My final resting place.

I AM SO TIRED!
Of the Internet, and its power over me. I now have the final resting place of my blog.

CATHY THE LIBRARIAN (.com) I asked Jeff if there was any possiblility that I would lose the site and have to start all over from scratch, and he promises me that it won’t happen. Hmm. I guess I’ll believe him.

The history of my blog.

I got trapped by prettier blogs, which is why I went from:

1. blogger
2. edublogs
3. wordpress.com
4. my final resting place, my very own url!

Unfortunately, I mostly fuddle about like I know what I’m talking about, but in all actuality, I have no idea what I’m doing. If I HAD known what I was doing, I would have learned that some different blog programs will let you import and export like nobody’s business. UNFORTUNATELY, I decided to go from edublogs (a wordpress program) to wordpress.com to using wordpress on my final resting spot. And guess what. Oh yes. Its true. Somehow, I cannot export my wordpress to my wordpress to my wordpress. I have to do it ALL BY HAND… AGAIN!!!

The only good thing coming out of this will be that I have my own website that will not be moving. EVER!

The thing that really stinks is that I was really good for awhile about posting messages in my teens’ blog. Then I find out about the whole VOYA thing, and I want to get my new blog as complete as possible, but then that means that I’ll have to become very proficient at copying and pasting as quick as possible. Luckily, no one posts any comments on the teen blog. Or looks at it for that matter, no matter how much work I put into it.

So this will be my final post on wordpress.com. I am tired tired tired of moving messages, and I will be happy to have a spot where I have complete control.

Thank you, all three or four of you who have been loyal readers, even if the posts are sporadic.  Finally you won’t have to change your bloglines, blogrolls or anything else.

Meet you at cathythelibrarian.com!… I hope.

I am so HAPPY! :)

I just received a call today that my blog for teens: PPLYA  / PARMATEENS was reviewed and approved by teens for VOYA! Yeah! Now I just have to finish transfering everything and make everything wonderful for the world to see. Unfortunately, I don’t know how many of the Hilton teens actually look at it…

Trip in the way back time machine.

Okay this dates me… or not. I’ve been feeling melancholy lately. The melancholy like this: sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. Not this: the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression. I’ve been thinking about all the shows I watched and toys I played with as a kid, although mostly the shows. Growing up in the 80′s and in the city (southwedge) of Rochester as I did, you didn’t go outside to play too much, especially when both of your parents had full-time jobs. Instead, you stayed inside and

1. beat your sisters (I have two younger Jen and Sam) up
2. played imaginary games having to do with your imaginary things
   1. boyfriend
   2. apartment
   3. job
3. make weird food substances that you wouldn’t eat in a million years if an adult prepared them, but when you prepared them, it was okay
4. create “houses” out of sheets, pillows from the couch and chairs
5. beat your sisters up some more
6. dance like ballerinas (there were three girls, no boys) to classical music on WXXI
7. Listen to the funky record collection your dad has, but only when he’s around because
   1. he’d kill you
   2. you don’t know how to work the record player anyway
8. watch Nickelodeon and PBS

I will only speak about 8 tonight. The 80′s had some really funky stuff out there. And I think they may be even funkier in my eyes because I was six in 1985, so some of the shows are sort of vague memories at that.

Some of these shows include:

1. Today’s Special
2. Pinwheel
3. Dangermouse
4. You Can’t Do That On Television
5. She-Ra, Princess of Power and He Man
6. Fraggle Rock
7. Sesame Street
8. RANGER BOB! (on WUHF, before it became Fox 31) There’s even an honest to goodness fan website dedicated to Ranger Bob!

Just thinking about them, I long for the days when I was young and free. All this thinking has gotten me tired, and I didn’t even get to talk about any of the shows. Ah well. BTW, if you look on youtube, you can find snippets of most of the shows. Because I know you want to. LOL! Double BTW. I’m glad that people are trying to improve the Southwedge, because its a really great area. And that’s not just because I grew up there, although it helps!

I own a piece of the Internet!

Jeff just purchased http://cathythelibrarian.com/ for me. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. I would like to try and keep my “blog blog” separate from my “professional blog” with my resume on it, although I try not to put anything too damaging here… well except for the poetry. Still it might be nice to have everything together… although I guess everything is together here. ARRGH. The Internet is a time consuming place.

