I read this Chicago blog for its snarky political commentary, suggestions on where to spend my time and money, concert features, goofy videos and photographs, restaurant reviews, reflections about the day’s weather, CTA updates, and sports news, among many other topics. The articles use a first-person plural point of view (“we”) and refer to the writer as “Chicagoist,” which creates a communal and strangely omniscient tone to the blog. The entries tend to be short, succinct, and informative but not journalistic, offering a gossipy snapshot of life in Chicago. 

It’s a hassle to own a car in the city. Parking, gas, insurance, repairs, and traffic—five great reasons not to! But what if you need to get to Target once a month, or want to take a trip to IKEA? What if you need to pick up a futon you scored on Craigslist, or visit a friend in the 'burbs?

You should consider I-Go!
http://www.igocars.org/

DePaul students, faculty, and staff can join I-Go for only $25.
http://discounts.depaul.edu/travel/carsharing.html

I’ve lived car-free in Chicago for eight years, and was thrilled to discover I-Go a few years back.  Now anytime I need car, I go online and reserve one for as few or as many hours as I need.  Some trips—the grocery store, the laundromat—take only a few hours, and cost relatively little; visiting family in the suburbs is more costly, but I generally reserve an “all-day” vehicle, which is billed at a lower flat rate instead of  by the hour. Best of all, the cost of an I-Go rental includes insurance, gas, maintenance, and 24 hour emergency assistance.

There are three cars within easy walking distance of DePaul’s Lincoln Park Campus, and many more on the north side of the city. You can find dozens of cars near the Loop Campus, too. The I-Go web site lists all car locations (http://www.igocars.org/locations), and information about which kinds of cars they offer.

EveryBlock Chicago is a mash-up of government information and Google Maps.  I LOVE the way it pulls together public information from disparate city agencies and departments and adds layers of relevance and accessibility.

You can locate crime reports, restaurant inspection scores, property transfers, street closures and even filming schedules. Search by address, zip code or neighborhood and you'll see a map loaded with the locations of each event. EveryBlock also includes business reviews from Yelp and lost and found ads from Craigslist. You can even look at pictures that have been geotagged in Flickr!  It's a really easy way to explore your neighborhood or your city.

Have an image you need to resize and crop, or perhaps a photo with a bad case of the red-eye?  In order to do that, you could use a photo editing software like Photoshop, Corel or Paintshop Pro.  However,  professional-level software can be expensive. Besides, what if you need it right away?  Luckily, there is a great alternative, and it can be downloaded immediately for the low, low price of $0.00!

Paint.NET is a free photo editing software for computers that run on Windows. The magazine PC World was so impressed they included it as #19 on their “Top 100 Products of 2007” list.  Paint.NET has a very intuitive user interface, and dozens of editing tools.  You can easily resize and flip an image, tweak the color or contrast, and use features like the Clone Stamp for perfect retouches.  Special effects can be used to  make a photograph look like an ink sketch or painting.  More experienced users will want to experiment with “layers,” which allow you to combine two or more pictures.

The most difficult thing about Paint.NET is remembering where to go to download it.  It’s at: http://www.getpaint.net  (NOT paint.net), and installation takes between five and ten minutes.  Help documentation, tutorials and a user forum are also located on the site. 

Give it a try, you have nothing to lose but your red-eye!

Looking for a new novel to read for fun? Need a good movie to watch this weekend? Want to check out a local museum?

You can satisfy all these cravings for free with a Chicago Public Library card.
 
The Chicago Public Library (http://www.chipublib.org/) has a huge collection of books, films, and music held across the city at dozens of different locations. Luckily, you can go online and use the Chicago Public Library catalog to request items be held for you at the location of your choice. The closest branch to the Lincoln Park Campus is only two blocks west of the Fullerton el stop; if you live elsewhere, the web site has a map that lets you find a nearby outpost.

On the Chicago Public Library web site, you can access some databases we don’t offer at DePaul. Looking for a good book to read? Try Novelist. Practicing for a test like the MCAT or GRE? Check out the LearningExpress Library.  Need an introduction to life in another country? CultureGrams may be for you. The Chicago Public Library also has full-text articles from a wide range of Chicago newspapers—although don’t forget the DePaul Library does, too!

The Chicago Public Library also has some unique and often overlooked cultural programs. You can get passes to local museums, or lawn tickets to Ravinia, although both are subject to availability. They also have hundreds of book groups, readings, and other events over the course of the year.

As you can see, there are lots of reasons to love the Chicago Public Library. Don’t miss out on the chance to take advantage of this free and fabulous resource!

If you live in Chicago, all you need to get a library card is proof that you are a resident. If you don’t have an ID with your Chicago address on it (such as a current driver’s license), you can combine a picture ID with a recent letter or bill addressed to your residence. Living in the dorms? Student Housing can issue you a document proving your Chicago residency. If you’re a commuter, the Chicago Public Library also has agreements with dozens of Illinois libraries that let members of those libraries also get a card in the city.

Do you ever find yourself thinking...

'Does the library subscribe to this journal my professor wants me to use?'

