Infoblog

Archive for the ‘not on work time’ Category

Ha-ha! That’s the joke, there is no post! Hahahaha!! Okay, just kidding.
From Wired: the Top 10 April Fool’s Pranks for Nerds.
Enjoy! And happy Friday.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday at 90. I well remember reading Childhood’s End for the first time, and will never, ever forget that first amazing time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. This last video message was recorded for his 90th birthday and is a reflection on his life, and his hopes for the future of our world. He was a remarkable man, and lived to see many of things he first wrote about as science fiction become reality. This last message is well worth a listen.

Thanks, Sir Arthur, for all the wonderful words and ideas you gave the world, and bon voyage!

It’s about all those plastic bags. Charging for plastic bags (currently illegal in California) is a growing way of trying to get people to stop using them. Germany charges about a dollar for one, Ireland about 30 cents, Ikea a nickel, Whole Earth takes a nickel off for each one you don’t use.
Remembering to bring along your recyclable bags (often forgotten at home or in the trunk of your car) is a habit it’s hard to get into.
I’ve found a great item that goes with me all the time – an ultra-compact bag. I’ve been using my Chicobag for more than a year now and it’s still in perfect shape. I found it in a local store but it turns out it (and other brands) are available online. The Chicobag site (that’s Chico, CA) has a nice section on using them for fundraisers.

Staff at the University of Iowa Libraries have collected artists’ use of cards from the now defunct card catalogs – “A small community of library staff—motivated by both nostalgia and library subculture– has come together to give the card catalog cards themselves a rebirth.” Check out the cArtalog Project Gallery and don’t miss their links to history and commentary from others.

The British Museum has released a ground-breaking study on information literacy that turns over many of the assumptions about the ‘Google Generation’ (those born since 1993). You can read the whole thing – Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future (PDF; 1.67MB) and/or listen to a podcast of a discussion by report’s authors. Great for commuters, exercisers, and others who listen to podcasts. Part of the British Library’s podcasts and webcasts series that you can subscribe to.

Found via LibVibe.

GOOG411 is great for saving money when you need phone numbers and/or addresses. You just call 1-800-GOOG-411 (free) instead of 411 (usually $1.50 and up per call). Especially useful for cellphone users. I programed the number in my phone and named it “info.” Check out their video on it — funny. Another free service from Google.

from Lifehacker’s Top 10 Telephone Tricks

“The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard is a 20-minute animated video laying out why we need to pay attention to our use of the environment.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

For those of you who don’t know, I live in Berkeley and used to work at the BPL until I left to go with Infopeople. I love my library and am so proud of them for this foray into our multimedia and interactive world. It’s imbedded in the BPL website but I think you should go directly to Berkeley Public Library, An Intimate Portrait on YouTube so you can see the comments folks have left. It’s a simple little video giving some useful information about the library… but… it’s funny!!! I even showed it to a couple of non-library folks and they laughed.

This has nothing to do with libraries, but for some reason it grabbed my interest and I had to share. The Queen of England has a YouTube channel! Here’s some background on the channel’s creation.
So you think she did some of that with a webcam and edited it herself?
UPDATE: It was pointed out that this is actually the YouTube for the British Monarchy, not JUST for the Queen. That is quite true, and it has a lot of really interesting historical footage.

It’s the holiday season; there’s a chill in the air, endless versions of White Christmas are being played on the radio 24/7 – so it must be time to elf yourself (if the servers aren’t down)! Office Max’s Elf Yourself ad campaign began in 2006, and from Thanksgiving to Christmas, 40 million people ‘elfed’ themselves! This year they’ve added Scrooge Yourself (wich I don’t think is as fun as the elf thing but your mileage may vary). You can read more about the campaign here. Here’s my lame effort.
Office Max actually is offering a bunch of fun games for the holidays. So if you can’t elf yourself, or you’ve elfed yourself and are ready to move on, check out all of the other fun here.
Happy holidays from Infopeople!