If you're on the staff of any Winnefox library, earlier today you received a message welcoming you to a new electronic discussion group called Winnefox-L. This list is designed for sending out announcements, questions, comments, (and gee, The Ides) to all staff with e-mail accounts at all Winnefox member libraries. Now you can reach everyone who has an e-mail account at a Winnefox library without adding lots of people to your e-mail address book!

In addition to Winnefox-L here are some other electronic discussion lists you might be interested in. Some of them have searchable archives of postings, so you may wish to bookmark their archives rather than receive lots of messages in your e-mail mailbox.

• WISPUBLIB
  The Wisconsin public library e-mail discussion list. The Division for Libraries, Technology, and Community Learning (DLTCL) encourages any public library or library system staff or anyone with an interest in public library issues (for example, trustees) to subscribe to and participate in this list. Even though the list is moving to a different server on Friday January 20th, it's safe to subscribe at the current e-mail address listed on the WISPUBLIB Web page.
• Wislib
  The Wisconsin Library People Listserv. According to its List Guy, "Appropriate postings to this list are anything that may be of interest to Wisconsin library people. This includes inquiries about any library-related topic. I encourage everyone to interpret these guide-lines as broadly as possible. "
• FVLC-L
  The e-mail list for discussion of Fox Valley Library Council business and general library topics. This is a pretty quiet list that includes some very hard reference questions from FVLC's own Craig Lahm.
• Publib and Publib-Net Electronic Discussions Archives
  PUBLIB is an electronic discussion for public librarians and those interested in public libraries, and PUBLIB-NET is a subset of PUBLIB for posts related to the Internet in public libraries.
• Fiction_L Archives
  Fiction_L was created by the staff of the Morton Grove (Illinois) Public Library. It was developed for and by librarians dealing with fiction collections and requests. Among the topics discussed have been books on tape, reading clubs, and electronic resources.
• Local History & Genealogy Librarian
  A new weekly newsletter that provides news, details on new resources and practical information for working with researchers and caring for local history and genealogy collections.

Cookies - what, have we gotten to the Recipe o' the Month already? Nope, according to Cookie Central a cookie is "a small piece of information sent by a web server to store on a web browser so it can later be read back from that browser. This is useful for having the browser remember some specific information."

There are some Web sites that require that your Web browser be set to accept cookies, or else the Web site won't behave the way it should. Three of these you're likely to visit are EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and netLibrary. When you visit a Web site that requires that cookies be set, error messages can range from the cryptic ("There was an error while logging on to EBSCOhost") to the complete ("No Cookie has been set for your order session!")

Most PCs at Winnefox libraries have Netscape 4.x configured to accept cookies, but if you want to be sure you can visit The Cookie Test to find out if your browser is set to accept cookies or not.

If you have cookies disabled and wish to enable them, follow these steps:

1. Open Netscape Communicator 4.x
2. On Netscape's menu bar click on "Edit" and "Preferences"
3. Click on the "Advanced" category
4. Click on the circle next to "Accept all cookies"
5. Click the OK button.
   

The taskbar at the bottom of your Windows 95/NT desktop screen shows you what programs are currently running on your PC. Did you know you can change the location or size of the taskbar, and even hide it? Here's how:

• To move the taskbar, click on a taskbar blank area, keep your finger on the mouse button, drag it to another side of your screen, and let go of the mouse button.
• To re-size it, place your mouse pointer along the taskbar border until you see a double-headed arrow, and drag the border outward or inward.
• To hide it, right-click on a taskbar blank area, choose Properties
  and when the Taskbar Properties box pops up click Auto hide, then the OK button. Now the taskbar won't appear until you move your mouse cursor over its "hidden" location.

According to two librarians at Avon Lake (Ohio) Public Library, "with imagination and a few props, any staff member can become a 'god/goddess of library display.'" After reading the tips from Goddesses of Library Display Unveil Their Secrets from Today's Librarian Magazine you too will be able to transform books, household items, fabric and flowers into " thematic statements that promote the library's collections."

Modern Humorist asks, "If the fifty words and phrases on Lycos’ annual "Web’s Most Wanted" list came together in a single hard-boiled detective story, would it provide a revealing glimpse at the online collective unconscious? Or would it simply be a cheap excuse to create the most accidentally-visited Web page ever?" Find out yourself by reading "Hit Me, My Lovely: A Mystery Incorporating the Fifty Most Popular Internet Search Terms of the Past Year."

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, part. 4 chapter 3 (1963)

is Soaked Lemon Tea Bread with Poppy Seeds.

This issue of The Ides was written on January 15, 2001
Copyright 2000, Winnefox Library System

The Ides is written by Joy Schwarz.
Please direct any questions, comments or recipes to schwarz@winnefox.org

URL: http://www.winnefox.org/ides/idesjan01.html