a bunch of unknown amateur films. It is instead loaded with well-made, thought-provoking films. The site provides access to a surprising number of marquee films such as Super Size Me, Bowling for Columbine, Born into Brothels, and Outfoxed.

The site does have a few noticeable drawbacks. The most obvious being that you cannot "officially" download the films, which leaves you to watch them streaming on your computer. Also the video quality varies from film to film. Though not a drawback for some, a preliminary scan of the titles offered does reveal a slightly overall liberal perspective. However, if you can get past these three (possibly two) small annoyances (and you have DSL or Broadband. Dial up is impossible unless you have all day), FreeDocumentaries.org is a pretty nice little cache of free films.

So the next time you decide to head over to your local video store, give Freedocumentaries.org the once-over and save a few bucks.

How to Get Out of Your Speeding Ticket: Free Legal Resources Online

2007-08-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Although I don't have a credible free online resource to help get you out of those nasty speeding tickets, I have provided links to some great free legal resources that will help novice legal researchers and seasoned professionals.

BUT

If you really are interested in learning to beat your traffic tickets, visit your local public library and ask for Beat Your Ticket: Go to Court and Win.

Disclaimer: These online resources are only designed as information gathering tools. They should not be used in place of the advice of a legal professional. In addition, many of the resources are designed to be general in nature and should be checked against state-specific legal resources.

Basic Legal Citation: From Cornell University, this website provides a guide to legal citation.

FindLaw: This website provides vast general legal information and resources to help find and choose lawyers.

Law.com: Hosted by ALM, this website provides access to legal news and information including award-winning national and regional legal publications online, including The American Lawyer, The National Law Journal, New York Law Journal and Legal Times.

Law Guru: This site provides access to generic legal forms and legal research tools.

Legal Information Institute: Sponsored by Cornell University Law School, LII provides access to legal research resources.

Nolo: An online companion to their print legal resources, this website provides information related to business and human resources, wills and estate planning, patents and copyrights, property and money, and family law and immigration.

State Lawyer Licensing Databases: This website provides links to the agencies that governs legal licensing in each state.

Rules of Procedures: This website provides PDF access to the rules of Civil, Criminal, Bankruptcy, and Appellate procedures for the federal court system.

Self Representation (Pro Se): From the National Center for State Courts, this website provides links to pro se resource for every state except South Carolina. It also has links to pro se resources for federal courts and the District of Columbia.

US Supreme Court Cases: This website provides full text access to Supreme Court cases dating from 1791 to Present.

The Virtual Chase: This website provides access to a comprehensive guide to legal research.

For information related to more specific legal topics, checkout Nolo, which publishes great layman's legal guides on topics such as dog law, renter's rights, neighbor law, and divorce.

Happy Researching.

Here’s to Your Health: Free Health and Medical Resources Online

2007-07-21T14:31:00.001-07:00

There is some information you don’t want to get by just Googling and hoping for the best—health and medical information is at the top of the “No Googling” list. After all, when it comes to your health, you want to find the most credible information possible.

If you are absolutely dedicated to Googling all your information needs, at the very least check out MedlinePlus: Evaluating Health Information.

If you would like to find out about some helpful and credible health and medical resources, please, read on.

I recently attended “Beyond an Apple a Day: Providing Consumer Health Services in the Public Library” sponsored by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. I have compiled a list of some of the free health and medical resources they pointed out during the seminar.

Before we get started, just one piece of official business.
Disclaimer: The resources listed in this post are meant to serve as tools for information gathering, and should never be used in lieu of or as a replacement for the opinions or recommendations of a physician or health care professional.

General Databases:

HealthFinder is maintained by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. This site contains a health library, an encyclopedia, an online checkup, a drug interaction checker, and health care information.

MedlinePlus is maintained by the National Library of Medicine. All its topics are linked to credible resources on each subject. It includes an encyclopedia, dictionary, drug database, several directories, and current news items.

NIH Health Information is maintained by the National Institute of Health. It provides an extensive collection of information on health and medical topics. It also provides categorized health topics such as Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Senior Health, and Minority Health.

Resources Related to Medical and Health Treatments:

ClinicalTrials.gov provides information on federal and private clinical research projects. The site provides information on research specifics and qualifications for participating in each trial.

DrugDigest.org provides information on pharmaceuticals and herbal supplements. The information is geared both towards patients and medical professionals.

MedlinePlus: Drugs and Supplements provides an extensive catalog of in-depth information on pharmaceutical drugs and herbal supplements. The Herbal Supplements section also provides research-based grades on how well supplements actually perform as treatments for common prescriptions.

NCCAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Healing) is a part of the National Institute of Health. It provides information about alternative and complementary treatment and therapies.

PatientInformation.org provides information about research currently being conducted about the treatment and diagnosis of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. The information provided comes directly from the American Cancer Society, The American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association.

Directories of Physicians, Hospitals, and Health Organizations

AMA Doctor Finder is maintained by the American Medical Association. It allows users to search for doctors by name, state, and/or specialty. Each listing contains the practice and educational information of each physician.

