The first carnival of the new year brings us reflections of the old year and predictions for the new, plus other attractions including more on the Library 2.0 meme, Ruby on Rails, and a variety of practical tips to try in 2006.

Christina K. Pikas of Christina's LIS Rant gives us a recap of recent documents about reading in electronic environments. Everything Bad, Gorman, Levy, Liu connects the ideas from Everything Bad is Good for You with the Liu article on reading and digital libraries, recent statements by ALA President Michael Gorman, and an older ACM conference presentation about the fragmentation of reading in the digital environment.

The Laughing Librarian found something humorous about the report on internet gender differences by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew! Men are Geeks and Perverts!, in the best Pew tradition, includes a helpful bar chart.

The 'Brary Web Diva has been busy celebrating her library's birthday with special marketing ideas, finding new ways to use e-mail time capsules, and discovering two neat things to do with a Blogger blog: add a comment feed and tagging posts.

The Grumpator looks forward to getting a job in 2006 and provides practical tips for others doing the same.

Rick Roche, aka ricklibrarian, provides advice and reflections on making things last, an important skill when budgets are tight--both at home and at the library. Rick looks at the variety of wear items in the library: books, computers, databases (he has actually weeded one!), furniture, and buildings.

Lindsey in a post on I Like Dust rings out the old year after her first semester of library/archive school with a list of Things I didn't expect from graduate school. The post of mine that Lindsey refers to is How to read a journal article.

Jonathan Weber, another student blogger (blogging at dystmesis), describes the process for choosing and using Ruby on Rails as the underlying software for a library school project. Digital library chugging along on Rails is an excellent introduction to Ruby on Rails and when one might want to use it--it looks like a great way to implement some of those Web 2.0 ideas without having a great deal of programming background. Be sure to click through to the demo--it's quite impressive.

Laura Crosset, lis.dom, gives us a concrete example of low tech library 2.0. If you're missing the picture try this link or scroll down from the main blog page. (That last is the only one that's working for me at the moment--Blogger is not playing nice with pictures just now.) Here's what Meredith Farkas of Information Wants to Be Free had to say about Laura's post as an addendum to her Label 2.0 reflections:

Literally moments after posting this, I saw that Laura Crosset of lis.dom (one of my very favorite blogs) just posted exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. Definitely check out Laura'’s very simple, but very brilliant, idea for reaching teens at her library. Simple, concrete, and something most librarians could replicate. I love it!

• ACRLog pulled together the Top Stories of 2005 for Academic Librarians.


• Michael Stephens at Tame the Web made a list of Nice Wrap Ups for 2005 & Some Predictions that he saw around the Web.


• Karen G. Schneider took a postmodern approach and gave us her January 1, 2007 recap of 2006 at the ALA TechSource blog. Read all the good and bad news yet to come in January 1, 2007: A Fantasia.

Thanks to everyone who submitted posts. Thanks to everyone who visited the first Carnival of 2006. All the details about the Carnival of the Infosciences are gathered at the Carnival wiki. Be sure to visit next week's Carnival at the bibliomaniacal palindrome, TangognaT.     #    (0) comments

2006-01-07

The Carnival is coming!

Have you written anything provocative on your blog in the last few weeks? Have you read a particularly cogent recap of 2005 or prediction for 2006? Submit those blog posts to joy at mollprojects dot com by 6pm CST tomorrow. Watch for the Carnival on Monday morning!     #    (0) comments

2006-01-05

Game on!

I'm taking the gaming continuing education class from Simmons that Beth Gallaway (of the blog Game On: Games in Libraries) is teaching this month.

Today I made nearly a hundred dollars playing Lemonade Stand and I traveled from Independence, Missouri to the west coast on the Oregon Trail using the demo version.

If I were going to get good at these games I would need to do one or more of the following:

• keep track of things by keeping records or writing journal entries


• compare my records and experiences with other people, like classmates


• play the game with a partner

While improving my game, I would also be practicing and learning collaboration, logical thinking, strategic thinking, reading, writing, arithmetic, microeconomics, and (in the case of Oregon Trail) history. Not bad for a game.

Could games take the place of on-line tutorials at library websites?     #    (0) comments

2006-01-04

Being found outside of the biblioblogosphere

One of the questions that was asked about the biblioblogosphere last year was "Who is reading us outside of librarians?" But maybe there's a parallel question that is easier to answer and, possibly, at least as interesting. Do bloggers outside of the biblioblogosphere find us? I know that I've been found at least twice by someone outside the field.

A blog for non-profits liked my Bloglines for Librarians tool with the dummy Bloglines account and proposed that non-profits do something similar for the constituents of their websites. I have no idea how they heard about it.

Today, Bloggers Blog found my post about list-making web sites. I imagine they found it doing a blog search on "resolution" since that was what the post was about.

If one of the goals of the biblioblogosphere is to get the library profession out there on the web, maybe hundreds of non-library subscribers isn't the target. Maybe it's enough that we can be found, that our voices are represented.     #    (0) comments

Happy Birthday, Louis Braille

Check out the Google picture today. (via my husband)     #    (0) comments

2006-01-03

Carnival holiday

The holiday of the Carnival of the Infosciences is nearly over. Bloggers and readers, it's time to set up our booths, games, and rides. Have you written or read a post in the last couple of weeks that deserves a chance to be the star attraction? Send it to joy at mollprojects dot com by Sunday evening (January 8) at 6pm Central Standard Time.     #    (0) comments

2006-01-02

Make a list (check it twice)

For anyone making resolutions about being more organized, particularly using the Getting Things Done (GTD) system, I have a couple of web-based list makers to recommend after using them for a few weeks.

Remember the Milk (RtM) is a full-featured list making system. The various views are accessed through one line of hyperlinks at the top right. Overview shows tasks that are due today or in the next few days. The workhorse of RtM is the Tasks view--showing a tab for each list with the currently selected tab's list displayed. I haven't used the Contacts section for keeping track of people. The Settings view lets the user set options--I mostly use the Lists tab in this view because that's where I add a new list that will show up on a tab in the Tasks view.

Each list item in Remember the Milk can have a deadline, can be set to repeat, and can have a time estimate. Most importantly, for the way I use it, the list item can have a note attached. So, for example, I can put "Target" on my "Errands" list and have a note to get hand towels, a toothbrush holder, and soap dispenser at Target (I'm setting up the downstairs bathroom as my place for getting ready to go to work). I make separate lists for each context (Errands, Home, Work, etc) as recommended for GTD--but the lists could just as easily be kept by project.

In their Happy New Year message, RtM promised us new features in the coming weeks.

The other list-making software I'm using is Ta-Da List. This makes very simple lists--items with checkboxes. Lists can be edited or re-ordered. When an item is checked, it goes to the bottom and in smaller print. Click the checkbox again and the item goes back to the top as an unchecked item. This makes Ta-Da List great for checklists that I do frequently (but not quite often enough to remember everything)--my Weekly Review checklist is here. Also, I'm using Ta-Da List for "Movies to see" and "Books/Authors to try."

Both of these are free. Ta-Da List is made by the people who would like to sell you Basecamp or Backpack (either one of which I might buy if it wasn't priced by the month). Remember the Milk, I'm guessing, is looking for venture capital or to be bought out by one of the internet companies with deep pockets.     #    (0) comments

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