Google Wave Goodbye to 2009

Globetrotting

Think you've got geography nailed? Think again! Globetrotter XL

Rings of Earth

Found on Reddit.

Want to Listen For Free?

Go to any of these sites for free audio books:
Librivox, ProjectGutenburg, LearnOutLoud, Audible, BooksShouldBeFree, ListenToGenius, LiteralSystems, InternetArchive, FreeClassicAudioBooks and LoudLit.

Unfriend

Created by Wordle

Check out the Word of the Year at the Oxford University Press.

The Hilarious Mr. Bean

Thanks to Library Link of the Day

All For the Best

Hide and Seek - Lyrics and Music by Imogen Heap
where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking feeling

spin me round again
and rub my eyes,
this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first

oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines (oh, you won't catch me around here)
blood and tears (hearts)
they were here first

Paying It Forward

Read my entire column in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week.

Last month I wrote about Ben Franklin in my column about Daylight Savings Time. Imagine my surprise when I would come across Ben again in this week’s research.
Franklin’s wisdom and understanding of paying it forward was exemplified in April of 1784 when he wrote in a letter to a Benjamin Webb: “I do not pretend to give such a Sum; I only lend it to you. When you meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the Debt by a like operation, when he shall be able, and shall meet with another opportunity. I hope it may thus go thro’ many hands, before it meets with a Knave that will stop its Progress. This is a trick of mine for doing a deal of good with a little money.”
(And while Ben Franklin gets the credit for writing the letter above we must give credit where credit is due. Robert Heinlein actually coined the phrase, “paying it forward” in his book “Between Planets,” in 1951.)

Eating Crow

One of our newest books in the library is the just-published “I’m Not Hanging Noodles In Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World,” by Jag Bhalla. The useful information in this book might be learning what not to say. The cover of the book includes the information that the expression (in Bengali) of “thighs shaped like banana trees” is a compliment to women.

One might avoid the expression in this country, however.

Some of my favorite expressions explained in Bhalla’s book are Hindi. To address the ground? To be dejected. To loosen the turban? To be crestfallen. To drink a mouthful of blood? Essentially, to eat crow. In any language it’s a humiliating experience.

Read my entire column this week in the Norwood Bulletin and Record.

1001 Ways to Spend Your Time

"All of a sudden I was seeing 1,000 and 1,001 books on many subjects everywhere I went! In our summer Beach Reads book review program Beth Goldman reviewed “1001 Foods You Must Taste Before You Die.” Not only was this a daunting task but at least half of the foods I had never heard of.
Then I discovered “1,000 Films to Change Your Life.” My life is kind of humdrum so I should watch a film every day in between reading my book, eating a new food, and preparing a new recipe.
But wait a minute, what is missing? “1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.” How will I fit in listening to a recording? I guess I will never sleep." Margot Sullivan

Read Margot's entire article in the Norwood Transcript.

Optical Illusion

Click

A Year of Living ... Literally

Nina Sankovitch and Christopher Beha both read through the emotional paralysis of their separate griefs and found strength; Nina and Roger Martin battled their demons in books they had never read before and found enlightenment; she and A.J. Jacobs were able to put their lives on hold for a time to accomplish their finite goals.

Nina is near the end of the 365 books in the past year and she admitted in the BBC radio interview that there are many dust bunnies under her furniture and that she will attend to more of the daily chores in her life once her quest is done. Something tells me, though, that Nina Sankovitch’s dust bunnies will still be there, tomorrow and next year, while she travels the country on a book tour to promote her year of living … literally.

Read my entire article in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript this week

Times They Are A-Changin'

"It’s been our privilege to serve with many wonderful and dedicated staff members who have become not just co-workers, but friends and family throughout our years. They accepted, adjusted and adapted to the many policy, personnel and procedural changes, allowing the library to hum along without any interruptions.

In all these 41 years of library history, our dedication to the Morrill Memorial Library and our devotion to each other have remained constant. We are: Hope Anderson, Children’s Librarian, Tina Blood, Literacy Volunteer Coordinator and Marie Lydon, Reference Librarian and we have served the library and the Town of Norwood for a total of 123 years."

Read the entire article this week in the Norwood Bulletin and Transcript by librarians, Marie Lydon, Hope Anderson, and Tina Blood.

Explore New Worlds: Read

The Library of Congress has begun a new campaign for reading at Read.gov or Literacy.gov. They've teamed up with Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and the BYU Ad Lab. Watch all three at the Ad Council site.

