Link Love

So have you searched for yourself on Google lately? Sometimes called a "me" or "ego" search, who hasn't done this? When searching for yourself to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren't always what you want people to see.

To give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name, Google now shows profile results at the bottom of search pages. These results offer abbreviated information from user-created Google profiles and a link to the full profiles. They have also created links to MySpace, Facebook, Classmates and LinkedIn. Learn more here. One Google staffer's profile.

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When you’re confined to the space of a typical whiteboard, your ideas are destined to be small. IdeaPaint turns virtually anything you can paint into a high-performance dry-erase surface.

I ordered a sample about 2 months ago and never received it. I love the idea since space is always at a premium.

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The Google News Timeline organizes information chronologically by presenting results from Google News and other data sources on a zoomable, graphical timeline. You can navigate through time by dragging the timeline, setting the time scale to days, weeks, months, years, or decades, or just including a time period in your query (i.e., "1977"). To see this in action, check out the results viewed by month in the summer of 2006.

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The Newseum displays front pages of 700 daily newspapers from 71 countries in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors.

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The Pop Culture Universe database was a multiple award winner in 2008. Worth exploring.

• Value. You get over 250 full text volumes of material—a virtual pop culture library with tons of additional features—for a fraction of the price!
• Fun. Your patrons and students, from the daydreaming young to the nostalgic old, will love immersing themselves in the universe of pop culture, bringing generations together.
• Ties to curriculum. Support the way history, literature, and other areas of social studies and the humanities are taught today.
• Universal appeal. Drive usership with the high interest subject matter of PCU.
• Educational substance. Pop culture is a great way—and PCU is the perfect source—to teach students valuable research skills, media literacy, and an appreciation for the past and its connection to the world they live in.

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How about a Red Box (DVD vending machine) in front of your library? It can provide service when you are closed, supplement your DVD collection, and provide you with some additional funds to buy more DVDs for your collection? A pilot project at Princeton Public Library.

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I was recently in a meeting with staff from the Miami-Dade Public Library. They used a great example...instead of telling a County Commissioner that library staff answered 10,000 reference questions this week, they say we helped 3,000 look for work, 1,000 apply for food stamps, 3,000 find information they needed, etc.

Also, they use "Customer or Potential Customer", instead of users and non-users.

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Summer movies, tv, and books I enjoyed.

Movies: Star Trek, Up, Public Enemies.

TV: Burn Notice, Royal Pains.

Books: Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell