HTML Solved

All things considered, it was a nice trip to Pittsburgh. I lived through the presentation, and classes went rather smoothly. It was great to see everyone again, too! I did leave my phone cord in the hotel room (oops!) - but it was 5:30am when I left for the airport (4:30am MY time) - so I forgive myself. I got home about 4 hours later than I planned, too - storms in KC kept us circling for awhile, and then we ended up in Omaha because we burned too much fuel. I'm tired, but happy!

I just finished up the HTML assignment - I was super intimidated by all of the different programs we had to use, but somehow I figured it out! The hardest part for me was trying to figure out how to rename the page. I named it index.html at the start, and then could not for the life of me figure out how to change it. I finally found it in the coding, and it was such an easy fix! I just made it all so complicated, when it really was right in front of me the whole time. I have not even started to think about the next part ... and then there's the quiz this coming weekend ... so much left to do! After this weekend, everything should start winding down - summer vacation is getting closer!

Breathing in Pittsburgh

Well, I made it to Pittsburgh! It wasn't too painful of a trip (minus the part about trying to find a printer cartridge before I left town). I'm staying by the airport this time ... probably not the best decision I've made ... but now I know.

This next week will be rather painful, I fear. I have a TON going on. The presentation for my humanities class is tomorrow. I am not a fan of public speaking - so we'll see how that goes. I'm kind of dreading it. I spent the evening working on my research assignment for that class, and I only have one left - so progress!! For 2600, I've been trying to work on our next HTML assignment, but I feel rather out of the loop. I have been stumbling through this one - setting up all of the different programs is what throws me off - especially since I am rather new to my Mac, and most of the info is about PC's. I'm not even thinking about the quiz yet because I have a super big project due next week for my other class. There just isn't enough time ...

One step at a time, right? It's all about breathing.

It's not that bad ...

I just finished the Koha assignment, and I just want to say that it really is not as difficult as everyone made it out to be. After I watched the first tutorial and read through the second one, and I was really feeling pretty good about the assignment. When I got to the discussion boards, that all changed - I was really intimidated by everyone's comments. But once I logged in and found my way around, it really was pretty simple. It feels great to cross that off of my TO-DO list.

On an unrelated note, today is my fourth anniversary!! Husband and I hope to go see some fireworks tonight, but I have a feeling the impending rain may change that. Here's to hoping for clearing skies!

From NPR ...

I thought this was an interesting interview with Matt Martinez from NPR:

Another day ...

I came across THIS article, and it goes right along with the this weeks lecture: "Creating a Library Database Search using Drupal".

I keep hearing that we are over the half-way mark of the semester. That's a bit overwhelming, because there is still so much to do! I'm thinking I am going to take a few days vacation to try to catch up on everything. I don't think I am really behind, but I know that the next few deadlines will be upon us in no time! Next week is my close week at work, too. **sigh** So maybe the week of the 4th ...

I have yet to begin on my Koha assignment - I'm stumped about a topic for my collection. I am also working on the collection for my humanities project, and may try to tie the two together. I did get the grade for my 2600 quiz, and was pleasantly surprised! I'm still waiting to hear back on some of the assignments, though. Hopefully they were able to access my one for Omeka.

The Answers ....

There was a common theme between the lectures in both of my classes last week: as information professionals, we must decide the level of assistance we want to provide to our patrons. The question becomes, do we give them the answers? Or give them the tools for them to find the answer themselves?

The discussion boards for our classes are a prime example. Some students ask questions without trying to figure them out themselves - they just expect the answers to be given to them; whereas others will try anything and everything they can think of, and ask a question out of desperation and fatigue.

My humanities professor gave an example during her lecture of a student at the reference desk, and asked us how we would handle the situation. I do not have any professional experience in libraries, but I would like to think that I would help them use the tools to locate the answer themselves. This is probably a fanciful daydream, though. There will always be the impatient student, scrambling at the last minute to finish their paper ... they may not want to take the time to find the answer - they just want it so they can finish up and move on. It's a dilemma that I don't think I'll figure out until I am in the situation firsthand. But it's nice to dream ...

It's a REVOLUTION

I received this video in an email and thought it was really neat! Enjoy!