DIY Librarian

On last night’s episode of Ghosthunters, TAPS investigated the Clapp Memorial Library in Belchertown, Massachusetts. If you missed it, you can watch it online (you’ll have to enable pop-up windows).

It’s been a while since I did a fun holiday post. Today all the heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be on sale - but that may just mean a discount on a marked-up price, if allegations about chocolate price-fixing are true.

The candy heart is from the ACME Heart Maker. Libraryman is also feelin’ the chalky candy heart love.

One of my favorite things about going to a national conference is that it often takes me to a city I would never visit otherwise. Sometimes I come back and think, Well, I never have to go there again! But often I am pleasantly surprised.

When I have a day to myself, I try to visit the zoo if there is one I can get to on public transit. The Denver Zoo is well-known and did not disappoint, but I’ve also been to some very nice smaller zoos, like the Rio Grande Zoo in Albuquerque. Animals that are often verging on comatose in warm, humid East Coast climates, like the polar bears and arctic fox, were quite active on a chilly January morning in Albuquerque.

The Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa has some great interactive exhibits (feed the stingrays and lorikeets) and a manatee hospital. At the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, I took some close-ups of the ravens. And at the Toronto Zoo, I spent a lot of time with the snakes.

In honor of a balmy December 1 here in Pennsylvania, I headed over to the Orange County Library System’s Web site and made a DIY Librarian Halloween snowman. [link via The Shifted Librarian]

I just found out from the Comics Curmudgeon that CafePress is now offering black t-shirts. This is very exciting news and I encourage those of you who are inclined to make snarky library-related schwag to take note. (Hey, this tactic worked before!)

Look, I got you something:

You can make your own conversation hearts over at ACME Heart Maker.

As 2005 fades away and 2006 starts up in earnest, people post year-end lists (or they post reasons why they don’t post year-end lists). The New York Times examines the trend (Jan. 5, 2006), focusing on music critics’ lists.

As I mentioned when I posted the DIY Librarian top 5 library blogs of 2005, I see lists as more of a conversation starter than anything. List-making is very popular in the DIY household; we must run out of things to say to each other.

It’s also a little competitive, though. You know you’ve won the match when you name your top whatever and the other person just says, “Oooooh, why didn’t I think of that?”

Now quick! Name your top 10 songs to catalog to!

1. 25 Minutes To Go (Johnny Cash)
2. F*!#in’ Up (Neil Young + Crazy Horse)
3. Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
4. I Wanna Be Sedated (The Ramones)
5. Loser (Beck)
6. Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry)
7. Whiskey River (Willie Nelson)
8. Do Anything You Wanna Do (Eddie and the Hot Rods)
9. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore (Wanda Jackson)
10. I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart (Patsy Montana)

This is perfect for someone like me, who still has Halloween decorations up, mingling with the Christmas decorations: a gingerbread haunted house—and it’s open source. Now somebody please make a gingerbread library! [via Marylaine Block’s Neat New Stuff]