Wicked Cool

Wacky Website: Strange Book Title Quiz

How to Avoid Huge Ships. Population Control through Nuclear Pollution. Can you tell which one of the sixteen titles like these is the fake one? Take the Strange Book Title Quiz and find out.

Thanks to Gregg for this month's Wacky Website!

Schedule meetings with Doodle

Doodle will change your life! It's an incredibly simple, fast way to poll a group to schedule a meeting. With AnyDoodle you can make a poll on anything at all.

It's old news in and around Switzerland, where it won "Produkt des Jahres" (Product of the Year) for 2004 from InfoWeek.ch, a Swiss IT webmagazine. Lifehacker picked it up in October 2006 and we at the SCLS office have been hooked ever since.

Life-Long Computer Skills (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Ever insightful, Jakob Nielsen's latest article is about the life-long computer skills that kids today should be learning. It's no stretch to say most are things librarians should be able to teach, or at the very least, have a handle on themselves. He says they are:

• Search Strategies - this one's a no-brainer for us librarians.
• Information Credibility - follows right on the heels of search.
• Information Overload - it's only going to get worse, but the good news is we are all in control of our info consumption.
• Writing for Online Readers - is not just for webmasters. Honing your ability to be clear and concise will be appreciated by every person you email.
• Computerized Presentation Skills - will also make you popular with your coworkers, boards, and audiences of all kinds.
• Workspace Ergonomics - it's crucial to take care of your wrists and back if you work at a computer all day. Even more critical for kids today, who probably won't be able to retire until they're 80.
• Debugging - never have to call a help desk again.
• User Testing and other Basic Usability Guidelines - this one is a bit of a stretch, and (I think) shows the author's bias. However, he does have a good point that as consumers we should demand better usabillity from the products we buy.

Wacky Website: cheddarvision

Watch a block of artisan cheese age in real time!