Bits of Bloggery....

A Literary Map of Manhattan, where imaginary New Yorkers worked, played, and looked at ducks... from Librarian's Internet Index

Crime in the Library blog... via librarian.net

April Fools Day in urban legend... from Snopes.com

New Trial Database

Ebsco is offering a trial of their new product, The Literary Resource Center, for the SRU community here. You can also find this link on the Trial New Databases page.

Kick the tires! Take it for a spin!



UPDATE: Find a trial of Consumer Health Complete here. You can also find this link on the Trial New Databases page.

Encounters of the Library Kind...

On Wednesday, March 29, at 3:00 pm, SRU graduate Charles Byler will speak on his recent book, Tempered Steel: The Three Wars of Triple Air Force Cross Winner Jim Kasler. The event will be held in the Special Collections room of the Library; refreshments will be served. Books will be available for sale and autographing after the lecture.

Full story here...

True Confessions....

Alright, I admit it... I read it, okay? I was drawn in by the promise of Nancy Drew satire and I stayed around to chuckle until the end. Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain finds our attractive girl detective a little older, a little wiser, a little more ironic. Those of a certain age will get the references to Cherry Ames ("she can't hold a job! School Nurse... Army nurse... Dude ranch nurse... one right after the other!") Trixie Belden, Donna Parker, and other teen series queens from an earlier day. A quick read before dashing off in your roadster with your pals, George (who now has a life partner) and Bess... fun.

Here's a free database of juvenile series and sequels books from the Mid-Continent Public Library... check out Cherry Ames' checkered career here... and I pledge to read something more serious and grown-up soon.

Friday Fun for Everyone....

• The Poetry Archive, an online collection of poets reading their work
• Dear Miss Breed... a virtual exhibit of letters to a San Diego children's librarian from interned Japanese-American children
• The Titanic Newspaper Archive... 15,000 historical pages
• Would you like chips with that?*
• The Fun and Easy Guide to Binding Your Own Paperbacks*
• TuneFind... Find that song that has been stuck in your head

*Library controversy alerts: RFID chips are a privacy concern to some and although this bookbinder purchased the ebook he printed, I am pretty sure it violates licensing agreements to print out an entire ebook from the library.

Meet Our Techie Sister....

A new blog is born! Check out RockTechTalk for tips, tricks, techniques, free and inexpensive applications, and other cool stuff related to teaching, learning, and working with technology. RockTechTalk was recently started by Dr. Jane Lasarenko and yours truly. Anyone interested in sharing and posting is welcome... contact Jane or Melba for an invite.

Demo and Dessert on Friday....

Learn to locate surveys, questionnaires, and other assessment instruments while enjoying cheesecake with strawberries on Friday, March 24, at 12:30 pm in the Special Collections room. Librarians Aiping Chen-Gaffey and Melba Tomeo will be demonstrating resources found in their "Locating Assessment Instruments" pathfinder....

Bring your lunch, enjoy a dessert, please join us!

Things I Learned About EBSCO today...

EBSCO has released some new, interesting features:

You can now move from database to database, effortlessly and with abandon, by clicking on the dropdown menu under the search box.

When you email yourself an article, you can choose your citation style. Ah! Feel the joy!

Check out the funky Visual Search (and I mean funky in a good way) option that groups and graphically represents your search results. Lovely pastel circles, squares, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers... I totally made that last part up. But the Visual Search is an interesting innovation with an attractive color scheme.

Here are your Topics....

Discuss:

• Naomi Wolf's critique of "gossip girl" literature... Young Adult Literature: Wild Things... from the New York Times
• The Plagiarism Plague.. from National Cross Talk
• A community college "rents" its most expensive textbooks... from the Seattle Times

From the All Things Google Dept.

I love you, I hate you.... SearchEngine Watch offers the following:
25 Things I Hate About Google
25 Things I Love About Google

Kid Stuff...

Trying to locate a copy of a favorite Little Golden Book? Search here...
Check out this bibliography of children's books about librarians and libraries...
Another list... the most frequently challenged children's books of 2005

Catching up on some award-winning reading...



















Left to Right:
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, 2004 Caldecott award
Coming On Home Soon by Jacqueline Woodson, 2005 Caldecott Honor book*
The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights by Russell Freedman, 2005 Newbery Honor book
Cultures Collide: Native Americans and Europeans, 1492-1700 by Ann Rossi
Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth, 2005 Caldecott Honor book*
Rosa by Nikki Giovanni, 2005 Caldecott Honor book


*My favorites... well written and beautifully illustrated.

