i cannot make an entry on a wiki

ok ... i've looked at some wikis and i really don't know what to make an entry about. what do i know? little old me? i even found a harry potter wiki but am totally paralized when it comes to making up my own entry. sorry. i think i should get credit for thing 17 anyway.

thing 16 .... wikis

i really love wikipedia. sure, not everything is completely factual. you must take it with a grain of salt. but i love it all the same. what a great way to get quick information in a digestable form. love it love it. no other wiki makes me as happy as wikipedia.

thing 15: library 2.0

wow ... that annoyed librarian sure is annoyed. but at what i can't really tell. seems like she just wants to tear apart anything anyone says about progress in libraries. everything must stay the same! don't change! don't adapt!
i think there is a big problem with librarians thinking they know "what's good" for patrons, even if what we say is "good" for them isn't what they actually want. what is our job? is it to decree to the patron what they should be doing with their time? read plato not patterson! watch foreign films not chick flicks! use online databases not online dating services! NO FUN ALLOWED!
i think it is our job to provide services to the community, based on the community. now, that doesn't mean you have to dumb down your library ... but a llibrary should reflect its patrons. THAT IS WHO THE LIBRARY IS FOR! i think we should always strive to expose our patrons to higher forms of literature and media and culture ... but we also should give them what they want. if we don't they'll just go somewhere else.
i'm not saying we should just do anything a patron asks or order whatever materials they suggest, but we can certainly try to take what they say into consideration. i don't think we need to follow "every stupid idea" but i think we should be open to new ideas.
what does this annoyed library want out of a library anyway?
if we want people to use the library we should make it easy to use. we shouldn't be bogged down with archaic rules that may not be neccessary anymore. we shouldn't be difficult for the sake of being difficult. the library should be welcoming ... it should be pleasurable to use ... it would be nice if people could come in and ... my god i can't believe i'm saying this ... FIND WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR!
i know, let's make everything hard to find ... let's not be user friendly ... let's insult the patrons' interests ... tell them what they should like and what they shouldn't like ... then let's complain when patrons say librarians are strict and mean. and we can even act surprised when circulation goes down and no one comes in and people say stuff like, "libraries? we still have those?"
no wonder people would rather hang out in barnes and noble.

coincidence? i think not!

has anyone noticed that my bell curve picture showing me in the 95th percentile is the SAME SHAPE as my monster hat? i think that must mean something.

popular blogs

i looked through some popular blogs on technorati ... it kinda gave me a headache. and in general, i'm kind of having a bad day. maybe i shall revisit this later.
p.s. thank you for the flashlight. i am going to put it in my bag o' prizes for the kids. i already own my own flashlight, but it was very exciting to get it nonetheless. i love presents.

thing 14 why have you forsaken me?!

went to technorati but when i tried to set up an account it was having technical difficulties and it wouldn't go through? is it because all of queens library is trying to make an account at the same time? maybe. anyway, i hope i get credit for doing thing 14 because i tried. it is not my fault that technorati is having technorati difficulties.

today's storytime

here's what i did:
i opened up with introducing the children to my new friend Mouse, who is not a real mouse, but a puppet of a mouse. i explained to them that Mouse is very shy and that they need to say "good morning to him." which they then did. then Mouse helped me go through the rules of story time. he wiggled his arms to show the kids that they should wiggle their arms now while they had a chance (there is NO wiggling during storytime). then he strethed his ears and the kids stretched their ears so that their ears were ready for listening. then Mouse put his hand in front of his mouth to signal that it was time to be quiet. what a good mouse he is.
then i read the following books:
mouse paint: starring some of mouse's friends who fall into jars of paint and then mix up the colors to make new colors. the kids enjoyed guessing what the colors the mixed up paint would make.
then we read brown bear brown bear what do you see, and the kids guess which animals brown bear would see. usually they got them wrong, but i was very supportive of them.
then we took a little break for stretching and played "open, shut them." a little girl was nice enough to tell me that i was actually playing the game wrong and she explained the correct procedure for open shut them, so then we played a modified version.
then we read: in the tall tall grass, which they also enjoyed but there was no audience participation
finally we read go away big green monster, which was a real hit. i read it twice. once using the book, and the second time using this puppet that has removeable pieces so the kids instructed me on which pieces to place on the monster and which pieces to take away. it was really cool.
then we made monster hats, shown above. and as the kids were leaving proudly sporting the monster hats that they had made ... i felt good.