Just for fun...

I found this from one of my Facebook Friends. I got three results, which do you think I really am? I kind of like the middle one, but I know some folks who would argue for the first or last one...after "unassigned" offers a lot of possibilities!!

A.

Michael Golrick's Dewey Decimal Section:
803 Dictionaries & encyclopedias
Michael Golrick = 39381527528931 = 393+815+275+289+31 = 1803

Class:
800 Literature

Contains:
Literature, criticism, analysis of classic writing and mythology.

What it says about you:
You're a global, worldly person who wants to make a big impact with your actions. You have a lot to tell people and you're good at making unique observations about everyday experiences. You can notice and remember details that other people think aren't important.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

B.

Michael Golrick's Dewey Decimal Section:
877 Latin humor & satire
Michael Golrick's birthday: 9/24/1953 = 924+1953 = 2877

Class:
800 Literature

Contains:
Literature, criticism, analysis of classic writing and mythology.

What it says about you:
You're a global, worldly person who wants to make a big impact with your actions. You have a lot to tell people and you're good at making unique observations about everyday experiences. You can notice and remember details that other people think aren't important.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

And...C

Michael Golrick's Dewey Decimal Section:
013 [Unassigned]

Class:
000 Computer Science, Information & General Works

Contains:
Encyclopedias, magazines, journals and books with quotations.

What it says about you:
You are very informative and up to date. You're working on living in the here and now, not the past. You go through a lot of changes. When you make a decision you can be very sure of yourself, maybe even stubborn, but your friends appreciate your honesty and resolve.

Find your Dewey Decimal Section at Spacefem.com

Mid August Links

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is what, 25 or so years old, I wonder what took so long for Final regulations on disability access to libraries and other places issued reported in Library Law Blog, among other places.

Library Society of the World (a sort of anti-ALA) has its second coloring contest (in part to celebrate the end of the summer).

The last couple days, Rory Litwin of Library Juice, Library Juice Press, and Litwin Books (among other ventures and adventures) has been waxing philosophically about libraries and librarianship. On August 18, he ruminates about standards and accreditation. The next day he wrote A Brief Note about Libraries and Elitism. Both are well worth a read.

Bobbie Newman (librarian and writer at both Librarian by Day and Libraries and Transliteracy) has a thoughtful post on the role of control in the age of social networks. [I found it fascinating since my daughter has just taken a new job where social media is part of what she does. She even gave me permission to tell her when I notice something...]

Brian Herzog (a librarian in Massachusetts) has an interesting blog: Swiss Army Librarian. There are two recent posts which caught my attention: the "Reference Question of the Week" in July and dealt with Postal Service and address changes, and a Checklist Reference Desk Manifesto. The first reflects an notable federal government attitude/policy where some things are free online and others cost, while the paper process is free. Address changes is one. Filing income taxes is another. As of this past filing season, you could file for free if your income was low enough, if you were too high, you had to pay to file electronically (even though electronic filing saves the government money). Where is the logic? The second....is on my list for work.

I just loved this Illustrated Guide to a PhD, especially since getting a PhD in LIS was a topic in the car this morning.

One of my new guilty pleasures is reading Will Manley, daily, at his new blog!

ALA Midwinter 2010 - Thoughts and Regrets

This is long overdue. It was a very interesting conference which included moving hotels suddenly, and therefore being further away from the Convention Center than I would have liked.

On the plus side, we had a chance to meet up with some of our non-library friends who live in and near the city. One upside of the hotel move, was that it was only about a 15 minute walk to the apartment of one set of friends. (And it is a spectacular apartment.)

My regrets -- I was not at OCLC Blog Salon, and therefore missed having a chance to chat with my library friends as much as I would have liked.

It was cold, it was snowy. It felt good to get home!

Miscellaneous Library Links & comments

I haven't posted library stuff in a bit. With my new work schedule, I get up before dawn and drive through the dawn (actually, these days, dawn happens while I am still getting ready) to Baton Rouge, hitting the heavy in-bound traffic around 7:30. After a day at work (no blogging there, please) , I hit the road, and the traffic, at about 4:30. If I am lucky, I get back home by 6:15 or so. Then it is dinner and catching up, and bed fairly early -- 9 pm most nights. So, hence the lacunae.

