SPLAT Archive

Reminder #347 – Give Webjunction a Try!

Okay, so this might not be the 347th time someone has advised you to use Webjunction – though Shirley B. does a great job of monthly, if not weekly, encouraging – but it is definitely a great resource for Idaho libraries of all sorts and sizes. Look, I know what you’re saying to yourself right

Ingress: Location Based Sci-Fi Scavenger Game

A young adult who used to come to my Teen programs stopped by the library yesterday. He’s been playing an augmented reality, location-based game called Ingress, and he was excited to share it with me. While the game began on the Google Play store, the app now has a version available on the App store

Niche Academy

After eleven years of librarianship, I nearly have a memorized script to walk a patron through database access.  And while my library has detailed written instructions to assist patrons with downloading e-books, half the time we also need to do a visual demonstration.  We also experience enough part-time staff turnover to wish for a more

Minetest gaming in the library

Minecraft is a very popular video game. This game with it’s low-tech looking graphics provides opportunities for world-building and problem solving. Mods, or add-ons, provide additional building resources, alternative gaming scenarios, and bad guys. In many ways the game is a graphic version of Legos. Gaming in the library is not usually considered a STEM

StumbleUpon this!

As many of you know, Pinterest has exploded in the last few years. While this is a very popular website featuring DIY projects and funny (often true?) pictures, the original website or source of the shared content is not always linked to the pin you are looking at. However, a similar discovery engine, StumbleUpon, allows

StoryCorps creates a free app!

You may know of StoryCorps, the amazing oral history project started 12 years ago whose “mission is to provide people of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity to record, share and preserve the stories of our lives.” (http://storycorps.org/about/). You may have heard the weekly StoryCorps segments on NPR. But did you know they recently

Symbaloo

I have talked bookmarking tools before (see my post on Diigo), but I stumbled across a cool one – one with a graphic interface – and decided I needed to share. Symbaloo lets you create a “mix”, or a group of links, on virtually any topic, and then share them with others. You can even

Musescore.org and Musescore.com

I'm a big fan of open source software. I also play the baritone horn in the local community band. One of the other members of the band also plays the baritone horn, but, while I learned to play the baritone horn reading music written in bass clef in the key of C, my companion, who

Agile Web Development & Heat Tracking

I’d heard the term Agile Development before, but the term seemed so daunting… what kind of code did I need to know?  Did I need to program?  What kind of computer did I need?  It was too much.  However… I attended a session on Agile Development at Internet Librarian, and it turns out it is

3D Printing with the Cloud

3D printing seems to be blowing up the internet and the world right now. From owners printing prosthetic legs for their dogs, to a Sonic Screwdriver for our Teen Doctor Who Christmas Party, the applications and uses of this technology continue to excite and amaze us. My library was dropped into this new world when