Happy Friday! I hope you are having a lovely day and have a relaxing weekend planned. I’m quite looking forward to the weekend as I’m going to go see cool books and manuscripts. If you are going to be at the Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco on Sunday morning, do stop by the ACRL’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section table to say hi. But back to the topics at hand. Today I just have a few articles, posts, and bits of information that connect to some of the conversations we’ve been having in the previous couple of weeks’ posts. So let’s get into the good stuff.

Touching back on the post on civility a few week’s ago, check out this interesting post on using airplane mode to silence your phone instead of mute or power. Personally, I don’t care what you do with your cell phone as long as you don’t pull it out every time it goes off while eating dinner with me. I’m probably very old school about this, but one of the most impressive things (and how sad is it that I find this impressive?) is when a person actually puts his/her phone on silent or airplane mode while we’re out to dinner or having coffee. I think it’s a sad comment on society that I was actually told by a colleague that he loved to talk to me because I would stop what I was doing and give him my full attention and he never had to wonder if I was actually listening.

Anyway, off the soapbox and onward to technology news.

This is a very nice article on the digitizing of Vassar’s Special Collections. It’s a concise look at many of the advantages and problems with digitizing special collections and archives. Issues of preservation, access, original v. digitized copy, and even microfilm all make an appearance. It’s a good article to pass on to those who either believe that “everything” is already available online or who complain that the entire archives’ holdings aren’t already online.

Speaking of articles that may be of use to archivists and librarians, take a look at The New York Times article on why some twitter posts catch on, and some don’t. For those archives and libraries using Twitter for access and marketing, this article brings up some points to consider–especially in the realm of hashtags.

Finally in tech news, it seems like there is always something interesting and useful to share about one of Google’s products and today is no different. Take a look at Lifehacker’s seven more easy ways to integrate your google apps. I really enjoy things that make my life easier and these hacks definitely make it easier.

This Friday we’ll end with this fabulous video someone made using Neil Gaiman’s reading of “The Day the Saucers Came.” I love this poem, but I hope, dear readers, that this is not how your upcoming Valentine’s Day ends.

Have a wonderful weekend filled with good books, friends, and fun. And if you feel inspired to bake this weekend, you might want to try Joy the Baker’s recipe for whole wheat chocolate brown sugar sugar cookies. I’ll be back next week with more musing on technology, libraries, archives, and other stuff.