DIRLINE is a part of the National Library of Medicine. It contains over 8400 listings of support groups, educational institutions, government agencies, advocacy groups, and research organizations specializing in a vast array of health and medical topics.

MedlinePlus Directories is a large searchable directory of physicians and dentists. The directory also contains hospitals and other health care provider listings.

Health Hotlines is a toll-free phone directory created by the National Library of Medicine. The hotline provides toll-free contact information for health organizations.

Hospital Compare was created through an alliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), along with the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA). The website “provides you with information on how well the hospitals in your area care for all their adult patients with certain medical conditions.”

Miscellaneous Resources

Genetics Home Reference is a part of the National Library of Medicine. It provides “consumer information about genetic conditions and the genes or chromosomes related to those conditions.”

Healia Health Search Engine is a search engine specializing in indexing and searching health and medical related websites.

PubMed is a free archive of life science journals. It provides free access to health and medical related articles.

State Health Facts “is a project of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and is designed to provide free, up-to-date, and easy-to-use health data on all 50 states."

WebMD Symptom Checker is a resource provided through WebMD. It allows users to click on the specific body parts of an avatar and answer questions about symptoms in order to provide possible causes of the symptoms. As the website is careful to point out, “This tool does not provide medical advice It is intended for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.”

These are just a few of the many credible health and medical resources that can be freely accessed online. To find out about more great resources, visit Consumer Health from the Spencer S. Eccles Sciences Library.

A Note about Microsoft Explorer and The Bunless Librarian

2007-07-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

For those of my wonderful subscribers, bookmarkers, or casual glancers who view The Bunless Librarian using Microsoft Explorer, you may be missing out on the big picture . . . or at the very least some of the little pictures I like to pepper throughout the blog.

It has come to my attention that, on occasion, Microsoft Explorer does not display my banner, my avatar, or images within blog posts properly. I have tried viewing the blog on a few different computers, and the banner seems to be a consistent problem with Explorer, while other images are hit or miss. I have tried to uncover the problem, but have yet to meet with any success.

I personally use Firefox to compose and view this blog and have never had any problems with images. If you do find yourself missing out on the full impact of posts like A Word about . . . The Bun, you might want to consider giving Firefox a try. Though I should note, I have spoken to a few subscribers who use Explorer and they report no problems.

Blog Your Way to a Better Life . . . or at the Very Least, a Better Job.

2007-07-02T17:02:00.001-07:00

By now, you have probably heard at least one or two horror stories about job candidates losing out on employment opportunities after prospective employers perform a quick Google search on said candidate. The story typically climaxes when the employer stumbles onto indecent photos posted on MySpace or onto a blog that documents personal indiscretions that most certainly should have been kept private. The story then abruptly ends with the passed over candidate reviewing his or her polished resume wondering what went wrong.

There is of course a flipside to this negative overexposure: a well crafted online persona can actually increase your employment marketability.

This year, the Wall Street Journal published How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job. The article pointed out that

Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they are also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can't get from résumés and interviews.

The article also points out that although potential employees cannot control all personal information that finds its way onto the Internet, a blog is an effective way to maintain a positive online identity.

Job seekers who blog increase the odds that a potential employer will find information online that the candidate wants to be seen, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant in Washington and the author of "The Corporate Blogging Book," which was published last summer. "Everybody has an online identity whether they know it or not, and a blog is the single best way to control it," she says. "You're going to be Googled. No one hires anyone or buys anything these days without going online first and doing research."

The Blog is the New Resume posted at darowski takes the idea of persona control one step further and points out that a well written and intelligent blog can also demonstrate a potential employee's acumen in the employment field.

Blogging is the perfect way for a candidate to give an employer a more detailed sales pitch—to show they can “talk the talk” (as opposed to just fill a resume with buzzwords).

In its article The Blog is the New Resume, Bokardo outlines 5 tips to help ensure your blog is an asset to your marketability. These five tips can also be applied to any type of personal social networking pages, online profiles, or websites.

1. Your blog represents you.
Represent! Your blog is speaking for you…is it saying the same thing you would say if you met someone for the first time?

2. Your blog is serious business.
It has the power to completely sway someone’s opinion about you. It fulfills the needs of lurkers everywhere who Google you tosee what kind of person you are.

3. Your blog is an archive.
Your blog is an archive of your life that has its effects over time.

4. Your blog isn’t the only mirror of your life.
Folks are getting savvy to the places that people are building online. Your facebook account, MySpace account, LinkedIn profile, Flickr set…all of these represent you, too. Make sure not that they paint you in an unfailing light, but that they represent you accurately.

5. Your blog is your unedited version of yourself.
Your blog is what you say when there is nobody standing over your shoulder telling you what to do. It demonstrates how you think outside the rules. It is one of the very few places where you have complete editorial control. Don’t take that for granted.

