Happy Friday! I hope where you are living is having lovely weather and you will be able to enjoy it this weekend. The Bay Area is having fantastic weather and I am completely looking forward to the weekend. But first, we must get through Friday. I was walking into a store the other day and there were already back-to-school supplies out! It’s worse than having Christmas music being piped into the mall during October! (At least in my opinion, because I still feel my blood pressure rise every time I see stacks of back-to-school supplies, even though I’m on the other side of the student/faculty equation now.) Anyway, the blogs seem to be getting into the whole back-to-school thing too so I figured I’d post about some of the best tips. (And if you’re a student, feel free to ignore this post until it gets a little closer to the time you actually have to return to school.)
Some people worry about roommates, classes, and moving away from home when they go to college. Personally, I worried about technology. So for those of you who know someone going off to college, send them a link to Lifehacker’s Preparing for College: Tech Essentials for Your First Year. They’ll thank you for it. And if roommates will be involved, send them a guide on how to Hide Your Entire Operating System from Prying Eyes. Again, they’ll thank you.
Coffee and college students seem to be so enmeshed that you can’t walk through a campus without seeing at least 3 coffee carts and smelling coffee from one side of the campus to another. I mean, even libraries have gotten into the act and now have coffee shops. So why do you drink coffee? Do you even know what caffeine does to your brain/body? If you are a little fuzzy on the biochemistry of it all, check out: What Caffeine Actually Does to Your Brain. A nice, easy-to-understand overview.
Because everyone needs a break from studying once in a while, college students (and really anyone who uses Hulu) should appreciate: Top 10 Hulu Hacks and Power User Tips. Oh, Lifehacker, you make life so much easier.
Speaking of cool technology stuff, did you hear about Google App Inventor? It allows you to create Android apps without coding! This is just amazing–I love how one of the examples given is having students create quizzes to test their knowledge of course content. How geeky cool is that? Plus, with so many libraries without dedicated tech staff, this offers libraries a way to still get on the Android bandwagon and mobilize at least some part of the library’s services.
Finally, it is Friday, so we must end on something fun and slightly silly. Today’s video, which is now making its way through the bibliosphere, was brought to my attention by Megan, one of our former interns at the library. Thanks, Megan! So enjoy: “Study Like a Scholar, Scholar.”
If you aren’t smiling by now, go back and watch it again or take a nice, long vacation because you probably need and deserve it. So read a lot, enjoy your weekend, and the Waki Librarian will be back shortly with more technology and library fun.