Another Spin on Food for Thought

" Though I missed the first three lectures, one on beekeeping, another showing a video on the struggles of the American family farm, and the third a lecture by Tracy Firth of “Plant a Row for the Hungry,” the series really seems to “hit the spot” for me on educating people in town on various topics related to food. Tuesday, Oct. 6’s, 7:30 p.m. series will feature “Save Your Fork, There’s Pie: A Celebration,” with Beth Goldman and Karol Bartlett." Debbie Springarn

Read Debbie Springarn's entire article in the Norwood Transcript and Record.

Saving Time With Ben

"Did you know it was our Ben who also gave the world the idea for a daylight saving time as early as 1784? Ben Franklin was an American delegate in Paris and the Parisian sleeping habits made no sense to him. In his essay, “An Economical Project,” Franklin estimated that much money would be saved if the residents of Paris would just change their clocks to awaken early with the daylight.

Parisians, it seems, were notorious for late bedtimes, eating, reading, conversing, and living by candlelight. If those Paris dwellers would just reset their clocks, the sunlight would “awaken the sluggards effectually and make them open their eyes to see their true interests…All the difficulty will be in the first two or three days; after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity…Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening.”

Parisians were not amused. Something tells me, however, that our Ben was.

Read my entire article in the Norwood Transcript and Record this week.

Oh, the Places You'll See

"I am reminded of all this because PBS has been promoting its series on the national parks beginning this fall. It should be stunning. Although I have not been to most of the parks, I love looking at the books and planning trips that we hope to take some day. In the meantime, we can all be armchair travelers with some of the following books at the library:
America’s National Parks: America’s Best Idea by Dayton Duncan is a beautiful and informative book published in conjunction with the PBS series.
Great Lodges of the National Parks by Christine Barnes, volumes 1 and 2, illustrate the ideas and industry of our predecessors in building these magnificent structures.
Fodor’s Official Guide to America’s National Parks gives a brief, state by state description of 391 parks.
Frommer’s National Parks with Kids by Kurt Repanshek highlights great family activities at 14 parks including Acadia and the Cape Cod National Seashore.
·“Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America’s National Parks” by Andrea Lankford, which unfortunately does not include any New England parks.
There are many more books about the national parks to consult if you are planning a trip. It is never too soon to start thinking about next summer. If we do not have a specific book in our library, you can request that it be delivered here. Marie Lydon, Reference Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library

Read Marie Lydon's entire column in the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin this week.

How To Handle a Hammer

Image from the Art of Manliness. A great post by the Art of Manliness blog. I was totally clueless. Who would have thought there were so many named parts to a hammer.

Alison's Kindle Quandary

"Still, at some level, digital readers seem more a regression than a sign of progress. I’m reminded of the scene in Little Women when Jo is craving a new novel, but it’s too pricey for her meager budget. Books were expensive then, prohibitively so for many. At $299, Kindles are expensive now. We built public libraries to make reading affordable for everyone. But any time we require new devices in order to read, we are creating barriers to learning and literature, not eliminating them." Alison Lobron, September 27, 2009 Boston Globe Magazine.

Read Alison Lobron's article in the Sunday Globe Magazine, "My Kindle Quandary". It certainly sums it up for me. Re-read my article in the Daily News Transcript, March 19, 2009, "Animal, Vegetable, Kindle?"

Compare more e-Readers.

Back to Business

And so, in true librarian-mother form, I decided to make up a bibliography of must-read business books for my youngest daughter, already in an MBA program, and for the eldest who will begin next fall.

There were plenty of places to go online to gather information for this list. Some of the best online spots are Business Week Online, Personal MBA, Forbes, etc. However, as often is the case, I might have actually found a good answer right on our shelves. It’s “The 100 Best Business Books of All Time: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You” by Jack Covert and Todd Satterson.

Read my entire column in this week's Norwood Transcript.

eBook Universe!

Great eBook Universe graphic by TechFlash. I just looked at Shortcovers with downloadable books for most 'smart' phones including the iPhone. Interesting war going on here. Will this go the way of Beta and VHS for video?

Twittering: 19th Century Style

"Old newspapers are fun to browse. Read the front page of one and you’ll find “Twittering” is not just a present day phenomenon. The local news back then included reports of who went where and when, fell down their front steps or broke a bone, put in a cement sidewalk, painted their house the same color as their brother’s, bought a new team of horses, or seemed a little corpulent at their birthday party.

