Wednesday, February 29

Reminder to Librarians!

Thank you to Andy Burkhardt for this post about Human-Centered Librarianship. I thought this was a really well written post that helps remind us that our goal is, was and will always be to help the patron.

Thursday, February 16

Follow the Money!

Follow the Money is another great website with information that is of interest to many! It is sponsored by the National Institute on Money in State Politic, which is a non-profit and non-partisan organization, and brought to my attention via another listserv.

Great Healthcare Resource

Sometimes being on a listserv can be really annoying but most of the time I find they are an amazing resource! I was just introduced to The Health and Medical Care Archive by the University of Michigan and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Check it out here!

Wednesday, February 15

What is My Property Tax Rate?

This was my best reference question of the day. Actually the real question was "I have a bet that Lake Co. has a higher property tax rate than Cook". Initially, I thought it would be a very quick search in the respective  County Tax Assessors web page. I could NOT have been more wrong! I searched the entire web site for both counties, performed a Google search and nada. By this time, nothing was going to keep me from finding this information and settling the patron's bet plus I really wanted to know now...

I decided to look up my own property bill to see the breakdown. Of course, Cook Co. doesn't have detailed tax bills available electronically. Really, come on Cook get with it! However, they do provide a tiny image of the bill that does not enlarge well. I squinted and magnified the page and pieced together bits of info like the Volume #, Tax Code #, and Township #. I 'Googled' tax rate for tax code with the # which lead me to this list. Then I returned to the Lake Co. site and used a random address in the area and found the rate within the detailed tax bill.

And the WINNER (or loser) is......  Cook Co. has the highest property tax rate*.

*Based on my property in the City of Chicago (Cook Co.) and a random property in Deerfield (Lake Co.)

Tuesday, February 7

Not Really the First Post

I am in the process of importing my blog from another publishing platform and I'm having technical difficulties... Hopefully I can get that corrected soon. In the meantime, I will continue on my merry little way on this blog!

Patrons can be a Great Resource!

The library I work at has a Facebook page to which I post on occasion. In an effort to engage with the patrons, I asked if anyone had any great resources they would like to share. This actually elicited a few responses (happy, happy, joy, joy). Most of the suggestions I was already aware of but ONE I had never heard of... Wolfram Alpha! This is a super cool search engine that finds facts and concrete answers much like Siri. It is quite a fun resource and I am so glad one of our patrons suggested it. For further information in a much more eloquent article check out the NYT article here.

Wednesday, February 1

Google has a sense of humour!

Did you know Google does tricks? Well, neither did I until my coworker accidentally hit enter too early on a search and the screen twirled! It was COOL... So, as nosy reference librarians do, we wanted to how that happened and discovered Google does tricks. It is known as a barrel roll and to get it to work for you type "do a barrel roll" and hit enter. Or try "Google Gravity" and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky. Not only did I not know these tricks existed but that they are called Easter Eggs! I love them:) I now have a ninja on my Google Reader.