Top Ten Tuesday – 10 books about Holidays

Yeah it's Tuesday again! There is another holiday this week – April fool's Day. There are a lot of special days and holidays this time of year. It made me wonder if the library had any resources about Holidays – We do! Here is a list of 10 resources. There are many more…these just caught my fancy.

• Feasts and frolics special stories for special days
  
• The festive teacher : multicultural activities for your curriculum
  
• Encyclopedia of holidays and celebrations : a country-by-country guide
  
• Around the world through holidays : cross curricular readers theatre
  
• National days/national ways : historical, political, and religious celebrations around the world
  
• The business of holidays
  
• Holiday symbols and customs
  
• Let's celebrate today [electronic resource] : calendars, events, and holidays
  
• The year-round holiday cookbook
  
• The whole earth holiday book
  

The Tarleton Libraries have these and more resources available for you. You can find them by searching the libraries' ONLINE CATALOG. If you need help, the reference desk of the Library is staffed with professional librarians who provide personalized service to assist with learning and research needs. You may get help and ask questions in person at the library, by phone at 254-968-9249, by email, or via the web at http://www.tarleton.edu/~library/askaref.html. We hope to see you in the library soon!

You Signed Up -- Now How Do You Opt Out?

"Deleting accounts you've created on Facebook, MySpace, AOL, and elsewhere on the Web isn't always easy." To help people manage their online accounts, Eric Griffith at PC Magazine offers the article "How to Delete Accounts from Any Website," which gives step-by-step instructions, phone numbers, fax numbers, links, consequences and tips for how to opt-out of these sites:

• Amazon.com
• AOL/AIM
• Apple’s MobileMe
• Audible.com
• Blockbuster Online
• Blogger
• Classmates.com
• eBay
• Facebook
• Flickr
• Friendster
• Google
• iTunes
• LinkedIn
• MyLife.com (formerly Reunion.com)
• MySpace
• Netflix
• PayPal
• Photobucket
• Twitter
• Windows Live ID
• Yahoo
• YouTube

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Tarleton's First Building

ca 1899

My how time flies......It has been 10 years since the 100th birthday of Tarleton! The Tarleton State University Centennial Celebration officially kicked off March 24, 1999 with the Centennial Convocation.

Many other activities were held that week including a Centennial breakfast for retired Tarleton employees, a former president's luncheon, a 100 cent luncheon, a performance by the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, a Centennial fashion show, a Fine Arts gallery reception showcasing an historical display of Tarleton's 100 years, a musical look at Tarleton Traditions, a Centennial BBQ followed by a Neal McCoy concert, an Easter egg hunt, a 5K run, a 3/2 softball game, the Shawn McMullen Memorial Calf Roping, and the world famous Count Basie big band concert. It was a grand celebration with exhibits on the history and traditions of Tarleton throughout the campus, along with the centerpiece exhibit in the gallery of the Fine Arts Center.

The March activities were the beginning of the celebration that culminated with Homecoming in October 1999. Some of the October events included a memorial tribute to John Tarleton at his gravesite, renaming of the street south of his gravesite to Centennial Ave., sealing of the time capsule, book signings, a fireworks display, as well as Homecoming events.

It was a grand occasion and will be remembered for years to come.

Happy 110th anniversary!

Fore-Edge Paintings

In a recent post here, Janie mentioned fore-edge paintings, something I’ve wanted to blog about for a long time! It's easier to show how fore-edge paintings work than write/talk about them, so I've included some very-short videos (with no audio) below.

If you are holding a book in your hand, then the fore-edge is the long edge of the pages that you can turn or fan out. Fore-edge painting refers to any painted decoration of this fore-edge. Some are visible when the book is closed, but most are only visible when the pages are slightly fanned. The painting is further hidden when the book is closed by applying gilt (gold-leaf) or marbling to the edge. The most common type is a single fore-edged painting:

There are also split and panoramic fore-edge paintings. Split fore-edge paintings can be done on thick books, where each half of the book’s fore-edge has a different illustration (here’s an example). Panoramic fore-edge paintings occur not only on the book’s main fore-edge, but on the fanned-out top and/or bottom edges of the book as well, giving a near-270-degree panoramic view:

The most rare type are double fore-edge paintings, which show one image when the fore-edge is fanned out the usual way, and a completely different picture when the pages are fanned out in the opposite direction:

There are even triple fore-edge paintings, where the edge is not gilded or marbled and instead has an illustration visible when the book is closed. As far as I know, there are no fore-edge paintings on any books in the Dick Smith Library. However, I will be checking books with gilt or marbled edges in our Special Collections just to make sure!

