LIS 2600 Portfolio

Here it is. This is the portfolio page. I've linked to it from my home page also (www.pitt.edu/~jkw21). It's nice to be done, although I may still tinker with bits and pieces of the portfolio for fun. It has links to the blog, Omeka, Koha, both fragments, a css page I used the external style sheet for the portfolio page, and then internal css for each of the pages showing the assignments we completed. It was interesting work, and at times frustrating, even the smallest mistake makes the style sheet not work properly. I am by no means an expert in html or css now, but I've learned that I can find the information I need to answer my questions, it's not as scary as it seems, and I am capable of learning it. I think I'm going to try the digital libraries course in the spring semester, and maybe information architecture or another info tech class after that. I enjoyed the work we did, even though it gave me a headache at times.

Pop Suede: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: with Cats

Pop Suede: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: with Cats
Another student posted this on their blog the Secret Ninja Club, and it originally came from a blog called Pop Suede. After a very trying day, it made me laugh out-loud. We took our daughter to see the movie the day it opened. This parody is better than the real thing. Hope you enjoy it immensely.

I don't really get the whole blogging thing . . .

Blogging seems odd to me. Of course, I don't journal or write in a diary either. There's a similar component to the two activities at times. However, I've seen a few blogs that are simply posts of news and journal articles, or grant opportunities, and find those more my speed. The blogs that chat endlessly about a particular person's life or preferences (just like this one so far), are bothersome. Too often, they turn into rants or examination of the minutia of someone's day. What's the point of reading that? It's great that there is a space for people who want to blog that way, but I don't want to read them.

Where there's smoke. . .

Oh boy. I guess it's a bad sign to feel overwhelmed in the first week of classes. I can see the info tech class is going to challenge me. I'm excited about that, but also nervous. It is so simple to get behind if you hit a spot that just refuses to be understood. I know nothing about the things listed in the syllabus and can't evaluate if what we learn informs the next thing we learn. Is it possible to not understand one assignment but still move forward to the next? I can tell you that my weekend is filled with reading for the two classes. Nothing but reading :)

On a non-Pitt related note . . . we had a fire today at the school where I work, nothing serious. While we stood in the parkinglot waiting for the fire department to do their job, and trying to wrangle teenagers into good behavior, I noticed a bunch of kids holding library books. Our students aren't permitted to carry backpacks. They carry all their binders and school books in their arms during the day. When the fire bell went off, these kids left everything else behind on their desks, binders, books, homework, term papers . . .but they brought their library books. It wasn't just the quiet, nerdy, bookish kids either. Some of the kids were in the more popular groups and others in the scary-kid crowd (black sweatshirts, edgy demeanor). Maybe they thought we might be outside for a long time and they needed something to do, but I doubt it. All of them were socializing, squealing, gossiping, and acting silly, not reading. They just brought the books and were holding them. Why? Are they really good books? Was it instinct? Are they connected to those books in a way they aren't connected to the other things they cart around all day?
I told one of the boys (scary-kid crowd type, but a really nice boy) that in the future we should have all the kids grab a book on their way out the front door. They pass the library, and we could save 688 books, 200 more if faculty and staff joined in, from burning to the ground in a future emergency.