LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Over 1500 RSS librarian sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest headlines from journals and sites in the Children interest group. http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianqueries.php Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:53:25 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://hhsmedia.blogspot.com/2008/02/hope-for-haiti.html Photo Source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/ifrc/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0During the month of February, the HHS Library Media Center is collecting books for children in Haiti. All books must in in good condition and appropriate for a Haitian child between the age of 5 and 16. You can drop your donations in the boxes labeled "Books for Haiti" near the circulation desk by February 28th. Thanks for your support! (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center) Sat, 19 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0100 821571 http://hhsmedia.blogspot.com/2009/12/happy-hello.html I am very excited to be joining the faculty of Huntingtown High School as a library media specialist. While I am new to HHS, I feel right at home working in this community. My teaching career started in 1993 at Plum Point Middle School. I taught seventh and eighth grade social studies there for nine years before taking a leave of absence for another rewarding job, motherhood!During my time at Plum Point, I grew to love technology and all the ways it can enhance classroom learning. My students benefited from informational technologies to develop award-winning history fair projects. I loved guiding students through the research process, and decided to obtain a post-Master’s degree in a school library media program while staying at home with my two children.I am looking forward to continuing my professional journey here at Huntingtown High. It would be my pleasure to help you with any research question, large or small. Please stop by to say hello!Proud to be a Hurricane,Rachael Younkers (Source: Huntingtown High School Library Media Center) Wed, 08 Dec 2010 05:00:00 +0100 799137 http://mblc.state.ma.us/jobs/find_jobs/rss.php?job_id=6078 Librarian: Full time, Applewild School, kindergarten-gr.9 independent school, Fitchburg, MA Qualifications: An MLS degree or equivalent and emphasis in children's and juvenile literature,experience working with elementary and/or middle school aged children in a teaching a/o school setting, up-to-date technology skills, good communication skills, and the desire to collaborate with faculty in integrating library and subject content curriculum. Duties: As Director of Library Services, manage two separate libraries, maintain book collection, library catalog and online resources, teach library skills classes to grades K-4, teach research skills to grades 3-9 as needed, collaborate with faculty to design curriculum, conduct book talks, maintain library webpage, and coordinate volunteers. Applewild School is a coeducational, K-9 independent day school that prepares able students for success in secondary school. We provide breadth & depth of academic programs, extensive arts offerings in impressive facilities, athletics, and service opportunities within a community that emphasizes respect. The School seeks innovative self- starters who enjoy the challenge of working collegially with like-minded professionals to achieve our mission. Competitive salaries, professional development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits plan, as well as a warm, supportive environment for faculty are all attractions. Applewild School is committed to recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty members from diverse backgrounds. Interested candidates should send materials hard copy, attention Jeanne May at Applewild School, 120 Prospect Street, Fitchburg. MA 01420 (Source: MBLC Job Listings) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:43:31 +0100 825251 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33200 How Working Women Are Reshaping America’s Families and Economy and What It Means for Policymakers Source: Center for American Progress In the fall 2009, the Center for American Progress and Maria Shriver launched The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, a comprehensive look at how working women have transformed today’s workplaces and today’s families. That report concluded that the institutions around us— government, faith communities, business— have yet to adapt to this new reality. Today, CAP launches the long-awaited policy roadmap based on the findings of The Shriver Report. This roadmap, “Our Working Nation: How Working Women Are Reshaping America’s Families and Economy and What It Means for Policymakers,” offers detailed, practical solutions that will help American workers and families meet the dual demands of work and family, while bolstering our economy. The report outlines a set of policy recommendations for our government and our businesses to adopt that address the needs of today’s workers and families as they really are—not as our outdated policies imagine them to be. Women now make up half of all workers in the United States, and two-thirds of mothers are breadwinners or co-breadwinners in theirfamilies. Workplaces can no longer assume that every worker has a wife at home to take care of their family’s