Ahoy, avast, and shiver me timbers

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you, like me, wish there were more appropriate times to say things like "Arrrr!" and "Avast, me hearties," now is your chance to release your inner pirate.

If you would like some help talking like a pirate, you can try this handy guide from Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket on YouTube. There's also a longer video tutorial, How to Talk Like a Pirate, by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders.

What does a librarian pirate sound like? In my case, it sounds something like this:

• "Ahoy! I see ye be lookin' downcast searchin' for articles. Have ye tried ProQuest?"
• "Avast, me hearties! This be how ye find databases t'use for yer research."
• "Ye be looking fer microfilm? Arrrr! It be in that direction."

Now, if ye be lookin' for some pirate literature, here be some books ye can read online that won't cost ye a single piece of eight, thanks t' Project Gutenberg.

• Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates; fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish main
• The Pirates of Malabar, and an Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago
• The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers
• Captain Scraggs: or, The Green-Pea Pirates
  

What if your library looked like this?

This is the winning design for the soon-to-be built National Library in Prague. According to this Building Design article, the building is to be a symbol of democracy in the Czech Republic, and also to serve as a sign that modern architecture is happening in Eastern Europe, too. I find it oddly adorable, in a polka-dotted slug type of way, but if I lived in Prague, which is architecturally rich and bears the impressive nickname, "Golden City of Spires," I might be worried.

More images can be found here.

Check out a laptop!

Working at the Holland & Terrell Library is great, but right now I'm extremely jealous of the Owen Science Library because they've started something fabulous. Have you ever been in a library and wished that you had a laptop to work on? Wouldn't it be great if a laptop was something you could check out? Well, now you can. The Owen Science Library has six laptops available to check out for in-building use.

The laptops come stacked with all kinds of goodies. Here is a list of what's on the laptops (from the laptop FAQ page): Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, selected IM packages, SciFinderScholar, and Pharos (to enable printing at the Owen Library’s public printers).

They've done a great job putting together useful information about the pilot project (including maps of wireless access points in the building), which you can find here: http://wiki.wsu.edu/wsuwiki/Owen_laptop_pilot