Confounded Blateration! Savethewords Expands Your Vocabulary

A funny little Web 2.0 site out there will literally beg you to broaden your knowledge base and expand your vocabulary.

Savethewords will make you chuckle, yes, but you might learn something in the process. Try these words on for size, for example. (I’ll provide the definitions at the end of this post).

Lubency
Sophronize
Blateration
Eicastic

The website offers a collage of dozens of little-known words, and when you get there, you hear cute little voices saying things like “pick me” and “over here.” The point is to “adopt” a new word. When you do, savethewords provides you with a definition of the word you’ve adopted and emails you a certificate of adoption. By accepting the certificate, you “promise to use the word, both in conversation and correspondence, as often as possible” and to the best of your ability.

It’s all in good fun and encourages us to expand our knowledge of the ever-evolving English language. As a former journalist, taught to write conversationally, I might never use the word “eicastic.” At the same time, can it hurt me to learn something new?

Check out savethewords and have some fun.

As promised, here are those definitions:

Lubency: noun. Willingness: pleasure. He is running for office, hence his sudden lubency to help little old women cross the street.
Sophronize: verb. To instill with well-grounded moral principles. Strangely, the Paris Hilton book “How to Sophronize Your Child” never found a publisher.
Blateration: noun. Blabber, chatter. I had to listen to my mother’s blateration for 30 minutes just because I got back at 2 a.m.


Eicastic: adjective. Imitative. The parrot’s eicastic abilities caused the maid to believe that someone was actually starting the car.

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Librarians are Cool

Libraries almost invariably contain long aisle...Image via Wikipedia

I know I’m dating myself here, but I don’t remember ever having a cool librarian as a kid. Instead, the librarians I knew had pursed lips, shushed people for a living, and slept with the Dewey Decimal System.

Not today. Librarians are Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, wiki-ing, and definitely not sleeping with the Dewey Decimal System.

If you want proof, take a look at the Library page of the Online Education Database, which currently contains reviews of 1,081 programs from 86 accredited online colleges. There, you’ll find tons of references written by and for librarians about using social media in libraries around the country.

Here’s what the Library page says about Twitter, for example:

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates. Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

Among their listings are librarian-only applications and networks like:

Shakespeare High Cafeteria: This online tribute to Shakespeare features active discussions about Shakespeare news, book clubs, a creative writing center, “staff lounge,” study help and teaching ideas.

Readers Read: Browse forum topics like publishing industry, general fiction, mystery/thriller, children’s books and nonfiction.

TeacherLibrarianNing: Educators and librarians get together on this network, where you can join groups, post photos, upload videos and more.

The Shifted Librarian: Librarians connect through this blog about library news, trends and of course, books.

Librarian Facebook Application: This Facebook app connects you to other librarians who can answer your search questions.

They also list a number of social media sites for librarians and book-lovers, including:

Shelfari: This blog about books and book collecting has a MySpace page and a Facebook application.

GoodReads: Keep track of what you and your friends are reading through this online networking site.

BookJetty: BookJetty lets users organize, rate and review books and even look up books in the site’s database of over 300 libraries around the world. Users also get a blog that lets them show off a “bookshelf” to friends.

MySpace Books: This ultimate social networking site has a page just for books, connecting readers, authors and those in the book industry.

Books iRead: Another Facebook app that lets you rate, review, and share books you’ve read.

You can also catch a number of 21st century posts on the site, including these:

50 Ways to Use the Wii In Your Library

100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Need any more proof that librarians are cool? I don’t think so.  Now shush!


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Bloggers Unite on Nov. 10th

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve signed up to participate in the Bloggers Unite initiative on Nov. 10. This worldwide initiative will benefit Refugees United with information, which leads to empowerment.

Refugees United is a non-profit organization that helps refugees relocate family and friends through the use of the internet. It provides refugees with an anonymous forum to reconnect with missing family members. By registering with nicknames, scars, former locations and other markers only identifiable to family and close friends, everyone can remain ‘invisible’ to all but their relatives.

The Refugees United search engine is the first of its kind. Visit Refugees United to see how it works and to learn more about the work that Refugees United is doing. You can also read the Refugees United blog.

Here’s what Bloggers Unite says about this effort:

It is very difficult to reach refugees in remote areas. By advancing the power of blogs, bloggers are effectively placed in a position to fulfill a job that could not be done without the power of the internet and the skills that bloggers possess to quickly and effectively raise the necessary awareness and aid about critical social causes. We hope you will join us, as together we harness the expression of the blogosphere to reunite family members who have been separated from each other.

Bloggers who participate will blog about any refugee issue to help shed light on the plight of refugees and the hardships they endure around the world. If you have a blog, join the effort.

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NSPRA’s New Look

The National School Public Relations Association has a new look, and it’s interactive and a lot more Web 2.0. Here’s a screenshot of the new website and the link.

They’re starting out immediately with an online membership poll — see the right-hand column on the home page. It’s a smart, forward-thinking move that is likely to encourage and perhaps re-ignite participation and collaboration.

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