The magic of web statistics

Do you know how to find out how many people visit your website every day? What hour of the day does your website get the most views? What terms are people using to find your website in this mass of information that is the Web? You can find to all these questions and more!

Currently there are many companies that provide free tools to track your website’s activity. One of them is StatCounter. You just insert an html code provided by the company in your webpage or blog and you will be able to track the activity of it. You can view this information daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly. Google Analytics is another company you can use to view the statistics of your website. With Google Analytics, you can easily track from which part of the world people are viewing your site, plus other useful information.

Different companies have been providing these services, however, in the past viewing the results and interpreting those results was complicated. Nowadays, web statistics are much easier to view and interpret since the companies providing the information use pie and bar charts and graphics. This information can be used to learn more about your audience and to help market your product or service in a more efficient way.

Do you know any other free web tracking services? Share them with us!

What are you afraid of?

I have to fly on Friday, which is not my favorite thing to do. Flying was no big deal as a kid, but gradually I started to fear taking off, landing, and even the slightest bit of turbulence. According to The Encyclopedia of Phobias, Fears, and Anxiety, one out of every six adults have a fear of flying (aerophobia) sometimes to the point that they will not fly at all. My case is not that severe, but I am grateful that my trip is just to Washington DC because I also have a touch of thalassophobia: the fear of the sea. Flying overseas is a challenge I have yet to conquer.

Here are some other lesser-known phobias:

Acerophobia: fear of sourness
Arachibutyrophobia: fear that peanut butter will stick to the roof of one’s mouth.
Dendrophobia: fear of trees
Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or sesquipedalophobia: fear of long words
Linonophobia: fear of string
Pagophobia: fear of frost
Paraskavedekatriaphobia: fear of Friday the 13th
Porphyrophobia: fear of the color purple
Rhytiphobia: fear of getting wrinkles
Scriptophobia: fear of writing in public
Soceraphobia: fear of parents-in-law
Serophobia: fear of dryness

For help in dealing with phobias and other anxieties, check out these titles:
Wish I Could be There
Phobias: Fighting the Fear
The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook
Journey from Anxiety to Freedom: Moving Beyond Panic and Phobias and Learning to Trust Yourself
Brief Strategic Solution-Oriented Therapy of Phobic and Obsessive Disorders
The Sky is Falling: Understanding and Coping with Phobias, Panic, and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders
How to Conquer Your Fears, Phobias and Anxieties

Juneteenth, a Texas Jubilee

For months, enslaved Blacks in Texas had heard rumors that their freedom was eminent. But it was not until June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, that the official word of their freedom was proclaimed at Galveston with the reading of General Order #3. The following year Emancipation Day celebrations were organized in communities across the state. Eastwoods, Emancipation, and Rosewood Parks are just a few of the popular locations for the celebration during the 19th and 20th centuries here in Austin. In 1909, local folks began to refer to the holiday as “Juneteenth.”

In 1900, Grace Murray Stephenson, a young white woman who lived just a couple of blocks from the celebration grounds, took the oldest known photographs of Juneteenth in the nation. She shot the image below and several others while attending the Juneteenth celebration out at Wheeler’s Grove (today Eastwoods Park) on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

[PICA 05476 Austin History Center, Austin Public Library]

For more information, check out these books from the Library:

The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, Texas Style (June 19, 1865): a Historical Perspective

Juneteenth, Unique Heritage: an Historical Analysis of the Origin and Evolution of the 19th of June Celebration in Texas

Island of Color: Where Juneteenth Started

June 16, 1904

Does this date mean anything to you? Need some hints? Stephen Dedalus, a walk through Dublin, “ineluctable modality of the visible,” Leopold Bloom, “potato I have,” Molly Bloom’s soliloquy. Yes, that’s right, June 16 is Bloomsday, the day people all over the world observe Leopold Bloom’s celebrated walk through Dublin as recorded in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In case you can’t recite any passages from memory but would like to do your part and participate in this year’s observance, the library has several different editions of Ulysses that you can check out.

• Ulysses by James Joyce


• Ulysses by James Joyce
• Ulysses by James Joyce

Don’t think you’ll have time to read Ulysses? What about listening to it?

• Ulysses by James Joyce

Can’t get to the library? Read this e-book online!

• Chaos Theory and James Joyce's Everyman

Want to share Bloomsday with friends and family? Choose one of these DVDs:

• Bloom


• Nora

Want to know more?