Fore-edge paintings date back to the 10th century and were a popular art form in the 18th and 19th centuries. The detail on these miniature paintings is incredible! There are some great examples in the Boston Public Library Flickr set. For more information, check out these Delicious links.

Top Ten Tuesday – 10 Signs of Spring

Everyone is back from Spring Break; it's time to get down to business…and spring fever hits. I'll admit I've got it bad this year. I decided to post my Top Ten Signs of Spring! (In no particular order)

• No more extra blanket on the bed
  
• Students have started that final push to complete their semester assignments.
  
• Easter and Gardening items on display at Wal-Mart
  
• Plans for Summer Vacations are already underway
  
• Birds everywhere - It's almost a little scary. (Too much Alfred Hitchcock as a child)
  
• Sandals and Swimsuits on sale.
  
• Thunderstorms and rain – Don't like the storms but we need rain.
  
• Baseball is back - (Go Texans, Rangers, and Cubs!)
  
• Seniors are counting the days until Graduation.
  
• Bluebonnets are coming up!
  

Do you have ideas of spring? Are you fighting spring fever like I am? Post a comment and share. Then get back to work…LOL!

Women's History Month

Women's History Month is drawing to a close, but there are still library resources about women and women's history that you can enjoy year round. Below are some sample titles: HQ1121.H46 2003, Her past around us : interpreting sites for women's history. HQ1190 .B75 2007, Taking on the big boys, or, Why feminism is good for families

HQ1410.A133 2002, 33 things every girl should know about women's history : from suffragettes to skirt lengths to the ERA. HQ1419 .B35 1995, Women in modern America

HQ1413.W66 K78 2004, A woman for president: the story of Victoria WEBSITES The Library of Congress American Memory Project: Women's History. Jewish Women's Archives Writing Women Back Into History

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Celebrating Women!

Women have come a long way at Tarleton since the early 1900’s when this photograph was taken! These female students were standing in front of the Mary Corn Wilkerson dorm, the only one at that time. Fashions have certainly changed too.

In recognition of V-Day, Alpha Psi Omega is proudly producing The Vagina Monologues, featuring Eve Ensler’s play of monologues inspired by real women from all over the world. The production begins tonight at 7:30 in the Clyde Wells Fine Arts Center Workshop Theater, and runs through tomorrow night. It is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls and raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups. Proceeds from the Tarleton performances will go to our own Cross Timbers Family Services. So come on out and support this worthy cause!

You will see that Tarleton women really have come a long way!

Top Ten Tuesday - Top 10 St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirts

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed you Spring Break.

I stumbled upon this site searching for information about St. Patrick's Day. So I thought I would share. Take a look at ROTFLCOPTER's Top 10 St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirts! Some really fun t-shirts!.

Enjoy St. Patrick's Day - Just be careful of green beer!

Calling all book lovers!!

If you're a bibliophile, you might want to check out these websites. You've hopefully have heard of LibraryThing, the most popular social cataloging website online, and perhaps even of the Amazon-owned Shelfari, but here are a few websites for book lovers that you may not have heard about:

1. BookSprouts
BookSprouts is a website where you can join and create book clubs. Members can vote on which book to read next, have book discussions in forums, post book reviews, and hold meetings.

2. Blippr
Blippr is a website where you can add short reviews of 160 characters or less of books, movies, music, games, and applications. You can connect your account to many other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook where you can continue your conversations.

3. 22 Books
22books will allow you to quickly create book lists of any type. You can make comments on books in your list, and embed your lists in other websites.

4. Book Cover Archive
The Book Cover Archive is a collection of over 1,000 book covers categorized and browsable by designers, authors, titles, art directors, photographers, illustrators, and more. Readers can leave comments on covers and can suggest entries.

5. BookJetty
BookJetty is a social cataloging app that will let you set up a bookshelf of titles you own or want and then easily search for them in your local library with a click. Amazon and other booklists can be imported for quick startup.

6. Book Glutton
BookGlutton is a social community where you can read public domain books and discuss them with groups. Members can annotate books and make their comments public for discussions or keep them private. You can even upload your own books.