needs. The recommendations in the report will strengthen our economy and enhance the well-being of families. + Executive Summary (PDF; 298 KB) + Full Report (PDF; 607 KB) (Source: Docuticker) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:33:12 +0100 825290 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/iHZ_ahR1_9g/disney-films-boys-tangled As Disney rebrands Rapunzel as Tangled, we imagine what other children's stories and fairy tales could be made more appealing to boysDisney is taking no chances. Book publishers have long since realised that anything that sounds too obviously girly is a complete no-no for the unfairer sex – hence JK Rowling's books weren't published under the name of Joanne Rowling. Hollywood has taken rather longer to make the connection. But after less-than-spectacular US box-office receipts for The Princess and the Frog, the studio has decided to rebrand its forthcoming cartoon in an effort to win the little chaps back. So Rapunzel has become Tangled – complete with an all-action male swashbuckling hero. It's worth a go, I suppose. Here are some other titles boys might like to see.Malice in WonderlandFreddy Krueger has a day out in Alton Towers and picks off a coachload of schoolchildren one-by-one in a gore schlock-horror fest before a grinning Cheshire cartoon cat and his trusty dormouse lieutenant come to the rescue.Red Riding in Da HoodA young Che Guevara pimps his BMX bike and heads off to the Bronx to take out a gang of neo-fascist hyenas who have been terrorising the local community of multicultural zebras.You Beauty and the BeastIt's the last minute of extra time in the World Cup final, the score is 0-0 and the game is heading for penalties, when Wayne Rooney starts his run in his own half. He beats one German Hofmeister bear, then another, and another, before curling the ball into the left-hand corner.GI Snow and the Seven DwarfsMatt Damon flies south to Colombia where he rounds up his cute band of seven undercover chihuahuas – Sneezy, Dopey, Edgy, Wired, Wasted, Psychotic and Sleepless – and destroys the world's largest cocaine factory.Walt Disney CompanyAnimationFairytalesFilm adaptationsJohn Craceguardian.co. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:30:00 +0100 825226 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PegasusLibrarian/~3/124BjFKiRk4/15-things-about-me-and-books.html Photo by Lin Pernille A while back, some other librarians revived an old meme. Way back then, I started this list. Today, I found it in my drafts. I was a late reader. I don’t remember exactly how late (being home schooled at that point was probably a blessing). I do remember being a little mortified when my younger sister and I were both reading the Little House books at the same time. She’s six years younger, and was a very early reader. I think she was four at the time. Part of our normal school day included my mom reading aloud to us. She did this well into my middle school years (at which point my youngest brother was probably 4-ish). She read everything from Charlotte’s Web to the Lord of the Rings while we kids did quiet crafts on the living room floor. The saddest I’ve ever been at the end of a book was when the dogs died in Where the Red Fern Grows. Mom was reading it aloud, and we kids were scattered around the room trying not to look at each other as we each bawled softly. What a day. I remember being curled up under the coffee table and pretty sure I’d never come out again. Dad tried to read to us at bedtime up until I was about 11. He was insanely busy getting a PhD from Harvard, though, so books would take us an astonishingly long time to finish. To this day I think of Great Expectations as a 1000+ page book. Each time we sat down to read, Dad would have to recap the entire book up to that point and then read a chapter. Luckily, Swallows and Amazons fell at a time when he could read to us at least a couple times a week. The first librarian I ever knew worked in the children’s section of our public library in Dorchester, MA. She had a cupboard way up high where she’d hide new books that she thought I’d like so that I could be the first one to check them out. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:44:25 +0100 825342 http://stephenslighthouse.com/2010/03/10/what-is-in-the-pipeline/ This is a two part series I did for my Pipeline column in Multimedia and Internet@Schools magazine for Information Today. “My wife, Stephanie, will be teaching grade four again next year. In a career spanning 32 years, she has taught every grade from fourth through 13th and has written her fair share of textbooks, books, curricula, and websites. She caught me off guard by telling me that all of the students who will be in her class this September were born in the year 2000. I suppose most people who work with kids would have known this, but the date just caught me by surprise.” Anyway, what surprises will the future hold for them? What Is in the Pipeline? Really! Part 1 Multimedia & Internet@Schools, Sep/Oct 2009 by Abram, Stephen What Is in the Pipeline? Really! Part 2 Multimedia & Internet@Schools, Nov/Dec 2009 by Abram, Stephen I hope you find it useful. Stephen (Source: Stephen) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:56:55 +0100 825187 http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2010/03/10/will-what-worked-for-groucho-work-for-libraries/ Reading this Seth Godin post I had to