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There are lots of uses for online videos, especially when you want to show and not just tell via picture rather than word – and YouTube is not the only game in town (at least in the librarian “town”).

Jason the Content Librarian presents a pithy comparison of YouTube and blip.tv in his Oct 8th “Exploring Internet Video Resources” post.

Tip of the day: there are always other games in town just as there are always other fish in the sea (figuratively speaking that is – I can’t promise this in real life)

Daylight Savings Time: the new Hot Topic everywhere I go – and no one has a clue. So here you are:

Your clock will (but you may have to make it) fall BACK one hour at 2 a.m., Sunday, November 4th, 2007. For more information Go Navy!

(Thanks to the excellent Wisconsin State Law Library newsletter for the reminder and the link.)

The Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Security (DFCS) has a lot of useful information at their web site, including information now on:

1) the 2007 Identity Theft law that allows you to place a security freeze on your credit file:
Oregon Consumer Identity Theft Protection Act (2007 SB 583). More on this new law from Julie Tripp at Oregonlive.

and

Newspaper websites getting into the public records $$ business?

Excerpt from From PI Buzz:

“It had to happen. Newspapers that publish public records databases have been attracting more viewers to their sites. I don’t know if this translates into subscribers or other ways papers make money, but the Memphis Daily News is taking the direct approach, selling access to Tennessee public records. The paper has partnered with the Chandler Reports, which sells property profiles and business filings. There are no free searches, although they do the usual gimmick of presenting search fields but then require a fee to see any results.”

The U.S. State Department starts a blog, Dipnote (source, beSpacific).

Well, what can I say? I wouldn’t name a diplomatic blog Dipnote (even, especially, if it is an insider kind of thing, which they do admit to in their first post) but I suppose if the State Department wants to it must be ok, but please don’t ask me what I really think until I leave work – it’s hard enough to keep straight face as it is, though maybe that’s the point. Make ’em laugh and make ’em cry.

The Law Library of Congress has revamped their web page. Law librarians and legal researchers get excited about the darndest (darnedest? 🙂 things.

I found this question, What is Baker’s Law?, in list of Q&A compiled by a group of librarians who participate in online reference (aka digital ref, e-ref, the Oregon ones, Lnet and Ask Us (from Multnomah Co). It caught my eye partly because it reminded me about a recently characterized genre of fiction: Misery Lit. Anyone who reads fiction will recognize this genre. While some love it, some of us (me! me! me!) run, hellbent, in the other direction.

Anyway, here’s the answer to the What is Baker’s Law? question:

“I am assuming that the question is “Looking for Information about Baker’s Law.” As Paul Dickson reports in his book, “Official Rules” (NY, Delacorte Press, 1978), Baker’s Law is one of the “laws” that appeared beginning after WWII to explain the “perversity of nature”, Murphy’s Law being the most renowned. Baker’s Law, according to this book, is “Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.” The law is attributed to columnist Russell Baker, hence the name. It is also listed on the website “Murphy’s Laws and Corollaries”: http://dmawww.epfl.ch/roso.mosaic/dm/murphy.html [February 2002].”

Today, Monday, September 17th, is U.S. Constitution Day. We are celebrating Constitution Day this year here in Hillsboro. I’ll be handing out free pocket and wallet-size U.S. Constitutions in my Law Library (all day) and on the Washington County (Oregon!) Courthouse steps from Noon – 1 on Monday, September 17th. See our web page for more information.

My years in academic law libraries could not ever have been described as boring (especially the 8+ years working here during these years), but we seldom had the stream of wonderful people we see in public law libraries, bless their hearts. (Though my 3+ years at the jail comes close. I’ve had some great jobs in my life)

The latest: the patron wanted “a fast and speedy“ trial for her boyfriend, who couldn’t be here to make the request himself because he is currently being unfairly and unjustly detained at the Oregon State Prison.

We also have what I call our French Farce Days, when, in addition to outraged public patrons, lawyers and clients are in and out but keep missing each other for appointments, the equivalent to phone tag but more fun to watch. One goes to the restroom, the other to the Courthouse (across the street), the other waits in the conference room only to miss the attorney, again, when off on another visit to the restroom to change diapers (there is always a baby), then to the Courthouse, then back again to the library. Repeat as needed.

There is an interesting discussion about “Career Blogging” going on through the lawyer, librarian, strategist, and other blogs. If I’m not mistaken, it started with web strategist (!) Jeremiah Owyang’s post on Career Blogging. I picked it up here with Jason Eiseman (the Content Librarian), traveled the links, and eventually landed on attorney Kevin O’Keefe’s Real Lawyers Have Blogs blawg, who started me thinking about how lawyers (and law librarians) teach other lawyers to blog.

You do have to begin with a discussion of those key questions: Why blog? and What are you trying to do in the short and long run? and of course, the toughest one, Does it have legs, and do you? That is, can you, do you even want to, keep the blog going day after day, year after year? (Gives you new and great respect, doesn’t it, for cartoonists who crank those panels out for year after year.)

When all else is said and done, we blog for our readers, who weave through the links sometimes with grace, sometimes with angst, and always with curiosity.