Differences in reference...

So I am beginning my practicum rather late and have been really taken aback so far at the differences in reference between the library I've been working at all year and the library I just started my practicum at!

To explain, the library I work at is VERY small and the staff is also sparse so we are very busy all the time helping out with everything that needs to be done in the library. The library I am doing my practicum at is larger and obviously has a really nice budget. Long story short, the last time I was at the reference desk while doing my practicum the phone rang. A man wanted to know about the population of Jews, historically, in Sicily Italy. My experience has been (at the small library I work at) that I cannot take too long with any one patron. I've actually been criticized where I work because I spent too much time trying to look up a book for a patron. Well...I looked to my desk cohort, who told me to take down the patron's info, then look up the information for him! So I did, and he was very appreciative! The whole thing took about 15 minutes and was immensely enjoyable for me since I never get to do fun stuff like that at my small library.

Just thought I'd share that experience!

Topix

I just subscribed to Topix, which contains a lot of information -I loved playing around with it! One cool thing is that you can look at what is going on in your area locally news-wise. This would be helpful for librarians because a lot of times a patron will come in with some question about something happening within the community - now I have somewhere to go to find their answer! Also available is world news, and most current news - both of which would be of interest to everyone (not only librarians!)

Subscription to Google Reader

I subscribed my blog to some interesting things in Google reader - but am still a bit confused as to if I am doing this correctly. It seems to me you should be able to access what I've subscribed to from this blog...

My very own movie poster!!!

This should get you to my movie poster I made entitled "Dead By Sundown." I hope you can see it, as I'm not sure how to actually show the picture on this blog, but will continue trying. I don't see anywhere that allows me to just add a pic, so hope this works! Let me know :)


http://bighugelabs.com/photos/dd372e547d7e4f4290be6958171f895a/poster7518667

Bloglines?????!!!??

Well I hate to give up all together on this because I think it's really neat - I was hoping to get a post up on my blog so that everyone could view my bloglines subscriptions, but it seems that my account has yet to be activated. After more than a few frustrated exclamations at my computer screen - I am going to give up for now - but will resume again at a later date! I'm not sure if I should be posting it on my blog - but it seemed appropriate.

New Cancer Cure?

This is pretty exciting - I don't feel that I can explain it except to say that chemist Michael J. Sailor has come up with something he calls "nanoworms" which can go to where the cancer is in your body and kill tumors! Read more about it @ http://www.popsci.com/node/24500

New Technology

I found this on another blog - the idea was made up by a group from the Boston healthcare community - the idea is: The Idea: I found this on another blog - the idea was made up by a group from the Boston healthcare community - the idea is: The Idea:
The idea is to rapidly develop affordable, new therapies for major diseases by conducting clinical trials with combinations of generic or unpatented substances. Pharmaceutical companies will not conduct such trials, since they will not be able to recover their investments. Without evidence from such trials, doctors will be reluctant to prescribe such medicines and health insurance will not cover their cost. We estimate this idea will reduce suffering and save millions of lives within a few years.

It's entitled New Affordable Cancer Treatments -and we are encouraged to provide links on our blogs, facebook accounts etc. You can find more info on it where I did at: http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com/2008/09/cool-technology-of-week_26.html