• Yes I Said Yes I Will Yes: A Celebration of James Joyce, Ulysses, and 100 Years of Bloomsday


• Joyce's Ulysses

Really want to know more? Explore what UT’s HRC has to offer:

• Joyce at Texas: Essays on the James Joyce Materials at the Humanities Research Center

It may be too late to join in the celebrations in Dublin this year, but you can see what is happening and plan for next year at www.jamesjoyce.ie. You can also read about walks in Dublin at any time of year: 914.1835 WA - Walking Dublin: 24 Original Walks In and Around Dublin

Closer to home is UT’s 2007 North American James Joyce Conference

If this June 16 caught you unprepared, start now and be ready for next year’s celebration of Bloomsday. For more information about James Joyce and about Bloomsday check our online catalog and our subscription databases.

Make the Library Work for You

Here's what you can do to make the Library work better for you.

1. Fill out the Suggestion Form (catalog homepage) for books that you want to read but the Library doesn’t have.
There's no way that we will know every last title that should be on the shelves, especially the non-fiction titles that have no marketing budgets to speak of. Let the acquisitions staff know what you want. You may also suggest audiobooks and dvds. (Very recent titles may be on order, but they do not show up in the catalog. )

2. Borrow by Interlibrary Loan the books that the Library doesn't have.
Our Interlibrary Loan system can borrow books from all over the area or all over the country and then check them out to you if we don’t have the book Assume, by default, that if there's a book that you want to read, your library can get it for you. You may also request audiobooks and dvds.

3. Browse the Library catalog with your kids.
Sit down with the online catalog with your kids and browse from topic to topic and subject to subject and see what else the Library has that they might be interested in.

4. Connect our catalog to LibraryThing.
LibraryThing is an amazing social catalog which lets you keep collections of books (either yours or your favorites from the library), write and read reviews, rate books and link to other people with similar interests.

6. If you find a book on Amazon, check to see if we have it first.
Make it a routine habit to look and see if the Austin Public Library already has the book that you're about to buy - you can save money, get better service, and reduce clutter on your shelves all at once.

7. Put a library reference desk in your cell phone speed dial.
Away from a computer and still need to have a question answered? Just call us at 974-7400 Monday – Friday between 10 and 5.

8. If you don't have time to browse the stacks, place a hold online.
We have a great online reserve system, which lets you place holds on items and pick them up at any location.

9. Read the Library’s blog and make comments.

10. Try a Library resource that you’ve never used.
Databases, book clubs, kids and teens programs, online holds, Good Reads, Catalog FAQs, Telephone Reference, Research Guides, or Chat with a Librarian.

Traveling Librarian went to Jaume Fuster Library in Barcelona

In May 2007 I spent a couple of days in Barcelona. On the way back down from Güell Park designed by the famed architect Antoni Gaudí, I happened to come across this library going to the Metro. It was around midday and already pretty hot, a good excuse to investigate this modern library.

Barcelona, like many great European cities and towns, is known for its open air cafés. I know of the trend in American libraries to offer coffee shops (to compete with bookstores) but never realized the trend went overseas. This peaked my interest to take a photograph and obviously to go in.

To the right of the doors when entering was the café bar and to the left a nice sized circulation desk.

A little further in from the entrance along a wall were many pamphlets. I helped myself to several of them. The majority of the documents were not in Spanish, but in Catalan. The Catalan word for library is “biblioteque.” Catalan is a Romance language and reflects its proximity to both French and Spanish speaking regions. Most who live in Barcelona are bilingual (Catalan and Spanish).

Right after the professional, colorful pamphlets, I decided to head up the stairs (there were three floors that I explored). I could see a bank of Internet computers, all in use. There was also a substantial, square reference desk area. I decided not to bother the librarian (she seemed engrossed in her work).

When I got back home I did some further research on the Internet. This branch library of the City of Barcelona is over 5,000 square meters or over 54,000 square feet. The architect who designed the building won the FAD award in 2006 for the best new building on the Iberian Peninsula. This impromptu stop on vacation left a lasting impression.

Readers Beware!

They enter our email inboxes everyday: those helpful messages about the latest safety alerts, missing children, urgent health warnings, amazing photos, and so on. They look innocent and helpful enough, so you hit the forward button to protect your friends and family from the latest threat. We’ve all done it.