I have been adding tabs to my Firefox windows both at home and work. It is time to clean them up in a miscellaneous post.

Four new search engines to keep an eye on.

ARRA funds for libraries This is an interesting post from Jeff Scott which focuses more on broadband funding in the Recovery Act. He has done some good work here.

Libraries need more Internet speed. Related to the link above, here is the ALA press release about the need for more speed.

Smartphones versus handsets. This is an interesting article on sales trends. I have a feeling reading articles like this that I am not making full use of what is available on my current device (which I HATE!)

Books born digital. Interesting LJ article about trends in book publishing and the trends that librarians need to follow.

Kindle2 and speech software. This is an interesting take on the Kindle debate and the Authors Guild' successful push to get Amazon to disable the speech abilities of the Kindle. If you know someone who is blind, but computer proficient you may well wonder, as I do, what the big deal is. Speech software is nowhere near the same as a book read by a person. (And since I am now a huge listener, I do know!)

For fun. This is from a local public library blog which has a link to a web site which has a video for each of the elements in the periodic table. I love it!

Library leadership and changes. Stephen Abram of Sirsi/Dynix picked this up on his travels. It is a great article which I suggest you click through and save the PDF. Stephen does a great job. The seven imperatives of library leadership may yet get a full post from me.

In library news:

Stupid Library Tricks. This is a great story of bureaucracy run amok! [Thanks again, Stephen.]

Bad news about salaries. I know that library administrators sometimes take a beating on salaries. This LJ article notes both the flatness of the library organization in Seattle, and our cost effectiveness compared with other departments.

The Law of Unintended Consequences, Oprah and KFC. My friend Jessamyn does a great summary here. Last Saturday (May 16, ten days after Jessamyn wrote), I was in a local KFC where they were STILL handing out rain checks for the grilled chicken. (I am glad I wasn't planning on eating grilled chicken!)

Twitter and Libraries. There is a great, link-rich post about how to effectively use Twitter.

Extreme Customer Service. Great article by David Lee King about a library that I knew fairly well in Connecticut. I haven't been there in a number of years, but the philosophy of extreme customer service is one that Library Director Louise Berry has espoused for many years.

Google Books Settlement. I forget where I picked up this link, and I have read a some about the settlement. This is an interesting article about Internet Archive and its view.

That's the wrap-up for now. [And I started this post two days ago, and it took until today to get it up.]

Food and Language

It has been a bit, and I have posts perking. The next of which will explain the lacunae.

I bought my lunch today at a downtown Baton Rouge sandwich shop. The menu got me to thinking. I got the "Tuna Salad Po' Boy" (only because I had not noticed that they have a pastrami one!).

What is a "po' boy"? The Wikipedia entry says:

A po' boy (also po-boy, po boy, or poor boy) is a traditional submarine sandwich from Louisiana. It almost always consists of meat or seafood, usually fried, served on baguette-like Louisiana French bread.

It goes on to talk about bread, etc.

It seems to me that while in a large number of restaurants, the definition above is correct, it does not seem to be universally true in Louisiana today. My sandwich was on the same type of bread as a sandwich from Subway, or Quiznos, or any number of "mom and pop" sandwich shops. And while I would count tuna salad as meat, and certainly pastrami, neither of those is fried.

I have seen "Italian po' boys" offered which are little different than what I grew up with being called a "grinder." In the New York area, it would have been called a "Hero" (different from a Gyro which is pronounced the same). It is also the same as a "Sub" (and that is the origin of the Subway chain, founded in my former home-town of Bridgeport CT). Indeed, Wikipedia bears this out.

[I guess if I were really inspired, I'd segue into the milkshake/frappe/cabinet discussion...but I need to run.]

Leadership Eau Claire and Humor

Today was the April day for Leadership Eau Claire. It was "Media Day." We visited the local newspaper plant, a local TV station, one of the local radio station groups, and heard from media experts at UWEC. Going from one to another, we went by school bus. To entertain us on the bus, one of the members of the class entertained us with his accordion. Here is a clip.




[Added 5/2/2008]

Look for photos on Flickr soon! [Done!!]

Talk Like a Pirate Day

Avast, mateys! Today is the day. One of my staff has been pushing this, and has sent two sites:

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

and

Pirate Treasure (a place to buy "stuff).

Have fun!

Additional info!

The wonderful Wikipedia article!