Saturday ... in the park

It wasn't really Saturday in the Park, however work today was a bit of a walk in the park. I did field several reference questions from students in a children's literature class, they were researching professional reviews for books they have chosen for an assignment. Since EbscoHOST's Academic Search Premier (database) has Horn Book Magazine, Booklist, Book Links, School Library Journal, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly, all of which the professor has authorized for use, it was one stop shopping. The biggest issue was finding some of the dated journals for those who selected books published in the late 80's or 70's. Earlier in the week I used a dusty Book Review Digest for this assignment, but that's another story. Throughout the rest of the day I had a couple of interesting projects and (or) distractions, it all depends on your point of view, to keep me busy.

Probably the most productive project was the Ellison Die Library. On Thursday, while surfing the net looking at other CMC web sites, I found one in Michigan that was using this resource. Since I just bought $2000 worth of Ellison dies last month, it immediately caught my interest. After a quick sign up and login process, it is possible to create an online library of Ellison Dies you have in your collection. Excellent. I set up two libraries, one for the alphabets and numbers, and a second for the general dies and borders. Not only is this a great online resource, it's now on my web page and blog, but it is also a great way to keep a running list of the dies I own. Yes, I already had an excel spreadsheet of my collection, but this library has pictures and die numbers as well. I spent several gleeful hours inputting the collection and updating the resource center web site to reflect this new gadget.

Another fun tool was something that was posted on Monkey Bites, one of the Wired blogs, a Color Palette Generator. This generator, from Steven DeGraeves, allows you to put in the URL of a photo on the web and it will create a palette of dull and vibrant colors to compliment the photo. With the imminent web page redesign in mind, I grabbed a photo of the library and ran it through the generator. It was interesting to see several of the colors I had chosen for the current page were part of the palette created. I will probably put the university logo into this gadget to see what might work well for the new page.

Last, but by no means least, was an intriguing post on Read Roger, the Horn Book Editor Roger Sutton's blog. Titled "Cheering the Home Team," the post discusses a couple of important trends in YA literature. The first links to an article by Boston Globe editor David Mehegan about the newest Tolkien publication; a works compiled by Tolkien's son. The second links to an article by Anita Silvey and concerns the road YA literatuare is currently traveling. I will be sure to check back tomorrow and see what others have to say.

Tomorrow is the last Sunday of work for this term! The weather forecast is sunny and a possible high of 70. I am hoping to get a few exterior photos of the library to use on the resource center site web design, a photomontage to be an image map. I have the page drawn out on paper and now need the nuts and bolts necessary to make it work (salute to Project Runway's Tim). Well, that and the second Dreamweaver class I'll be attending on Tuesday.

Tags: Weekend library work, EbscoHOST. Academic Search Premier, Ellison Die Library, Color Palette Generator, Read Roger, Horn Book Magazine