The Ort Library Tweets!

The Ort Library is now on Twitter! Come follow @LibFSU

A Printer That Erases

Researchers at Cambridge University have developed a new way to recycle paper. Mashable.com reprinted this article from PSFK.com ("the go-to source for new ideas and inspiration") that diagrams and describes a printer that strips ink off the page to render it re-usable.

Tweet Citing 101

A lot of valuable information comes to us nowadays in tweets, but how do you cite a tweet in your academic paper? Well, the MLA (Modern Languages Association) has just released the official way to cite tweets in MLA format. Learn more about it at Edudemic.com!

Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops Print Publication

Encyclopaedia Britannica, the oldest English language encyclopedia, has been printed in hefty volumes for the last 244 years, but it just announced that it will end publication of its printed editions and continue solely with digital versions available online.

Come to the library to see the now near-extinct 2005 print version of Encyclopaedia Britannica in the reference area (call number AE5 .E363 2005). It takes up a couple of shelves!

Pinterest: This week's Featured Online Resource

Pinterest seems poised to be the Web's next big thing. Think of it as a social billboard or as a visual social bookmarking site. It's sort of like delicious.com but with your bookmarks being represented by big photos.

A user "pins" an object to one of her "boards" and her followers can click on it and be taken to its website. So a cover of a book takes a user to the publisher's page on that book or a book review, wherever the user got it from. Each board is on a particular topic and users can follow single boards rather than everything from a particular user.

The "About" page claims "people use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes."

Twice as Many Dylans as Kaylas

In 2010, 10,000 Dylans were born in the United States, to just 5,000 Kaylas. I found this using WolframAlpha, simply typing "Dylan, Kayla."

WolframAlpha, the computational knowledge engine, is good for a lot of pieces of knowledge and information, many of them perfectly straightforward. However, howtogeek.com gives us a great article, 10 Amazing Uses For Wolfram Alpha.

For example, the comparison function, whereby the user types in search terms (any search terms, and with WA it is possible to compare apples and oranges) separated by vs. gives you relevant comparisons between your items.

Mark Twain vs. J.D. Salinger , por ejemplo, shows us that one was born 176 years ago, and the other, just 93. Twain died in Redding, CT, and Salinger in Cornish, NH.

I also know that there are 538 English words ending in "rd" because I typed in "words ending in rd."

You can also figure your body mass index without having to ask your doctor.

On the advice of one of the comments beneath the article, I found out that if a woodchuck could chuck wood it would chuck, on average, 22.1 cubic inches, or "all the wood he could."

The Cellist of Sarajevo this year's One Maryland One Book pick

Steven Galloway's 2008 novel The Cellist of Sarajevo is this year's One Maryland One Book selection. The novel chronicles four people in war-torn Sarajevo and was chosen to fit this years OMOB theme Courage and Unity During Times of War.