Happy Friday! I hope you are having a lovely Friday, dear readers. Today I want to share a roundup of some tips on laptops and some hacks for life. Then I want to get you on your way to enjoying your weekend.
Does Lifehacker ever fail to bring us great tips to share? I think not. First, check out Lifehacker’s article on what to do if your laptop battery is not lasting as long as it used to. Then refer people over to Gizmodo’s article on the best back to school laptops if they are in the market for buying a laptop for school or for their kids or just want some information on laptop choices in general.
After you are done with the tips on laptops, take a read through Lifehacker’s Top 10 real world Easter Eggs and cheat codes. You’ll probably find at least one cheat code you can use to improve your efficiency in getting things done and decrease your annoyance with certain life tasks.
Now let’s turn to some fun stuff. Hopefully the weather has been nice where you live and you feel like having people over for dinner parties. If you are like me, sometimes you forget the ins-and-outs of correctly setting a table. Again, Lifehacker comes to the rescue with how to set the table properly.
If you need help on figuring out what to make for dinner (or lunch or tea time), you could always check out the lovely recipes on Joy the Baker or Gojee, which has some of the most gorgeous food photography I’ve seen. Both sites will make you hungry. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Finally, let’s get nostalgic for a moment, take a work break and watch this lovely video about the Tenth Doctor (credit to Seduff for the amazing video):
Have a fantastic weekend filled with good fun, wonderful friends, and yummy food (plus a good book and maybe a cup of tea, too). I’ll be back next week with more tips, tricks, and news. Allons-y!
Happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a lovely day, dear readers. Someone has confused the weather here in the Bay Area and it is raining today. I feel like sleeping rather than working, but alas, that is not to be. Instead, I’m going to talk just briefly about some fun I had over the weekend and then let you get back to your day.
On Saturday I went to San Francisco Center for the Book in order to see Moveable Type, which I’ve already talked about on this blog. It’s pretty awesome to see a converted van that’s set up for demonstrating the art of using letterpresses. It was awesome to hear Kyle Durrie (who also owns and runs Power and Light Press in Portland, Oregon) talk about her craft and demonstrate the usage of two of her presses.
My favorite of the two presses was definitely the one in the photo below, which used to be used a lot by businesses to create inexpensive posters and ads.
Letterpress
We even got to try our hand at using the letterpresses. This is the result of what I made using the above letterpress. I think it came out rather well.
Example from the Letterpress
Finally, Kyle Durrie was selling some of her letterpress cards and posters, all of which were awesome. I couldn’t help but buy a couple of the design featured below. (I told her I was a librarian and she thought it was rather appropriate that I bought the cards.)
Checkout Slip Card
You should check out Moveable Type’s blog to see if the Type Truck is coming to your neck of the woods and you can always request a visit if there isn’t a stop near you. And, if it works out in her schedule, maybe Kyle will do a demo in your hometown.
I thought it was a great way to spend a day in the city and a great juxtaposition to all the technology stuff so many of us are working with and on during the workweek. Now I just have to figure out how to make one of those poster presses…
I hope the rest of your day is wonderful (and rain-free). I’ll be back on Friday with some archives, library, and tech news. Allons-y!
Happy Friday! I hope you are doing well, dear readers. I had a lovely post planned on a discussion on the effects of “More Product, Less Process” on finding aids, but then it turned gloomy and cold outside and my brain got a little cloudy too (actually it’s my sinuses, but that seems to affect brain function, too). Anyway, I’ll save that post for another day. Today I want to share some fun articles that you can pass along to your friends, family, and patrons on food and more awesome Google labs because it’s Friday, and a Friday should be fun.
Sometimes I just seem to accumulate random posts in my favorites section and then after a couple of weeks they come together in a coherent, thematic whole. Don’t ask me how this happens; it just does. Anyway, this time it was centered around food posts. I love this article on How Cooking Gave Me Purpose. (A summary version can be found on Lifehacker.) It’s a great look at cooking and how much fun it can be, especially when you get to cook with others.
However, if you are cooking for others, you’ll want to check out Foodily. It will help you find recipes that will satisfy picky eaters, who won’t eat certain foods, and help find recipes for people who can’t eat certain foods because of allergies. Also, most recipe websites have fairly well-developed search engines that will help you find recipes to satisfy even the pickiest eater. If you’re on a mobile, one of my favorite apps is from Epicurious. It has a super-fun user interface and some very yummy recipes (it’s a Lifehacker Download f the Day, too).
In tech news, check out these two articles on more great Google Labs to try out for: Google Chrome and Google Maps.
That’s all from me for today. I hope you have a lovely rest of your day, a fantastic weekend (hopefully you’ll get some sunshine), time to read some fun stuff, and I’ll be back next week with more archives, libraries, and tech news. Allons-y!
