Just for Fun

Tech Improvements for Your Weekend

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope your week has gone well and you have a fabulous weekend planned. Today I want to share a few tech things you can do over the weekend and a few fun, relaxing things to check out this weekend, too. It is midterms at my institution this week which means everyone, students, staff, and faculty alike, are definitely ready for the weekend. So, let’s get to it.

Lifehacker is probably my favorite site for finding information for acquiring new tech skills, tips, and tools. Check out the article, top 10 highly desired skills you can teach yourself. I love articles like this because they are inspiring and a kick in the pants to actually start working on all those skills I always say I’d love to learn, but don’t have time for. As my momma always says, we have time for the things that are important to us, so if learning Photoshop, programming, or fixing your car is important to you, you’ll find the time to do it. (Also, online learning spaces like Codecademy’s Code Year help a lot.) And, luckily, for learning things like Photoshop and programming, you can do it from the comfort of your couch while in your pajamas this weekend. That is definitely a win.

Also in the useful and not-too-difficult tech realm: turn your underused or unused thumbdrives into awesome indispensable tools this weekend. I’m sure most of us have numerous thumbdrives hanging around our offices and homes, so let’s actually do something useful with all that storage. Yay for getting organized!

Finally, if weekend means having time to actually do cooking/baking projects, you might like DIY Larabars. These sound yummy and fairly simple to make.

And, if none of this sounds like a fun weekend to you and you’d rather just take a nap, curl up with the cat below (I’m sure she won’t mind):

Cat napping from Beautiful Portals Tumblr

Cat napping from Beautiful Portals Tumblr

Have a wonderful weekend. I’ll be back soon with some more tools, tips, and thoughts. Allons-y!

Yay, for my friends! (and other misc. stuff)

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! Can you believe that the first week of May is coming to a close? I can’t. Our wonderful intern from University of Alberta is finishing her final day today and I just refuse to believe that three weeks have already flown by. But one nice thing about time going quickly is that it is Friday and that means we have the weekend! I have just one announcement and a couple of articles to share with you today. I am mulling over a couple of longer library/archives posts, but unfortunately most of my writing juices are going towards two articles at the moment. But let’s move on, shall we?

First, I have to share this wonderful post from my friend, Anna, about her and Hanna’s decision to get married! 😀 I’m so thrilled and excited and happy for them that I just had to share on this blog, even though I try to keep this as a professional blog. But how could I not share this news? Hanna and Anna are two of my favorite people in the world, we all graduated from Simmons, they are amazing fellow librarians/archivists, and are Doctor Who fans. Really, I couldn’t be more tickled pink. Congratulations!

On not nearly as fun news (but highly useful) I wanted to share two articles from Lifehacker. First, how to identify and avoid the signs of burnout. I know people who are suffering from burnout and I’m sure you do, too. Share this with your friends, family, and patrons to help everyone in these stressful times.

Also from Lifehacker, Do I really need to be that worried about security when I’m using public wifi? This is fantastic. I’m using this for my class on information literacy because public wifi is something a lot of us use, but probably not in a secure fashion.

Finally, let’s have a pretty photograph to send us on our way to a relaxing weekend, shall we?

Photograph from hobbithouses

Photograph from hobbithouses

Have a wonderful, relaxing weekend. I’ll be back soon with more news and notes. Allons-y!

A few resources to peruse during your weekend

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I just have a few resources to share with you that shouldn’t overwhelm your weekend because I think everyone deserves a relaxing weekend. I have a lot of topics that I want to talk about, especially related to jobs and hiring in library and archives organizations, but need a few more weeks to really wrap my head around what I want to say. So, until then, here are the resources and some lovely photos to get you into the weekend mood.

First, don’t you just feel like it should be time to travel? I can’t wait for summer vacation. I had a small taste of vacation last weekend when I went to Half Moon Bay. It was lovely, as you can see from the photos below. Thus, I had to share the 2012 HotelChatter Hotel WiFi Report. Super-helpful for deciding which hotel to stay at given the wifi situation. Yay for free wifi in many hotels!

Colorful Pots

Colorful Pots

Beach along Coastside Trail, Half Moon Bay

Beach along Coastside Trail, Half Moon Bay

After relaxing for a weekend, I always feel like I should take on something new. So while this Lifehacker article, I learned to speak four languages in a few years: here’s how makes me tired just reading it, it also inspires me to start learning another language.

