Library Stuff

Cool search engine (link from a cool coworker) named Ms. Dewey. I did a few searches to compare it to Google, and it seems comparable, ignoring the fact that the her cool interface takes a minute to load. (Though I do wish I could do all that silly stuff while standing at the ref desk: sharpen a giant knife, pretend to talk to high-ranking government officials.) The quality of returns seems high; in fact, it seems that paid placements do not appear. Try searching for goods (I did "Honda Civic"): on Google, the first will be in a box marked "sponsored links" and those same won't appear on Ms. Dewey.


On Friday, I went, reluctantly, to the Virginia Library Association's conference, and as often happens when one goes unwillingly, I had a great time. I attended two very good readers' advisory workshops, and really enjoyed lunch speaker Candice Fleming. She's a history geek with a great sense of humor, which energies she turns to writing for young people. She's a cheerful Sarah Vowell. I also cheered on my colleagues in their presentation which urged us to use National Library Week as a chance to break out the glitter and have fun in the library. (I hope they know I was cheering them on, not heckling.)

The area library staff are right, of course: there's not enough glitter. There's an outside possibility that I enjoyed myself because I felt like the youngest, slimmest, most hip-dressed person at the conference (until I walked into the room with the area lib team). And I was wearing pants that are, like 3 years old!