last day of march
in journal
- april 1 update: the databases were restored while i slept so hopefully not too many people saw the mysql-gobbledy-gook that now looks like a decent post below. more info forthcoming..*
hello ~ the last day of march! this month has been so long but still, as always, i’m suprised to reach the end of it..
last night, totally by accident, i ended up watching episode two of pbs’ the new americans series. it was really good ~ tonight is episode three, and i’m really looking forward to it. basically, it follows the stories of five or so different recent immigrants to the u.s. one is a mexican day laborer who is trying to get working visas for his family of 8. another is a recently wed palestinian woman. then there’s two domincan baseball players. and then there’s three nigerians, one a couple that is expecting their second child, and the other is a mother of two teenage girls, who also happens to be the sister of the famous nigerian activist ken saro-wiwa who was killed while fighting the nigerian gov’t and shell. you should watch it!
one of my favorite magazines, stay free magazine, just posted an interview with rick prelinger who, working with the internet archive has just posted over 1,900 “ephemeral” films, that is, advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films. now you too can watch the infamous ‘duck and cover’ (learning simple steps to save yourself if hit by a nuclear bomb), as well as ‘booked for safekeeping’ (about imprisoning the mentally ill), ‘a is for atom’ (the many uses of nuclear fission), ‘act your age’ (an immature youth struggles to grow up and get popular) and much more. it’s awesome. (avaible as downloads in lots of formats, including real player and quicktime. go internet archive!)
library journal just released their annual movers and shakers, which highlights lots (this year, 55) of librarians that they consider are real, yeah, movers and shakers. anyhow, the list is always fun to read and i always (at least for two years now) have lots of fun fantasizing i will be a profiled mover and shaker, one day. 
so silly. but really, is there a similar one for archivists? i don’t think so. and so there’s yet another reason i should maybe turn to public librarianship instead of archival stuff. hm. so, anway, here’s some cool people: troy johnson of librarian’s book club fame (which got re-designed and looks good), christin borne who set up the next gen librarian listerv (& website, and matthew battles who wrote the excellent library: an unquiet history.
last but not least, for those that have outdoor gardening space (you lucky dogs), check out you grow girl: garderning for the people. not only is it a pretty and web standards compliant page, it also has lots of forums, articles, pretty pictures, an online store, etc. to satisfy those with the gardening itch.
bye,
~ andrea