Also from Lifehacker is this great post, Email is not broken, we are. This is great to read and share with your colleagues to try to tame the email beast. I love the advice to set up a social contract about email with your colleagues. I started doing this with my students and it has worked fantastically well. They know how long it will take me to respond to their emails so they don’t stress if they haven’t heard from me immediately and know when to recontact me if the school’s spam filters have eaten their message. If you have any tips on handling email, please let me know in comments.

Finally, if you just can’t face doing one more thing and everything seems like tedium. Henri the cat understands (thanks to my colleague, Liz, for sharing this wonderful video):

I hope you have a wonderfully relaxing and inspiring weekend. Allons-y!

Friday Round-up: Traveling, Jobs, Typography, and Baking

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! Can you believe another week has come and gone? I don’t know where the time goes. Anyway, let’s get down to business. I have some interesting, helpful, and fun links to share today before we head off into what appears to be a rainy weekend here in the Bay Area. (I hope soon to return to longer posts about the nature of archives and libraries, but that will happen after I’m finished with the few massive projects–more on those later, too.)

Anyone else want to take a vacation? I’m so ready for a vacation, especially since it will be summer soon. If you are like me and are a bit of a geek, you’ll want to check out the geek-friendly travel checklist before your next trip. Yay for travel checklists!

Another thing that has been on my mind recently is hiring librarians, probably due to the fact that my library is currently in the interviewing process. If you are hiring or looking for jobs, I suggest you check out Hiring Librarians blog, which reports on survey results from hiring managers on what to do and not do when applying and interviewing for jobs. Very interesting read and if you are a hiring manager you can complete the survey to share your knowledge and experience with others.

Also, on a hiring/job hunting note, check out Lifehacker’s hidden meaning behind phrases in job ads. Good read and very true.

Do you stare at your computer screen a lot every day? Me, too! So check out and make use of some tips on how to make reading on your computer a better experience from Lifehacker.

Now on to something near to my heart: typography. I love the I Love Typography blog and the latest post is fantastic: Letters & Stone: Fergus Wessel. The photos of the carved stone alone are worth the click through to the blog. I love reading interviews from masters at their craft and seeing beautiful designs.

In other exciting news, Joy the Baker is still on her book tour. I met her last weekend in San Francisco and she is just as lovely in person as she is on her blog. It was super-packed in Omnivore Books, but a lot of fun and now I have a signed cookbook! Check out one of her yummy recipes for biscuit cinnamon rolls. I think these may have to be made for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Have a lovely rest of your day and fantastic weekend full of relaxing, reading, good food, and good company. I’ll be back next week with more. Allons-y!

Friday Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! If you are tired of posts from the Personal Digital Archiving 2012 Conference, this post is for you. Just some fun stuff to get you ready for the weekend.

My one link to share at the end of this workweek is from Lifehacker, The best time to purchase cruise tickets, train fare, and all other travel for the best deals. I’m ready to start planning some vacation time. How about you?

This image is from Beautiful Portals and I think is just a lovely way to go into the weekend.

Photo from tayloralisonswiftlyrics via Beautiful Portals

Photo from tayloralisonswiftlyrics via Beautiful Portals

Finally, check out this adorable video of fish playing laser light if you need a break from work (from Gizmodo).

Have a wonderful rest of your day and a lovely weekend filled with naps, good reads, great food, and amazing company. I’ll be back next week with some more developed thoughts around personal digital archiving and what it means for our work as archivists and librarians. Allons-y!

Things I think about on Fridays

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! Has it seemed like a particularly long week to you? I’ve been, as my momma would say, whooshed all week and am very much looking forward to a relaxing weekend. So let’s just sit, have a cup of tea, and share a few things before getting on with the weekend.

Before getting into the link love, I just thought I’d write a disclaimer to today’s post. Like I said, I’ve been whooshed. I have a huge presentation coming up soon which has taken up most of my brainspace, I’m trying to wrap up two grant projects (and associated reports), and I’ve been trying to keep on top of all the everyday life stuff we all have to deal with. So there really isn’t a theme to this post as it is kind of like the things I think about on Fridays. It’s all very random, although it usually makes sense in my head. I promise that soon I’ll have the brainspace to write some longer, coherent posts on the nature of libraries and archives. And, next week, there will be posts from the Personal Digital Archiving 2012 conference, but until then, take in the links below and then have a wonderful weekend.

First, I wanted to share the link to the Darwin Manuscripts Project (found via InfoDocket). I’m excited to explore this site and it is always wonderful to see well-done digital, archives projects. Plus, this will be another great resource for those teaching the history of science or other history courses, in my opinion.

