Literature Map (fun!)

Check out this interactive Literature Map - the tourist map of literature. You key in an author name and it shows other authors you might like, or that are similar. You can click on any of those names and keep going. Very fun. I find associative lists endlessly fascinating, since they are reflections of how we classify things -- there's more than just alpha order or LC or Dewey, as we know, so I love looking at other systems of relationships.

It is part of a Literature Site called Gnooks, which has an author recommendation engine too. You type in the names of three authors you like. I typed in Garrison Keillor, Lorna Landvik, and Elizabeth George, and it recommended Jon Hassler. A good recommendation, except I've already read all his books!

Gnooks in turn is part of Gnod, an AI project developed by Marek Gibney. Here's what Gibney says about Gnod:

Gnod is my experiment in the field of artificial intelligence. Its a self-adapting system, living on this server and 'talking' to everyone who comes along. Gnods intention is to learn about the outer world and to learn 'understanding' its visitors. This enables gnod to share all its wisdom with you in an intuitive and efficient way. You might call it a search-engine to find things you don't know about.

Gnod has recommendation engines for music, books, movies, and people.

90 Strong

I'm not in the library these days; I just started a job scoring standardized writing tests. There are 90 people in my group, and we all take breaks and lunches at the same time! As a library sub, I usually take breaks and eat alone--having someone else in the break room was a treat.

What a change!

Medieval Help Desk Video

Too funny! From the 23 Things on a Stick Ning.


Find more videos like this on 23 Things on a Stick

Goodbye until September 15

I don't post as often to this blog as I do to Paper Baubles. Most of my sub info and queries go directly to our wiki (Librarian Substitutes 2.0).

I'm racing to finish 23 Things on a Stick by the deadline of September 15, so I won't be posting here at all for the next few weeks.

See you after the 15th!

Mindset List 2008

It's almost fall, and the annual Beloit Mindset list is out. Beloit publishes this list to help college faculty and staff understand the world from the frosh perspective.

This year's list includes:

Gas stations have never fixed flats, but most serve cappuccino.

Girls in head scarves have always been part of the school fashion scene.

WWW has never stood for World Wide Wrestling.

Click the clipmarks icon (clipped from www.beloit.edu) to read the whole funny and enlightening list.

And a shoutout to Evan, class of 2012!

clipped from www.beloit.edu The class of 2012 has grown up in an era where computers and rapid communication are the norm, and colleges no longer trumpet the fact that residence halls are “wired” and equipped with the latest hardware. These students will hardly recognize the availability of telephones in their rooms since they have seldom utilized landlines during their adolescence. They will continue to live on their cell phones and communicate via texting. Roommates, few of whom have ever shared a bedroom, have already checked out each other on Facebook where they have shared their most personal thoughts with the whole world.

Ex Libris 2.0

Gratia Countryman on Outreach

I took a look at Kate Roberts' "Minnesota 150; the people, places, and things that shape our state," (2007) and found Gratia Countryman among the 150. The book quotes a 1935 Minneapolis Journal article, as follows:

"Minneapolis loves and honors Gratia Countryman most because she traveled and tramped its streets in the early days to study the reading needs of each of its little outlying districts; because she has had thought for the bedbound, the povertybound, and trouble-bound, and has offered them her greatest solace, books; because she has believed and still believes that taking books to people who need them is her job; because she does that job with the sympathetic understanding which makes a book a benediction."

Something to think about as we consider cutting the Children's Readmobile and some of the Outreach programs.