Been a long time since my last post – we’ve had a lot of changes at the UMF library, and that’s taken much of my time and thought. (And my current knitting project has taken a lot of what’s left…) But I had one link I particularly wanted to share today, so you get a few others too.
Libraries:
- The link I most wanted to share is from Bill Barnes, the artist behind the Unshelved comic (one of my favorites). As part of a recent Kickstarter, he promised a library anthem if they hit a certain funding point, and this is it. Help. (Link goes to a page where you can hear it, but also gives lyrics.)
- While talking to a friend about the good questions and the ones that make you go ‘huh’, I was reminded of the Feel Good Librarian’s blog. She hasn’t posted in quite a few years now, but her archive is a regular reminder to me of why libraries matter and how I can do things better.
- Melissa Morone wrote a fascinating article about how libraries (particularly public ones) play a critical role in educating people about online privacy issues. Related, a Canadian project funded research into smartphone privacy that produced both formal reports and practical handouts. Choose Privacy Week also made an interesting handout available for libraries to share.
- A day in the life of the New York City public libraries (video, 10 minutes)
For science! (and technology)
- TrowelBlazers highlights amazing women in archaeology, paleontology, geology, and other trowel-related fields.
- The American Museum of Natural History made a huge number of their archive images available online. Have fun browsing!
- The evolution of London (a 7 minute video that shows the evolution of roads and space in London.) This MetaFilter post has some other fascinating links and commentary.
- MetaFilter had a discussion of astronomy 101 that produced some great resource links.
- Need to remove the background from a photo? Lifehacker has a guide and recommendation for that.
- A random online discussion brought me to this post from one of the founders of Trello about how people use software tools in unexpected ways – one of those bits of knowledge that has changed how I go at several bits of my job helping people use technology.
- Sumana Harihareswara’s keynote at this year’s WikiConference USA about “Hospitality, Jerks, and What I Learned” – transcript over here, and further discussion over here with some other relevant links.
The online world:
Like a lot of people, I’ve been following the various stories about Facebook manipulating feeds for research purposes (and the problematic construction of that research.) DearAuthor had one of the better summaries I’ve seen of the issues, danah boyd has some great thoughts as usual, and the Atlantic’s article also had some specifics I hadn’t seen many other places.
In somewhat happier news, I have been playing with Evernote (which I’m currently using to store books I want to read and some trip planning things for an eventual trip to England whenever I can figure out the scheduling.) I found these 31 tips on Evernote had some things I hadn’t figured out yet (including some interesting search combos) and Michael Hyatt’s post on how he uses tags got me thinking about tags versus notebooks.
For fun:
- The Nottingham Playhouse arranged the Mass Bolero – A Tribute to Torvill & Dean (link goes to the project page) for the 30th anniversary of their gold medal in Sarajevo. I love both by the video and by the process of filming it (and I adore the amazing range of people doing this and so clearly loving it. Watch all the way through to the credits.)
- My father introduced me to both Gilbert and Sullivan and Doctor Who. I’m not quite sure what he’d make of The Daleks Sing Gilbert and Sullivan (YouTube video) but it makes me grin my head off.
- Tor.com highlighted a video of various movie figures taking selfies. (the video’s at the bottom of the post, and worth clicking on. Brilliant editing.)
- As a bassoonist in a former life, I really liked this infographic about reeds. (If you like classical music, the MET Orchestra blog has some other fascinating posts.)
- This calligraphy site has a great introduction to the art.
Recent reading:
I’ve been in that weird headspace where I have not been picking up fiction, but I did recently reread Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time. Another recent read was The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum, which is one part poisons, one part forensic science, one part history, and one part biography, and all entirely fascinating. Before that, I had a string of books about reptile smuggling, and some pleasant but unremarkable YA mysteries.
I’m currently working on danah boyd’s It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, and I’ve been saving Katherine Addison’s (also known as Sarah Monette) The Goblin Emperor for as soon as I have the attention to appreciate it properly. (Everyone I know who’s read it says it’s fabulous and it is so right up my narrative trope alley.)
My watching habits have been all about the good knitting watching – several sets of Netflix documentaries, a complete rewatch of Leverage, and really enjoying Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries once I’d finished the books. (The series is different, but I find the ways it’s different interesting rather than annoying.)
