MemeMachineGo!

I’d seen and ignored hundreds of times the Electronic References link on the Berkeley Public Library website. Somewhere along the way, I got the impression that it meant the Berkeley Information Network, a listing of local organizations.

My mistake. Turns out just my name and library card gets me on-line access to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the ability to search hundreds of newspapers (and read the archives of pay-only sites like the LA Times and NY Times), O’Reilly’s Safari on-line library of technical books, Books in Print, and more data than I can shake a stick at. (And so can any resident of California.) If you weren’t clued into all of this, it might be worth checking out what your library can do for you.

Meanwhile, as staff at a large educational institution, I can get to just about everything else there is, from Lexis-Nexis to OED, even outside of work (and, no, I won’t share.)

I’m a happy geek.