One more Thing (5)!

One of the things I wanted to get out of doing this series of Things was to be motivated to write on my other blog more often - so far that seems to be working!  I'm aiming for about once a week, and doing the Things and thinking about blogging and Twitter and such has been prompting me to write about other interests.

Thing 5

Take the weekend off?  Nope, I drew the Easter slot in the reference librarian rotation this year.  We were surprisingly busy, with actual research-related questions and not just, "Do you have a pen I can borrow?"

Feedback first so it's easy to find:

1. The "in plain English" videos are great!
2. It feels like there should be a more cohesive place for discussion for a program like this than in comments on blogs, but then I wonder if that wouldn't just end up being another "Thing" for people to learn.  (A forum, or a chat room, or some other group communication tool.)  Blogs can work for group communication, but it can be more cumbersome than some other media if not everyone is posting on the same one's comments.

And a summary of what I've learned (and/or observations) thus far:

OPML file #5

I've uploaded another .ompl file. cdlc4 and cdlc5 combined should have all the currently listed blogs from the Google spreadsheet whose URLs worked.

(I fixed file #4 so it really should be just the Learn with CDLC blogs and not just my whole .opml export. Apparently I clicked 'no' to save changes the other day. >.<)

Instructions for importing into Google Reader, if you're catching up and need them still.

Barcode scanner!

I now own my very own barcode scanner! It's an Opticon my husband found for me on eBay; it looks similar to the white one here. (That's the same model; this one is refurbished though, so it's not as pretty.) I'd take a picture and post it, but I'm at work (on Easter, alas). It is basically the model we use at our Circ desk here.

I discovered when I went to start scanning books to test it that some paperbacks have a generic paperback UPC on the back cover, and an ISBN barcode on the inside front cover. For most of the books with barcodes that I tested, however, the barcode is the ISBN. I can scan straight into Excel.

Soon, goodreads, soon...