The L-Team

Great fun from Williams College. The video was made by Nick Baker of Williams College Libraries and was the recipient of an InfoTubey Award.

Live Chat with JK Rowling

You can chat live with JK Rowling on Monday, July 30 9-10:AM EST.

No End In Sight July 27th

Rails to Trails

The Minuteman Bikeway passes through the historic area where the American Revolution began in April 1775. It is one of the most popular and successful rail-trails in the United States, enjoyed by thousands of people each day for both healthy recreation and transportation.

You can search all Northeast trails through TrailLink

Publishing Perils

From the Writer's Almanac:

On this day in 1954 the first part of the Lord of the Rings was published. JRR Tolkien spent 17 years working on the trilogy.

His publisher nor his public gave him the same pressure that JK Rowling had for Harry Potter!

ReadWriteThink

ReadWriteThink, established in April of 2002, is a partnership between the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the Verizon Foundation.

NCTE and IRA are working together to provide educators and students with access to the highest quality practices and resources in reading and language arts instruction through free, Internet-based content.

It's A Phase

Barbie Clothes

For an interesting look at unusual careers, read Conde Nast's Portfolio.com read All Dolled Up:

Like most fashion designers, Kim Culmone spends her days analyzing fabric swatches, sitting through focus groups, editing design sketches, and scouring stores for trends. But unlike her fashion-world colleagues, Culmone has just one client: the 11½-inch tall, anatomically incorrect Barbie.

Happy Birthday Henry!

From Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac we learn that not only Henry David Thoreau but George Eastman, Oscar Hammerstein, Pablo Neruda and Julius Caesar were also born on this day, June 12th.

Henry David Thoreau who was born David Henry Thoreau in Concord, Massachusetts (1817). We know him as the author of Walden, and the essay "Civil Disobedience." He became the first member of his family to go to college. He went to Harvard, but didn't much care for the place. He didn't much care for school teaching either. He went to live with Ralph Waldo Emerson in Concord and did odd jobs around the house and took care of the children. It was Emerson who encouraged Thoreau to write poetry and suggested that Thoreau keep a journal, both of which Thoreau continued to do for the rest of his life. He was 27 years old when he built that little cabin on the edge of Walden Pond and moved in, in an attempt, he said, to "Simplify, simplify, simplify ... to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach."

George Eastman, the man who gave us the Kodak camera, was born in Waterville, New York. He was working at a bank when he got interested in photography around 1877. He took his first dry plate photograph the next year with the camera that he invented—a view of the building across the street from his window. He developed this little handheld camera, and he called it the Kodak because it was easy to remember, difficult to misspell, and it meant nothing, so it could only be associated with his product.

Oscar Hammerstein II, the very prolific and productive lyricist, born in New York City (1895). He wrote lyrics for Sigmund Romberg. He wrote "Old Man River" and "Can't Help Loving That Man" for Jerome Kern's Showboat in 1927, and then all of the hits that he wrote with Richard Rogers, Oklahoma, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.

The poet Pablo Neruda was born in Parral, Chile (1904). He was born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, but since his father didn't approve of him writing poetry, so he took the pen name Pablo Neruda.

Julius Caesar was born in Rome around 100 B.C.

ALA Picks a Winner to Sign Kids Up for Cards

Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback of the 2006 Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, official spokesperson for ALA's Library Card Sign-up Month in September 2007.

Mad About Chess

There's a social network online just for those chess lovers.

Features include friends, profiles, blogging, a “yourname@chess.com” email address, events, forums, video sharing and a directory of clubs and coaches. There’s also a series of articles and other content to help users learn chess. Player vs player games, product and book reviews, too. Mashable

Kids Make a Difference: A New Library

Learn how kids can make a difference. Kids' Real Life Civic Lesson from the NY Daily News.

Best For the Buck

This is a Forbes Magazine report, Best and Worst School Districts For the Buck, listing Norfolk County Public School District as the 4th best deal in the country, behind Marin County (#1) in California, Collin County (#2) in Texas and Hamilton County (#3) in Indiana. Middlesex (#23) and Barnstable (#54) are two other Massachusetts counties included in the 97 reported best schools disticts on the list.

#4 Norfolk County, MA
Per Pupil Spending 1 : $8,845
College Entrance Exam Score 2,3: 1,090
College Entrance Exam Participation Rate 3: 87.80%
Graduation Rate 3: 89.20%

1Based on Fiscal Year 2004, adjusted for the cost of living in the county's associated Metropolitan Statistical Area. 2Mean score of exam more common in the state (SAT score out of 1600, ACT out of 36). 3For the high school class of 2005 4Combines SAT and ACT (converted to SAT scale) results. 5State average. Sources: Tax Foundation, Economy.com, counties, school district officials, and high school administrators. Forbes Magazine, July 5, 2007

Norfolk County's 31 school districts include: *From EPODUNK.com Avon, Bellingham, Braintree, Brookline, Canton, Cohasset, Dedham, Dover, Dover-Sherborn, Foxborough, Franklin, Holbrook, KingPhilip, Medfield, Medway, Millis, Milton, Needham, Norfolk, Norwood, Plainville, Quincy, Randolph, Sharon, Stoughton, TriCounty, Walpole, Wellesley, Westwood, Weymouth and Wrentham

Deathly Hallows

Nearly 1.6m copies of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, have been pre-ordered online ahead of its release on 21 July. BBC News

World Clock

Created by Poodwaddle.com

Hollywood Librarian: A Trailer

To watch the trailer on YouTube just double-click on the button in the center of the screen.


Premiered at the American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, DC last week, the full-length documentary Hollywood Librarian will be available this fall at your local library. The Washington Post covered the event. If the link breaks, the Post's article expires in 14 days and will then be archived.

Break The Chain

Ever wonder if the email you've been forwarded has any credence? Want to check it out BEFORE you send it on to a colleague or a relative? Google one phrase and you'll undoubtedly be directed to HoaxBusters or BreaktheChain.org. You can also check these sites out directly. Another to try is Snopes. Save yourself any embarrassment and look at these sites first.

BreakTheChain.org promises this:

There are all sorts of junk e-mails floating around the Internet, but perhaps the most offensive is the junk we send each other: bogus virus warnings, urban legends, offers of easy cash, letters that promise to help sick kids... the list goes on.

BreakTheChain.org tries to educate the world that e-mail is an unreliable medium for sharing information.

Other great sites to check out urban legends and hoax emails are:
KnowledgeHound.com and HoaxBusters. For computer virus hoaxes or myths, try VMyths.com.

Spidey Goes to LegoLand

This week the Internet Archive became an official library. The library is full of free music, videos and books.

If you love animation AND Spidey, check out this Lego animation film from BrickFilms.com. With a Spiderman addict in the family, this site was a find!