If you don’t have a blog, and are not ready to dive into the blogosphere, Computer World's Web Anonymity Can Sink Your Job Search suggests that you start participating in message boards or social networking communities that have a focus in your potential employment field. Submit meaningful, intelligent posts and responses, and ensure that all posts are linked back to an online profile you wish your potential employers to view.

For more helpful tips on cultivating a positive online persona visit

The Blog is the New Resume (darowski)
The Blog is the New Resume (Bokardo)
Web Anonymity Can Sink Your Job Search
Why You May Need an Online Persona from Web Worker Daily

Happy and marketable blogging.

u_u (exasperated) . . . Just When You Thought You Had a Handle on Emoticons

2007-06-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

"u_u . . . What the heck does u_u mean?" This is the thought process I recently had during a chat conversation when this unknown breed of emoticon ended up in one of my chat conversations. It seems that the standard :), :(, or even the :'( is not always intricate or expressive enough to truly capture the vast array of human emotions found in a chat, instant message, or email. To overcome this expressive shortfall, many people have begun using anime emoticons (or as I have officially coined, animicons).

Animicons are emoticons based on the common facial features and expressions used in anime and manga to convey emotion. For example, as A Guide to Anime Emoticons explains, the facial characteristics of an anime character that express happines, the raised eyelids and smile, is translated into the ^_^ animicon. Similarly, the O_O animicon is a representation of wide eyes expressing shock, and the narrowed eyes of a scowl is translated into ~_~.

I have never truly been an emoticon, type of girl. I use the standard :( or :) occasionally, but that is about the extent of my emoticon literacy. I know a few of the jazzier emoticons such as >:-( ( annoyed) or :") (embarrassed), but a connoisseur, I am not.

I have to admit that I have found the animicons to be more expressive and easier to decipher than standard emoticons. Their horizontal arrangement also cuts down nicely on the nasty neck strain from tilting your head trying to read the old sideways emoticons. Overall, I think animicons are a marked improvement and offer a better way to articulate emotion during online communication.

For a nice guide to animicons, their derivative anime characteristics, and their meanings, visit the Anime Emoticon Guide. If you need to freshen up on standard emoticons, visit NetLingo: Smileys and Emoticons.

Happy and expressive chatting!

A Word about . . . The Bun

2007-06-01T12:06:00.001-07:00

It occurred to me that the name of this blog might suggest that I am, in some way, anti-bun; that I have some type of deep-seated gripe against the actual hairstyle itself. This could not be further from the truth. I am, in fact, a great fan of the bun. I find it to be a nice, easy hairstyle, and it’s great for the gym. It is true that I am a “bunless librarian,” but to be honest, I could quite fittingly be called a “ponytail librarian,” and lets be honest, the ponytail is just the unruly little sister of the bun. Not to mention, a lot of really great chicks rocked the bun.

Although the bob was Dana Scully’s preferred hairstyle, she was known to rock the bun.

Well . . . one bun

and a French twist.

Eva Peron rocked the bun . . . well technically the bun-esque chignon. Yes, she was a fascist, but she sure could sing.

Virginia Woolf rocked the bun. Just try to find a picture of this lady without a bun.

Gloria Steinem sporadically rocked the bun. OK so it may be a ponytail, but like we said . . . the unruly little sister.

Mrs. Smith rocked the bun like a rock star.

Elizabeth I rocked the bun and the five-head!

Marie Antoinette rocked the bun . . . well . . . a beehive . . . or is it a pompadour?

And finally, you can’t talk about buns without mentioning the greatest bun of the 24th century! Captain Janeway rocked the bun of steel.

So yes, I may be bunless in my professional persuasion, but for the record . . . long live the bun!

No Time for the Classics? Read Great Literature in Fun Size Snippets through Your Email or RSS Feeds

2007-05-21T14:28:00.000-07:00

If you’re like me, most likely all those hefty classic novels like A Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, and Anna Karenina are constantly being shifted to the bottom of the “to read” stack on your nightstand. I am, of course, very well intentioned when I take the dusty hardbacks off the library shelf. My intent is always to finally tackle the revered piece of literature. Unfortunately the inevitable outcome is that as the classics slowly climb toward the top of the pile, new fiction and nonfiction are tossed onto the top of the stack leaving the “greats” to languish for three weeks and then be cruelly tossed into the dark depths of the library's book return bin. The good news is Daily Lit has come up with a solution for those of us that just cannot seem to fit the classics into our daily sit-down-and-read schedule.

Daily Lit is a free service that breaks down great works of literature into small manageable chunks and sends them to you in daily emails or RSS feeds.

How it Works:
DailyLit sends books in installments via e-mail [and now RSS feeds]. DailyLit currently offers over 250 classic public domain titles that can be subscribed to and read in their entirety for free. Readers can choose how often and at what time they want the e-mails [or RSS feeds] sent to them (e.g. every weekday at 6:30am). Books on DailyLit can be read any place that a reader receives e-mail, including on a PDA, Blackberry, Trio, etc. Each installment of a book can be read in under 5 minutes, and if a reader is done with a particular installment, a reader can receive the next installment immediately in his/her e-mail Inbox [or RSS aggregate].

