Unfriend someone lately?

The New Oxford American Dictionary just announced the winner of its annual Word of the Year contest: unfriend. The winning word choice is explained on the Oxford University Press Blog : “In the online social networking context, its meaning is understood, so its adoption as a modern verb form makes this an interesting choice for Word of the Year. Most ‘un-‘ prefixed words are adjectives (unacceptable, unpleasant), and there are certainly some familiar ‘un-‘ verbs (uncap, unpack), but ‘unfriend’ is different from the norm. It assumes a verb sense of ‘friend’ that is really not used (at least not since maybe the 17th century!).”

You can connect to the dictionary on the Library Website through our database Oxford Reference Online . Click on the first title in red (middle of the page) English Dictionaries and Thesauruses and then The New Oxford American Dictionary is the first title listed.

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Free Printing in the Library

Okay – it doesn’t apply to the photocopiers. But if you are in the Library and using our computers to access the Library Website, you don’t have to worry about depleting your OneCard account to print. The reason we can offer free printing is because our public access computers (LRC 2nd floor) are restricted to access only research material from the Library Website. So you can use our laser printer to print out any research material from article databases like EBSCO or ProQuest, or the online catalog – free.

We all know how expensive those ink cartridges are for our home printers. So enjoy free printing of research materials when you’re in the Library – it’s on us!

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Most College Students will take courses Online by 2014

From Ambient Insight comes a report from a study they conducted about the growth of the electronic learning market. Will their predictions come true – and why – what are the implications for WSC – for academic libraries? Read this article by David Nagel from Campus Technology and see what college courses may look like within the next five years.

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Video Search Engine

Go Beyond YouTube for your video search – try VideoSurf, a metasearch for video that looks at videos on Hulu, CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, and MetaCafe.  The site features great sorting options, a Save Search/Alert feature, permalinks and a lot more. They offer a Firefox extension, APIs, and more tools too. They are sure to add more sources in the coming months.

From The Librarian in Black

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Boston Public Library eCard

Massachusetts residents can sign up for a temporary (6 month) Boston Public Library eCard via the Web.

These virtual library cards allow users immediate access to all of the Boston Public Library’s electronic resources, including magazine databases, downloadable audio, video and music.

For more information, see the BPL’s eCard FAQ site. There is also a link to this along with the main BPL page on the WSC Library Website under Other Libraries.

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