Mr./Ms. Millennium: Candidate #2

The moment you've been waiting for...Candidate # 2!

Basic Stats

Hometown: Born in San Diego, grew up in St. Louis
Hobbies: Shopping
Favorite Book/Movie/Band: The last one I read/saw. Anything Motown.
Personal Motto: If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
Nickname: Crash.

Fill In The Blank
When I grow up, I wanted to be...Annie Oakley.

If I was a snack, I would be an Oscar Mayer Weiner, because everyone will be in love with me.

My favorite letter in the word Millennium is I because it's all about me.

I like to snack alone so that I won't have to share.

If I had to choose between a sweet or salty snack, I would go sweet

I would love to work with the Food Network's Paula Dean.

The next place I'd love to travel to is Thailand.

I wish I could stop watching trashy reality shows but I seriously can't.

I'm deathly afraid of needles.

People don't know that I want a tattoo but I'm a germaphobic.

On a random Saturday afternoon, I can be found at TJ Maxx.

To me, Millennium is the next step.

Know who it is? Comment! And, stay tuned for Candidate #3!

Mr./Ms. Millennium: Candidate #1

I'm pleased to introduce our first candidate in the Mr./Ms. Millennium Contest. Without further ado...meet Candidate #1!

Basic Stats
Hometown: Emeryville, CA
Hobbies: World peace
Personal Motto: Never Surrender (unless I need a nap)
Nickname: Prefer ‘T-Bone’ but most people call me ‘Koko.’

Fill In The Blank
When I grow up, I want(ed) to be….an architect

If I was a snack, I would be a Junior Mint because it's a little mint. It's a Junior mint! It's chocolate, it's peppermint-- it's delicious!

My favorite letter in the word Millennium is I because it’s very slimming on me and brings out my eyes.

If I had to choose between a sweet or a salty snack, I would…be inconsolable

I would love to work with ...cheddar cheese

I wish I could stop questioning authority records but I seriously can’t.

On a random Saturday afternoon, I can be found...tap dancing like a maniac in the frozen food isle at Jewel.

To me, Millennium is…sweet unadulterated bliss

Know who it is? Comment below! And stay tuned, because candidate #2 will be introduced on Tuesday!

Your Attention, Please

A very important contest will now commence.

Let's call it the Mr./Ms. Millennium Contest.

Contestants will compete each month, on the blogosphere, in a pageant of sorts.

This month, you'll meet the candidates. We'll show your their baby pictures and tell you a little bit about each contestant.

Next month, we'll watch as the contestants vie to win the "Surfing the Millennium" challenge. In December, our brave three will compete in a talent competition. And in January, the contestants will attempt to answer common reference questions using Millennium at breakneck speed.

Then things will start to get crazy. In February, you will be the judge. Vote early and often for your favorite candidate, the person who embodies the true spirit of Millennium. The winner will be crowned Mr. or Ms. Millennium, and will be entrusted with a super cool t-shirt and the power to reign supreme over the kingdom of Cook.

Are you ready to meet the contestants? Stay tuned.

Spectacular Snacktober Snacktacular!

Some of the races were close, but here's the winners from yesterday's Snacktacular!

Sweetest Snack
Cook: Heather's Pretzel Turtles
Evergreen: Julie Forslev's Autumn Cupcakes

Healthiest Snack
Cook: Nicole Bosak's Fantastic Cantaloupe
Evergreen: Deborah Gafka's Hotter Then Hell Hummus

Saltiest Snack
Cook: Winnie Collins' Roll Gold Pretzel Sticks
Evergreen: Pam Strain's Bunch of Nuts Mix

Prettiest Snack
Cook: Danielle Quist's "It's All About The Presentation" Bundt Cakes

Most Chocolate-y Snack
Cook: Bungy Lowry's Best Damn Chocolate Cake In The World
Evergreen: Arlene Lane's Orgasmic Brownies

Best Dip
Cook: Winnie Collins' Ranch Dip with Crosscut Vegetables
Evergreen: Craig Backe's Brother's Ex-Wife's Crab Dip

Most Fun Snack
Cook: Carol Zwolski's Chocolate With Hats and Pretzel Brooms
Evergreen: Sarah Simpson's Licorice Haunted House

Contests
Guess The M&M's
Jar 1: Cindy Ugaste
Jar 2: Michele Esteve

Words In The Word Millennium
Winnie Collins found 30 words in the Millennium!

Winners, come claim your prizes! We have certificates, rubber duckies, and fun Innovative prizes for everyone who won.

And...thank you to everyone who contributed to the Snacktober Snacktacular. As Barb Jarvis said, "It was a Spectacular Snacktacular!"

You Can Talk The Talk, But..

Can you deliver the snacks?

We are looking for the best of the best at tomorrow's Snacktober Snacktacular!

Will you be named Queen of the Prettiest Snack? Diva of the Healthy Snack? Sir Salty Snack? Person With The Most Fun Snack? The Best Dip?

Only tomorrow will tell.

The Snacktober Snacktacular starts tomorrow at 10 a.m. at both Cook and Evergreen in the Staff Room (or Staff Area). Everyone who attends can vote for their favorite snack for each of the five categories. Each winner will receive blog recognition, a certificate of achievement, and loot from the Bag of Swag, so be sure to label your snacks!

W.O.W. stands for...

Turn the M in Millennium upside down, and what do you have? A W! And W stands for WORD! I'd like to introduce a new educational tool to help you learn about Millennium, the Word of the Week!