Twitter, indeed."

Read Shelby Warner's entire From the Library column in the Daily News Transcript.

Compare

Comparison-shop for an e-Reader here.

eCycling

Recyle your electronics using this EPA guide, Where Can I Donate or Recycle My Old Computer Equipment.

Vulnerability

Who can forget what it was like to get this and nothing else from CNN on the Internet on September 11, 2001. From the digital collection of Interactive Publishing.

WTC Memorial Site

You can find about the project, watch the live webcam and view the proposed memorials here.

Other sites for remembering: The Library of Congress: Remembering 9/11, the September 11 Digital Archive and NPR's America Transformed archives.

Chilling Mysteries From the North

Last but not least I love the Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, whose atmospheric, involved mysteries take place in Reykjavik and feature police inspector Erlendur.

“Silence of the Grave” is absolutely haunting. A young female skeleton is found at a building construction site and is finally determined to be around 50 years old, putting her death back around World War II. Strands of stories and long forgotten family secrets of abuse in the Icelandic countryside make for a riveting mystery.

Should I see a therapist? Nope. Reading is therapy no matter what one reads. Books, and tapes and CD’s are all free for loan from the library. Therapists cost money. I’ll stick with my library. Margot Sullivan, Retired Adult Services Librarian

Read Margot's article in the Daily News Transcript this week.

Speaking: It's an Art

President Obama, September 8, 2009 to the schoolchildren of America:


Here's the transcript. Created with Wordle.

Imagine Yourself There

This extraordinary painting by Taiwanese artists Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi and Zhang An (they are in the painting) can be seen here with a fancy zoom tool for you to see everyone listed below. First try to identify each of the 103 people in this painting. Then check the list.



Bill Gates, Microsoft founder; Homer, Greek poet; Cui Jian, Chinese singer; Vladimir Lenin, Russian revolutionary; Pavel Korchagin, Russian artist; Bill Clinton, former U.S. President; Peter the Great, Russian leader; Margaret Thatcher; Bruce Lee, martial arts actor; Winston Churchill; Henri Matisse, French artist; Genghis Khan, Mongolian warlord; Bonaparte, French military leader; Che Guevara, Marxist revolutionary; Fidel Castro, former Cuban leader; Marlon Brando, actor; Yasser Arafat, former Palestinian leader; Julius Caesar, Roman emperor; Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, WW II U.S. aviator; Luciano Pavarotti, singer; George W. Bush, former U.S. President; The Prince of Wales; Liu Xiang, Chinese Olympic hurdler; Kofi Annan, former UN Secretary General; Zhang An, the painter; Mikhail Gorbachev, former Russian leader; Li Tiezi, the painter; Dante Alighieri, Florentine poet; Dai Dudu, the painter; Pele, Brazilian footballer; Guan Yu, Chinese warlord; Ramses II, Egyptian pharaoh; Charles De Gaulle, French general; Albert Nobel, Swedish chemist who founded the Nobel prizes; Franklin Roosevelt, former U.S. President; Ernest Hemingway, American novelist; Elvis Presley, American singer; Robert Oppenheimer, U.S. physicist; William Shakespeare, playwright; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer; Steven Spielberg, U.S. film director; Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter; Marie Curie, physicist and pioneer of radioactivity; Zhou Enlai, first Premier of the People's Republic of China; Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German writer; Laozi, Chinese philosopher; Marilyn Monroe, American actress; Salvador Dali, Spanish painter; Dowager Cixi, former ruler of China; Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister; Qi Baishi, Chinese painter; Qin Shi Huang, former Chinese Emperor; Mother Teresa, Roman Catholic missionary; Song Qingling, Chinese politician; Rabindranath Tagore, Indian poet; Otto Von Bismarck, German statesman; Run Run Shaw, Chinese media mogul; Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss philosopher; Audrey Hepburn, actress; Ludwig Van Beethoven, German composer; Adolf Hitler, Nazi leader; Benito Mussolini, Italian fascist leader; Saddam Hussein, former Iraq president; Maxim Gorky, Russian writer; Sun Yat-Sen, Chinese revolutionary; Den Xiaoping, Chinese revolutionary; Alexander Pushkin, Russian author; Lu Xun, Chinese writer; Joseph Stalin, former Soviet Union leader; Leonardo Da Vinci, Italian painter; Karl Marx, German philosopher; Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher; Abraham Lincoln, former U.S. President; Mao Zedong, Chinese dictator; Charlie Chaplin, British actor; Henry Ford, founder of Ford motor company; Lei Feng, Chinese soldier; Norman Bethune, Canadian physician; Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist; Juan Antonio Samaranch, former International Olympic Committee president; Chiang Kai Shek, Chinese general; Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist; Li Bai, Chinese poet; The Queen; Corneliu Baba, Romanian painter; Auguste Rodin, French artist; Dwight Eisenhower, former U.S. President; Michael Jordan, U.S. basketball player; Hideki Tojo, former Japanese Prime Minister; Michelangelo, Italian Renaissance painter; Yi Sun-Sin, Korean naval commander; Mike Tyson, American boxer; Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister; Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author; Shirley Temple, American actress; Albert Einstein, German physicist; Moses, Hebrew religious leader; Confucius, Chinese philosopher; Ghandi, Indian spiritual leader; Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter; Toulouse Lautrec, French painter; Marcel Duchamp, French artist; Osama bin Laden, founder of al Qaeda.