Although I am still not a huge fan of reading on a computer screen those things I can easily access and freely read in print, Daily Lit is a good way to slowly hack away at the classics that will otherwise stay buried in my to read stack.

Yes . . . We Still Need Google

2007-05-17T23:31:00.000-07:00

After my April 25^th post, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google and my May 12^th post We Still Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google. I thought I should show Google a little love. After all, it is the search engine of choice for most people and if you are not an ultra power searcher, Google will fulfill most, if not all, of your needs.

If you are ready to take your Google searching to the next level, try out these two new search interfaces.

Simply Google has taken all of the great secondary search features of Google and put them into one easy to navigate webpage. This website contains individual search boxes for all of Google’s great specialized search options.

One of the strengths of Google (google.com) is that it is not a multifunction site like MSN and Yahoo; Google is what it says it is—a search engine. Users do no have to navigate a lot of other distracting content in order to find and use its search box. Google puts its search engine right out on the front porch. However, one of Google’s weaknesses is that it ONLY puts its basic search out on the front porch. Most users are not even aware of the advanced search features, let alone Google’s impressive list of specialized searches. Simply Google solves this problem nicely.

Note: Simply Google is NOT an official Google product; it was designed and is maintained by Usability Views.

Get first hand experience with some of Google’s experimental new features and functions with SearchMash. This search interface is essentially Google’s testing ground for its search engine.

Bates Info Services explains,

You have almost all the search functionality of the regular Google web search; phrase searching works, as do the usual Boolean operators, and format and field limiters, although there is no advanced search page on SearchMash. And don't look for any sponsored links; there is no advertising on this beta search site.

But what sets it apart is the search results page. For starters, SearchMash sorts the results into web pages, images, blogs, videos, and Wikipedia entries, all on one screen.

If you are more of a Yahooer or an Asker, check out their test sites, Alpha Beta (Yahoo), and Ask X (Ask.com).

To see how Google stacks up against other test bed search engines, check out this extremely informative review at Read/Write Web.

Also, if you are a Yahoo-phile, you might enjoy CNET’s Yahoo says 'Been there, done that' to Google redesign

We Still Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google: More Alternative Search Engine Resources

2007-05-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

After my April 25^th post We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google, I came across a few more great alternative search engine resources.

About: Web Search just posted its Top Ten Niche Search Engines. USA.gov and Clusty from my previous post made the cut. The other eight are great resources for specialized searching. Each search engine is accompanied by a brief description.

About: Web Search also put together the 100 Search Engines in 100 Days project. Each search engine on this entire list is linked to lengthy and highly informative information about the background, mechanics, and features of the search engine.

Read/Write Web has put together a great list of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines. This list begins with some solid background information on search engine mechanics. One shortcoming is that the size of the list precludes any annotation. Finding your own set of truly useful alternative search engines will take some trial and error.

With a little digging, I was able to find Unusual Search Engines from Search Engine Journal. This post is from 2004, but all except one search engine (ProFusion) is still up and running. This list is worth a look to find some search engines that may have flown under the radar.

More happy, and hopefully precise, searching!

The Thrifty Librarian: A Few Places to Find Free Digital Audio Books/Recordings

2007-05-06T23:11:00.000-07:00

Here are just a few quick resources to help keep a few extra dollars in your pocket. Below is a list of websites that provide access to free downloadable audio books.

LibriVox provides free access to a large collection of digital audio recordings of public domain books, stories, and plays.

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net [via Libivox.org]. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.

LibriVox’s audio books are available in MP3 and Ogg Vorbis; it also has its own podcast.

Simply Audio Books provides a very small library of free downloadable audio books as a part of their larger commercial audio book collections. Although this selection is much smaller than LibriVox, the audio books are professional productions unlike LibirVox’s armature/volunteer audio recordings.

Old Time Radio Shows provides free access to hundreds of vintage, old time radio shows. This audio library is provided through Bored.com and offers a wide variety of comedies, dramas, mysteries, variety, westerns, sciFi, superhero, and music. Because these are digital renderings of old radio programs, the sound quality suffers, but overall, this is a great resource for some truly unique and historical radio dramas.

Christian Audio is a commercial provider of Christian and theology-based audio books. Once a month, they select one of their commercial titles that can be downloaded freely.

Free Classic Audio Books has a small library of public domain books that can be downloaded as audio books. Books can be downloaded in MP3 and MP4 (iPod) formats. Some audio books are LibriVox recordings and others are recoded using the latest high quality text to speech voices. This audio library also has a sister services that provides free public domain works that focus on Christianity and theology, Free Christian Audio Books.

Your Local Public Library: If you are looking for audio books beyond public domain “classics” and the occasional promotional freebie, find out if your local library offers downloadable audio books. Many libraries are developing large digital audio book collections that include tons of current popular fiction and nonfiction that you can download for free!

