Keeping Track of your Social Networks

The MakeUseOf post "20 Tips to Define and Manage Your Social Networks" by Mahendra Palsule gives useful strategies for managing multiple online networks. The post is organized in two parts and offers suggestions like these from part one :

• Visualize Your Social Map
• Define Your Target Audience
• Use a Password Manager
• Separate Private & Public Photo-Sharing
• Use One Social Bookmarking Site
• Use a Gravatar
• Use Social Surfing
• Integrate IM, Email, and Social Networking
• Use a Consistent Username
• Track Your Comments

Palsule also gives links to online tools to help the process. These strategies and tools should make social networking more manageable and less confusing/fatiguing. Happy networking!

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Thurber Drug Store

Postcard Postmarked July 1909!

One hundred years ago this is what a Thurber post card looked like! This postcard is of the Thurber Drug Store. It was written in Thurber July 1, 1909 by J.E. M. to Mr. F. M. Marrs, Stephenville, Tex. He writes "All are well as usual. The photo is the Drug Store. See me at the corner. Yours, J.E.M." This photo is included in the online Dick Smith Library Cross Timbers Historic Images "Thurber Collection", as well as many other Thurber photos. From the library home page click on Cross Timbers Historic Images Project. Then use Thurber Collection as the search terms to find them all. Also be sure to visit the W.K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas museum for a look into Thurber's history!

Book Sale TODAY!

Just a reminder that the Friends of the Dick Smith Library annual summer book sale is going on right NOW, Wednesday July 8, 2009, until 6 PM in the foyer of the Tarleton Center on campus. It's today only, so come on over and find some bargains, and help out your library at the same time!

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Summer Reading Lists

I've been trying to come up with a Top Ten Reading list for the summer…and I can't seem to find just one. So I decided to share 10 READING LISTS. Hopefully one of these will suit you.

• Top 10 Summer Reads – Earth911.com – Even reading has turned green!
  
• Oprah's Summer Reading list – 25 books you can't put down
  
• Summer Reading, Beach books etc. by Barnes & Noble
  
• 13 Hottest Summer Reads – The Daily Beast
  
• Ten Books to read before they hit the big screen
  
• Nebraska Library Association – .pdf with books for children of all ages.
  
• National Endowment for the Humanities: Summer Favorites Reading List – Kindergarten to 12 grade
  
• The 10 Best summer Cookbooks of 2009 from NPR
  
• 2009 CSAF Reading List -selected by the Air Force Chief of Staff for service personnel
  
• Best Mystery, Crime Novels – for Summer Sleuths from NPR
  

There are LOTS of reading lists out there! I hope those listed above will give you some good ideas for a great summer read! Remember if the Dick Smith Library does not own a title you would like to read, we can inter-library loan it for you. Most ILL's only take about a week…and its FREE! More Information about our ILL Service is available @ http://www.tarleton.edu/~library/ill.html

Happy 4th of July!!

The library would like to wish everyone a fun and safe July 4th holiday weekend!
Here are some interesting facts about the 4th of July from the U.S. Census Bureau:

2.5 million -- In July 1776, the estimated number of people living in the newly independent nation.Source: Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 <http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html>

304 million -- The nation’s population on this July Fourth.Source: Population clock <http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html>

More than 1 in 4 -- The chance that the hot dogs and pork sausages consumed on the Fourth of July originated in Iowa. The Hawkeye State was home to 17.6 million market hogs and pigs on March 1, 2008. This represents more than one-fourth of the nation’s total. North Carolina (9 million) and Minnesota (6.7 million) were the runners-up.Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service <http://www.nass.usda.gov>

6.8 billion pounds -- Total production of cattle and calves in Texas in 2007. Chances are good that the beef hot dogs, steaks and burgers on your backyard grill came from the Lone Star State, which accounted for about one-sixth of the nation’s total production. And if the beef did not come from Texas, it very well may have come from Nebraska (4.7 billion pounds) or Kansas (4.1 billion pounds).Source: USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service <http://www.nass.usda.gov>

$107.2 billion -- Dollar value of trade last year between the United States and the United Kingdom, making the British, our adversary in 1776, our sixth-leading trading partner today.Sources: Foreign Trade Statistics <http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top0712.html> <http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/www/>

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Friends of the Library Book Sale

Mark your calendars! The Friends of the Dick Smith Library will hold their annual summer book sale Wednesday July 8, 2009 from 7:30 to 6 in the foyer of the Tarleton Center. The Friends have lots of items that have not been in previous sales, plus some that have.

The Friends began having book sales in 1992 and they are one of the major fundraisers for the group. The money is used to purchase items for the library that are not covered in the regular budget. Some of the items that have been purchased by the Friends include display cases, map case, artwork, furnishings for the Local History room, popular magazine subscriptions, mouse pads, flip video cameras, and many others.

Items included in the book sale largely come from donations. The library is not able to keep all donations....many are duplicates, some are outdated, and some are not appropriate for the collection. The gift items that are not added are given to the Friends for their book sale. We also give the Friends items that we withdraw from the collection because they are outdated or are duplicate copies.

We have come a long way! In 1902 the Stephenville Twentieth Century Club organized a book reception to benefit the John Tarleton Library. It was well received and more than 250 books were collected. "The bulletin for 1902-03 stated that the library held 1500 volumes of choice literature." Today we have over 280,000 items! (King, The Dick Smith Library: Into the Second Century, p.4)

The Friends of the Library annual book sale is well attended and popular with the Tarleton community as well as the Stephenville community. So come on over to the Tarleton Center Wednesday July 8 and find some bargains!

Trust not the Stars

Curses and muttered execrations! Have you found those lovely lines of stars rating movies/products/travel destinations/ restaurants, etc., etc., useful? Yes? ME, TOO!! I have relied on ratings and customer reviews to help me make purchasing decisions, but alas, no more. My gullible self recently got a reality check when I read The Perils of Five-Star Reviews from BBC News regarding 'shill reviews'.

Shill reviews are reviews that are not legitimately from customers, but self-serving reviews either paid for or written by those who have something to gain. Now one has to read even customer reviews with a critical eye. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is not a legitimate review. Read the article and learn how to be a more-informed consumer.

Lucky for you, the information you get at your library has been vetted, and found worthy. Start there first.