Privacy on Facebook

While the ACLU can seem like the little angel AND the little devil on your shoulder sometimes, here's a great quiz they have developed on Facebook. It's worth it to take some time and really look at your own privacy settings. A bit of a 'yikes!' moment will come if you take the quiz and see all the information that others can see. Shocking, at worst, eye-opening at best. The ACLU of Northern California shows you everything they can know about you. Go on, take the quiz.

iPhone to Heaven

Read another great Mashable recommendation: Mobile Melodies: Top Ten Musical Performances for Cellphones.

Creatively Cool

Mashable is one of my favorite sites for all things technie ... or not. 15 Places to Make Money Creating Your Own Products is a great compilation of links to sites that fire up your own creativity. From book publishing to fabric design you'll find something to pass on to a friend. Tastebook and GameCrafter are two to check out.

Investment in the Future

When we prepared to return to the States and I was packing up our household 25 years ago, one of my last tasks was to truck the coins to a local Irish bank. I chose the EBS or Educational Building Society and deposited the heavy packets of coin into an account for my daughter who was only five months old. I had fantasies that the 50 plus Irish punts (or Irish “pounds” worth about $99 at the time) would grow and be somewhat meaningful to her one day.

She had a “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” or so we told her over the years. We added gift amounts to the fund a few times early on and that money accrued interest for the last quarter of a century when we basically forgot about it in the last two decades.

Read my entire article in the Daily News Transcript this week.

Carrying On

My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.

Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy, June 1968

For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.

Addressing Democratic National Convention, August 1980

I hope for an America where neither "fundamentalist" nor "humanist" will be a dirty word, but a fair description of the different ways in which people of good will look at life and into their own souls.

I hope for an America where no president, no public official, no individual will ever be deemed a greater or lesser American because of religious doubt -- or religious belief.

I hope for an America where the power of faith will always burn brightly, but where no modern inquisition of any kind will ever light the fires of fear, coercion, or angry division.

I hope for an America where we can all contend freely and vigorously, but where we will treasure and guard those standards of civility which alone make this nation safe for both democracy and diversity.

Speech on "Truth and Tolerance in America," Oct. 3, 1983, Lynchburg, Va.

With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay.

Endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president, January 2008.

Home Sweet Ireland Dorm

View Ciara! in a larger map

Self Help is Just Around the Corner

It all started with the car window that wouldn’t close. My kids make fun of my minivan, which I’ve defended to the last dent. Until, that is, I tried to raise the passenger window on a recent Monday morning and it wouldn’t budge.

I enjoy a gale-force breeze as much as the next passenger, but halfway home from a weekend on the Cape I’m burrowing into my hoodie ready to join my canine companion in the back seat when I glance over my shoulder and, uh oh, no Duffy. As I said, I blame it on the window. Since I’m due at the Morrill Memorial Library reference desk at 9 a.m. there’s no time to turn around.

But being the resourceful librarian I am, I immediately call my neighbor Story Fish—his real name, and yes, he’s a fisherman—who rescued the pup waiting patiently at my back door. Story was chuckling but I was horrified. I mean, I’ve left my kids behind before, sure, but never my dog.

Read April Cushing's complete hilarious column in this week's Daily News Transcript.

