Ooo-oooooo-ooooo

Ghosts and goblins and haunted libraries - oh my.....Just in time for the witching hour, George Eberhart at Britannica Blog has published a series on Haunted Libraries. "Like other public buildings that have seen long years of human activity, some libraries are allegedly haunted by the ghosts of former staff, patrons, or other residents. " The sixth in the series was just published. Next week Mr. Eberhart starts telling us about haunted libraries overseas.

No Georgia libraries were mentioned as having their own ghost. I did a Quick Search in GALILEO using library ghost and selecting Georgia. No luck- there are books noted in GIL and PINES with ghosts and Georgia in the titles but that's not really what I was looking for.

I went to the Digital Library of Georgia and tried library ghost, library ghosts, ghosts library - pictures of libraries came up but no ghost stories.

Thinking about GIL- one title mentioned was 13 Georgia Ghosts and Jeffrey by Kathryn Tucker Windham, an electronic book. I went to NetLibrary, did the search for Ghosts Library Georgia. The title came up. I used the search tab in NetLibrary (I have just been telling SCT 100 about how wonderful the search function is in NetLibrary) to locate and reference to library.

There is a ghostly presence in a private library- at Barnsley Gardens- pg 133 "Though she never saw him, Addie frequently heard in the late afternoon the scraping sound of her grandfather pushing his chair back from his desk in the library. The scraping of that chair had, years before, signaled the time for Godfrey Barnsley's pre-dinner toddy."

So there is a ghost in a library in Georgia!

The Sky is Falling

Chicken Little happily ran around telling everyone that the "sky is falling".

For the next few evenings you can look up and see for yourself if the sky really is falling!

The SpaceWeather.com site notes: "Every year in October, Earth passes through a stream of Halley's dusty debris, giving rise to the Orionid meteor shower. This year, the display is expected to peak on Oct. 21st, but some of the meteors may be arriving early.....Do early Orionids bode well for peak-night? There's one way to find out: Watch the sky during the dark hours before sunrise on Sunday, Oct. 21st. If 2007 is like 2006, observers can expect 20 to 50 Orionids per hour."
Thanks to Dan Robinson, HW Wilson Company for mentioning this on LM_NET.

You can find several versions of Chicken Little through NoveList in GALILEO . Note how you can check the public WorldCat right from NoveList to see which library owns the version you're interested in reading!

Get the current password to access GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

Water, water everywhere

but not a drop to drink.

That phrase has been ringing in my ears as the drought continues in Georgia. I went to look for the literary work the phrase came from- starting in GALILEO and selecting LION.

I typed in water water everywhere. Tons of works came up but it was overwhelming. So I thought- OK- I need an author.

That should help limit my search. You know where I went- to Google- did a search and the first link was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Ah Ha - I had an author and a complete title. I went back to LION. Still no success. It must be in there somewhere but it was so "easy" on Google.

The frustration with the very good, complete and authoritative databases is - well- they just aren't easy.

Breathing deeply, I went back to LION -

I selected Search Texts

Typed in water, water for Keywords in Work (use that comma)

Then Ancient Mariner in Title Keywords

Coleridge for Author

and voila 1. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 [Author Page]
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER IN SEVEN PARTS 39Kb , [from The Complete Poetical Works (1912)] .

There it is! Knowing the correct terms made it work quickly and accurately.

And, yes, I know the "water, water" phrase refers to sea water.....