Recently in Just for fun Category
Here's the Top 20 List for October. I changed the qualifications this time to have only items that were held in more than 1,000 libraries worldwide on the list. This eliminated some of the more bizarre items while elevating more topical and, unsurprisingly, popular items. This also gives you a list of things that are more than likely available in a library near you.
Here they are, in order of views:
1. A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
2. Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey
3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
4. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
5. Musicophilia by Oliver W. Sacks
6. Nursing Theorists and Their Work edited by Ann Marriner-Tomey and Martha Raile Alligood
7. Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
10. The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
11. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
12. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
13. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association by the American Psychological Association
14. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
15. The World Factbook by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Foreign Assessment Center
16. Push by Sapphire
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
18. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
19. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
20. Hope's Boy by Andrew Bridge
I don't use Facebook a ton. Being a GenXer, I tend to live on email and Twitter. I do enjoy it when I have time, and have re-connected to a bunch of old high school friends and folks who have moved away over the years.
I have noticed, though, that there seem to be a lot of games, polls and memes making the rounds of FB. I haven't played any of the dedicated FB games (like Mafia Wars). I am a gamer, but I tend towards Xbox with my 10-year old. Similarly, I haven't taken advantage of any of the "Which Greek God Are You Most Like?" type polls. Unless I understand the criteria, I'm not interested. I mean, come on... if you're going to tell me I'm more like Circe than Mercury, I need to know why.
I have, however, taken part in a couple of "memes" that friends have passed along. These usually take the form of a questionnaire delivered in a note, which the initiator tags with your name. You are encouraged to answer the question and pass it on to 10, 15, etc. of your friends.
The most recent couple of these I've been invited to reply to involved listing of favorite "Top 10" or "Top 15" things. What I did when responding was to create my replies as WorldCat lists to make them easier to share. You can see my WC lists for "Top 15 movies" and "Top 15 books."
For the "movies" list, I also made sure to add the editions of the movies that had cool "cover" art (although I guess it's "box" art for VHSs or DVDs), and then pointed folks to the "Covers Only" view of that list via the WC List link, as part of my FB reply.
A couple friends commented that they thought it was a much more interesting and helpful way to do a list like this. It was certainly more fun for me. I can even see, from the WC List page for each list, how many other WorldCat users have viewed my lists.
Sharing lists of "favorites" is fun. And WorldCat can add a bit of library flavor to the mix.
Contributed by Jasmine de Gaia
The popularity of Halloween seems to be increasing steadily - I just read the other day that two-thirds of all grown-ups will celebrate Halloween and half of them will spend more than $100 doing so. With Oct. 31st just a a few days away perhaps you're still trying to put together a costume or helping your kids map out their trick or treating routes. Whatever your Halloween festivities, the library has some great resources to generate some ideas or help get you in that spooky frame of mind. Take a look at all the great Halloween lists other WorldCat users have created, covering everything from decorating to costumes to movies and even the history of Halloween. Check out the identities of some favorite Halloween characters, such as Jack the Ripper or related authors like Stephen King.
Happy Halloween!
