Free Range Librarian

OCLC is again hosting a Blog Salon at ALA, this time 6 p.m. Sunday. I’ll be there!
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Both of us cried near the end. As Sandy said, the movie was more spiritually moving than several years’ worth of Good Friday services. I had expected my mind to wander; the movie couldn’t be as good as the books, I told myself, and of course it wasn’t–but it was still very, very good, very [...]

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A number of bloggers are taking breaks right now, including one of my favorite literary blogs, Beatrice. I plan to take a short year-end break from Wednesday to Sunday. Library bloggers, take note: it’s good practice to announce a break, so that new readers know you haven’t give up on the blog but are just [...]

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Sure, make all the jokes you want. The couple times I held a golf club, I hurt myself. I never came close to hitting the ball. I really do not play golf.
That said, if you play golf or know someone who does, you might consider placing a purchase at golfoutletsusa.com. I don’t know this [...]

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Dan Walters, current president of the Public Library Association, has tossed his hat into the ongoing discussion about compensating speakers invited to present at ALA and divisional conferences.
Walters’ response is predictable, but it’s not accurate. I call it predictable because the party line for the last several weeks has been that the glory of [...]

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Courtesy of ALA President-Elect Leslie Burger comes this story of a small-town elected official who got his big red Rudolph nose out of joint because he received a “Seasons’ Readings” card from his local library director… even though the card (published by ALA, and gee, why didn’t I do those this year?) did include Christmas [...]

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Lisa asked about tracking packages on Bloglines. (The package just arrived; when I told the guy “I tracked you through my RSS aggregator!” his eyes got jittery and he backed out of the patio and ran to his truck…)
It’s easy… if you know how! Ain’t that always the case? Here’s what you do:
1. Get [...]

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I am waiting for a UPS package I need to sign for. I can’t hear the doorbell from my office, so when I know the package is imminent I open our front gate as a cue to the UPS guy (it is a guy; he’s practically one of the family at this point).
How do [...]

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My favorite scene in Fried Green Tomatoes is the over-the-top moment in the diner where the detective dines unawares on the barbecued remains of the bad husband killed in self-defense. “Secret’s in the sauce,” Sipsey keeps saying.
Google yielded up a little search engine ‘cue today with its debut newsletter for librarians. Not surprisingly, Google doesn’t [...]

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What are the drawbacks of transparency and information? Can you really know too much about a contributor?
Quite a few decisions about Wikipedia come from the strong personality of Jimmy (sometimes called “Jimbo”) Wales, who even after acknowledging in the aftermath of WikiGate that anonymous writers are a problem to be addressed, insists that user [...]

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