the NMH Library Blog

Wordle -- Beautiful Word Clouds

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.  - from the wordle site

http://wordle.net/

How to make BOOK EARRINGS

From wikiHow...    

Book earrings make a great gift for anyone who loves to read, including yourself. You can make your own in a matter of hours and express your status as a bookworm or your belief in literacy.   

Learn how @ www.wikihow.com/Make-Book-Earrings

Stop Alien Abductions with the RIGHT HAT!!

From stopabductions.com

THE THOUGHT SCREEN HELMET STOPS ALIENS FROM ABDUCTING HUMANS. 

IT'S BEEN USED SUCCESSFULLY BY ABDUCTEES FOR NINE YEARS.

THIS WEBSITE TELLS YOU HOW TO MAKE A THOUGHT SCREEN HELMET, THE MATERIALS AND TOOLS YOU NEED TO MAKE ONE, AND WHERE YOU CAN OBTAIN THE MATERIALS

IF YOU ARE ABDUCTED BY ALIENS THE HELMET WILL WORK FOR YOU

http://www.stopabductions.com/

More on alien abductions:

Loxton, Daniel.  Alien abduction: part one of two: the invasion begins!. Skeptic, Fall. 2005. InfoTrac.

Rules of Thumb

"A rule of thumb is a homemade recipe for making a guess. It is an easy-to-remember guide that falls somewhere between a mathematical formula and a shot in the dark. Rules of thumb are a kind of tool. They help you appraise a problem or situation. They make it easier to consider the subtleties of the topic at hand; they give you a feel for a subject. A rule of thumb is not a joke or a ditty. It is not a Murphy's Law. Murphy says that things will take longer than we think; a rule of thumb says how much longer. While a proverb says that a stitch in time saves nine, a rule of thumb says to allow one inch of yarn for every stitch on a knitting needle."   Rules of Thumb: rulesofthumb.org

Google Quiz by plentysmart

Welcome  to plentysmart's Google quiz. 
                                     
Google. The possibilities are nearly infinite. Do you know it as well as you'd like? If not, try out our quiz. Google's help pages can be found here.
                                 
The quiz is divided into 3 sections of 5 questions  each.
Go to: http://www.plentysmart.com/comp/google/google.php

WorldCat: The World's Largest Network of Library Content and Services

What is WorldCat?

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.

WorldCat.org lets you search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it at a library nearby. It also allows you to find books, music, and videos, and check them out! If you're currently involved in a research project or you're in need of digital items (such as audiobooks), WorldCat has them available to be directly viewed or downloaded. You can even post a review of an item, or contribute factual information about it.

To find out more visit the WorldCat about us page by clicking here or going to http://www.worldcat.org/whatis/default.jsp.

A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff

Written by Josh Catone / November 28, 2007 /                            

With all due respect to Kevin Smith, the web is no longer only for complaining about movies. In fact, there are a large number of very helpful sites that teach you how to do things. These are do-it-yourself sites, but we're not talking about building a deck or baking a cake -- the web is full of more general interest sites that give quality instruction on all sorts of fun and useful projects. Including, sometimes, how to build a deck or bake a cake.

Continue reading at:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tutorial_sites.php

Library Love

If you love libraries (and I know you do....Not just the NMH Library, but ALL libraries) this is the website for you!

ILoveLibraries.org is designed for people who love and use libraries.   For book reviews and national library news, this is the virtual place for you!  Add your voice to the multitudes.  Submit why YOU love libraries via the Love Your Library link.

And while you're at it, check out to catalog your own collection, and/or connect with other readers who like what you like: www.librarything.com

The fans say:

- "both entrancing and evil"

- "This is way more cool than I expected."

Webmaster Tim Spalding says:  "If the buzz page doesn't convince you, you cannot be convinced. Go away. "

Alison Ernst, Director of Library and Academic Resource

1-800-GOOG-411

Directory assistance has always wanted to be free. Since it launched six months ago, Google's foray into phone-based information has become the easiest, quickest, most efficient free 411 I've used. I'm amazed more people don't have it programmed into their phones. Best part: there are no pre-roll ads. Another well-known option is 1-800-FREE411, but it can take 20 seconds before the "What city and state?" finally arrives. With GOOG-411, the same prompt is delivered in 4 seconds. Time is precious, but even more so if you're on a conservative plan with limited minutes. For that same reason (read: frugality), I'm less inclined to use SMS-based 411 or Google SMS. GOOG-411 also connects your call to the business for free, so there's no need to jot down or memorize any digits. Dialing "411" and paying $2 is like flipping through one of Ma Bell's analog phone books when you've got a connected laptop right in front of you -- an easily-remedied symptom of a bygone era.