Unfortunately, the majority of those forwarded messages are untrue or at least misleading. However, there are several resources available to help you sort through these urban legends and online hoaxes. My favorite is Snopes.com because the authors provide quite a bit of information to back up why the information is true, false, or somewhere in between. Hoaxbusters and Hoaxkill are a few more good sites, and the library has several books available that are informative as well as just plain entertaining:

• The Cat in the Dryer and 222 Other Urban Legends



• The Cost of Deception: The Seduction of Modern Myths and Urban Legends



• Hippo Eats Dwarf: A Field Guide to Hoaxes and Other B.S



• Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking



• Encyclopedia of Urban Legends



• Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends



• Urban Legends: The As-Complete-As-One-Could-Be Guide to Modern Myths



• Spiders in The Hairdo: Modern Urban Legends

So, be wary of all that misinformation and check these resources before you forward that next message!

Da Vinci Code Copycats

Below is a list of new historical mysteries for fans of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. If, after reading the list of books, you feel like there’s nothing like the real thing, then you will be glad to hear that Dan Brown is writing a sequel. The Solomon Key is the working title of the unreleased novel that will star Da Vinci Code hero Robert Langdon, and will be based on the Masons.


The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber
The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer
Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud by Julia Navarro
The Echelon Vendetta by David Stone
The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer
The Grave Tattoo by Val McDermid
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury
The Machiavelli Covenant by Allan Folsom
Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin
The Mosaic Crimes by Giulio Leoni
Napolean's Pyramids by William Dietrich
The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra
Templar Legacy by Steve Berry

What are YOU reading this summer?

If you’re like me, you get frustrated deciding what to read from the hundreds and thousands of wonderful books out there. Well, we’ve got something that will help. Turn to our Books & Reader’s Advisory databases! There are several wonderful databases that you can search through for help in deciding what to choose.

Click on Fiction Connection where you can do a specific search by title, author, topics or ISBN. OR you can explore topics, genres, settings, characters, locations and timeframes. When you click any of the exploration areas, you’ll get a huge list. Click on any item within the lists and you’ll get a great, long variety of book titles that fit your specifications. So, if you’re wanting to read that trashy romance novel this summer, click on Genre, then Romance and voila! A long list of romance novels that will meet your, ahem, desires.

You can also click on Good Reads, a collection of lists created by Austin Public Library Librarians. You know they’re good if a Librarian picks them out. There are lists of Notable Books, Lists put together personally by our Librarians, great links to Reader’s Tools and, if you want to read with others, links to local, online and teen book clubs!

This summer can’t be beat if you use our Books & Reader’s Advisory databases in choosing YOUR perfect book. Enjoy!

How about a blog about blogs?

Are you a fanatic of blogs? How many do you read: five, ten, eighteen blogs a day? Well, if you do, you might be very busy going from one blog to another and getting messages on your cell phone telling you that your favorite blogs have updated info!
In case you didn't know, there aretools that are going to make your blog reading experience even more enjoyable.

One of them is Bloglines, my personal favorite. Here you can subscribe to the feeds to all the blogs you like and see them all in one place. You will just need to create an account and voilá! If you read a posting you really like, you can save it into the “Clippings” tab of Bloglines, and you can also create your own blog. Finally, you can track your favorite podcasts and weather channels with Bloglines, plus, you can choose the language interface among 8 different languages. What else can we ask for?

Yahoo! also offers this feature for its subscribers through MyYahoo! Page. The information provided in the Yahoo! feeds comes with images, video, and sound.

Newsgator is also a RSS feeder, like Bloglines but it provides users with a plug in that can be installed in your computer to get the information about the new postings in your favorite blogs through Outlook. If you didn’t know about these tools we invite you to take advantage of them and if you did already, pass this info along to your friends and suggest us other RSS feeds in the comment section of our blog.

Influential Authors

Time recently published its list of the 100 People Who Shape Our World and many of them are authors. Click on the author’s names below to see the Time profile, or click the title to see their latest work in the catalog:

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
Neil deGrasse Tyson - Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
Alan Stern - Worlds Beyond: The Thrill of Planetary Exploration
Frans de Waal - Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved
Al Gore - An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It
Lisa Randall - Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions
John Mather - The Very First Light: The True Inside Story of the Scientific Journey Back to the Dawn of the Universe
Chris Anderson - The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Nora Roberts - Table for Two
David Mitchell - Black Swan Green: A Novel
Kara Walker - Kara Walker: Narratives of a Negress
Drew Gilpen Faust - Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War
Rhonda Byrne - The Secret
Michael J. Fox - Lucky Man: A Memoir
Michael Moritz - The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer
Hillary Rodham Clinton - Living History
Barack Obama - Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Michael Bloomberg - Bloomberg by Bloomberg

Cookbook Awards

James Beard 2007 Cookbook Awards were announced recently. Some of the award winners are listed below. Please click on the title to see which library location has the book or to place a hold.


Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by James Oseland

Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt and Ted Lee.

The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining by Cheryl Alters and Bill Jamison

Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day by Roy Finamore

Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass

The Soul of a New Cuisine: a Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson

The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg

Chick Lit Novels into Film

From the 1996 publication of Bridget Jones’s Diary that started the chick lit trend to the television sensation Sex and the City (based on the 2001 book by Candace Bushnell) that captured it on screen, chick lit has become a major pop culture phenomenon. One of most striking features of chick lit novels, is how often they are made into moves or TV series.

JoAnna Barrett's new novel, Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, has been generating a huge amount of buzz- not least because actor Hugh Jackman will produce the movie. Mr.Jackman has been quoted as saying, "It's a great read and a great laugh - and now we guys know what's really going on in there." Ms Barrett will be discussing and reading from her book Wednesday, May 23, at 7:00 on the 2nd floor of the downtown Faulk Central Library.

Looking at the Library's Chick Lit reading list, I found several other chick lit titles that will be on the screen soon: Bergdorf Blondes , The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Good in Bed , Sammy’s Hill, and one of the biggest chick-lit books,
The Nanny Diaries.

Library Video Contest

Gale is the world’s largest reference and research publisher (books and databases) for public libraries and educational institutions, and to show appreciation to libraries and their users, they have announced a video contest.

Make a video between 30 seconds and two minutes long that describes what you love about the Austin Public Library (or any other library) and you could win a $10,000.00 grand prize in Thomson Gale’s I Love My Library video contest to split with the library you designate. The contest is open to both library users and library staff.

Load your video on Librareo, Thomson Gale's YouTube channel, before midnight on Friday, May 25, 2007 to enter. By June 1, 2007, Thomson Gale judges will determine the top five finalists based on creativity, unique portrayal of love of libraries and the services they provide, and overall appeal. The top five videos will be featured for a nationwide vote that will be held June 1-11. The video with the most votes wins the grand prize.

Find the complete contest rules, downloadable video releases and sample videos on Gale’s Web site. And if you enter the contest, please let us know by making a comment on the blog.

Thomson Gale publishes many databases, which you can access remotely through Austin Public Library, including Health Reference Center Academic, Infotrac Custom Newpsapers,
and Literature Resource Center.

New Programs at Faulk Central Library!

The Faulk Central Library is gearing up to offer a new selection of free events and programs on the second floor. Keep an eye on our web site for information about upcoming author visits, dance lessons, computer classes, book clubs, and musicians.

Two upcoming events feature authors who set their novels right here in Austin:

JoAnna Barrett, author of The Men’s Guide to the Women’s Bathroom, will visit on Wednesday, May 23rd at 7:00 p.m. According to Ms. Barrett’s web site, the book started out as a “non-fiction look at the social evolution of women’s bathrooms since the Industrial Revolution” but evolved into a novel that has been optioned by CBS and Paramount Studios.

Karen Olsson will be here June 18th to discuss her novel Waterloo with the newly founded Downtown Book Club, which will meet on the third Monday every other month from noon to 1:00 p.m.

A few nonfiction titles to provide some background to these novels are:

The Book of the Bath

Fifty Years of the Texas Observer

Once Upon a Time in Texas: a Liberal in the Lone Star State

If you have any suggestions for programs, leave us a comment here, stop by the second floor reference desk, or contact us through Ask a Librarian.

Have you seen an Alebrije?

Alebrije? What is that?? Alebrije is the a Spanish word used for “Imaginary” or “Fantasy.” It is used to describe a style of fanciful and surreal animal carvings with near-psychedelic paint schemes that has been developed during the last 20 years in three small villages in the State of Oaxaca, 200 miles south of Mexico City, by the Zapotec Indians.

These works of art are mythical creatures with origins traceable to ancient Mexican religious beliefs that fuse contradictory forces represented by a variety of animal and human features. Hallucinatory and whimsical, the figures embody the spirit of some god or protective power. Alebrije carvings have become the center of a marketing phenomenon that has spread not only to the United States and Canada, but also to several European countries.

