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"The library didn't only contain magical books, the ones which are chained to the shelves and are very dangerous. It also contained perfectly ordinary books, printed on commonplace paper in mundane ink. It would be a mistake to think that they weren't also dangerous just because reading them didn't make fireworks go off in the sky. Reading them sometimes did the more dangerous trick of making fireworks go off in the privacy of the reader's brain."
Terry Pratchett. Soul Music.
Me and James, my older brother and new "facebook friend".Readers of my blog may have noticed that in internet land I often go by the name Thursday Next. Occasionally that name has been taken by another Jasper Fforde fan, so in some places I'm also known as next.thursday (or some variation thereof). Obviously, not every Thursday you meet on the net is me, but it still seemed odd to search for story times at podcast.net (looking for public libraries posting songs and storytime sessions on the Internet) and stumble across a podcast posted by a Next Thursday that is, uhm... not quite work appropriate. "Hmm," I say to myself, "that's not the kind of bedtime story I'm looking for. I'll try a yahoo podcast search instead." This time I don't even have a chance to type in search words -- 5 of the top 20 podcasts in the "most popular" section of the main page are marked "explicit". Two of the top twenty, however, are language assistance podcats (for learning Chinese and ESL learners). This inspired me to search for "learn spanish" and check out a few podcasts that will (hopefully) help me connect and converse with my boyfriend's family. There is certainly a wealth of useful information on the interweb for library patrons, but I'd advise you to use caution when including podcast search engines in your programming.
I'm not advocating violence against patrons mind you, but the ninja librarian is fantastic. And in response to the tlc question for our youtube assignment -- "Can you see any features or componets of the site that might be interesting if they were applied to library websites?" -- perhaps this video would be an effective deterrent to cell phone use in the library if we posted it on our main page or played it on a loop on the tvs throughout the ASLRITC with a warning scrolling on the screen: "caution, this building is patrolled by ninja librarians". =)
Come downstairs to PLS to see a special Halloween display featuring the eyeball collection of Dick Fredrickson. Thanks Dick!
I discovered Kayak on my own a few days ago when price shopping for plane tickets, so it seems appropriate that I discuss this tech tool in today's post for tlc. Kayak is quick and convenient; a one stop shop for comparing the prices of the major discount ticket distributors. You can select your vendors, hotwire, expedia, etcetera, and the results will pop up in multiple windows side by side on your screen. The only thing not to like about Kayak is the logo, I know it's supposed to look like, well, a kayak, but to me it's more like the eye of Sauron. Creepy.
Most things in Library 2.0 have a cute name, and zoho is no exception. So it's cute and supposedly convenient but I think the odds aren't great that I will use this tool often. There are only so many gizmos and gadgets I want to add to my life, and this one doesn't seem essential. Yes, it's convenient that I can, presumably, save a document and continue working on it from a different computer, but I already tend to email myself important documents (thanks to the absolutely ridiculous storage capacity of gmail). In an ideal world, I'd just buy a kickass laptop and take it with me everywhere. Besides, I find zoho a total pain to use; I ended up clicking on random things only to watch the screen refresh to show ... the exact same screen. While some of ya'll seem to have mastered zoho with ease (*cough* tallmanicus), I plan on pretending zoho doesn't exsist.
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/dumbledore.htmlBy Hillel Italie, AP Writer
NEW YORK - Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.
After reading briefly from the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," she took questions from audience members.She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds "true love."
"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.
She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. "Falling in love can blind us to an extent," Rowling said of Dumbledore's feelings, adding that Dumbledore was "horribly, terribly let down."
Dumbledore's love, she observed, was his "great tragedy."
"Oh, my god," Rowling concluded with a laugh, "the fan fiction."
Potter readers on fan sites and elsewhere on the Internet have speculated on the sexuality of Dumbledore, noting that he has no close relationship with women and a mysterious, troubled past. And explicit scenes with Dumbledore already have appeared in fan fiction.
Rowling told the audience that while working on the planned sixth Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," she spotted a reference in the script to a girl who once was of interest to Dumbledore. A note was duly passed to director David Yates, revealing the truth about her character.
Rowling, finishing a brief "Open Book Tour" of the United States, her first tour here since 2000, also said that she regarded her Potter books as a "prolonged argument for tolerance" and urged her fans to "question authority."
Not everyone likes her work, Rowling said, likely referring to Christian groups that have alleged the books promote witchcraft. Her news about Dumbledore, she said, will give them one more reason.
Personally, this just gives me one more reason to thank Rowling for creating such a wonderful world full of rich and diverse characters. It is important for people to see their lives reflected in literature, and many times the GLBT population is either shut out of popular fiction or relegated to small sidekick roles. Dumbledore is a popular and widely respected character, known for his intelligence, integrity and strength. I only wish that we had known earlier in the series -- better late than never I suppose but the fact that Rowling only felt she could reveal Dumbledore's sexuality after the series is safely finished only emphasizes that homosexuality is still seen as taboo, particularly in the world of juvenile literature. But let's focus on the positive, young people who are questioning thier sexuality or struggling for acceptance now have a new positive role model, one who is a legend in the wizarding world -- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.