Happy Friday! I hope that your day is going well, even though it’s the thirteenth (and no, I’m not really superstitious). It’s a Friday and that’s a good thing. Today I just want to talk briefly about caring and archival conservation, then send you off with some fun videos for your tea breaks. So let’s get going.
On Tuesday was the second of two Protecting Cultural Collections workshops held at the lovely California Historical Society in San Francisco. Sponsored by the IMLS, these workshop series are supposed to help more cultural institutions (libraries, museums, and archives) create and implement disaster preparedness plans and also learn basics about salvage/conservation techniques. I will admit to almost falling asleep in the first half of the workshop, mainly because the room was freezing and the lights were dim, but the second half of the workshop made up for it because it was hands-on. I like doing things so working with water-logged materials and determining how to go about drying the materials was a lot of fun. I highly suggest the workshops if you need a brush up on the basics of salvaging materials or need to create a disaster plan. You can see a schedule of the upcoming workshops and register here. If you want more in-depth training for conservation, you’ll have to go elsewhere as that is not the point of the workshops.
In addition to getting me thinking about how much conservation work needs to be done to the materials in my archives, the workshops also got me thinking about caring in general. Not just caring for the collections, which sorely need it and which the one grant for preservation work we got is going to help in that aspect, but caring for and about cultural institutions and people on a more general level. These thoughts have also been bouncing around in my head due to a lovely post over on Ink and Vellum,We’ve built the brand. Now let’s build celebrities and due to reading a lot of Seth Godin’s work lately, including The Big Moo. After thinking quite a lot about this, among other things, I really believe that a lot of the problems in branding, funding, increasing statistics, etc. comes down to not showing people how much we care. Now before you raise your pitchforks, hear me out.
I’m not saying you don’t care, or your organization doesn’t care. I’m saying that people don’t perceive us as caring about their unique problems. I’m saying that we are all so stressed and overworked that it’s beginning to show and this leads to a vicious cycle of apathy and bad statistics that then leads management to want to try new fancy “actionable” steps and “measurable” outcomes. However, I think we need to simply think about the truth in one chapter of The Big Moo:
You could spend all your money and all your time trying to improve your customer service through one fancy technique or another. Or you could just care. And hire people who care.
When people know you care about them, they start caring about you. And when they care about you, they’ll seek you out for help with their research paper, or their job application, or their archival research. When they care about you, they are willing to listen to your story and your ideas for creating a better library or archives or museum with programming and services that matter to them. And if they really can see that you care and have proof that you care, they will tell their friends and family members and start spreading the word and helping you out. Having a support base is the only way that we are going to be able to survive and improve, and it’s really the only way that we’ll ever get “celebrity” librarians or archivists.
So that’s all I really have to say today. Workshops on archival conservation and disaster preparedness made me think about caring in all aspects of life, but especially in my work. So let me know what you think because I really do care and love to hear from you, dear readers.
Finally, here’s some fun stuff for your Friday study/work breaks. Check out this video: Super Tiny Apartment is an Amazing Transformer. It’s really nifty, although I don’t think I want to do that moving of furniture in my apartment. Also, for those of you that like design and especially typography, check out: What Font are You? It’s fun and let’s you read through all of the font personality types at the end.
And, of course, we need a great video to finish with so here’s the Doctor because, well, it’s the Doctor.
Have a wonderful rest of your day, a fantastic weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more library/archives/tech thoughts and news. Allons-y!
Happy Friday and Happy Earth Day! I can’t believe we are at the end of another week. Luckily workweeks end on a Friday (for many people) which means helpful, fun, and random links of goodness are sure to abound in today’s post. So let’s get to it.
Next week I’m chairing a panel at the Society of California Archivists’ Annual General Meeting/Conference, so I’m in conference prep mode at the moment. Lifehacker, as always, had some great posts about conference worries in general over the last few weeks. First, if you have issues with public speaking, check out how to activate your go system. Also, Lifehacker had an interesting post on why one should carry blank business cards. Not sure that I buy the argument, but it was an interesting read. Personally, should you be at the conference, you will be handed one of my recently redesigned business cards that I’m rather fond of (complete with QR Code linking you to my about.me page because, yes, I’m that kind of person).
Oh, and because conferences can produce many discussions, in person and online, I think it is the perfect time to say, go read Stephen Abram’s piling on on the web post. Then reaffirm your commitment to disagreeing with others respectfully at all times. The world could use more kindness, or at least manners.
If you manage somehow to run out of things to do this weekend, may I suggest this project to you: add ground effects to your bed for gentle night lighting? I think this looks pretty awesome and useful. Hopefully in the next week or so I’ll have time to do this to my bed.