Next I wanted to share this article from Lifehacker: how to find your creative sweet spot. I enjoy articles about creativity and am hoping to mull over some of this article’s advice more this weekend. If you have any tips that have helped you get the creative juices going, please share them in comments.

Another article I wanted to share is, 25 documents you need before you die from the Wall Street Journal. Since it is time to file my taxes this weekend, it makes me think about updating all the other important documents I have. Take a look at the article, it is helpful (even if the title is a bit on the bleak side).

For a work break, you really must go see the funny/odd/interesting/delightful bunny video over on Hanna’s blog. Really, you owe it to yourself to go watch this video. It is just, well, there aren’t words.

Finally, I leave you with this cute kitten photo (from Beautiful Portals Tumblr) to help you relax and get ready for your weekend:

Kitten on Deck Photo

Kitten on Deck Photo

Have a wonderful rest of your day, a fantastic weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more tech, library, and archives fun. Allons-y!

Inspiration for your weekend

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you are well and have a lovely weekend planned. I was going to write a long, involved post about my experience at last week’s ALISE Conference and how I’ve changed my perceptions of conferences over the years, but unfortunately work tasks have caught up with me and I don’t have sufficient time nor brain space to write coherently about that topic today. I’m hoping that next week’s post will be about musing on conferences, networking, and our lovely professions. Instead, today I want to share some inspiration things I’ve seen/read on the web this last week because who doesn’t like some inspiration?

First, check out Lifehacker’s how to prioritize when everything is important so you can get control of your to-do list. Then, it will be easier for you to enjoy the weekend.

I highly suggest reading Neil Gaiman’s blog post, A speech I once gave: On Lewis, Tolkien and Chesterton. It is a lovely read and will probably make you want to break out your copy of The Lord of the Rings for a read.

If you have some old books that are seriously beyond repair, you could get crafty this weekend and turn them into cute planters such as these. Usually I’m not up for cutting up books, it’s the librarian and archivist in me which objects, but these are adorable and you could always make up quasi-books (you know, if you’ve taken a book binding course or are super-crafty) if you didn’t want to cut up an actual book.

If you need some inspiration on what to make for food this weekend, check out this recipe for fresh spring rolls. Always a good choice for tasty eats.

Finally, how awesome is this escalator in the Tel Aviv Municipality Building? Super awesome!

Escalator in the Tel Aviv Municipality Building via Beautiful Portals

Escalator in the Tel Aviv Municipality Building via Beautiful Portals

Have a lovely weekend, full of reading, good food, talks with friends, and some time to sit back and get inspired. I’ll be back next week with actual talks about libraries, archives, conferences, tech, and such. Allons-y!

Traveling, Technology, and Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you have a lovely weekend planned and that your week went well. This week has been very busy at my campus with our external reviewer here for the review of our information literacy program and the start of classes. So let’s get ready for the weekend with some tips on traveling, technology, and some fun stuff, too.

I know a lot of librarians are getting ready for the start of conference season, what with ALISE and ALA Midwinter conferences coming up in the next two weeks. (By the way, I’ll be in Dallas next week for ALISE, so if you are there do say hi.) Since conference season is starting, I thought it only appropriate to highlight two great resources from Lifehacker: airline scorecard (check before you decide which airline to fly) and
best tech-friendly airports and airlines (see where you can get wifi, etc.).

Also, check out Lifehacker’s article on the stay on top of the fight against SOPA/PIPA tools. Great to share with your library patrons and great to use to keep yourself informed.

So, did you sign up to learn to code this year with Codecademy? If not there is still time so head on over and start your course. It’s really a fun way to learn to code and you get nifty achievement badges, too (similar to Foursquare badges).

After you’ve planned your travel, learned some JavaScript, and gotten up-to-date with SOPA, take a break to make one of these lovely origami cat bookmarks. I’m going to make one and I’m sure my cat will have fun ripping it out of one of my books this weekend.

Finally, if you haven’t treated yourself to watching this Joy of Books video, you really should. It’s just delightful.

Have a wonderful, relaxing, productive, and fun weekend, dear readers! I’ll be back next week with some thoughts from my time at ALISE and other randomness. Allons-y!

Happy 2012!

/ dwakimoto

Happy 2012, dear readers! I hope you had a lovely holiday and are ready to dig into this new year. I had a nice break and can’t believe that we are already a week into 2012. Where does the time go? I thought to get us started, I’d offer up a few tips and a bit of fun as we make our way into this new year.

But first, I wanted to thank the readers of this blog for last year. The number of hits increased dramatically, which is great. I’m glad that this blog is continuing to be useful and readable for you, dear readers. It is fun to write and always great to receive feedback via comments.

