Potluck #49-Love of languages

I found all the sites listed- livemocha, mango, and wikibooks- to be very interesting. However, I think for my purposes livemocha would be the best choice. It seems to really be at the pace of the learner. Since distractions are always around, my pace would be hard to be consistant. I love the sound of the French language, and took a year of it in high school, and I wouldn't mind being able to speak it for my own pleasure. However, the more usuable language for my job would be either Spanish or one of the Middle Eastern languages, since they seem to be the most common ones spoken by our patrons, other than English.

iHCPL # 54. Social Networking

1. I joined a book club in Junior High School. The book was 'Lord of the Flies'. I went to one meeting. That was enough for me. I prefer to read for pleasure. I do not care about symbolism, author's agenda or whether or not anyone else likes the book I want to read. I won't be joining a book club again, either on line or in person.

2. IF I were to want to implement a book club in this library, I would choose one for readers of cozy mysteries. To gather members I would put fliers in the lobby and invitations to join in the books being checked out by other cozy mystery readers. Using Goodreads, I would choose Diane Mott Davidson's 'Prime Cut' for the group to read.

3. I searched for 'The Good Dog' by Avi on Shelfari and Goodreads. Both sites gave the book a 4 stars or better rating.

#53 Finding Books Online

1. The 3 closest booksellers to me are: Echo Mountain Press, a private printing company; Homeschool Haven, a homeschool book store; and Barnes & Nobles, a true book store. All have websites. The private printing company appears to be based in a home. The homeschool store is specifically for the purchase and selling of books for homeschool programs. Barnes & Nobles is located in the Deerbrook Mall.

2. 'The Cat Who Wished to be a Wise Man' by Alexander Lloyd is not listed as being available from Barnes & Nobles, nor is it available from Giant Book Sale, which is the forth closest book store to me.

3.For 30 minutes I read 'Chasing Time: A Magical Bicycle Mystery' from my computer screen. I would not choose to read a book this way, I prefer to have it in my hand to read. I can see the advantage to being able to download a specific book to listen to for travel purposes.

iHCPL #52 What to Read

1. Using Novelist Plus, I entered Lilian Jackson Braun as a cozy mystery writer and the results included Rita Mae Brown, Nancy Atherton and M C Beaton. I have read all these authors and agreed with the results as being read alikes. The lists from What Should I Read Next and Fiction_L Booklists were not the same, however there were some authors on each that I have read and I do agree that they are cozy reads. I like Diane Mott Davidson from What Should I Read Next, and Jeff Abbott from Fiction_L Booklists.

2.Using Novelist Plus, I found The Cat Who Wished to be a Wise Man, by Alexander Lloyd and The Good Dog by Avi for the fourth grade girl. I also found Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger, and Restless: a ghost story by Rich Wallace for the 13 year old brother.

3.For the customer who has read all of Koontz's books, using What Should I Read Next, I would recommed Iris Johansen or F. Paul Wilson; using Novelist Plus, I found Greg Bear and John Saul.

4.Using the What's Next website, Alanna:the First Adventure comes from the Song of the Lioness Quartet series. Book 2 is In the Hands of the Goddess; book 3 is The Woman Who Rides Like a Man; & book 4 is Lioness Rampant.

iHCPL #34-Geocoding and geocaching

The location I chose to find was 4102 Rustic Wood, my library, of course. The coordinates are:
30.054655,-95.185497
N30degrees3.27930 W095degrees11.12982.


http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?lat=30.0633614&lng=-95.1692752&dist=100 is the GPS coordinate of the geocache I looked at.

I can not think of any thing I would be less likely to do than geocache.

iHCPL #33 Relocating with Online Maps

Using the HAR website, I searched for available houses in my own zipcode. I found which were empty, which would be quick move-in. All had pictures posted of the interior, and most of the back yards. If I were relocating to a new home in the same area I now live in, I would want to find a house that was not on a main road, not too near a school, and was relatively ready to move into (i.e.-landscaped, fenced, with drapes). By entering the address of the ones I found on HAR into the Google mapscape site, I was able to determine which of the selected ones best suited my criteria.

This website was by far the easiest to use of the three listed. However, when I was searching for a second home in the Hill Country of Texas, I used Realtor.com, and found that to be easier than HAR.

iHCPL #32 Current events

Did you know that there is a website for free public restrooms? True! The Houston Public Library is one of the ones listed on www.safe2pee.com. Finding where others might be is just one of the things you can find on Google Maps. At Globalincidentmap.com you can keep currently abreast with terrorist activity anywhere in the world. I'm thinking we don't need to tell Ann about this site. However, it seems a bridge in Vancouver, BC was an incident site(maybe today, I'm not sure if the iHCPL link is current or for the date it was put out for the staff).

iHCPL #31 - Maps

I have begun the module on mapping. My son is coming from Oregon this summer, and wants to do the tourist thing in the Houston area. I have mapped the route to the Houston Aquarium. If I can not lose it between now and this summer...yea!



The virtual tour option is neat. I can see what is around the exact map spot on ground level. Great idea.