'This book on Amazon looks like it might be useful - I wonder if the library has it so I don't have to buy it?'

'Sometimes finding the full text of an article from Google Scholar isn't as easy as it should be.'

If any of those sound familiar, I've got a browser plug-in for you: LibX. Available for Firefox and Internet Explorer, this plugin is customized especially for DePaul, and pops a handy little search bar across the top of your browser window so you can quickly and easily search the library catalog, or check on whether the library has the journal you need online or in print.

Even better, do this from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or many other sites -  you'll see a little DePaul icon next to book titles. Highlight any word or phrase in a web page and right click to search the library catalog for that item, or drag-and-drop onto the 'Scholar' button in the toolbar to generate a search in Google Scholar. Speaking of Google Scholar, results will have shiny 'find full text' buttons, so you're only one click away from finding out whether the library has what you're looking for.

Give it a try!

For Firefox:
http://libx.org/editions/download.php?edition=CD98EF7E

For Internet Explorer:
http://libx.org/editions/CD/98/CD98EF7E/libx-CD98EF7E.exe

(More general information at: http://libx.org/) 

Got a case of tip-of-your-tongue syndrome? The Reverse Dictionary might be an effective remedy, allowing you to describe a concept and get results about it. Let's say you're telling someone about the penalty Tomas Holmstrom got in the Stanley Cup playoff game the other night for interfering in the ... the ... you know, that part of the ice right in front of the goal. Reverse Dictionary to the rescue: entering "hockey goalie area" nets me (pun fully intended) the word "crease" and 100 other related terms that I can browse.

For your academic work, there are other tools the library offers that can help with this kind of thing, too: a thesaurus (Roget's and lots of other options at R. 423.1), a visual dictionary (R. 423.1 M167C1992), a thematic dictionary (Descriptionary, LPC R. 423.1 M133D), or a reference e-book collection like Credo for more substantial research.

But when you're trying to think of a term that you might not have dropped into casual usage since that philosophy class two years ago, it's nice to type in "German worldview" and be pointed to multiple definitions of "weltanschauung". And while I can neither confirm nor deny that it may be useful for crossword puzzles (a seven-letter word for hungry: p??ki?h) and Scrabulous, this may be a tip you want to keep to yourself.

The first website I visit each morning to catch up on the day’s headlines is www.ceoexpress.com. While it is marketed as a business portal for executives, ceoexpress.com is a great site to bookmark for quick and easy access to many different types of information. The links to news sources alone are invaluable. These resources are grouped into daily news, business news, international news, online television news, and general and specialty newsfeeds.  Some of the other categories of useful resources include health, time & weather, stock markets, statistics, government agencies, office tools, airlines, travel, and tech tools. Take a look for yourself to see how this site might help you quickly gather information from a variety of websites.

There’s a room on the third floor you may not know too much about. You know the one I am talking about, room 314. You’re not sure you are allowed to go in, yet you see other students in there but have no idea why they get to use that space with a whole desk to themselves, getting the materials brought to them instead of hunting through the stacks, and pillows - for their books. Or maybe you have come across a book located: “Lincoln Park Special Collection (3rd fl.) –non-circulating” with a call number that started with the prefix SPC, SPCN, or ARDFAC and asked “what does this mean?” or thought “why bother if I cannot check it out?”

This is why: the Special Collections and Archives, or SpCA as I fondly abbreviate it, is one of the hidden treasures in the John T.  Richardson Library. Special Collections refers to the books with rare or unique content, format, or subject focus. Our Special Collections contains over 21,000 volumes, including unique collections like the Lemke Napoleon Collection, the Bradford Dickens Collections, the Vincentiana Collection, or Faculty Publications. The Archives contain documents and materials from different organizations or institutions- including those of DePaul University- arranged in an orderly manner to aid patrons in their research. 

Now that you know the way to this hidden treasure here is why you should check it out (even though you can not check out the material). The books and materials you find here are great ways to boost your bibliography. There may be information or illustrations that are not found in the circulating collection. You can bring your laptop and digital camera to take notes and photographs of illustrations to insert into your paper. The overall experience of  appreciating books and the work that goes into them is well worth it.

And finally, gone will be the days of aimlessly wondering the stacks thinking “where is this book?” We will bring it to you! 

Meebo is a web-based IM service that lets you IM friends on any service(AIM, MSN, Googletalk, etc.) from almost any web browser. All you need to do is set up a free meebo account, and link it to your existing IM accounts. There is nothing to download, so you can use it from almost any public computer. (Great for IM in campus labs or traveling!) All your buddies appear in one big list.

The DePaul Libraries use meebo's "meebo me" widget for our "Ask A Librarian" IM service. If you have a question for us ("Which database should I use to find articles on the global warming?" "How do I renew a book?"), you don't even need to have an IM account--you can just start talking to us via the widget on our "Ask a librarian" or Facebook pages. Of course, if you want to add us to you buddy lists, we are  dpulibrarian on Yahoo, AIM and MSN and  dpulibrarian on Yahoo, and dpulibrarian(at symbol)gmail.com.