Secondly not to toot my own horn too loudly, but I am excited so I wanted to share that I was selected as this week’s ACRL Member of the Week. So thanks ACRL! It’s fun to share why I enjoy academic librarianship so much.

Okay, now on to the tips and technology.

Lifehacker always does such nice end-of-the-year lists that I had to share another one: Most Popular Repurposing Tricks of 2011. To get you into Lifehacker’s lists for the new year, check out the article on the Best Time to Buy Anything in 2012. Who doesn’t like saving some money? This would be great to share with your patrons who I’m sure wouldn’t mind saving some money, too.

Also in the technology realm, I thought I’d share some information from Lifehacker on how you can Learn to Code with Free Weekly Lessons from Codeacademy this year. Go ahead and sign up, lessons start next week. I signed up and am excited about learning from Codeacademy. It never hurts to expand your tech skills (and help out your library and archives in the process).

Now let’s have a bit of fun before getting back to work!

If the post-holiday, back-to-work grind has gotten you stressed out, check out Lifehacker’s great article on Giving Better Massages. Messages are great for relieving stress and tension, plus the article gives tips at the end on self-massage which is great for when you can’t get someone to give you a massage.

Also, I’m happy to share that two of my very awesome friends (Hanna and Anna) have started a joint blog, the corner of your eye. Go on over, subscribe, and get your twice weekly dose of arts and culture reviews.

Anyone else extremely excited about The Hobbit coming out in December? I might be just a tiny bit excited (understatement of the year, thus far). So for my fellow fans, check out this lovely image from Beautiful Portals Tumblr:

I hope 2012 is going well for you and that you have a fantastic weekend planned. Read a good book, relax with a cup of tea, get a massage, and then get ready to take on this new year. See you next week with more good stuff. Allons-y!

Thoughts at the end of the term

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday, dear readers! I hope you are having a lovely day. It is the end of the term here and that always puts me into a reflective mood. So today, I want to share a few reflections with you about this term as well as some end-of-the-year lists before wishing you a very happy holiday, so let’s get on with it.

This has been an incredibly busy fall term. It has been busier than any of my past terms. I made two trips to Southern California for grant-required workshops (although luckily Collin ended up driving, so I only had to navigate-thanks, Collin!), a trip to Monterey for Internet Librarian (fantastic, techie conference which I highly recommend), and a trip to Laguna Niguel for the Women’s Leadership Institute (also a fabulous conference). Oh, and my sister got married. So it was a little busy and I’m looking forward to the holiday break.

On top of the traveling, I was teaching two classes on information literacy for freshmen along with the other usual assortment of librarian duties. To say that I was a bit overwhelmed at times is an understatement. To say that if I didn’t have a couple of synced Google Calenders to my phone I would have been lost on any given day is not an understatement. But, overall, I’d have to say it was a very good term.

I learned from my students, which is always as it should be, and hopefully my evaluations will reflect that my students learned from me. They created amazing online tutorials showcasing their many talents and expertise in everything from playing the guitar to creating origami hearts. It was a great opportunity to combine what they were learning about information literacy in the classroom to further their knowledge and skills on something they already love. This quarter again underscored for me the importance of making everything relevant to my students’ lives outside of the classroom.

This quarter also re-emphasized for me the importance of building in time for reflection in the learning process. This is the second year that I’ve required my students to write weekly reflections about their learning and how they can apply what they’ve learned to their other classes and to their lives. It has been a great success and I feel that the students are engaging with the materials more fully because of this reflection space.

Finally, this quarter has again reinforced that teaching is about being genuinely interested in one’s students and honestly wanting to help them learn. It is exhausting, fun, time-consuming, interesting, and life-changing work and I can’t imagine not teaching. And, if I do a really good job, my students catch some of this excitement for learning too and use it in their coming terms and throughout their lives.

So now, on to the lists. Lifehacker has been posting numerous “best of” lists in the past few days. I highly suggest you check them out and get to some fun over the holidays. I suggest the following to get you started: Most popular top 10s of 2011, Most popular photograph tips, tricks, and hacks of 2011, and Top 10 ways to create a more focused and productive work environment.

Finally, I leave you with one of my favorite short, holiday videos ever featuring the Doctor, naturally:

I wish you a very happy holiday and wonderful new year, dear readers! I will be taking a rest from blogging until the new year. Until then, relax, read some good books, send friends and family members a handwritten note, and bake something lovely to share with someone you love. I’ll be back in 2012 with more library, archives, and tech news and notes. Allons-y!