I must be a genius, since I already wrote a post on technorati for tlc. Check under August posts or just click on the tlc label and scroll down for the original post.
Alright guys, I need you to do me a favor. I've lived in Fort Lauderdale for over a year now and I only have two favorite restaurants: 1. Mario the Baker: good Italian food with lots of garlic & 2. Capsian Persian Grill : simply delicious. I love to play in the kitchen, making random recipes and a few favorites and Pablo is such a damn good cook that we hardly ever bother going out to eat. It's easier on the budget I suppose, but it means the kitchen always seems to be a bit messy and we hardly ever get a night off or a night out. So, back to that favor ... everyone should go to the nsulibs wiki, check out the favorite resturants section and recommend at least one good local place to eat. What kind of resturants? Anything non-TGIFy (everyone knows where to find Chili's & Bennigans). I'd love to hear about little local places, mom and pop diners, great ethnic cuisine and the like. Thanks!
Colbert has made repeated references on the show to Wikipedia, which he refers to as his "favorite website", generally in "The Wørd" segment. Colbert's first reference to Wikipedia was on the July 31, 2006 broadcast, when "The Wørd" was wikiality, defined as the concept that "together we can create a reality that we all agree on — the reality we just agreed on."[95] He explained that on Wikipedia "any user can change any entry, and if enough users agree with them, it becomes true."
Other "Wørds" invented relating to Wikipedia include "Wikilobbying", defined as "when money determines Wikipedia entries, reality has become a commodity", alluding to a case in which Microsoft allegedly hired someone to tamper with Wikipedia,[96] and "Self-determination", where corporations are allowed to act out their fantasies online by editing their own Wikipedia entries. Colbert described Wikipedia as, "Second Life for corporations", saying if a corporation wants to pretend to be someone else online, then that is their business.[97]
On May 24, 2007, the guest was Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Stephen Colbert called Wikipedia a "battlefield for information", a tool which "brings democracy to information" and moves away from the views of the "elite who study things and got to say what is or is not real." During the interview, Colbert showed a sentence on the screen: "Librarians are hiding something", which Wales could not see, with the implication that Wales could not stop a critical mass of individuals from editing a page according to the dictates of one influential individual. Wales responded that "the interesting thing about it [The Colbert Report] is that Wikipedians watch it."[98]
Of all the articles included on tlc's exercise 15, I found Rick Anderson's to be the most appealing. According to Anderson: "In the post-print era, libraries no longer have the monopoly power that they had in the days before the Internet. We have to be a bit more humble in the current environment, and find new ways to bring our services to patrons rather than insisting that they come to us—whether physically or virtually. At a minimum, this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web); even better, it means integrating our services into their daily patterns of work, study and play."
I have to say, he makes a compelling argument; of course, I'm already a believer in constantly renewing and revising library services. I'm very excited about integrating new resources, such as a PLS blog, into our library services. I don't, however, always find Library 2.0 to be the most effective method of reaching our community. Instead of being inclusive, communicating with the community at large and expanding our patron base, I often find new technology tools to be a bit exclusive, catering to the tech savvy. The patrons who may need us the most, those who don't know how to navigate the net to find new and essential information, may be left behind if we concentrate too strongly on new library services. A compromise is therefore needed, a blend of services that reach out to all of our patrons. I look forward to seeing how library 2.0 will invigorate existing library services without replacing the most effective method of communicating with our patrons: a friendly chat with their local librarian.
Many of America's 300-plus children's museums, employing bigger and bolder settings, have been pulling out all the stops to pique the curiosity of their patrons to the point where they'll want to read books or perform on stage, exercise their muscles or get better acquainted with nature.
Over the last decade or two, they've been widening their net to make room for an ever younger, preschool crowd. At Strong, which almost doubled in size in 2006 but still pays homage to its roots as a cultural history museum, there's also a big push to attract more teenagers and preteens.
When the inhabitants are hard at play, squeals of delight echo all day through this city's cavernous child laboratory -- the nation's second-biggest after The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, Indiana. But peer around many corners, and studiousness prevails.
None other than Albert Einstein, after all, called play "the highest form of research."The shift toward accommodating toddlers and even crawlers largely paralleled a flurry of early childhood brain research affirming the social, intellectual and physical benefits of play.
"Play is really how children learn and that is their work as young children," said Janet Rice Elman, executive director of the Association of Children's Museums. "They learn best through touching, seeing, smelling, climbing, testing. They're also learning social skills, how to work with other children."