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google: Some Interesting Alternative Search Engines

2007-04-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

With the massive growth of the Internet, many companies are jumping into the search engine pool. While it is hardly an arguable fact that Google is king of the search engine hill, there are many smaller search engines emerging to fill niche searching needs and to improve the search experience. Below are just a few examples.

Ghostly Gateway specializes in searching for information on paranormal topics.

The Ghostly Gateway was set up as an experiment in 2004 as a research tool for our team of ghost hunters called Ghost 2 Ghosts to use for when we needed to research various aspects of the paranormal.
Soon after the launch of the search engine, it became pretty clear that we had a great tool on our hands that the general public & other paranormal investigators could make good use of

UFO Crawler is IBM OmniFind Yahoo! powered search engine that specializes in digging for information on UFO sightings, conspiracy theories, and all things paranormal.

UJIKO is an interactive search engine that changes and grows the more you use it. UJIKO takes the basic search engine and combines it with the type of escalating expertise levels found in most role playing games. Sound confusing? Just give it a try.

Basic principle: each time you visit a new site, you are gaining one point of expertise. With every 10 points, you move to the next level. Your search engine is mutating, new buttons appear giving you access to advanced features (search video, images, news, encyclopedia, advanced filters, animated skins, web archive, traffic details...)
Animated transitions between each level are displayed to show you the new tools, which you have just acquired.
1 new site visited = +1 point of expertise
10 points = +1 level

cRANKy is a search engine specializing in finding information relevant to users over the age of fifty. Some of its most popular search topics are “retirement communities,” “health insurance,” and “jobs after retirement.”

Ms. Dewey: Have you ever wished you could conduct your searches while an annoying and impatient real video avatar jabbers at you on the screen? If so, then meet Ms. Dewey.

ChaCha takes the traditional search engine model and adds an interactive human element. Users can opt to perform searches with the aid of Search Guides. Search Guides will engage in a chat with users and provide links to information relevant to the user’s search request.

Clusty takes the metasearch engine one step further by taking all its search results and grouping similar results into helpful clusters on the right side of the screen.

Clusters help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clusters help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.

Zuula allows users to perform searches on all major search engines through one simple search interface.

Zuula provides the results from your favorite search engine unaltered, so you can check those first and then get results from other search engines simply by clicking on their tabs. If you want to switch back and forth between search engines, Zuula remembers where you were. And Zuula keeps sponsored links (which are paid advertisements) clearly separated from the regular search results.

Pixsy quite simply specializes in searching millions of videos and pictures.

FoodieView is a recipe search engine. The site also provides restaurant guides, cookbook reviews, and cooking resources.

USA.gov is the official search engine for finding United States governmental information.

This list is just a TINY sampling from the enormous world of search engines. To learn more about hundreds of different search engines, visit Search Engine Watch’s Search Engine Directory.

Happy searching!

Twitter Update: On a Positive Note (Lots of People Really Like It . . . but Still Not Me)

2007-04-09T16:11:00.000-07:00

My March 15 post, Joining the Chorus . . . Twitter . . . Eck! really left no doubt about my feelings toward the web 2.0 service du jour, Twitter. While my personal take on the service is still eck, many in the biblioblogosphere have found helpful personal and professional uses for this obsessive compulsive online journal/archive/instant messenger/bullhorn.

The Shifted Librarian proposes libraries set up Twitter accounts in order to create an alert system that could be used to notify subscribing patrons of upcoming library events and new book/AV arrivals.

. . . I think an enterprising library that wants to test out a texting service, especially with teens, could create a free Twitter account and publicize it as an alert notification system. In fact, I think a library could create multiple Twitter accounts and offer a variety of alert services this way. You could text new events to various groups (teens, parents, gamers, homeschoolers, etc.), as well bestseller notifications (Hennepin County Library).

Tinfoil + Raccoon has also discovered that “Twitter is about more than self-absorbed yammering and micro-voyeurism.” It turns out, Twitter is full of more than just swarms of “look-at-me kids,” but a lot of its citizens have a genuine sense of collegiality. Tinfoil + Raccoon discovered that a Twitter SOS can yield some helpful results.

Last night, Juniorette had one of those last-minute projects that all parents dread. ("When were you assigned this?" "Why didn't you ask when it was due?" "You need poster board by when?!") Her topic was on the Blitzkrieg, and she was supposed to incorporate multi-media as part of her presentation. Go aheah [sic]--just do a Google Video or YouTube search for Blitzkrieg. Being the good librarian-mom that I am, I told Juniorette how to narrow her search. She was getting close, but didn't know how to get online streaming video embedded into a PowerPoint.

Meanwhile, I was posting on Twitter asking for ideas when I got a Twitter from a new follower--in La Crosse, no less! He was very helpful, not only with finding footage, but with a suggestion for converting a media URL to a usable file (Zamzar).

