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I just read an interesting article from The Arizona Republic Web site. It seems the Perry Branch of the Gilbert (AZ) library is going to shelve books by topic like it is done in bookstores and are not going to use Dewey anymore. The article claims that this will be the “first public library in the nation whose entire collection will be categorized without the Dewey Decimal Classification System.” Obviously that is not true (some use LC and I’m sure that a few use some other classification system), but it will be interesting to hear how this turns out. I wonder how the will determine where to shelve books and I also wonder how they will enter the location in their catalog. An advanced search of their catalog limited to the Perry Branch shows that currently they still have Dewey call numbers in the catalog. It may prove to be better, or worse. Only time will tell.

Tux made it into the Indy 500 on Sunday. As I previously reported, there was a community effort to get Tux into the Indy 500 by raising up to $250,000. They fell well short of that, but still raised enough money to get an associate sponsorship. Originally the car was supposed to have Stephan Gregoire as the driver, but he crashed and broke a vertebra, so the owner put Roberto Moreno into the car. I’m a little disappointed that Jimmy Kite and P.J. Jones didn’t make it into the show, but it is cool to see Tux in the race.

I have just read the news that Danbury, CT has started using LibraryThing for Libraries in their library catalog. I haven’t looked at it too closely, but I did spend some time investigating its feature and overall I think it is really nice. It incorporates Library 2.0 technologies in the way of tag clouds and user reviews. I would like to see a way to tag a book in the catalog, but really I think it does a great job of bringing these enhancements to the public. It also appears to be a real easy thing to set up for library staff. Not sure what it costs, but it looks like a good tool for a public library.

On Sunday May 6, 2007 I went to see the NASCAR modified tour at Wall Speedway. This was the first ever “flash” race for the tour. The flash format consists of two 50 lap “heat”races and one 50 lap feature. This format, at least according to the articles I read, didn’t go over so well with the teams when it was proposed but I thought going into it, the format might me better for the fans. Unfortunately, Wall is a one grove track for the modifieds, so it really wasn’t a good test since no matter what the format, odds are it wouldn’t have been a classic race. Overall, I did like how the show went off, even if the racing wasn’t up to typical modified tour standards. They started on time and kept the show going and I had a fun day in the sun. The Blewitt brothers finished 1-2 which wasn’t a huge surprise sine they started up front and it is their home track. Billy Pauch Jr. had a good run in the Greenfield Dodge 06 finishing in the top ten. I’m going to have to hold judgement on the format, however, since I don’t think the track at Wall is a fair test.

My 2007 Stats after Wall Speedway on May 6 are:
Races: 11
Tracks: 7 (3 new) (153 lifetime)
States: 6 (3 new) (38 lifetime)

Jennimi recently wrote a blog post that she has an omnivore digital personality typology. I didn’t really look all that hard at the quiz put out by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, but I took it for fun and it seems that I am an omnivore too! However, unlike Jennimi, I am not trying to minimize animal consumption.

On April 21 2007 I went to New Egypt Speedway. This was the first race I got to see since the track changed owners. The new owners didn’t make many changes to the track, but they really did need to since New Egypt is a nice facility. The races were hampered by a rough track surface. New Egypt has a new person preparing the track and he hasn’t quite figured it out yet. Once he does though, the track may turn out to offer some enjoyable racing. One of my complaints in th past about New Egypt was the time wasted getting cars on the track and under caution. The new owners have seemed to addressed this and ran off the show pretty well. Well, they ran it off well when they weren’t taking time to try to fix the track which they had to do on a few occasions. Hopefully they’ll continue to run the races off quickly and get the track conditions under control. If so, I’ll probably show up a little more often since the track is less than 10 miles down the road from me.

My 2007 Stats after New Egypt Speedway on April 21 are:
Races: 10
Tracks: 6 (3 new) (153 lifetime)
States: 6 (2 new) (37 lifetime)