Online Death

Read Time Magazines article: How To Manage Your Online Life ... When You're Dead. Great advice and thanks to Rita for the link.

Amazing SocialMedia Stats

Thanks to ALA for posting the link in ALA Online.

Where The Wild Things Are

Tourist Trap

What do Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco and Plymouth Rock have in common? They are both the U.S.'s Most Overrated Tourist Traps, according to Yahoo Travel.

I recently returned to Castroville's Giant Artichoke Restaurant near Monterey, California after many years. It's amazing how much smaller the artichoke was in my half-century-older eyes. Where did that 'giant' artichoke go? The restaurant was so worn down and tattered - definitely an overrated tourist trap from my memory. The fried artichokes were still good, but I heard that there are many more places to buy them in Castroville these days.

What I Read On My Summer Vacation

Some 30 years later, my daughter experienced her own version of the “Giant Peach” vacation when we happened upon a small, stone building that houses the Shelburne Free Public Library in Shelburne, Mass. We were fortunate to be passing by while the library was open, as it is only open for three hours every other day. The building had seen no renovations, and consequently had the smell and feel of a cozy one-room schoolhouse. What it lacked in modernity, however, it made up for with charm and a surprisingly good selection of books overflowing the wooden shelves.

Read Kelly Unsworth's entire library column in the Daily News Transcript.

The Mad Hatter

Looks like Johnny Depp will creep us out again (think Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland on March 5, 2010. Looks great to me.

Read Faster

Sounds good to me. I'll try it.

More DIY videos at 5min.com

For Reading Out Loud

Reading aloud has become somewhat of a lost art in our culture and in the 21st Century. Before television and radio, and mercy me! computers, families spent valuable time reading to each other. And not just to children. Rhythms and language, descriptions and visions were shared with utmost attention to the written word by entire families of all ages. The Read Aloud America and United Through Reading groups are two of the non-profit organizations encouraging a rebirth of a read-aloud generation.

Most experts agree that reading to children is the single most important factor in later reading success.

As adults, we know the importance of reading to our children. We stop – or our children stop us – at some point in the chain. We rarely read to them after a certain age and certainly not to each other. While the electronic audio books serve its purpose well, listening to audio books in any format is a solitary activity. Too much of our present-day e-World is convenient but lonely as it lacks the connectness and comfort we find in the shared experience of listening and reading to each other. There is something lost in the translation – the attention we must pay to read and to listen.

Read my entire column in the Daily News Transcript this week.

The Governors Highway Safety Association

is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of states, territories, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. GHSA provides leadership and representation for the states and territories to improve traffic safety, influence national policy and enhance program management. Its members are appointed by their Governors to administer federal and state highway safety funds and implement state highway safety plans. Image and text from the GHSA website.

You'll find cell phone, seat belt, mature driving laws state by state.

Power of Dreams

Honda has four short films in a series they have producing on the "power of dreams":

Mobility 2008


Failure: The Secret to Success

Kick Out The Ladder


Dreams Vs. Nightmares

A vs B

Some words on the difference between A and B. That's Amazon's Kindle vs. Barnes and Noble's eReader. The word's not final and it ain't over yet.

Men in Film

Video by Philip Scott Johnson

Tweet, Tweeting, Tweeted

Twitter’s claim on its homepage is that you can “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” My problem with Twitter is that the world is a very big place. I can’t possibly keep up with all my email, my Google Reader aggregator and my online feeds, my Facebook family and friends. How can I possible discover and share with the rest of the world in constant 140-character Tweets? Why do I have to know these things?
Recent studies of this phenomenon called Twitter have found that millions of others haven’t caught on either. Recent studies (on the Internet and in print media) claim that Tweeters flock to the site and then never return. Around 60 percent of those who register are just not staying around to “get it.” Some predictions claim that only 10 percent of all Internet users are really using Twitter.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

eReading

Another article on the eReaders.

It's All In the Delivery

It’s a bird … it’s a plane … No! It’s a book! And it’s on its way to your library.
Most Morrill Memorial Library users know that they can request a book (or an audio book, a music CD, a DVD, or a video) from another library within our Minuteman Library Network. Most know that it arrives at the speed of…well, a book. Have you ever marveled at how this system works so well and so fast? Do you wonder how we work this magic?

Read the entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

5 Minutes of Pure Happiness

I dare you not to smile all the way through.