Each of the wooden sculptures are hand-carved from the wood of the Copal (or Copillo) tree. Each piece is hand-sanded and painted in bright and exciting motifs. You can see great attention to detail in their beautiful painting and “pointillist” style. The smallest colored dots are often applied with the tip of a cactus needle.

Next time you visit the Faulk Central Library, look for the Alebrije exhibit we are having during this month, and if you are curious about this creatures you can also check out some books like:

Crafting tradition: the making and marketing of Oaxacan wood carvings by Michael Chibnik

Live from the Met

Whether you are a true opera aficionado or only recognize a few tunes from Bugs Bunny cartoons, you can experience the sights and sounds of New York’s Metropolitan Opera right here in Austin. Live and encore performances are broadcast from the Met to participating local movie theaters with high definition screens and surround sound. The next best thing to being there! The last show of this season is an encore broadcast of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) on May 15th. You can also tune into broadcasts online or through SIRIUS Satelllite radio.

In addition to these options, the Austin Public Library has plenty of performances on CD and DVD, as well as books for Austin opera buffs. Here are just a few of the book titles we have to offer:

• The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera
• Fortissimo: Backstage at the Opera with Sacred Monsters and Young Singers
• The Joy of Opera
• A Passion for Opera: Learning to Love It: The Greatest Masters, Their Greatest Music
• A Short History of Opera
• At the Opera: Tales of the Great Operas

How-To-Do-It Articles in Magazines

We sometimes receive questions through our Ask a Librarian service about finding patterns or instructions in older magazines. Today a customer asked how to make a folded paper fan with bamboo sticks. Instructions were finally found in a 1978 Better Homes & Gardens article. A useful tool for finding "how to" articles in magazine is the index to How-To-Do-It Information. Central has the printed volumes for the years 1963-1999. To see what magazines Central subscribes to and how long issues are kept, please see Periodicals under Research Tools.

If you would like to make a paper fan for your wall, please follow these instructions:

Cut a half-circle with a 27-inch radius from sturdy foldable or figured paper such as wallpaper.
Mark the curved edge, dividing it into 48 evenly spaced areas.
Draw spokes from the center point out to the edges.
Score and fold into accordion pleats.
For spokes, use 25 strips of 30-inch long, 1/2 inch wide split bamboo.
Lay the pleated paper facedown.
Glue one strip to every pleat.
Stack all strips at the center point and join with sturdy brass wire.

AZÚUUUUUUUUUUCAR: Let’s Celebrate Latino Music Month!!!

In 2005, the Austin City Council declared May to be “Latino Music Month” in the City of Austin. Last year we celebrated the first official “Latino Music Month” and over 150 performance of Latino music took place in over 70 different venues. You can check out the Austin Latino Music Association (ALMA) website to see a calendar of events going on this month.

If you are a fan of Celia Cruz, Almita Rodríguez, Cachao, Oscar D’Leon, Juan Luis Guerra and other great Latin American artists, the Downtown Library has a small display in the CD Music section on the first floor dedicated to our Latino Music Collection. Come check out some great music or suggest some new titles by posting a comment or emailing us here.

I can see my house!!!

Lately there has been a boom on websites offering satellite images of Earth, with the most popular one being Google Earth. With this Google feature it is possible to visit cities and look at some of their historical or famous buildings in 3D. So, for instance, you can go to Paris, and view the Eiffel Tower from the air as if you were in a helicopter. Pretty cool, huh? Google also offers Google Maps, which is much simpler than Google Earth. With this tool you can find an address on a map, but then you can also see a hybrid map that will show the address that you were looking for posted on a satellite map, giving you a better idea of how the area you are going to travel looks like.

NASA also offers a similar software with satellite images of Earth. It is called NASA World Wind and if you love topography this is a great resource for you. It has images not only of our planet but also of the Moon and Mars. Microsoft did not want to be left behind and put out its product Virtual Earth. With Virtual Earth you can see maps and 2Dand 3D pictures of cities and their buildings.

Unfortunately, to take advantage of these different software programs you have to download them to your computer. But hey, if you don’t want to do that, you can always come to the Austin Public Library where we have Google Earth installed on our computers.

You can visit and get more information about the programs listed above by visiting the following links:

• Google Earth
• Microsoft Virtual Earth
• NASA World Wind
• Microsoft Virtual Earth