2 Little surprises - Sun 3 Apr 2011

As a Librarian, one of my main (and most favourite) tasks is cataloguing. For those not familiar with Librarianship - this basically means I grab the new books/CDs/DVDs/puzzles and decide where they'll be shelved in the Library.


Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, and given that in our modern age, a computer catalogue is used to locate books, it is my job to make sure the search fields all have the correct information and so on. I like to imagine I am a kind of book-locating super-programmer (though any I.T. boffins reading this would probably scoff) :P


One of the greatest parts about being a cataloguer, is that I get first look at a lot of library stuff - when it is still crisp and shiny, rather than grimed with the "booksnot" of many borrowers. In addition, I get to see things that many people may never come across, i.e. books on unusual topics or interesting pictures. Which leads me to sharing with you one of my recent fantastic finds.

I was cataloguing a jigsaw puzzle depicting what seemed (at the time) to be a fairly bland picture of a hay-filled cart pulled by a pair of grand old horses. At first glance it was nothing special and many a catalogued jigsaw has had such a similar country scene, however, on closer inspection, I noticed the people in the picture appeared to be Amish.


Interested in learning more, I scoured the box for information about the photograph, and discovered to my grand delight, Bill Coleman's website, which I must now share with you.


Bill Coleman is a photographer, who, for FORTY YEARS has been visiting this remote Amish community in Pennsylvania and photographing their daily way of life. The photographs are just beautiful and truly depict a fun-loving, hard-working and joyful group of people - not to mention a plethora of gorgeous country scenes. I implore you to view his photos here.


And if you're too lazy to click on the link, here's one of my favourites. Enjoy!:

7 Lazy

I have been lazy this week and have yet to do any Web 2.0 study, and given I didn't get out of bed today until around midday, I think you can see how this weekend is going to go.

However.

In the spirit of keeping my blog somewhat up-to-date and for your viewing pleasure, I have three things to share.

1. My Christmas tree:

The tree is about 180cm tall. Note the red and gold theme, and lack of tinsel. Choosing a colour theme and omitting tinsel are techniques a seasoned tree decorator recently shared with me, to try and make your tree look more like a Myer tree. However, I have recently seen both Alethea and GozzieHoon's trees which have well-placed tinsel, and they look pretty fab. So, my advice is if you are going to use tinsel, I would suggest you use it sparingly.

I made the gold bows myself out of 5 metres of wired gold ribbon. If you want to do this yourself, I suggest using at least 10 metres of ribbon (or more) for a tree this size, as 5 metres proved to not be enough :P

2. Cool (and useful) little website:

The Literature Map   <-----  click here

The literature map basically shows "who writes like" author names, but in a cute and animated way. It's not as detailed as NoveList, for example, but you don't need a database subscription or library card to use it. Check it out!

3. Study like a scholar, scholar

You may have seen this before, as I "borrowed" the link from another Library's blog, but I love it so much I just have to share it here for anyone that hasn't already seen it. It's a play on the famous "I'm on a horse" Old Spice ad. Enjoy :)

4 Stepping away from the Console

When I’m not yelling and killing people (on the Playstation, of course!), I step away from the console and go about doing real world things™.


I figure now that I’ve bored you with a couple of posts about gaming, it’s time to show you my “softer side” with the use of Flickr. Woohoo!

One of the things I love about our digital age are the cameras (including my iPhone cam). You can take photo after photo (just clicking away like a professional photographer) and it doesn't matter if you only get one gem out of 20, because it's not costing you a thing!


Before commencing the Web 2.0 training, I already had a Flickr account, but admittedly hadn’t done much to it since opening it and adding a pic or two, so it’s great to be re-acquainted.

If you’d like to check out my photostream, you should be able to find it here.

If you’re too lazy to click on the link (and really, you should be ashamed), here’s a few of my foto-faves (yep, another new term I just coined):

Garden of Tulips - This photo was taken in Sapporo, Hokkaido - the north island of Japan  - when I was there in 2000/2001.

Cheeky skink - This little guy was in my front garden. If you look closely you can see he is poking out his tongue. Cute! He also appears to be growing a new tail.

On the road to Bunbury - I LOVE this picture! I took it with my iPhone from the car window while traveling at 100kms per hour!! Not bad, huh? It almost looks like a painting.

(P.S. As an aside to this exciting photo-post, I must apologise for the weird spacing between paragraphs and such. I am having quite a time trying to get my blog formatting the way I want it. Could this be because I am using a Mac? Or should that make no difference? I have no idea. What a noob :P)