Great Minds Think Alike

I've included posts about TED and the Big Think in the past and have come across five other thinking-person's conferences through Mashable's Top Seven Great Places To Watch Great Minds In Action:

Idea City held in Toronto 2010. Idea City is an annual Toronto event featuring exceptional people who present their ideas and experiences in a seminar style. It is the brainchild of ex-Montrealer Moses Znaimer.

BIL is an ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways. It's a place for passionate people to come together to energize, brainstorm, and take action. BIL 2010 will be held in Long Beach, CA.

Gel ("Good Experience Live") is a conference and community exploring good experience in all its forms -- in business, art, society, technology, and life. Gel 2009 and Gel 2010 will be held in NYC.

The BIF (Business Innovation Factory) Summit will be held in Providence, Rhode Island in October 2009.

Lastly, PopTech 2009 will be held in Camden, Maine in October. POPTech is a network of remarkable people, extraordinary conferences, powerful ideas and innovative projects that are changing the world.

Day In the Life ...

Weekday, a.m. Library has not opened yet. Come in and walk up the stairs and turn on the Waiting List computer. Check to be sure Print Station is up.

Uh-oh, strange message. That’s because the power went off last night during the thunder and lightning storm. Go to the Reference Desk, drop off books, papers, reviews taken home, turn on Reference Desk computer, and then turn on the reference computer in the office and check to be sure the printer is turned on.

Read the entire article by Beth Goldman, Outreach and Reference Librarian, in the Daily News Transcript.

Library Car-Ma

Image from stilloverbookeddotcom
Read the article in the Daily News Transcript.

Library Director Charlotte Canelli said three of the cars belonged to library employees and no one was in the parking lot at the time of the accident.

Food For Thought Served At the Library

When my book club met at the end of the summer, 2008, we courageously decided to tackle fresh mozzarella cheese. Call me a skeptic once again but I never imagined that a cheese made at home, in an ordinary kitchen, could be palatable, let alone absolutely delicious. I was amazed when my group of wine-sipping book ladies frothed up a delicious, fresh hunk of mozzarella in the time it took us to make a quick dinner.
Excited, I deigned to make my own cheese weekly. You guessed right - that never happened because I am, after all, not living the good life in the Virginia mountains that Kingsolver did. I’m not forced to invent my dinner each night but instead come home only to serve it.
Yet, I appreciate the effort and seek out those homemade, local creations to add to my family table. Perhaps that is what Kingsolver hoped we all would do - food for thought.

Read my entire article in the Daily News Transcript this week.

Librarians Go Wild in Chicago

Watch a small bit of the book cart drill teams in Chicago this week. Individual teams should be posting more of the videos this week as performance fever wears off.

"The stereotype of the librarian — horn-rimmed glasses, hair in a bun, finger to her lips stubbornly shushing — was nowhere to be found at this year's Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships held recently in Chicago.

Five teams of librarians — dressed in costumes ranging from Vikings to Elvis Presley — competed for the coveted gold book cart. They marched in drill-team formation, equipped with metal book carts" From the NPR website.

Or listen to the podcast or read the story on NPR. Read the ALA Inside Scoop blog about the winning performance of the Oak Park Public Library's "Ride of the Valkyries".

Mo Willems, author of the crazy pigeon books, including Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late for children said:

“There’s a stereotype that librarians are boring. And I think they want to change that stereotype to ‘librarians are crazy.'

I think he's right.

Online Reading

Friend of the Library, Justin Sun, sent me this link to a great blog with a self-explanatory title, How Books Got Their Titles. There are one-hundred-seventeen titles thus far and the blog makes interesting reading. Justin sent another, Alternative Reading,

a blog about the odd literary productions of people famous for doing something else.

Sometimes I wonder how many words I am reading every day in blogs, online news, documents, etc. - perhaps an Anna Karenina every week. Thanks again, Justin.

Send Your Name to Mars

Send your name to Mars. You'll even get a certificate of authenticity to print.

NASA now gives anyone the opportunity to send their name to Mars. Just enter your name, country and zipcode into the form, and your name – along with many others – will be included in a microchip on the Mars Science Laboratory rover which will be heading to Mars in 2011.Thanks to the Mashable website for this info.