The Word of the Week will help you learn some of the new terms that we'll all be exposed to as we transition to the new system.

Notice the new Word of the Week section to the right. We've kicked it off with an appropriate term for this project.

You'll also see a W.O.W. sign in the staff rooms at Cook Park and Evergreen.

If you have any ideas for ILS-related terms that you or others may not know, tell your department's IDT Cheerleader or, even better, write a comment for this post and in addition to helping your colleages, you'll be entered in the Snacker of the Month drawing!

Word up!

Philosophy Debate

Today, deep in the basement of the Cook Park library, an important philosphical debate could be heard. Logic, emotions, blood, sweat and tears came out, as staff members struggled to answer the timeless question: what is your favorite letter in the word millennium...and why?


Continue on for actual excerpts from today's debate...

"My favorite letter in Millennium is the I, because it kind of looks like a lollipop, which is fitting because its a snack"-- Andrea Johnson

"The letter M. It's peaceful to me, kind of like the OM sound. Not the first M, but the last M because then it's Millenni-OM" --Donna Krause

"N, it's clean and has a certain simplicity. And it's more efficient then an M" --Katie Olsen

"I like the letter L--it's fun to write,"--Carol Hubert

"L, because it's tall and thin and I always wanted to be tall and thin,"--Winnie Collins

"Among all the double letters, the E stands alone. And it sounds like electronic" --Pam Skittino

"The letter I looks like an upside exclamation point, which is fitting because we are all excited about Millennium"--Nancy Hart

"L--it was my husband's first initial and it's a double letter. It sort of looks like railroad tracks...LaLaLaLaLaLa"--Barb Jarvis

Now it's your turn, readers. What's your favorite letter in millennium and why? Comment!


bonus points: the picture on the left contains 26 letters from famous logos (many of which are famous snacks!). Can you name all 26?

A Little Taste of Encore

Welcome to Encore. I know what you're saying. What now? What exactly is Encore? I thought our new system was going to be called Millennium?

Yes, our new system is called Millennium. Think of Encore as the face of Millennium. Encore is the interface our patrons will see when they use the online catalog. Millennium is the brain.

Encore consists of a simple (dare I say, Google-like?) search interface, with a lot of user-friendly features that will be familiar to Internet searchers, such as relevancy ranking (hello again, Google), tag clouds (Flickr or Del.icio.us), RSS feeds (familiar to blog readers and podcast listeners), and more. Get out your reading glasses, because here's a (teeny tiny) peek:

Let's take a closer look at some of this. On the left side of the screen are different ways to refine your search (think Amazon for this one). This is officially known as "faceted searching."

You can restrict your search based on where the search words are found. In this case, that means you could search for only those items with the words "harry potter" in the title, or in the subject, or in the author field (perhaps he's writing his memoirs).

Or, you can restrict your search by format. The choices at our example library include "printed matl" (I'd guess that means book or magazine), DVDs, Books on Tape, CD/Record, or Videorecording. The choices at our own library will reflect the formats in our collection, but the concept is the same.

Next, you can restrict your search by collection. In the example, there are several branch choices and a bookmobile. The "collection" choices for our own library might include Cook Park, Evergreen, and Bookmobile.

Language and publication date are among the other "facets" you can use to refine a search with Encore. You can combine the facets, say, to search for DVDs at Evergreen in Spanish from 2006. All of these capabilities mean our patrons will be able to zero in on the materials they want very quickly and easily.

Now let's look at the right-hand side of the screen. Searchers can see popular choices for their search terms (based on circulation figures) at the top of the right-hand column.

Below the popular choices area is what's known as a tag cloud. Each bibliographic entry has a unique tag cloud, with all kinds of tags that may be more or less relevant to that record. You'll notice that the tags are all different sizes. The relative size of a tag is determined by a complicated stew of factors (is it one of the subject headings for that title? how frequently does it appear? and so on...), but the upshot should be that the largest tags are the largest because they're the most relevant.

Encore will eventually include the ability to link to relevant parts of the library's online database collection directly from a patron's search results. Stay tuned for more juicy tidbits on using Encore!

Want to try it for yourself? You can play with Encore at the Scottsdale Public Library or at the Nashville Public Library. Other Encore sites include:

• Deakin University
• Michigan State University
• University of Queensland
• Yale Law School: Lillian Goldman Law Library
• University of Kentucky

Try searching with keywords such as "good to great", "global warming" or "United States economy".

Mmmmmm... Snacks!

Fall snacks are wonderful, aren't they? 'Tis the season of pumpkin pie, apple cider, cider doughnuts, Halloween candy, bobbed-for apples, pumpkin bread, candy corn, and caramel apples! Learn how to make your own caramel apples with this simple recipe (thanks, eHow.com!).






If caramel apples are too healthy a snack for you (all that fruit, you know) or if they're too bad for your teeth, try this lovely recipe for caramel apple cupcakes from the Cupcake Bakeshop. They look just like the real thing, but with cake! How bad could that be?




Finally, congratulations are in order for our Snacker of the Month, Deb Lindahl. Deb received some double-chocolate cookies, home-baked by the very talented Deborah Gafka. The cookies were declared to be absolutely delicious!





You, too, could be Snacker of the Month. Each month, a name is randomly chosen from all comments written to I Luv Snacks. Every comment gets you another chance to win! If you'd like to comment, but don't know how, ask one of your friendly neighborhood ILS folks for help.