David Lee King has also come up with ten positive uses for Twitter such as using it as a personal note bucket, gathering news updates, and keeping up-to-date with emerging tools.

This is just a small sampling of many of the ideas and opinions about Twitter in the biblioblogosphere . To browse hundreds of Twitter-related blog posts, check out LisZen.

I still don’t like Twitter as an online feed into my daily life and thought processes, but I will surely concede that there are some positive possibilities for this new service, and that . . . well . . . my chorus is smaller than I thought.

Turn Eye-straining ebooks into Custom Paperbacks

2007-04-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

If you like the convenience and accessibility of ebooks, but don’t like the eye strain and limited mobility of reading them on a computer screen, there is a simple solution to your dilemma—turn your ebooks into inexpensive, custom paperbacks you can take and read anywhere.

Achieve-IT! has put together an easy book binding tutorial called Fun and Easy How to Guide to Binding Your Own Paperback Books At Home…FAST.

This [book binding] process involves just a few basic steps, no sewing, or doing mini-binds (otherwise called signatures). The most time consuming part of this process is just waiting for glue to dry.

Simply cut and paste your ebook into a word document and follow the simple steps of the tutorial.

If your ebook is on the shorter side, you might want to skip the paperback binding process and simply print your ebook in booklet format. Here are a few resources to help you print great booklets:

Macros for Booklet Printing

Create a Booklet

How to create a foldover booklet in Word for Mac

These tutorials are Microsoft specific, but most word processing programs will have similar printing options.

A Note of Caution:
Booklet printing is much better suited for short texts. When the booklet formatting and printing process is applied to long texts, the binding process is much more complex. This is because the order the pages are printed in is designed to create a foldover booklet not a sequential set of pages. When printing books, two-sided printing is by far the simplest method.

If hardbacks are more your style, you might want to consider combining the Achieve-IT! binding process with the Novel Novel concept mentioned in this blog’s March 25^thpost, A Novel Idea for Novels: Revamping Old Discards.

The Thifty Librarian: Beyond Project Gutenberg: More Places to Find Free ebooks

2007-03-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Project Gutenberg began in 1971 when University of Illinois student, Michael Hart envisioned the ubiquitous future of the Internet and began the process of creating freely available ebook versions of public domain works of literature. It has since grown into a vast digital archive containing over 20,000 free ebooks which can be accessed through plain text downloads or read online in a browser.

Although Project Gutenberg is the oldest and arguably the best known and heavily used (non-illegal) source for free ebooks, new digital libraries are rapidly beginning to encroach on its territory.

The Encroachers:
ReadPrint: A free virtual library which contains thousands of free books for students, teachers, and the classic enthusiast to read online.

The Literature Network: This website offers access to 1,213 books, and 3,058 poems and short stories written by 259 different authors.

ManyBooks: A web service which provides on demand access to ebooks that can be used on PDAs, iPods and e-readers.

Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts: An online catalog of close to 20,000 pieces of American and English Literature that are in the public domain.

Bibliomania: This website offers free access to over 2,000 works of fiction, drama, poetry, short stories, and interviews.

The Annex: This truly entertaining site offers up hundreds, if not thousands of amateur, novel-length fan fiction that continues the stories of Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The Annex offers a wide range of genres including, action, drama, comedy, and of course, romance. The Annex is a great free library for any X-Phile who still mourns the loss of The X-Files. For an even larger repository of short to novel length X-Files fan fiction, check out The Gossamer Project.

The digital libraries listed above, with the exception of The Annex and The Gossamer Project, focus their services on providing e-book versions of classical works of fiction and nonfiction that are within the public domain. However, they are just a TINY sampling of the hundreds of websites that offer access to free ebooks. Many other services provide free access to unpublished, contemporary works that are not bound by copyright restrictions. For more comprehensive lists of free e-book providers, visit Free Books, The Internet Public Library, and refdesk.

Although we have not come to the point in our technological history when e-readers and e-paper have replaced print books, ebook libraries are always good reference resources to keep in mind. Sites like the ones listed in this post can be a lifesaver when local book clubs or entire grades of English classes are assigned classical texts. Ebooks give libraries the ability to provide free access to requested books when the shelves have been picked clean by early birds. So remember to think of ebooks when the inevitable procrastinator comes clamoring to the library looking for a last-minute copy of The Scarlet Letter.

If you like the idea of having an entire library of ebooks at your fingertips, but don’t like the idea of reading entire novels on a computer screen, stay tuned for an upcoming post that will teach you how to take your ebooks and turn them into paperbacks.

A New Challenger to the Wikipedia Throne: Citizendium Beta Finally Released

2007-03-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

Wikipedia's credibility has come under more fire as of late. The New York Times reported that a professor of history at Middlebury College banned the citation of Wikipedia after several students cited erroneous information found on Wikipedia during exams. It also suffered a more public blow to its credibility when Stephen Colbert demonstrated the vulnerability of an open wiki by adding absurd, yet hysterical entries to Wikipedia articles during his satirical news show, The Colbert Report. Meanwhile, in the midst of all this negative publicity, the cofounder and former editor-in-chief of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger has been quietly creating a new wiki encyclopedia called Citizendium that seeks to address and overcome the credibility issues of Wikipedia.