A Wee Bit...

St. Patrick's Day Fast Facts from National Geographic News

Facts for Features: Irish American Heritage Month from U.S. Census Bureau

Highly recommended for educators and others: Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, Irish-American author of the memorable Angela's Ashes... currently listening to the audiobook from the Library Reading Room.

Delightful, poignant, wonderful storytelling, and something to say about American education....

Time for Friday Fun...

• Beware the Ides of March, from LII
• Obscure Holidays, from Stay Free!
  Check out the calendar link at the end of the article...
  
• Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird, from LII
• Dollhouse Library, from librarian.net

Spring Break! Woo-hoo!

While the University is on spring break next week, the library will be open from 8:00 am - 4:30 pm, Monday-Friday, March 13 - March 17. The library will reopen on Sunday, March 19, from 6:00 pm - 2 am.

We are closed on Saturday, March 11, Sunday, March 12, and Saturday, March 18.

Catching Up With Book, Library, and Blog News...

• If a Library is Bookless, What is in it? Listen, from NPR
• European Union outlines plans for a Digital European Library
• Wikipedia and Britannica... room enough for both? from Searcher
• Authors sign books with remote robot pens, Listen, from NPR
• Published at last... Turn your blog into a book for $30!, from New York Times

Recently Heard...

On a recent road trip to Shippensburg (and later, about 15 trips to the grocery store), I enjoyed the following audiobooks from the Reading Room:

47 by Walter Mosley. I am a big fan of Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries, but realized this young adult novel would be something quite different. This audiobook, one of Ossie Davis' last performances, is a science fiction slavery novel, if you can conceive of such a thing. 47 is a 14-year old slave in the American south, who is magically mentored by "Tall John," loosely based on High John the Conqueror. Tall John is actually an alien visitor engaged in a struggle against the forces of evil and the threatened destruction of the universe. I could hear the traces of Easy Rawlins' honor and integrity in the character of 47 and the personalities of the other slaves were finely drawn. What a unique adventure! Very different and very enjoyable.

David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall. Funny, wicked funny, droll. This reading by Sedaris includes hilarious takes on his sister's secrets, St. Nicholas in the Netherlands, a horrible device called the Stadium Pal that facilitates covert public urination, and a boss with a rubber hand that loses (or gains?) something in French translation. Dryly read/performed by Sedaris to good effect... short and very amusing.


The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. The reading club consists of five women and one man (they have decided to tolerate him) and they read only Austen novels. The book is very episodic as vignettes from the lives of each of the members are portrayed and I admit that I was sometimes struggling to remember who was who at first. Somewhere around Bedford, I figured it out and found myself eager to hear what was happening with: Allegra, the lesbian daughter; Sylvia, her recently separated mother; the delightfully dotty Bernadette; the mysterious male, Grigg; Pruddie the lustful French teacher; and Jocelyn, the dog trainer and seeming leader of the group. Once into the individual accounts, the stories were fascinating as unexpected tales emerged from the people I just stereotyped above. Good beach read maybe, not profound but entertaining.

I Know You Love the Quizzes....

Which literary classic are you?

<-- This would be me: books, libraries, twisted murders, and obscure references.

Break Out the Tiaras.....

and roll out the red carpet! The Oscars will be broadcast on Sunday evening. The next best thing to being there.... throw on your mink stole and check out some Academy Award winning movies, currently on display in the IMC. Browse past award winners here and browse the IMC collection here or in the online catalog...

I want to thank all of the little people!

Deadline for Marjorie Stephenson Scholarship Approaching....

Applications for the Marjorie Stephenson Scholarship are due by March 15. A complete application consists of two faculty references, a short essay, and the application form. Questions? Please see Melba Tomeo, Sherry Wilson, Jane Smith, or Kathy Manning in the library. You can find more details (and the application) here...

Demo and Dessert on Friday....

Librarian Del Hamilton will be demonstrating some of the features of Safari, a useful collection of computer and technology e-books....

AND furnishing a yummy dessert!

Bring your lunch and come and join us in the Special Collections Room on Friday, March 3, at 12:30.

Long Overdue...

Just read about this wonderful exhibit of book art... a collaboration between the Portland Public Library and the Maine College of Art.