CPL 2.0 and Google

Trying to decide which part of Google to review is a challenge. I enjoy looking at Google Maps, especially the satellite images, since I love having that bird's eye view of places like my home town. If only the resolution were better! However, I must admit that I tend to use Mapquest more for basic maps to find addresses in Calgary that post-date my trusty printed city map. I have found Google Maps are often inaccurate, and the driving directions are often wrong or incomplete.

I spent some time on Google Scholar. I hadn't realized that you could search patents on Google Scholar. I was able to find four patents my Dad had taken out in the early 1970s on a sawmill edger he had designed, and see the different articles and patents that cited his patents. The actual patent has been reproduced. Something for show my son, who keeps asking "was Grandad really an inventor?"

I wouldn't recommend Google Scholar for articles, however, for a couple of reasons:

1. it's still basic keyword searching, with no subject analysis or authorities, leading to a huge number of hits.
2. on the sample searches I did, payment was required to access the full text.

We have better resources in the E-Library -- the ability to search by subject descriptors makes searching much more precise and in most cases full text is available to library members.

CPL 2.0 Social networking sites

I think facebook is a bit of a time "eater" for me at this stage in my life. I can see the appeal of being able to connect with people you haven't heard from in years, but I just don't have the time to put into it. I do admit, it was interesting to see the members of my high school grad class who are on facebook, especially those profiles with pictures, but at least half of the profiles that came up weren't from my grad class (since we only had about 120 grads, it's easy to remember who was and who wasn't). I was amused to see the picture of one of the guys -- really, Ken, you have a slight resemblance to Kevin Costner, but not enough to justify putting his photo on your profile!

My family members are not really into computers -- my parents have an Internet connection that they never use, and although my siblings have the Internet, they are not that interested in computers -- so it is not like I would use facebook to keep up with family news. Perhaps it is a generational thing.

I tried to add myself as a fan of CPL, but I'm not sure it worked. I did add a post to the wall, however.

No book recommendations this week -- I'm still reading, but haven't finished since last Friday!

CPL 2.0 Wikipedia and an Earlier Life

I was happy and a little bit surprised to find a very brief article (two sentences) on my home town in Wikipedia,since it is so small that it doesn't rate an entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia. I was able to add a little bit more information to the article on "Lone Butte, British Columbia", and even managed to insert a reference, in good librarian fashion. I then found the article on the neighbouring "big town" and noticed that although that article mentioned Lone Butte, it didn't have a link to the article, so I added that.

Although adding the information to the article was easy, inserting the reference took multiple tries. The help pages were not very helpful, but I managed in the end -- I'm not sure how.

I looked at a few articles and found no signs of spelling or grammatical errors, but these were mainly to do with history and geography. I would expect the pop culture articles to contain more of those types of errors -- and having just checked the article on Britney Spears and found two grammatical errors in one sentence, I think that's a valid assumption!

On the book front:

I've finished Darksolstice, the second in Sam Llewellyn's Lyonesse series. It's a great read for older kids, whether or not they are familiar with Arthurian legend. Llewellyn does a great job of retelling the legend in a unique setting.

I'm just about finished Al Capone shines my shoes by Gennifer Choldenko, the sequel to Al Capone does my shirts. With its strong characterization, vivid depiction of Alcatraz,and compelling storyline, it is a worthy sequel.

On the adult side, I've just finished Sharpe's tiger by Bernard Cornwell. Chronologically, it's the first in the Sharpe novels. I got into Sharpe through the TV series (CPL holds all but one in DVD, but luckily for me my mother has the entire series on video). I'm a little bit in love with Sean Bean as Sharpe, but I also love historical fiction, so I'm going to read my way through the series in chronological order. One down, twenty more to go! Unfortunately, the second in the series is now only in LPE. (At least it's a paperback.)

Cornwell's newest series (The Saxon chronicles) is a good read, especially for those of us that liked Rosemary Sutcliff's books about Saxon Britain. It chronicles the life of Uhtred of Bebbanburg, Northumbria, who as a boy is captured by Danes. Despite killing Uhtred's father, Ragnor treats Uhtred as his own son. Uhtred becomes, for a time the warlord of Alfred of Wessex. The series starts with The last kingdom. The burning land is the latest.

I'm about to read the new Louise Penny mystery (The brutal telling) and catch up on some titles by David Hewson. He writes mysteries set in contemporary Rome and I really enjoyed the ones I've read.