Librarian in Black Blog – Sarah Houghton

An official Google Blog has existed since yesterday at 11:40 AM. There is already an unofficial Google Weblog run by Aaron Swarz. I’m going to keep feeds from both–the more Google the merrier!

Google has conducted a massive re-tooling of Blogger. Search Engine Watch has a great article on the upgrades, so I won’t re-hash all of that here. The most interesting upgrade feature to me, as we use Blogger for our library’s blog, is the ability to post via e-mail. I’m going to have to play around with that a little and see how it works…

Online, printable, colorable images of national flags are available at the Flags of the World website. Black and white outline images are available in 3 different sizes, and look pretty nice!

Thanks to the J-Walk blog for the link.

Another resource that Mr. Price pointed out at the BayNet meeting….

Vivísimo is a clustering search engine. What does that mean, you might ask? The search engine automatically clusters search results into categories that are selected from the words and phrases in the search results themselves. The interface is intuitive and the clusters are almost always right-on-target (an exception being that “dog” is the top cluster for a search on “cat”).

Sample search for “The Grateful Dead” brings back the following top clusters & # of results: Photos (33), Art (19), Lyrics (13), CD (17), Radio (5), Rock (15), Community (7), Live Grateful Dead (6), Grateful Dead Merchandise (11), Long strange trip (5). Pretty cool, huh?

Vivísimo also has a toolbar and a minibar.

Now if only Google, Vivísimo, and GuruNet could get together for one uber-engine, I’d be out of a job…

This is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while, and I have Gary Price to thank for pointing it out at the BayNet annual meeting last week.
GuruNet is an intelligent reference query engine online. From their self-description:

How GuruNet differs from a search engine
When you look up a topic in a search engine, it gives you only a long list of unfiltered links pointing to web pages. Some are junk. Some are inappropriate. GuruNet brings you an answer in a quick, concise, authoritative, readable snapshot — and not a list of hundreds or thousands of links. With our award – winning technology, you save time twice: first by getting an instant definition or explanation, and second, by seeing the trusted source of the information.

A search for “cheese” brings back dictionary entries, a pronunciation sound file, encyclopedia entries, nutritional values, a sign language version of the word, a lexicon, and translations into other languages.

A search for “San Rafael, CA” brings back a dictionary entry (basically a place description), a pronunciation
sound file, encyclopedia entry, weather, & maps.

They also have a kids edition & a toolbar (with a paid subscription). After extensive use of the tool itself and reading some reviews, I would rate GuruNet as an essential reference tool, quicker for those factual queries we get at the reference desk, and a credible source to guide students to when they are doing research. The results they’ll get here are a lot more relevant than the ones they’d get on Google, for everything from “Eminem” to “the Civil War.”

Bookmark this site, librarians…that’s an order!

Thanks to a friend here at the library (Carol, you rock) for pointing me to this frightening Burger King site, one that, as a vegetarian and rare-TV watcher, I would not have ordinarily found. SubservientChicken.com lets you type in commands and the dude in the scary chicken suit does what you say…well, mostly anyway.

And yes, the chicken is wearing a garter belt–you’ll have to click on the link to Subservient TV to understand that one.

At first, I thought the chicken was live (yes, I am easily schnookered). The first time I went to the site, the chicken was not in the frame and the text read “summoning chicken.” Subsequent visits showed the chicken in the process of, seemingly, fulfilling someone else’s commands. Also, telling the chicken to turn off the light yielded 4 different video responses on 4 different visits. But, the editing isn’t perfect, so it’s kind of obvious that he returns to a stock “starting position” each time. The programming on this site is fairly impressive, so I’d say check it out to see that, or just for giggles. And you can tell the chicken to read, and he’ll pick up a book from the bookshelf. That’s nice. The garter belt still disturbs me though…

Business Week has a small article on the new search technologies that search engines are expected to address in the coming years. The big areas they mention are ones that tech publications (online & print) have been throwing around for a while now: search & portal personalization, historical web snapshots, multi-platform searching (web, hard drives, e-mail account, etc.), and clustering.

…and you can see it here.

Cornell University Library has a very-well designed and content-rich online exhibition on the history of games: Pastimes n’ Paradigms: Games We Play. The photos of the games are wonderful, and the descriptions of the games, and how they fit into the culture of the time period, are enlightening. From the site:

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections investigates the evolution of games since 1800 through PASTIMES AND PRADIGMS : GAMES WE PLAY. The exhibition includes a wide variety of antique and contemporary games, as well as rare books on rules, strategies, and recreation. Featured items include early nineteenth-century geographical board games; a Civil War game; suffrage games that garnered support in the battle for women’s votes; a vintage Monopoly game (the subject of Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman’s first book); gambling punchboards; and a selection of games inspired by television programming. Although they differ in design and presentation, they share a single message: the game is the medium.

Thanks to Baa Baa Blog for the link.

The Howard County Public Library in Maryland has installed Linux on its 200 public PCs. And, everyone is happy with the results. Well, maybe not Microsoft, but everybody else. Kudos to them for taking the leap.