And because we all need a laugh on a Friday and I’ve been working my way through Top Gear (I swear it’s because my cat likes it, really!), I think you should watch watch Jeremy drive the world’s smallest car. It is hilarious. Or, if cars aren’t your thing, but cats are, take a break and watch Simon’s cat in ‘Hop It’:
Have a wonderful rest of your day, a fantastic weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more technology, library, and archives fun. Allons-y!
Happy Friday, dear readers! Today I’m taking my lovely friend Hanna’s idea of sharing fun stuff on Friday. I have many ideas for longer blog posts percolating in my head, but as I’m still neck-deep in transcribing interviews for my research, they are all pretty jumbled at the moment. I promise more coherent thoughts on libraries, archives, and technology next week. But for today, let’s get to some interesting news and fun stuff for the weekend.
Now on to the fun for the weekend. I’ve been having people over to my place for dinner a lot lately, so I’ve been cooking way more than usual. I think a lot of people start thinking about having people over when the weather gets better and we all come out of hibernation. So if you are like me and need some inspiration for dinner, I can’t recommend highly enough Joy the Baker. Don’t be misguided by the name, even though Joy does a lot of baking, she also has fabulous savory recipes. This last week the big hits in my house were her baked curry sweet potato fries and goat cheese biscuits. So go make something yummy this weekend.
And to end, enjoy a short break with Simon’s Cat in Cat Chat:
Have a wonderful rest of your day, a relaxing weekend, and I’ll be back next week with some thoughts on students, archives, and teachable moments (among other things). Allons-y!
Happy Wednesday, dear readers! I hope your day is going well. I’m enjoying the day so far, especially as we have tomorrow off in celebration of Cesar Chavez Day. Also, today is Anna’s birthday (happy birthday, Anna!) and you should really check out her blog because it is fabulous. So today I just want to talk about a few odds and ends before cleaning up my office and getting ready for a mini-break. So let’s get into the library/archives goodness.
So, those who know me well know I’m not big into giving myself pats on the back or bragging about my accomplishments. But I have to share one awesome piece of news because it is just, well, awesome so I’m making an exception. Our archives received an American Heritage Preservation Grant from the IMLS (Institute of Museum and Library Services) for the preservation of one of our collections: The Jensen Family Collection! If you can’t tell, I’m very excited about this grant (and it makes all the time we’ve spent this year writing grant proposals worthwhile).
We’ll be de-encapsulating hundreds and hundreds of letters that are currently in non-archival enclosures and rehousing the entire collection in order to stabilize and preserve the collection. I’m so psyched because the grant also allows us to provide much better access to the collection and hopefully we’ll be able to get more people interested in this collection and the archives in general. So expect some updates as we work on the grant in the coming months. Photo below is just a sample of the amazing materials from the collection.
Confirmation book from the Jensen Family Collection
Now on to other news. As you know, I often refer to articles from Lifehacker, Gizmodo, WebWorkerDaily, etc. on productivity and other tips for getting more done. One of the best tips, and most frequently posted, is the need to take breaks and vacation in order to actually accomplish more (which can sometimes seem counterintuitive, but it works). We all need time off to recharge and actually get away from work, even if we adore what we do. So this is just a head’s up to The Waki Librarian readers that I’m actually taking a mini-holiday and will be off the Internet from tomorrow (Thursday) until next Monday. For the first time in years I’m taking a break and not bringing my laptop with me. I intend to enjoy some relaxing time along the coast of California and therefore there will be no Friday post and if you contact me during my break, don’t expect a response until next week. I hope you also have planned breaks and downtime into your days and weeks in order to recharge. Personally I can’t wait.
And, a bit of fun before leaving you to get back to work. If you didn’t check it out last week, you should take a look at Lifehacker Night School’s latest offering, The Basics of Video Editing. Watch the videos, read the lessons, and then apply what you’ve learned making awesome PR videos for your library and archives.
Finally, check out this great video (even if you’ve seen it before): 25 Years of Pixar Animation
Have a wonderful rest of your day and I’ll be back next week with more library, archives, and tech goodness. Allons-y!
Happy Friday! I hope you are having a lovely day. I’m off on a research trip today at the Lavender Library in Sacramento. I think it’s a fantastic way to spend a Friday. But back to the post at hand, I have just a few things to share with you today before you get into your weekend. Mainly today is just a bunch of stuff to keep you occupied if you must be indoors because of the rather wretched winter weather that will not go away! Anyway, let’s get into the good stuff.
First, thank you to everyone who responded to my request on Twitter for examples of favorite online archives. I received links to some great archives to share with the history students when they come into the archives in a few weeks. So I thought I’d share just a few links today that you may find useful to share with your library and archives patrons, or just enjoy yourself. Of course there are the large online archives that are fairly well-known, such as the Online Archive of California, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive. But you should also check out some of the smaller collections (and less well-known) online, such as First World War Poetry Digital Archive and the Medical Heritage Library. That should be enough online archives fun to last you through the weekend.
