Banner ducks!

For some people a certain groundhog is the harbinger of spring. For others it is Red Sox Truck Day - the day they pack up the gear at Fenway for the drive to Fort Meyers and the start of spring training.

For me, it is the Sophomore English research paper, and citation assessment.  After an epic session assessing what felt like the entire Sophomore class, I decided I had gone a little too deep down the librarian rabbit hole.


So I checked in on Facebook.



THEN I saw the feed from my brother-in-law (Thomaaaaas!) and the night was shot to Primary subject/Secondary subject fun and foolishness.


The  Random Paragraph Generator is such a cool little site! Branded as a "creativity generator" this might be useful for English writing classes, but honestly, I just thought it was a heck of a blast! Given my citation-altered state, I give you some random paragraphs and the primary/secondary words that generated the following paragraphs.

The other funky thing (I already owned that I am in citation assessment mode, so go with it.) is the url:

Snakes.com is a very fun site with three categories of "creativity tools". 

1. Brainstorming
2. Random generators
3. Name finder

Anyway, check out some examples on the "Random Paragraph Generator": 

Primary: library

Secondary: research

"Will library mend within research? Library gears research past the aunt. Why does research trade library? A banner ducks! Research argues next to library."

Primary: citation

Secondary: bibliography

"Citation hashes bibliography. Bibliography strikes. Bibliography leaps upon the genetics before the hope. The increasing inheritance ascends outside the controversial glow."

Wishing everyone a banner ducks spring!

Photo Credit:
Via Wylio
Rubber ducks with sunglasses

Double Rainbows

The week before Thanksgiving is a unique opportunity to reap a harvest. This is when students who have graduated stop by to say hi, email updates, and as an educator you get to peek further down the production line and see the fruits of your labor.

Not only do returning students tell you how they are doing, stories of roommates and their plans for travels and their thoughts on a major, they bring social media.


This one had me hanging on the table and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. It builds. Wait for it. Every human emotion in one heartfelt rant.

Double Rainbow - So intense



And then comes the social media mashup. Pitch perfect!

Double Rainbow Song



This is a double rainbow week. Happy holidays and safe travels.

Photo Credit:
Flickr Creative Commons
Double Rainbow

Feasting on language

Before things get crazy this season here are some fun language resources to send out to your faculty.

WORDCOUNT is an artistic, minimalist site that sequences the vocabulary of the English language ranked in order of commonness. The data (currently 86,880 words) comes from the British National Corpus that collects samples of spoken and written British English language. 

The site is fun when you look up words and see the contiguous words in the sequence. Thanksgiving was followed by mania. I know the grocery store is going to be pretty manic by the time I get there. Black Friday is the official kick off to holiday shopping mania.

Conspiracy theorists should try looking up conspiracy. Does is mean anything?

 Take a look at the words on either side of "librarian":

Stephen Abram's blog had a recent post  with a fascinating and fun 2.5 minute video called

Tracking the 18th century social network through letters. Social network hold outs will find this offers some compelling evidence that this latest trend is nothing new and promotes intellectual growth. It is also an incredibly entertaining visualization of 18th century thought.

I already posted about the Oxford English Dictionary and their "Save the Word" site, but it is just so much fun I can't help returning to it. Scrolling across the canvas of forgotten words and hearing them call out "Pick me!" "No, no, pick me!" adds a sense of delight and urgency, as if I can actually save words from the past.

So as we all gear up for the mania of the holiday season, I hope your kitchens aren't filled with too many coquinators and that your soup pots are jussulent. This librarian is urging everyone to have a happy and safe Thanksgiving holiday.