Ballad in Plain E

Sweet! This blog was Inter Alia’s Blawg of the Day yesterday!

Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette does it again!

Check out the uber-cute “The Library Never Sleeps” constellation jpeg at the U of A Library Website. The image is part of an announcement about 24/7 library service during the final exam period. I think I want that on a t-shirt!

My best friend’s English prof sent the link to this website to his class last week.

On “What is Stephen Harper Reading?“, Canadian author Yann Martel (Life of Pi) details his quest to expand Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s “stillness”. Every other Monday, Martel mails the PM a book which he has inscribed, along with a letter detailing what he hopes Harper will notice about or take from the book. The selections (there have 16 so far) include novels by Antione de Saint-Exupery, Agatha Christie, George Orwell, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

After Christmas when I’m not so busy, I think I might take up the challenge and check out some of the ones I haven’t read. Martel’s notes are quite interesting, and the whole thing reminds me somehow of Sophie’s World.

Over at XKCD, a map of “Online Communities” reminds me, in some strange way, of the Dictionary of Imaginary Places. Only with a Sea of Memes. Check out the comic’s alt text, while you’re at it.

After months of pleading, I finally convinced my boss to subscribe to CLE Course Materials online. I am beyond excited. Instant access to more than 1600 conference papers…so convenient! The service offers fully searchable PDF versions of all CLE course materials since 2001. I’m such a nerd; this is one of the most exciting things to happen to me all month! Woo hoo!

Fridays are generally awesome, and made ever better because Friday is “La Fashionista” (Style File) day on Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style, which, if I haven’t said before, is one my favourite law-related sites.

P to the S: real content coming soon!

The, um, internet is abuzz over a video posted at Torontoist about “the growing phenomenon of Internet”. Taken from an early ’90s CBC news report, the video is hilarious mainly because it’s so darn earnest, and comes complete with sweetly novel-sounding dial-up and a gripping explanation of two emoticons (FYI, :-] means “I AM KIDDING” and :-[ means “I AM SERIOUS”). Of (not “the”, just) Internet’s growth, it is reportly “growing like an embryonic brain at a rate of 10% per month”. When asked “What does Internet mean to you?” one Canadian replies “It has more soul than any human being I know”. Those were the days, eh? For more command line than you can shake a stick at, check it out. Internet is waiting for you! Snaps to Robyn for directing me to this story at Qwantz.com today.

P.S. In honour of this great video, Ryan North will be selling “I AM SERIOUS” t-shirts after Christmas. I can’t wait!

Big thanks to Courtney for telling me about A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette (tag-lined “A polite librarian is a good librarian”.)

In a conversation with several other techs about names for us non-librarian library techs, she mentioned this post, which in itself is hilarious and whose comments are even better.

Scanning through the archives I discovered it’s pretty much all solid gold. I was going to go through and mention a few choice posts, but I couldn’t stop myself from choosing every other one, so trust me–this blog is awesome…ly amazing.

(OK, just a few:

Pencils, Supplying free

Tote bags, On hating

Signatures, Using email -although they missed the worst thing you can possibly do to your signature block: change it to Comic Sans

Caveman, Going )