Signing Off

Alas, my tenure as the HCH Web Weaver comes to a end at closing time today.

All the best,
And all the joy of information seeking,
Kevin

Enhanced Searching for New Arrivals

I've just added a function to the New Arrivals application on our website. Now you can limit any search to non-fiction by turning on the check-box in the customization area. You can get all non-fiction, or you can use other critieria to get non-fiction videos, kids non-fiction, etc.

For those who want to know, non-fiction here includes all the numerical call numbers, as well as the biographies. It does not by default discriminate among material types. The new functionality is seamlessly integrated with the RSS and printable views. It will occasionally (very rarely) return false results because some fiction items happen to have three digits in their call number.

Graphic Novels

I've written previously—including illustrated how-to's—about resource lists in our catalog. Now I just want to point out a cool list that Lisa created for our extensive collection of graphic novels. Because of the quirks of our cataloging system, it's not incredibly obvious how to generate such a list, but now you'll always be able to find one among the Resource Lists in our catalog or from the "Teens" section of our website.

Printing New Arrivals

I've added a link to a 'printer friendly' format for the new arrivals lists. You can get a printable view for any list you like and print it directly from your browser.

Audio Books Canceled

Some sad news with a silver lining:

As of August 1, 2007 we are no longer offering Netlibrary Downloadable Audio Books.

Scranton Memorial Library in Madison apparently still subscribes to this service, however, and as far as we know, you do not need to be a Madison patron to sign up, though you will probably need to have an active CT library card.

New Arrivals by Email

The new arrivals page on our website just got a whole notch more accessible: Now you can easily get our customized new arrival alerts by email. Behind the scenes it's RSS, but knowing that many of our patrons are unfamiliar with RSS, we've added a button that takes you right to RssFwd.com, a service (mentioned in an earlier post) that converts RSS to email.

Clicking the button does most of the work for you. In particular it preloads the subscription page with the currect URL for your customized feed. The only thing you'll need to do is type in your email address and subscribe. If it's the first time you use RssFwd, you will also have to respond to a confirmation email that they'll send to you automatically.

Incidentally, don't worry if you don't see anything in your email for a few days. RssFwd will only start sending your emails when there is new content on our site. Typically we update the new arrivals twice a week.

Enjoy our new stuff!

Rogue Librarian

Here's a little dalliance into the world of digital video. The clip below comes from a 1986 spoof by Gary Cummings, the late director of Henry Carter Hull, who stars as "Bull Ramsey" himself. You'll see footage of our old digs plus a real card catalog! (That's only twenty years ago!) And you might yet run into one of the stars on our premises!