Gourmet Fast Food Done Fancy

FancyFastFood presents fast food gone gourmet. Mighty creative although NOT I'm sure about the remixed taste. My favorite to try? BK Quiche (Fancy Croissan’wich & Biscuit). FancyFastFood writes:

"Up for the challenge? Submit your Fancy Fast Food culinary masterpieces to fancyfastfood[at]gmail.com. Remember the rules: no additional ingredients are allowed other than a simple garnish (which won't necessarily be eaten anyway, [i.e. parsley]), and no Photoshopping other than minor adjustments in sharpness or color correction. Please submit a "before shot" and photos of the makeover process as well."

Chegg For Textbooks

Chegg sells, rents and buys textbooks. This seems like a great alternative for students on a budget. Compare $195.00 for an organic chemistry textbook to a $15.97 rental price for a semester. The founders of Chegg are raking in the dough and students are spending less. Read this article in the New York Times.

I could have spent all night on this blog, Awful Library Books. It's a hoot ... for a librarian. I hope we never find any of these books at the Morrill Memorial Library.

Here's a teaser:
Hanging Out: The Upside Down Exercise Book

Book Gluttons Unite

NPR highlighted BookGlutton this week. It certainly looks like a way to expand books groups to the online world - although it seems quite new at this point. I noticed that junior high students have formed a group to read Pride and Prejudice. Books read similar to Kindle books with sizeable text.

Read Chat While Reading: The Future of Books or listen to the podcast.

Air New Zealand's BARE Essentials

Irresistible and a safety video you can't help but watch.

A Traveler's Tale

We might have heeded the weather report and waited until morning. We might have turned around before we hit torrential downpours just 20 miles northeast. Yet, we were hearty, hardy, and determined travelers and we left on our three-hour trip mid afternoon on the 1st of July.

Even in my vacation reverie, snatched from car ride slumber, I knew that Gerry’s words “We’ve lost it” were extremely bad news. The not-quite-locked-down Space Cadet, buffeted by wind and rain, had finally rebelled against her load. Her lid had burst upward and she had carelessly spilled her guts onto the slick, wet, and crowded highway at the worst time of the day: the evening commute.

We braved a nerve-jangling stop in the breakdown lane and then forlornly watched our brave driver – husband and grandfather – retreat backwards and disappear around the curve and to seek out what remained of our rooftop load. The three of us helplessly left behind held our breaths as large UPS and Wal-Mart trucks whipped by at breakneck speeds. Our hearts sank as we imagined shreds of sleeping bags, tents, and towels pummeled into the tarmac of the busy highway. We anticipated turning toward home, sheepishly admitting defeat after the very best of attitudes and intentions. Worst of all, of course, we realized our champion was braving the speeding lanes of vehicles.

You can read my entire article in the Daily News Transcript this week. Happy travels!

Databases At Your Fingertips

If you are interested in learning a foreign language, just scroll down the alphabetical list to Mango Languages and voila, you are there! We just added this to our database collection but this program has been very popular with patrons at other libraries and we expect you will love it. If offers 12 languages: Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Greek, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, ESL Polish (English for Polish Speakers), ESL Spanish (English for Spanish Speakers), and ESL Brazilian Portuguese (English for Brazilian Portuguese Speakers).

Read Marie Lydon's entire article in the Daily News Transcript this week.

One Dress - 365 Days

The Uniform Project - One dress and three hundred sixty five days. Very interesting. Have an accessory to recycle? It is now Day 60.

Massachusetts is Covered

Historic Aerials has Massachusetts covered with historic and modern aerial shots.

Coffee: Do It Right

Couldn't resist adding this. Let's get our coffee straight.

Created by LokeshDhakar.com.

The Drinking Bird

The University of Nottingham has a wonderful series of videos, Sixty Symbols, viewable via YouTube. Ever wondered how the heck the laws of physics allowed that Drinking Bird to get going forever? Watch the great video. In actuality, there aren't sixty complete videos - have a symbol you'd like explained by these brainiacs? Suggest one to them and they might make a video for their collection.

Astronomy, mathematics and physics, oh my.

The Sane In Maine

Whenever I go over the Piscataquis Bridge from New Hampshire to Maine everyone in the car with me must open their windows and let the “clean Maine air” fill the car no matter what time of the year. Then I wave my arms out the window and yell, “Yippee, I am in Maine!”

I always wonder what the people think in the cars behind us. My family smiles and humors me. Now I have my library friends doing the same thing!

I love Maine. Most of you head to Cape Cod and, yes, it is a shorter drive, it is nice off season, and the water is warmer, but the rocky coast of Maine is beautiful; and there are a multitude of unexplored places to enjoy down many of the peninsulas.

