Category Archives: General

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Minnesota Book Award Winners Announced

On Saturday, April 16th, the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library held their 23rd annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala, with around 750 people in attendance. During the event, winners from eight categories were announced, along with one winner of the Readers’ Choice Award. The winning titles include:

Award for Children’s Literature

Michael Hall – My Heart Is Like a Zoo

 Award for General Nonfiction

Michael Nordskog and Aaron W. Hautala, photography – The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition

 Award for Genre Fiction

Wendy Webb – The Tale of Halcyon Crane

 Award for Memoir & Creative Nonfiction

Bonnie J. Rough – Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA

 Award for Minnesota

Mary Lethert Wingerd – North Country: The Making of Minnesota

 Award for Novel & Short Story

John Reimringer – Vestments

 Award for Poetry

Lightsey Darst – Find the Girl

 Award for Young People’s Literature

Pete Hautman – Blank Confession 

The Readers’ Choice Award

Laurie Hertzel – News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist

Be sure to check out the books in more detail here.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Google Docs Adds Pagination

If you use Google Docs, you’ll be happy to know that as of April 12th, Google Docs has added pagination options. This means that in your Google documents you now have the option of using features like visual page breaks and headers and footers. In addition, “native printing” is now available if you use Google Chrome; allowing you to print directly from the browser rather than having to convert the document to a PDF. The native printing option means that the document will appear on the printed page just as it does on your screen. To learn more, please visit http://tinyurl.com/43l5o8h.

General

An Overhaul of YouTube?

Sources “in the know” report that Google is planning a major overhaul of YouTube. Apparently to compete with companies like Hulu and Netflix, as well as cable and network television, Google hopes that an offering of “channels” and live streaming of original “professionally produced programming” will entice viewers to stay on the site for longer periods of time. They hope that people will “watch YouTube” just like they “watch TV”. These changes are expected to occur over an extended period of time, with the first steps starting before the end of the year. Read more here.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Google +1

Yesterday, Google took one more step into the social network world. On March 30th, Google launched their new Google +1 service. Google explains “The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.” Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1’s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.” Industry experts indicate that Google +1 acts much like the “like” button on Facebook. Click the +1 button, to indicate you recommend or like something, and your friends who have also activated this service will see your recommendations in their Google search results  – and vice versa (assuming your +1’s aren’t private!).

Visit http://www.google.com/+1/button/ to learn more about the service direct from Google, or get InformationWeek’s take on the new Google feature here.

Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2135057566/ by striatic