What's Old is New

I have to admit, I'm a little surprised I remembered my Blogger password. I just decided I needed to post something other than information about July 10th. Yikes.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything terribly exciting to mention. I just want to remind law librarians to join the Law Librarian Group on LinkedIn. We're up to 579 members as of today! That's a lot of law librarians. You can post jobs, start conversations, ask questions of other librarians, and oh so much more. Join today.

Also, if you want to hear from me a little more often than you do on this blog, feel free to follow me on Twitter.

Lastly, if you're lucky enough to have a holiday today (like me), happy holiday!

Happy Julio Day!

So, how is Julio Day gaining momentum? Well, apparently because of me. It turns out it had a little momentum before my Julio Day post 2 years ago. The person who first dubbed Julio Day (at least so far) turns out to be a fellow Illinoisan name Doug Bradley. Doug was kind enough to send me an e-mail with the specific text from his blog. I made him do that because I didn't want to click on the link he sent. Then I clicked on the link and of course, it's fine. He's an Illinoisan after all. So, here's what Doug wrote:

"The story of Julio Day as written by @bradleydoug (Twitter) about the holistay adventure of the Bradley's in 2008. See the whole blog in its entirety at http://s271501489.onlinehome.us/

CHAPTER FIVE
I am probably the only person in the world that celebrates Julio Day. Most people hit some sort of Mexican Restaurant for the Cinco de Mayo holiday but I put more emphasis on Julio Day. Julio Day started for me way back in 1990. I was at a seminar in Virginia’s William and Mary College. The group of educators I was with stayed in the campus dorms for a few nights and the campus is quite isolated. Our abilities to travel while there were pretty limited. There apparently was a guy who had no such difficulties: Julio. Everywhere we walked on campus there were paper signs posted that said: “NO PARKING JULIO.” This Julio guy became a legend among our group. We speculated that he was the Robin Hood of parking on the hoity-toity campus. Julio didn’t care that most William and Mary students drove BMW’s, we conjectured, “He parked wherever he wanted to.” “Good for him,” we thought. Imagine how cool it would be to have an entire campus security department posting signs with our name on them! Go Julio!

That’s the reason I celebrate Julio Day. How did I determine to celebrate Julio Day on the 10th of July? Simple. That was the day the mystery of Julio was revealed. It was our last day on campus. Getting around on campus that day was even worse than usual due to the oiling of all campus streets. The sign that said: “NO PARKING JULIO” really meant that there was no parking on JUL 10 due to the oiling of the streets. Go Julio!"

You've got to admit that is a great story! But Doug and I aren't the only people pushing Julio Day today. My sister Michaelle over at the Adventurous Women Blog has this to say. Is she calling me weird?

And last, but not least, I need to give a special shout-out to Mario Vittone who told me on Mario Day (I finally found the e-mail) that, "my nickname for years was Julio!" What could be better than being both a Mario and a Julio?!

Oh, and I did find an English translation of "Balada de un día de Julio" and it is about a July day not Julio Day, but it could have been.... Happy Julio Day!

Julio Day is Gaining Momentum

Stay tuned....

Newly Revised CIA World Factbook

As of today, the CIA World Factbook has a new look. It includes user-friendly interactive maps, quick links to country comparison rankings, photos, and easy-to-print maps.

The World Factbook isn't just limited to country profiles. You can also learn about places like the oceans and, for that matter, the entire world. Check out these interesting profiles:

• United States Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges
• Holy See
• British Indian Ocean Territory

I like the new look (although I did just click on Baker Island and ended up at the US Pacific Island Wildlife Refuges, but I'm sure that will be fixed soon)!

THOMAS Gets An RSS Feed

One. Well, that's a start. THOMAS now has its first RSS feed and it's for the Congressional Record Daily Digest. Here's the feed: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/rss/dd.xml.

You can keep an eye out for future additions here: http://www.loc.gov/law/news/rss.php

Just a Reminder...

I realize my posts have been dwindling a bit. Between being extraordinarily busy and working on a new blog project, I'm afraid AbsTracked is getting the short end of the stick. I just wanted to remind you that I tend to post my Twinks (Twitter links) more often. You can follow them at http://www.twitter.com/abstracked.

LinkedIn Groups Now Offer RSS Feeds & Job Info.

LinkedIn has added a feature allowing Group managers to add feeds for their Group members to read. I haven't tested it out, but it sounds like a good idea.

Also, there is a new "Jobs" tab for Groups (I have enabled this for the Law Librarians Group). LinkedIn says, "The jobs area enables members to discuss job opportunities in these difficult economic times without cluttering the main conversation, and like all discussions it's free."