Yankee in Canada.com

Yet another two classics from Angry Alien Productions:

Rocky

Caddyshack

Young Canadians who are frequent readers of newspapers are also more likely to vote in elections, volunteer time in community service, and be more socially active than less frequent readers, according to a national survey released this week by the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA).

• Reading Between the Lines: Debunking Common Myths about Young Newspaper Readers (Full report – PDF)
• Canadian Newspaper Association
  • Ultimate Online Guide to Canadian Newspapers
  • Media Links in Canada and Abroad
  • Newspaper Resources (circulation, market research, workshops and seminars)
• D-Code

From the release:

1. "Young newspaper readers are involved in the world around them. As a result, there are strong social benefits correlated with newspaper readership among youth. These include: increased participation in the political process and increased involvement in community activities.
2. Young newspaper readers readily form opinions and seek out opportunities to express them so as to influence others.
3. Young newspaper readers are socially active and outgoing. They are more likely to visit shopping malls, restaurants, bars or night clubs than infrequent readers.
4. Young readers depend more on conventional sources than on new media for information on issues of importance to them. They rate newspapers highly for credibility, but prefer online sources for world news, entertainment and weather.
5. Young readers participate in new media and embrace new technologies more than less frequent readers.
6. They are plugged-in, but not tuned out. The news-heavy front sections and local news are the top two content areas read by young readers.
7. If young people have not become newspaper readers by age 24 they are unlikely to become readers later in life. Exposure to newspapers in schools as well as in the home has a significant impact on future readership.
8. Newspapers should not take their younger readers for granted. Young readers actively seek out news and information and have embraced all the technologies that deliver it. They will go elsewhere if they cannot find what they are looking for in the pages of a daily newspaper."

1,500 young people aged 14-34 participated in the study, conducted online across Canada in April, 2006.

DISCLAIMER: The author of this post is not responsible for any damages (especially time loss) due to using the website recommended below.

The amazing artist Ferry Halim has one of the cutest and most enjoyable games sites out there – Orisinal.  The games are not only beautiful, they are also challenging and just the thing when you need to take a break to let your sub-conscious do some work.

I have seen a few posts lately on a number of different dicussion lists that reference the now-defunct JAKE database.  For folks looking for journal titles and the electronic collections that index them, CUFTS, developed at the Simon Fraser University Library, is another excellent tool to use.  (As far as I can tell, JAKE is no longer being updated.)

• CUFTS Main Page
• Journal Search
• Resource Comparison (to compare titles and coverage dates of different collections)
• cufts2marc (to create USMARC records of titles in CUFTS collections)

At last count, CUFTS included 245 different electronic collections of journal titles.

If you are like me, and have access to limited journal collections, CUFTS is very handy when trying to figure out who indexes various journal titles.  And while it’s always wise to get lists of journal titles directly from
the vendor, CUFTS can also help when making decisions about
subscriptions.

Trendio.com is reported on in the Wall Street Journal today.  Similar to Google Trends, but with a twist, Trendio gives every user $10,000 in play money to purchase shares of words.  As the popularity of the words increase in the news media (based on Yahoo! News sources) the shares’ value increases.  Users’ portfolios of shares are ranked daily based on their value.  Neat!

A Dollar for Every Word: Trendio.com Lets Investors Play the Word Market
By AARON RUTKOFF
Wall Street JOurnal
May 20, 2006
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB114720494966648075.html
[Registration required]

  Toronto at sunset 2 
  Originally uploaded by YankeeInCanada.

I snapped this photo while trying to capture some of the fireworks being set off to celebrate Victoria Day. Alas, I didn’t get the fireworks, but the picture is neat nonetheless.

The talented folks over at Angry Alien Productions have posted another classic.

Casablanca in 30 seconds, re-enacted by bunnies. 

While wandering around Queen West today, my friend Paul and I stumbled on Type Books.  I could have sworn I never saw the place before and a gentle inquiry revealed it’s been open only 3 weeks or so.  If you are in the hood, and you are looking for a new collection of good reads to peruse, it’s worth checking out. 

Type Books
883 Queen Street West
Toronto, Ontario
Web: http://www.typebooks.ca

Alot is being written about Google Trends today.  It’s a very interesting tool, especially for quick comparisons of search popularity.  Further refining the results by city, region, language and date adds another useful element.  I thought I’d give it a whirl with some commonly adversarial duos:

• Bill Gates v. Steve Jobs
• Paul Martin v. Stephen Harper
• George Bush v. John Kerry
• Jennifer Aniston v. Angelina Jolie

The best part of this tool is the linking to the news story that caused a spike on a certain date.  It’s historical, of course, but if you were trying to compile a news timeline, for example, Google Trends would come in very handy.

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough search volume to show Betty Cooper v. Veronica Lodge. Oh well.

SLA’s Annual Conference is in Baltimore this year from June 11-14, 2006.  This will be my second SLA conference having had the hometown advantage here in Toronto last year. In Baltimore, I’ll be presenting the findings of the Technology Review Advisory Group at a joint meeting of the Chapter and Division Cabinets.  I’ll also be blogging the conference as best I can with my temperamental laptop.

Background on the Technology Review Advisory Group
In the fall of 2005, SLA Toronto brought a recommendation to the SLA Board of Directors asking for an investigation into the technology needs of units. The Board of Directors deferred the matter to the Cabinets. The Technology Review Advisory Group, with members representing both chapters and divisions, was created to investigate.

Technorati tag: sla2006