Read Margot Sullivan's entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Need An Alice?

I signed up for Alice this morning. It just made sense. The founders (Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire) of Alice ask "Why?" "Why do people run out of toilet paper?" I ask "Why?" too. At home we run out of tissue, toilet paper, dishwasher detergent, toothpaste, laundry detergent and assorted other non-perishables. We run out of perishables, too, but they are more evident and we stop by for them on the way home from work. For the non-perishables we make the emergency trip from home more often.

So, I'll see how it goes. The best part, of course, is that there are no shipping costs. And Alice will remind me that I need to buy. Let's hope she doesn't nag.

From the Alice web site: Alice provides you a better way to manage all of your household essentials online. You tell Alice what you buy—choosing from great deals on 1000’s of products—and Alice goes to work. We organize all of your products, find coupons and deals for you, remind you when you might be running low, and help you order just the items you need so you can avoid that trip to the corner drugstore or the big-box store. And all this convenience comes direct to your door with free shipping included.Best of all, you won’t over pay for the power and convenience of Alice. In addition to free shipping on every order, you’ll find great prices too. That’s because Alice isn’t your average retailer. You order from Alice just like you would a retailer, but behind the scenes we work like a marketplace, allowing manufacturers to sell directly to you. This direct to consumer model eliminates the retail middleman, saving lots of costs that can be passed directly on to you. And in addition to saving you money, the Alice marketplace allows your favorite brands to have a direct relationship with you—to reward you, personalize things for you, and work smarter for you. It is a win-win that gives you fantastic convenience AND tangible savings.

You can read articles about the Alice start-up here and here.

Twitter in Plain English

Commoncraft.com videos explain some things in plain English. Decide for yourself if Twitter would fit into YOUR life.

Tied in Knots?

Here's a great site if you need help tying neckties.

It's All In A Name

Near the turn of the 20th Century, and on the eve of the first Centennial of the library building, the Committee of One Hundred Names was formed in time for the celebration. The mission of this committee of seven was to find eleven more names. What a daunting task! A century of writers had been born since the building had been built. Some of the original names were hidden or lost during the ensuing years and the two additions. The committee noted that only four women’s names now graced the building and that most of the authors carved on its walls were writers for adults.
For three months the public was asked to nominate. Names came from elementary schools, from library users, and from the general public and 144 names were received. The file of nominations is several inches thick and includes testimony and heartfelt letters from an enthusiastic public.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Big Bankruptcies

Good Magazine, has a very interesting transparency map on the largest bankruptcies in history. Lehman Brothers was big, very big on September 15, 2008. You can see other Good transparencies here.

Libraries Are the Best

On The Today Show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Gone With The Wind Remembered

Sometimes it’s a bit difficult to remember back half a day let alone nearly a half-century. After our visit to the Margaret Mitchell House last Saturday we rented the 226-minute epic movie in all its glorious color. Watching it brought back memories of Kleenex-fisted hours mourning Scarlett’s mother, father, and daughter and the epic and historically conjured scenes of Atlanta and Civil War.
Viewing it again after many years I realized that I’d somehow forgotten some of the details of the book and the momentous movie. I did remember, however, exactly where I’d shelved the book at home and wondered if I will pick it up now that I know where Margaret Mitchell sat in her apartment and where she placed the many editions of the varying manuscripts. Frankly, my dear reader, I just might.

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Libraries Still Matter

"It isn’t that Mrs. Eosco’s argument fell on deaf ears. As a teacher of pre-Kindergarten children, she well knows the importance of fostering the love of reading and books among her young charges. She recognizes the importance of teaching respect for the many volumes she borrows from the Morrill Memorial Library to encourage a love of reading at an early age.
But it was hard for Town Meeting to say yes to the additional funding in light of cuts in the budgets of many town departments.
Still, one wonders how the services of the local library can be relegated to second-tier status in tough economic times, when library services are more in demand than ever."  Candace Leary

Read Candace Leary's entire column, Libraries Still Matter, Even In Tough Times, published in the Daily News Transcript

Forbes: Tetris Turns 25

Watch part of the BBC documentary here.

 

Forbes writer David Ewalt, includes a link to all six parts of the documentary.

Quiz Thyself

Take this PEW Research quiz on current events.  Find out how you did compared to your peers.