"Week 5" - Pinterest

Well, it is now April and the 23Things is theoretically done. Still working on catching up.

Week five was on Pinterest, which is an interesting site. I created an account, added a board linking to some online sources of historical information (E.g. photo collections at Saint John Free Public Library and New Brunswick Museum websites). Then I followed some library related boards.

I honestly don't think my new Pinterest account will get very much use (not really my cup of tea), but I am happy to finally know what exactly it is!

Week 4 - Images!

By Vega asensio (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

So week 4 - which I am completing some weeks later - offered some very helpful advice on finding creative commons images and on the value of using Wordle image generator (or other tools) to create your own images. Very informative....


On an unrelated note, did you ever notice that scientific names for animals often have identical genus and species names? This is never seen in plants because the rules for botanical nomenclature do not allow it, which is too bad because it is so much fun to say those repetitive names. For example, the magpie is known as Pica pica, the red fox as Vulpes vulpes (like Mr Fox in the film Fantastic Mr Fox), and the magnificent Eurasian Eagle Owl is known as Bubo bubo, pictured right:






In closing, please enjoy this Wordle image in honor of funny scientific names. Ciao!



Week 3 - Social Reading

Hot on the heels of my last post, there's week 3 finished. (Now only 4 weeks behind... sort of).

You may think that, working for NBPLS as I do, I would already be very familiar by now with the features and layout of the no-longer-all-that-new Vision catalogue... You may think it, but it was not so. Completing week 3's task remedied the situation nicely.

My list consisted of books and movies both, some encountered recently and some long ago. It's entitled "Sad but worth it" and I decided to leave it public in case other Vision users may also enjoy the kinds of wonderful works that some people call "depressing".

From that list, I chose to comment on Atonement by Ian McEwan (the book, not the film).

Finally, for Thing 10 I think I successfully found a like-minded reader to follow. I looked at comments on The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonardo Mlodinow and scrolled down until I found someone who agreed with my own assessment of the book as mindblowing.

Week 2

As everyone else embarks on week 8, I am just now getting back to this training after a seven week hiatus (oops) and have done week 2.

Twitter is easy to set up, and, so far as I can tell, easy to use. Some may think I stretched the definition of a library-related account by including Stephen Hawking in my list (although he is an author), but I made a point of also following two local libraries, Neil Gaiman, and the Human Library.

To make the most of this training task I gleefully signed up to follow CBC's Quirks and Quarks. On the whole, I think I'm going to enjoy Twitter.

Brave New Virtual World

Well I must admit I never expected to be a blogger... As a child I started a diary several times but never kept it up more than a week. Even were I an avid journaler I would not expect anyone else to want to read what I wrote. However it is step one of NBPLS's exciting "23 Things" training on web tools etc., so here we are. Turns out it is not so difficult to set up, and if ever a library patron asks I can tell them it is easy as pie.

My name is Kendra. I work as a Secretary at the Saint John Free Public Library in Saint John, New Brunswick and as a Research Assistant at the New Brunswick Museum. My interests include languages, lichens and long lazy Sundays (and alliteration!).

Welcome to my blog!