-- Steven Leckart

1-800-GOOG-411
Available from Google

-- From Kevin Kelly COOL TOOLS

How to Clean Your Room

Some people are naturally good at keeping their rooms tidy, while some of us need to be reminded, whether by a frustrated parent or roommate, or by not being able to walk through our room without tripping over something. The problem is that if your room is a mess, the prospect of cleaning it can seem like an overwhelming task. But if you approach it in "layers" as described below, it'll be much less intimidating and, who knows? You might have some fun!

Read on @ www.wikihow.com/Clean-Your-Room

Free free free audiobooks

For free downloadable (to your MP3 player - or burned to a cd) audio books, check out:

http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/Free_Audiobooks/dp/202/

The Copycat Syndrom: Plagiarists at work

Excerted from Slate.com, Jan.11, 2007...
 

... In plenty of instances of so-called plagiarism, what bothers us isn't so much a lack of originality as the fact that the plagiarizer has stolen someone else's work—the time it took to write the words or do the necessary research. The cribbed student essay—which Posner views as a particularly insidious form of plagiarism, committed by approximately one-third of high-school and college students—isn't an academic crime because a C student has tried to pass himself as a Matthew Arnold in the making. It's an academic crime because the student who buys his thesis from a paper mill has shirked the labor that his fellow students actually perform. Keep reading, click here.

The Copycat Syndrom: Plagiarists at work, by Meghan O'Rourke.

How to Find Motivation to do Homework

WELCOME BACK, STUDENTS!

Some of you may find it difficult to get back into the routine following a break. The following post comes from a website -- actually a wiki -- that I find very helpful. Good luck!

How to Find Motivation to do Homework

Few students like to do homework and everyone seems to put it off. It is easy to say that you will do it 'later', and yet, when 'later' comes, you still do not want to do it. But, it has to be done!  read on @ http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Motivation-to-do-Homework

Learning To Flirt in Chinese: Chinesepod

From slate.com ...

Why all language podcasts should sound like Chinesepod.

By Michael Erard
Posted  Friday, April 14, 2006, at 12:44 PM ET

Compared to sitting in a classroom or language lab, learning a foreign tongue from a podcast doesn't feel much like work. In the case of Chinesepod, a free daily podcast from Shanghai with lessons in Mandarin Chinese, language study is actually fun. When I tell people I listen to Chinesepod, they say, "Oh, I'd really love to do that in Spanish/French/Japanese, but I see all these language podcasts on the Web and I don't know how to choose." Here's a piece of advice: Find ones that sound like Chinesepod.

As in most podcasts, the hosts are the biggest attraction. Chinesepod is hosted by Ken Carroll, an Irishman who founded a high-profile English school in Shanghai as well as Chinesepod's parent company, and Jenny Zhu, who gained some visibility as Maria Shriver's translator at the recent Special Olympics. They get right to business (they don't chatter self-referentially about the Web site or the podcast) and they're certainly likable. Because the lessons are predetermined but the accompanying banter isn't, you get to hear Ken and Jenny genuinely interact in both English and Chinese, which is not only interesting but also takes on a frisson of actual social danger—Jenny, the native speaker, is Ken's employee, which makes each lesson an episode of a subtly plotted soap opera. Will Jenny insult Ken's Chinese? Will Ken stop moping that listeners have complained about his Mandarin tones?

Read the complete article or download the MP3 audio version of this story at slate.com

How to Defeat a MySpace Addiction

From wikiHOW ...

Do you find yourself checking MySpace several hundred times a day? Do you neglect the other important things in life? How many bulletins did you post in the last hour? Is MySpace open in another window right now? If so, then you may have a problem. Here's how to wean yourself off of MySpace so that you can resume living offline...

Do you find yourself checking MySpace several hundred times a day? Do you neglect the other important things in life? How many bulletins did you post in the last hour? Is MySpace open in another window right now? If so, then you may have a problem. Here's how to wean yourself off of MySpace so that you can resume living offline... 

Read on @ http://wiki.ehow.com/Defeat-a-MySpace-Addiction

Free your books! BookCrossing

Read a good book over break? Why let it gather dust? Release it into the wild.

Register it at BookCrossing. Label the book with its BookCrossing number and a short note about what BookCrossing is and how it works. Release it into the wild!

Leave it in the student center, in the dining hall, in a Greenfield coffee shop, on a campus bench, on the bleachers .. and be notified by email each time someone records a journal entry for that book on BookCrossing. A couple of years ago, the librarians were happy to find a BookCrossing book on a table in the library. A perfect place to free a book to a community of readers. - pam

From www.bookcrossing.com: BookCrossing lets you share your books with the world, and track their individual journeys forever more. Our members have registered 2,840,739 books so far, and a good number of these are "in the wild" at any one time.

Register at www.bookcrossing.com and free your books!