adventures and observations of a librarian in olympia wa

Google just rolled out Social Search, a new experiment in providing better or more relevant results. You join the experiment through google.com/experimental  In addition to the usual results, if you click the “show options” link at the top of the search results page, you’ll see an option for Social. This separates out just the results from your circle of friends (that Google knows about).

Yet another step on the road to world domination!

Here’s something I love: I love all the new words. Pwned. Squicked. Knollish. Words are great. There can never be enough of them.

Here’s something I hate: the emoticon. I don’t understand why the same words if written in a letter will easily convey the writer’s intention, but if written in an email require the punctuation of a happy face. I’m not arguing that this isn’t the case. I’ve watched it happen many times; most of the email dust-ups I’ve been involved in started because something meant as a joke was taken as serious comment. So I see the emoticons are useful. And still I loathe them. Nor do I like LOL, ROFL, 4EVA, and the rest of that ilk. A cliché is still a cliché, no matter how quickly you deliver it.

I love the blogs, but only the blogs I love and only if I don’t have to do one myself.

Yes! Very well put!

The rest is here: http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=6241#more-6241

On the same day, Clark had packaged seven books to ship out — paying all the postage personally — though he said both the incoming and outgoing stacks were smaller than average. Web sites make it possible. Clark has 800 books listed on www.bookmooch.com, 1,500 on www.swaptree.com and 2,500 on www.paperbackswap.com. He keeps a wish list of items he’s looking for, as do librarians and individuals all over the world. Computers do the matching.

In an era when any publicly funded institution has to spend wisely, Clark manages to make a lot out of a little. His annual buying budget of $4,400 comes from donations, grants, and proceeds from the library’s endowment. His salary and other operating expenses are covered by contributions from the towns of Hartland, St. Albans and Palmyra.

Very cool story about a library doing a lot with not much of a budget at all!

www.freelibrary.org/closing/“>A sad and shocking statement about the closing of all branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia from President and Director Siobhan Reardon.

We deeply regret to inform you that without the necessary budgetary legislation by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, the City of Philadelphia will not have the funds to operate our neighborhood branch libraries, regional libraries, or the Parkway Central Library after October 2, 2009.

Even as we remain hopeful that the State Legislature will act and pass the enabling funding legislation, we wanted to notify all of our customers of this very possible outcome. If you have any questions about impacts to Free Library services, call 215-686-5322, or visit the Free Library of Philadelphia website.

via LISNews: http://lisnews.org/philadelphia_closing_all_its_libraries

Holy crap, I hope the people of Philadelphia get their asses in gear to save their libraries … Good luck, guys!