I knew it would happen.
I made a sad-sack Round Up wondering where all my peeps went and then I vanished last week when the blogs blew up. It’s not that I abandoned you, I was super busy putting the final touches on some outreach documents we’ve been working on. I know, I know – it’s not an excuse. All the same it’s been great to come back to the blog roll and see a bunch of new faces. I’ve gotten kind of lazy about hoping up on the soap box before I get into the blogs and I miss abusing my power here so let me thumb through the news and see what I can rant about…
Well there was my favorite Arizonan, Jan Brewer, having a fantastic meltdown. I’ve pretty much said all I can say about her and stay employed. It’s not like Footenotes is FootenotesonJanBrewersterrifyingrisetopowerinwayssarahpalincouldonlydreamof.com so I’ll leave it at that. But seriously, her poll numbers actually climbed afterward.
On a slightly less catty note, folks are starting to take notice of the impending disaster students loans are going to be for us. This handy chart does a little explaining of the shape we’re in and makes for a quick read. At this point I don’t even look at my student loan statements, I just put them in a shoebox and quietly wait for the apocalypse. I’m sure after my dissertation gets published and I start getting royalty checks from the movie they’re going to make about me while I was writing it everything will be fine.
Ok, enough – let’s talk about blogs before we all get bummed out!
First off – Tim Wilson’s @twilson long slow project to teach us French has started to pay off. Another francophone blog popped up! I’m excited to see so many languages turn up around the Commons, it even looks like an Italian language blog is in the works out there. Speaking of Italian, I noticed a new blog crop up – Beniamina Cassetta’s @beniamina A Cosa Stai Pensando / What’s on your mind? With posts alternating between two languages it’s great see the French set with some competition now. Beniamina had some pretty nice things to say about the Commons too and we’re glad to have you!
Maura Smale @msmale returned to the blogs to share some changes that have come to your library. The big three article archives messed around with their interfaces and Maura walks us through them. There’s a little note at the end about librarians lighting torches and storming JSTOR, check it out.
Resident Elluminate expert Adam Wandt @Awandt has been interviewed by the Elluminate folks. As you will recall he walked us through his experience with the software right here on the Commons.
Of course you can’t mention Elluminate now without thinking of BlackBoard. The folks over at BlackBoard took out the checkbook and snatched up a good thing when they saw it. Everyone has their own opinion of the education behemoth – Sarah Morgano @Sarah_Morgano gave us hers. A picture is worth a thousand words.
Helldriver @helldriver had been on hiatus, but returned this week with a prolific post about Demolition Hammer. I don’t know who this guy is but I imagine he must have the most fantastic record collection in New York. Usually I try and say a little something about a Helldriver post and then realize that I’m totally inarticulate when talking about music and feel like a putz so I’m going to leave this one alone. All the same it’s good to have you back.
Finally Michael Smith also returned with a great post about the art of watching the police. Seems as though there have been a crop of stories in the news lately about people getting arrested for doing this very thing. Naturally a quick Google search fails me for the recent things I was thinking of but I assure you it’s happening. Not that that’s assuring…
Anyways, it’s great to have everyone back and welcome new faces! Here’s hoping this semester is our best yet on the Commons. See ya next week.