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a "citizens' compendium of everything," is an open wiki project aimed at creating an enormous, free, and reliable encyclopedia.

Citizendium has recently been released in beta.

Citizendium still has the same open submission process as Wikipedia, but contributors must register with their real names and all articles are overseen by editorial boards and constables.

Editors: Editors have the right to make (or work together with other editors in making) plans, policies, and decisions for particular articles, and eventually will have the right to designate particular versions of articles as "approved." As a rule of thumb, editors in traditionally "academic" fields will require the qualifications typically needed for a tenure-track academic position in the field, while editors in more "professional" fields require the usual terminal professional degree in the field plus significant experience and publishing.

Constables: A "CZ Constable" is a volunteer who is required to have a bachelor's degree and be "at least 25 years old." These constables (Sanger is one of them) will have the authority to ban inappropriate contributors.

Citizendium currently has over 1,000 articles, but many have not been given the “approved” or “certified” status granted after editorial review and approval. All unapproved articles are clearly labeled and are not yet recommended for use as a reliable information source.

Although Citizendium has gone to great lengths to limit inaccurate information and article vandalism, the Fundamental Policies of the project states, “The Citizendium will be a wiki. Edits will not be required to be approved by editors before appearing on the wiki.” This obviously still leaves Citizendium open to some article vandalism perpetrated by brazen users willing to besmirch their own good names. However, the constables’ ability to ban such no-goodniks should limit them to a single blaze of graffiti glory.

Although it has yet to be seen if Citizendium can maintain an open wiki encyclopedia with an authoritative level of credibility, it is certainly a resource worth keeping an eye on.

Ironically, for more information about Citizendium, visit Wikipedia 's article or I suppose . . . Citizendium itself.

A Novel Idea for Novels: Revamping Old Discards

2007-03-25T23:35:00.000-07:00

I have to admit up front, this is going to be a pretty low-tech post. When I'm not cruising the information superhighway, I am a youth services librarian who is constantly on the lookout for new activities for library programs.

Today I came across a great idea for recycling those stacks of old library books slated for discard. The Novel Novel creates journals using old books by removing the pages and using binding glue to insert new blank paper. Although The Novel Novel sells these journals, a library could easily and pretty cheaply use this idea during a family program.

I had seen a similar project used to create writing notebooks for a teen creative writing club. However, the writing notebooks left the original pages intact and the young poets simply scribbled over the original text. This method is certainly much simpler, but also leaves room for concern about just what kind of content the original pages might contain. The Novel Novel approach eliminates those concerns, which is extremely helpful if this project is used with children.

Although the process might take longer than the creative writing notebooks, it should still be fairly simple and fast if it is done beforehand. Any librarian who has had to mend broken book spines knows it is just a matter of a few slices along the internal hinges and a hard tug to the pages and voila you have a pageless book that is ready to be turned into a journal, notebook, scrapbook, or the ever-popular Mother's Day gift. Finally a bowl full of shiny and messy craft supplies would offer some truly unique personalization options. The Novel Novel journals provide a great crafting opportunity while also saving some good books from the dreaded discard bin.

Joining the Chorus . . . Twitter . . . Eck!

2007-03-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

I had heard about Twitter some time ago, but instinctively kept myself from yanking out the bobby pins and diving feet first into this web 2.0 creation; there was just something about this new "service" that kept it relegated to the bottom of my "to try" pile. Today, prompted by John Blyberg's denouncement and the flurry of anti-Twitter blog posts that followed, I finally joined the teeming masses on Twitter in order to judge this service for myself.

7 minutes into the Twitter experience, I pulled up stakes and left the fold for good. Perhaps it is my inherent loner/hermit/introvert nature which shutters at the thought of granting strangers or even family and friends access to the everyday minutia of my life. I don't particularly want my friends and family to know that for 3 hours on a Saturday night I watched X-Files fan videos on YouTube only to be followed by 2 hours of searching every search engine known to man for updates on the fabled X-Files 2 movie. I prefer to keep my geekdom to myself; I am selfish that way.

I can see a few practical applications for this service. The archive would allow me to keep a detailed documentation of my work activities, which might come in handy around performance evaluation time, but I already have the slightly less invasive Google Notebook for that.

All in all, I really just don't care that StarGrrll23 is "waiting for a call from Davey." Or that DarkQuest3 is "increasing his spellcasting rating by five points." I mean after all, who the heck are StarGrrll23 and DarkQuest3 anyway?

LibraryThing

2007-03-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

I finally joined the growing world of LibraryThing. I am NocturnalLibrarian (yes eventually I will settle on a universal screen name. My personal library is still pretty meager, but it is growing.

