Oberlin Visit 2008!

Over my spring break, I visited Oberlin for three days (well, 2 and a half to be exact!) to be part of a panel discussion on library school for the Mellon Scholars Program. I was invited by my friend Kate's former boss at Mudd. The talk went well; it was pretty informal. They gave us mugs from the library and a free library t-shirt! I had a great time---I stayed with a family I used to babysit for, and I made time to see most of the people I hadn't seen in a while. I also saw the spring opera production of The Coronation of Poppea, ate at Black River Cafe and The Feve. Of course, my trip to Oberlin would not be complete without a really-coincidental-6-degrees-of-separation story to tell! So, here it goes:

[Preface: I'm standing in line for the bathroom at the upstairs bar at The Feve. The line is always long. It's hot and it's dark, and there are way too many people because it's Happy Hour.]

The girl in front of me turns and asks, "Which twin are you?" I roll my eyes at her and say, "...Monica". Of course, at this point I have no clue who she is and figure she is one of Alicia's friends. The girl stares at me for a bit and then half screams, "OMG! YOU KNOW ANDREA!!! (my Italian friend who I went to Kansai Gaidai with in Japan)". Then it clicked and we both had a moment----she's this girl Kiki who met Andrea in Italy when Kiki was doing a study abroad program there--Andrea always kept asking me last semester, "You go to Oberlin and you don't know Kiki? Oberlin is tiny! You're supposed to know EVERYONE!!". And the reason Kiki thought she already knew me? She went on an AIDS march in Washington D.C. with Alicia 4 years ago (at least? A, please confirm!). Also, the freaky part is that she was ONLY in Oberlin for the weekend, because she is transferring schools.....So, if I had not been standing in line that night at that exact time, I probably would have never met her. WEIRD!!!!!

And now, for some pictures:

Foggy Oberlin after the opera let out.

Bella The Amazing Dog
R2D2 Mailbox in Cleveland
Will's Show-And-Tell presentation of Quincy (his older brother)'s Lego robot!


Kate in Cleveland---this was before the drugged homeless man harassed us as we made our way to the Greyhound Station.

Will, Jill, Quincy. I love this family!

The Things We Learn in Library School...

School's going OK, and I'm excited (make that *super* excited!) to intern at the Andy Warhol Museum starting in May, doing cataloging on their Time Capsule Project---Warhol left thousands of boxes of things, junk, and letters from famous people, etc. Basically, all mixed up, and it is our job to go through it all! So far I've heard of them working on a letter Warhol received from Jacquelin Kennedy Onassis to shredded bills in an envelop.

A woman who works at the Law Library (here on campus) came to give a talk on "Web 2.0" stuff. I'm happy to say I actually heard about a few things I hadn't heard before in the past 3 months. Here are some cool new tools out there:

Jott is a really neat little thing. It saves a voice mail and converts it to text. So, for example, say you are on a walk and you remember something you need to do tomorrow, but you can't write it down. Well, all you have to do is CALL and leave a message, and Jott will covert your message to text so you don't have to write it down. And it's free! Let's just hope their voice-recognition software is high quality...

BigThink: Think of this as YouTube for grown-ups. This is a place where people, whether they are experts on topics or not, can come and discuss and debate issues (politics, news, history, the meaning of life...pretty much anything!) . Basically, it is an interactive discussion forum with video being the medium. People post their opinions on certain topics, and anyone who wishes can respond or continue the discussion can post a video of themselves.

Doodle helps schedule meetings easily without all the email and phone tagging to figure it out---this thing takes all the times available from every one's busy schedule and then comes back with a time that will work for everyone :-)

You can use Basecamp to help you get big projects done! This will save information (contact numbers, calendar, etc) so you will have everything you need in one place. Yay!

Perhaps someone somewhere out there will find these gadgets useful.