7. Gurulib
Gurulib is a social cataloging program which lets members organize their book, movie, music, game, and software collections. The site allows members to use their webcams as barcode readers to scan in items. Items be loaned out and members can track borrowed titles.

8. Listal
This social cataloging website enables members to catalog books, movies, TV shows, video games, DVDs, and music. Members can loan their items, import and export their catalogs, and create favorite lists that others can comment on.

9. GoodReads
GoodReads is a robust social cataloging site in which members can create lists, write reviews, form groups, create trivia questions about titles, and converse in forums.

10. Paperback Swap
PaperBack Swap is a community hub for trading your paperbacks, hardbacks, audiobooks, and textbooks with others. Members can easily mail books as the site provides exact postage labels which can be printed out. Once a book is mailed, you can request one for yourself from the cache of over 3 million titles available.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

Since it is the Tuesday of Spring Break...I thought I would cheat a little and give you a top 10 from another site. From Lifehacker: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

They show some REALLY neat tricks on how to better search Google. Be sure and read the comment also, they contain even more tricks!

Libraries' Surprising Special Collections

"Tucked away in libraries across the country are unexpected archives and world-class treasures" according to the Smithsonian.

Although the article is interesting, Jessamyn West made it much more useful by providing links to these collections (where available) at Unburied. The comments lead the reader to even more special collections across the country! I like stbalbach's observation that "Special collections are often the end result of one persons lifetime magnificent obsession."

And I learned that there is actually a name for all those pictures we draw on the page edges of our textbooks: fore-edge paintings! Wow! There is a name for everything! Tarleton, too, has special collections, which were noted in a previous blog. They are housed in a special section (of course) of the library. Visit us!

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

In the 1950's Tarleton's spring break wasn't until April to coincide with the Easter holiday. The spring semester didn't begin until February! The article above describing the Tarleton spring holidays is from the March 17, 1953 JTAC. Aren't you glad that we end our fall semester before Christmas, and begin our spring semester in January? That means that our spring break is already here!

Have a wonderful, fun, restfull, and safe break!

Two Bits, Four Bits, Six (more) Bits

The 50 State Quarters program has expanded to include the District of Columbia and five United States Territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The DC quarter is already in circulation and five territories' quarters will be issued periodically through 2009. Pictured is the Guam coin to be issued later this year. Read more here.

The 50 State Quarters program was extremely successful in renewing interest in coin collecting (also known as numismatics). So much so, that the U.S. Mint estimates that the program generated about $4.6 billion in seigniorage from coins taken out of circulation by collectors from the program's beginning in 1999 through about 2004.

Seigniorage is the difference between the face value of a coin and the cost of producing, distributing and retiring it from circulation. Since it costs the Mint around 5 cents for each 25-cent coin it produces, the government had revenue whenever someone chose to collect the coin and not to spend it.

In 2010, the U.S. Mint will begin a new program with quarters featuring national parks and other national sites. One site will be selected for each of the 50 states, DC, and the five territories. After all sites are selected, the quarters will be issued at the rate of five per year in the order in which each site was first established as a national site.

George Washington's profile will still appear on the obverse side of all the quarters.

[Thanks to Tracy for the idea for this post!]

Top Ten Tuesday - 10 Must 'Do's for Spring Break

It is almost here - Spring Break! I hope you have something really fun planned. Here are 10 tips for making your Spring Break a success. You may read the entire list at Tips for Spring Break | College Jolt.

10) DO wear sunscreen
9) DO meet some locals
8) DO meet someone special
7) DO explore the town
6) DO something besides boozin‘
5) DO budget
4) DO spend some alone time
3) DO go to the gym
2) DO try something new
1) DO cherish your time there

College Jolt also has a list of Spring Break Don't - you might want to check those out as well!

The library will reopen at 5pm on Sunday March 15th - so enjoy the break and remember to come in and get your assignments done also.

Get Tips for Managing Email

With the campus switching to the Microsoft Live@Edu email service (more information), now's a great time to learn ways to better manage the ever-increasing number of email messages that hit your inbox.

Several online forums offer tips for managing email. For example, TechProse offers Managing Email, which gives suggestions for

• breaking the pattern of continuous interruption,
• organizing emails, and
• writing emails.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders offers Five Fast Email Productivity Tips that will help you "take back your day" from the email barrage.

Finally, you can get lots more tips from the 13 brief articles listed and linked on Helium's Time Efficient Tips for Managing Your Email.