So far I have been unimpressed with the community aspects of the service. The groups function more like a jumble of responses to a single post than really functional message boards. I have yet to discover how to respond directly to posts made by other users. Mostly members just post at the bottom of the long list of repsonses things like "Hey Message # 36. I like that book too, but it was a little long for my taste." This is certainly not the best way to communicate in an open forum.

I am still working out how this service will benefit me beyond reminding me which books I have already read and if I liked them or not. I have checked out a few recommendations and will soon discover if LibraryThing can be used as an effective reader’s advisory tool.

Welcome to The Bunless Librarian

2007-03-22T00:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The Bunless Librarian. We are all about ripping those old, stereotypical bobby pins right out of our 20th century buns! The Bunless Librarian is dedicated to letting our buns down and jumping feet first into the technological, virtual, and online environment that is the 21st century.

The Bunless Librarian

Nerd Up Your Christmas with ThinkGeek

More Good Times with Grammar

USB Dead Drops are Awesome . . . in Theory

Tweenlight: The Simpsons Take on Twilight

Become a Library Book Sale Superstar

Celebrate Huluween!

Quite Possibly the Most Unsettling EVP You've Ever Heard*

Big Thrills and Chills on the Small [Computer] Screen

Creepiest Dip Bowl Ever!

How Do You Laptop?

Thank's Thanks Apostrophe.Me!

Librarians are Like Biker Gangs

Halloween 2010: Impress with Your Very Own Big Head

11 Things to Do with Your Leftover Halloween Candy

Top Ten Music Videos for Halloween Night

Celebrate Huluween!

Take a Drive Down One of America's Creepiest Roads

The Cure for the Common Jack-O'-Lantern 2.0

I Can Hear the Fangirl Hysteria from Here

Library Awesomeness

You are Choice

It Isn't Irish. It's Italian: Author Name Pronunciation Guide

Sarah has Dysentery

All of 2008's Musical Goodness Crammed into One Awesome Music Video

A Response to "How You Blog and Confidence Levels"

Say It Ain't So WebbAlert. Say it Ain't So!

American Adults are Reading More. Wait . . . . Whaaaaat?!

How Do You Blog?

Say It Ain't So, Google. Say It Ain't So!

Getting Older Has Some Definite Benefits, for Rizzle (or Shizzle?)

Find Great Horror Films This Halloween Season

Give Your Trick-or-Treaters a Good Scare

Last Minute Halloween Costume Ideas

Zombies: The Coming Plague and How to Survive It

Thorax Cake and Other Revolting Halloween Recipes

The Scariest Places in America and How to Find Them

The Cure for the Common Jack-O'-Lantern

Technically, I Read It: In Praise of Skimming

The Reader's Advisory Secret Weapon: The Read-Alike

Librarianship and the Loss of Sanctuary

When Should You Give a Blog the Boot?

The Bunless Librarian Takes a Field Trip

Get All Your Favorite Book Lists in One Fell Swoop

Become a Firefox 3 Power User

I Wish I Were Making This Up . . . We Probably All Do

One Item All Libraries Should Offer

BTDTGTTSAWIO <-- Have No Idea What that Means? AOL Has the Dictionary for You

Is Your Library Card a Collectible?

Legally Download Copyrighted eBooks . . . for Free!

The Salt Lake City Public Library Selects a New Director

The Bunless Librarian is One Year Old

Improve Your Web Search Skills in 13 Easy Lessons

One More Reason to Shake Your Fist at the Bush Administration

Avoid Linguistic Blunders with The Eggcorn Database

Possibly the Coolest Online Archive Ever!

NetworkSolutions and Registering Your Domain: What You Need to Know

Hassle Yourself into Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions

Boost Your Geek IQ with Geekipedia

Back to Publishing Basics: The Zine

The Perfect Gift for the Eccentric Techie in Your Life

How The Bunless Librarian Scooped American Libraries

Extinguishing the Flames of Burnout

Find the Perfect Read to Satisfy Your Mood

Google Gets Back to What It Does Best . . . Searching

Read Less. Get More.

The Thrifty Librarian: Free Documentary Films Available Online

How to Get Out of Your Speeding Ticket: Free Legal Resources Online

Here’s to Your Health: Free Health and Medical Resources Online

A Note about Microsoft Explorer and The Bunless Librarian

Blog Your Way to a Better Life . . . or at the Very Least, a Better Job.

u_u (exasperated) . . . Just When You Thought You Had a Handle on Emoticons

A Word about . . . The Bun

No Time for the Classics? Read Great Literature in Fun Size Snippets through Your Email or RSS Feeds

Yes . . . We Still Need Google

We Still Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google: More Alternative Search Engine Resources

The Thrifty Librarian: A Few Places to Find Free Digital Audio Books/Recordings

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Google: Some Interesting Alternative Search Engines

Twitter Update: On a Positive Note (Lots of People Really Like It . . . but Still Not Me)

Turn Eye-straining ebooks into Custom Paperbacks