And speaking of fun stuff, check out this lovely article on the untapped power of smiling. I found this to be a fascinating and smile-inducing read. Just think of how much nicer the world would be if people genuinely smiled more.
As you can tell, I’m definitely ready for the weekend (especially since mine involves research at an archives and interviewing interesting people). I think no weekend is complete without some comforting food. So for some comfort food, check out Joy the Baker’s recipe for baked curry sweet potato fries. These fries sound delicious!
Finally, for your Friday enjoyment, check out this short TRON: The Next Day. I found it rather entertaining.
Have a wonderful rest of your day and a fantastic weekend. I’ll be back next week with some more tips, tricks, and news. Allons-y!
Happy Friday! I’m so excited that it is almost the weekend, even if the weekend is supposed to be gloomy and rainy. So today, dear readers, we are going to throw away any pretense of this being a blog post of great substance on the issues of the day in library and archives land. Instead, this post is to get you ready for the weekend, armed with fun (and helpful) tidbits and goodies to share with whomever you cross paths. Yes, it is a classically random Friday post. Did you expect anything less?
First, something very important and good to share with your family, friends, and library patrons: Give them Lifehacker’s article on how to give to Japanese recovery efforts without getting scammed. Good cause, better if your money actually makes it to those who need it.
If somehow you missed it on Twitter this morning, the videos from Personal Digital Archiving Conference 2011 are now available on the Internet Archive. There are many interesting talks and I highly suggest listening to them, especially if anything I wrote while summarizing them last month didn’t make sense.
Speaking of open access journals, I have to give props to Evidence Based Library and Information Practice which has always been (so far as I know) open access. Plus it publishes some great research articles, although I may be a bit biased as this journal published my first article and I am on their evidence summaries team. But really, it’s a great journal and the latest issue just came out, so go take a look.
This is something fun to share with your friends (and get a wee bit competitive about who does better on the test, if that’s your thing): The Cambridge Face Memory Test. Take the test to see how good you really are at facial recognition. (This one’s for the people I know who say they are excellent at faces, but quite bad with names. Let me know how you do.)
Lifehacker Night School has done it again. Check out the latest course on Digital Painting 101.
And finally, if you have people coming over in the near-ish future and it is as gloomy where you live as it is in the Bay Area, consider making Chipotle Black Bean Pizza. It sounds yummy and warming, plus who doesn’t like pizza?
Have a lovely weekend, filled with fun, relaxation, and reading. I plan on it. I’ll be back next week with actual thoughts on libraries, archives, tech, and other randomness. Allons-y!
It’s Friday and the end of another week, thank goodness. Before getting to the few things I want to talk about today, I just want to share this link from Gizmodo, Japanese earthquake: How to respond and stay informed and also, hopefully soon, how to help/donate to the relief efforts.
In more fun news for this kind of gloomy Friday in the Bay Area (where luckily we haven’t had any real damage due to tsunamis), today I just want to share a few resources to help you with landing a job and to help you have a good weekend.
First, to the job information. It seems like you can’t get away from people talking about jobs and the economy, but I promise not to ramble on for too long. I just have two resources to share: this great article from WebWorkerDaily, landing your dream job in a networked world, and Lifehacker’s top 10 ways to rock your resume. Having now been on both sides of the hiring table in libraryland, I can’t tell you how shocked I was with the sloppy looking resumes applicants submit. If you want a professional position, make every effort to come across as a professional. Also, networking: overused word, but crucial to finding opportunities.
Speaking of job hunting, resumes, and interviewing, if you are a graduate student at San Jose’s School of Library and Information Science, come to or log in for the Resume & Interview Workshop tomorrow. It should be a very helpful event and I’ll be one of the panelists speaking at the event. So do come by and say hi.
Now on to a few bits of fun for your weekend and I do hope, dear reader, that you have a fun weekend planned. First, I have to share Lifehacker’s post on extending the life of your books by handling them properly. I feel it’s my duty as a librarian and archivist to share the link and give you a preservation resource to share with your friends and patrons.
And if you are having guests over this weekend, or you just fancy making something nice for yourself, I suggest trying Joy the Baker’s cinnamon sugar pull apart bread and/or lemon cornmeal breakfast cake. Her recipes are fantastic and have never let me down when it comes to baking up something lovely.
Finally, I leave you with this bit of the 2010 Doctor Who Proms. Really, it makes for a nice work/study break.
Have a lovely rest of your day, a fantastic weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more random thoughts on archives, libraries, and technology. Allons-y!