I just found out that I was mentioned at one of the director’s meetings… due to my incessant fiddling with the Internet. The directors were talking about taking the virtual reference desk down, and some people were saying that they still use it… anyway, somehow my name was mentioned because I use del.icio.us for the library.

It sounds like the reference desk is doomed, so I’m going to try and get as much of the stuff onto a del.icio.us account as I can… although upon looking at some of the stuff, I don’t think I’ll even bother. Some of the sites are people’s personal musings. I took Digital Libraries at Buffalo. We created a site for teachers. Many of the sites on the virtual reference desk would not make it. You don’t want to send people to sites of questionable origin. Granted you may not have created it or anything, but just as we (as librarians) try to buy the best quality books that we can, we should also hold the same standards for our websites.

1. Don’t link to websites that haven’t been updated in forever.
2. Don’t link to websites that are more ads than content.
3. Don’t link to websites that don’t leave an “about this site” section. You want to know if you can trust the information.
4. Look carefully at the url. While not always the case, there are some webhosting sites that you KNOW aren’t going to be used by professionals.
5. Look at the url again. Make sure that you link to the main page of the site and not a section of the url that’s five or six layers in. If upon looking at the homepage, its something completely different, you should think twice about adding it. Its also wise to do this in case there may be… objectionable material on the rest of the site.
6. DO remember to post somewhere that you cannot be held accountable for the information on the sites you are linking to. You’ll notice most schools, government websites do this to save their skins.
7. Do check up ocassionally to make sure that the links are still live. This can be mind numbing, but its important maintenance, just like cleaning your fish tank.

I really like using del.icio.us. They let you download buttons so that as you are surfing the web, if you find something you like, you can just click a button, add some tags and voila! You have added a new link! Plus you can see other people who have linked to the same sites you have and steal their links.

So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I’m trying to go through the links as fast as I can before they take it down, so that I can add them to my del.icio.us account… although there is a site that archives websites, so you can check things out even if the site is gone. What is it?… Ah yes, the Internet Archive. And they have archived the library website! Yippee! Oh dear. I’m a nerd… good night!

Story time sagas

I haven’t been getting many to come to my story times. Part of my problem may be that I don’t really have a good strong core story time collection yet. A lot of the books are from the previous librarian’s collection, most of which I know I won’t use.

Upon looking at the books that I REALLY like using:

1. Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus
2. Catalina Magdelina Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan is her name (BTW I didn’t even look that up I know the book so well)
3. Winchell cuts the cheese
4. Big Green Monster

Well, I guess for the moment those are my core collection… I’m very sure that there are a couple others, but I can’t think of any.

Anyway, after looking at my tiny core collection, I realized a couple of things (another list…):

1. I really like really silly books
2. I like books with repetition, that allow the kids to get involved
3. I like books that are pretty short
4. I like books with bright colors

I realize that this is my mission now, if I want to save story time. I need to find more books like these. Last week, I read a couple books and I was afraid that the kids were going to die. I read them to myself beforehand, but it wasn’t until I started reading them that I realized they were WAY too long. They were books about food. I think one was about a giant carrot, one was about food having a food fight, and the other one was so forgettable that I’ve forgotten.

Tonight I had ZERO kids at my story time. I was sad.

However my evening was brightened up when the Knit Wits (a group of knitting ladies that are my mom’s age and up) asked me to read them some picture books for them. And they loved it!

That got me thinking… why not do story time for senior citizens? Does that sound crazy? I mean I wouldn’t hand out coloring sheets or do rhymes, but why not tell stories to senior citizens? Afterwards I could leave out tea and cookies and let them mingle.

Of course I was thinking about this at about midnight, so I don’t know if it holds up in the morning light. Still.

Today’s thoughts

• my sister is going to (hopefully) do a practicum at my library. I can’t wait to see what I can get her to do…
  • plan summer reading
  • blog work
  • grant?
• work on story time for babies, which I hope to do this spring

Fun times in Rochester

My sister just sent me a link to this blog about the malls of America. There was a video of Midtown mall in Rochester, “A town of quality”.  I remember the clock that they talk about, which is gone now. Just like the Christmas monorail. Such a charming little video. Lots of families. All white people. Rochester as a bustling metropolis.

See for yourself, and tell me what you think.