Impress Your Professor: Twitter... maybe.

Ok go ahead and give me a hard time. It's ok, seriously. I know that back around Halloween I wrote a blog post about blogs and here I am now talking about Twitter. Honestly I had never given much thought to Twitter until today when I read an article about how Google has a Twitter account.

For those of you that are wondering what I'm talking about, Twitter is basically a mini-blog. As if having a blog wasn't enough lets go ahead and have mini blogs. I have a twitter account. I don't usually write anything it's just a great way to cyber stalk people... um... I mean see what your friends are doing. Of course with all new age cyber awesomeness (that is cheap and relatively easy to use) why don't we incorporate it into the library. For anyone that's interested I found a Guide to Twitter in Libraries. I seems like another way for us to get where our users are. What do you think?

Happy Spring Break to all the CUA people!!!

YouTube Tuesday: Lit Quick

Wikipedia Bad?
Most professors don't like it, and here's why.



Kid Teaches Mom
Kids are awesome.

Impress Your Professor: Word!

I was reading through my RSS feeds a few weeks back (Google Reader, you are so addictive) and came across a Wordle of President Obama's Inauguration speech. The word cloud shows that the words he spoke the most were "new" and "nation."

If you've never seen or heard of Wordle, it is a program that creates word clouds based on the prominence of a each word's use. It's one of those new fangled ways of reading. While I will argue that it certainly will not replace reading, it does give and interesting spin on how we can absorb the overly meaning or theme of something. These word clouds are interesting because they break an idea, webpage, or speech down into a single, textual image.

For example, the Wordle below is comprised of the text I cut and pasted from the About SLIS webpage. We are dominated by information.



I suggest inputting your own information and seeing what comes out. Warning, this may be addictive.

YouTube Tuesday: Find it Fast!

I am a Scholar!
Google it, but better.



This Is Why I Love My Public Library
No lies... I really just wanted to post something about zombies.

Impress Your Valentine

Impress your Valentine...

or this one will make you smile...

and especially for people who like cataloging...go to http://libraries.cua.edu and do a Subject Heading search for "love"...you will be thrilled and intrigued!

YouTube Tuesday: Library Love

Loving the Library
In honor of Valentine's Day



Date and Dash
A blind date gone horribly wrong.

Impress Your Professor: New e-book technology on the horizon?

Amazon is expected to unveil the second version of their e-book reader, Kindle, on Monday. The original model sold over half a million units this year alone. What will the new Kindle offer? Some say an updated design --perhaps better keypad and buttons -- and faster page downloads, thanks to improved E Ink technology. There are now 230,000 books available for Kindle--will you be trying out a few?

YouTube Tuesday: Economics

Libraries Save You Money
We all knew this, but it's nice to see our services in the news.



Recess!
The Valhalla of Volumes!

Impress Your Professor: Be a fly on the wall!

Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall? Listening in to conversations? Seeing how people act when they think they're alone? Blend in and not be noticed? Alright spaz, settle down. I don't want anyone getting excited and then being labeled a stalker.

A coworker of mine told me about the website Userfly. Userfly lets you be that fly on the wall when people visit your websites. Userfly will record the movements and mouse clicks of the people visiting your website and then play them back to you. I actually tried it out and was amazed at how easy it was to install and use.

For anyone looking to do some cheap usability testing on their websites I think Userfly is a great place to start!!