contemplate the situation librarians have found themselves in as the type of experience the users want has shifted to low fidelity, high convenience. As it exists today the library experience is best described as mostly high fidelity. Our profession is urged again and again to change its practices to meet the current market expectations for information search and retrieval. We’ve heard that convenience trumps quality every time, and that we need to follow suit and go low fidelity. Godin almost perfectly describes this exact predicament in which we librarians find ourselves: Perhaps the most plaintive complaint I hear from organizations goes something like this, “We worked really hard to get very good at xyz. We’re well regarded, we’re talented and now, all the market cares about is price. How can we get large groups of people to value our craft and buy from us again?” Apparently, the bulk of your market no longer wants to buy your top of the line furniture, lawn care services, accounting services, tailoring services, consulting… all they want is the cheapest. The masses don’t want a better PC laptop. They just want the one with the right specs at the right price. It’s not because people are selfish (though they are) or shortsighted (though they are). It’s because in this market, right now, they’re not listening. They’ve been seduced into believing that all options are the same, and they’re only seeing price. In terms of educating the masses to differentiate yourself, the market is broken. At one time we certainly were the kings of information delivery. When our user communities needed anything beyond a basic encyclopedia, a phone call or visit to the library was standard practice. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:41:44 +0100 825185 http://stephenslighthouse.com/2010/03/10/top-50-ereader-ebook-trends-for-2010/ Quite a few new good summaries if you’re following eBooks and trying to come to terms with ths rapidly changing segment of the content world. Here are three: Educause has a new 7 Things doc out: 7 Things You Should Know About E-Readers (ID: ELI7058) Abstract: E-readers are portable, low-power, high-resolution devices that display digital versions of written material from books, magazines, newspapers, and other printed sources. They typically use e-ink, a display technology designed to simulate printed paper that offers similar resolution as newsprint and, relative to an LCD screen, eliminates glare and reduces eyestrain. Digital texts can be updated easily and often include advanced features such as annotation, hyperlinking, cross-linking, saved views, interactive quizzes for individual study, analyses, and shared commentary. E-readers are changing the economics of text-based intellectual property, including educational materials, and a move to digital texts would have broad implications both for the traditional campus bookstore and for an institution’s library.” Access To Full Text Available here. Next check out the whole post from the Kindle blog: Top 50 eReader + eBook Trends for 2010 2010 was supposed to be the Year of the eReader but it’s morphing into the Make or Break Year for the Dedicated eReader (and perhaps the make or break year for eBooks). Here are the top 50 eReader and eBook trends for 2010. “1. iPad vs Kindle – There is a possibility that Apple steals away Kindle #1 market position. 2. Multi Purpose Devices vs Dedicated eReaders – Will dedicated eReaders be able to survive the onslaught of do-everything devices? 3. Color eReaders – By end 2010 we should have color screen eReaders. We get to find out whether color really does increase sales. 4. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:22:26 +0100 825191 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/2zahoQuMW6c/david-foster-wallace-archive Manuscripts, annotated books and juvenilia to be made available following the acquisition of the late David Foster Wallace's archive by the University of Texas's Harry Ransom CentreLook at a selection of items from the archive hereThe archive of the late David Foster Wallace - which includes everything from draft manuscripts to childhood poems - has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Centre at the University of Texas in Austin. Scholars and fans will soon be able to explore the painstaking reading and writing that went into works including his vast novel of entertainment-addled America, Infinite Jest.Wallace, whose reputation as one of contemporary America's most significant writers continues to grow, took his own life in 2008, aged 46.As well as manuscripts for Wallace's books, stories and essays (with his meticulous edits marked in different coloured inks), the archive includes research materials, his own often heavily annotated library, and early work stretching back through his college and graduate school writings to a poem he wrote as a young child. This last, "Viking Poem", was composed at around the age of six, and shows Wallace experimenting with his signature as well as revealing early signs of the acute comic sensibility that would mark his later work. ("If you were to see a viking today" the poem advises, "It's best you should go some other way / because they'd kill you very well / and all your gold they'd certainly sell / For all these reasons stay away".)A further curiosity of the archive are the lists - sometimes jotted in the endpapers of books, sometimes typed - of unusual "VOCAB" (as Wallace heads one such sheet). ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:58:00 +0100 825230 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33177 Hunger in America 2010 Source: Feeding American From press release: A landmark study released today from Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, reports that more than 37 million people, one in eight Americans — including 14 million children and nearly 3 million seniors — receive emergency food each year through the nation’s network of food banks and the agencies they serve. The findings represent a staggering 46 percent increase since the organization’s previously released study in 2006. Hunger in America 2010 is the first research study to capture the significant connection between the recent economic downturn and an increased need for emergency food assistance. The number of children and adults in need of food as a result of experiencing food insecurity has significantly increased. More than one in three client households are experiencing very low food security—or hunger—a 54 percent increase in the number of households compared to four years ago. An estimated 5.7 million people receive emergency food assistance each week from a food pantry, soup kitchen, or other agency served by one of Feeding America’s more than 200 food banks. This is a 27 percent increase over numbers reported in Hunger in America 2006, which reported that 4.5 million people were served each week. (Source: Docuticker) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:03:34 +0100 825300 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/NHDMeexBUPc/ala-diversity-research-grants.html The ALA Office for Diversity and the Diversity Research Grants Advisory Committee seek proposals for the Diversity Research Grant program. Applicants must be current ALA members and 2010 proposals must address one of three identified topics:* Upward mobility of Library Leaders from Underrepresented Populations* Information Services and Collections for Diverse Children and Young Adults* Libraries and the Meaning of MulticulturalismThe Diversity Research Grant consists of a one-time $2,000 award for original research and a $500 travel grant to attend and present at the 2011 ALA Annual Conference (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:36:50 +0100 825270 http://blogs.educationau.edu.au/gputland/2010/03/10/emergent-literacy-the-digital-world-of-yound-children/ At the recent CoSN conference, the launch of the white paper ‘The Digital World of Young Children : Impact on Emergent Literacy’ was released by the Pearson Foundation. This paper by Jay Blanchard and Terry Moore, describes how literacy skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing are sculpted by digital media. The paper is [...] (Source: Education.au Blog) Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:37:32 +0100 825161 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/OrzWHysJH6Y/global-warming-science-climate-change Doomsaying precludes the possibility of ingenious solutions – and indicates a morbid vanity that we must be the savioursIsn't it welcome to have Ian McEwan as an advocate for a little optimism in the climate change debate? His hope, expressed in his new novel Solar, that humanity will prove ingenious enough to solve the problem through the skill of coming generations is a welcome change from those who portray our descendants as helpless victims of our "excess".Their injunctions to "save the world for our children and grandchildren" fly in the face of history, which repeatedly shows how progress – from the wheel to the internet – transforms the world picture as time marches on. The doom brigade has its moments, such as the collapse of the classical world in Europe, the Black Death and the first world war, but they are exceptions to learn from. And we have learned.Not to the extent of mastering clairvoyancy, however. Like miserabilism, a constant in human behaviour is the inability of Today to successfully imagine Tomorrow. The archive of prophecy and science fiction contains some good guesses, but in general the seers get it wrong. Which of my grandparents, addressing me in the 1950s, could possibly have foreseen today's IT? Which of my grandparents' grandparents had a notion of the bicycle or national parks?This is true of scientists as much as of the more general type of wise person. Science is too often mistakenly treated in the way that history was by those 19th-century Germans who thought that one day the whole truth could be set down. Certainty is not absolute. Scientists are ambushed by novelty – see Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, Einstein – as often as the rest of us.None of this is to argue against the risks of global warming or prudence in facing them. It is to warn against vanity, in the form of the exaggerated belief that it is all down to our generation: here, now, hurry, rush. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:30:00 +0100 825232 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/PfWqxG3qQK8/digital-renaissance-partnering-with.html The Renaissance, Europe's period of cultural, political and scientific rebirth, began in Florence around 600 years ago. At Google we're interested in a (small “r”) renaissance of a different kind — a digital one. Since the launch of Google Books, we’ve been working with libraries and publishers around the globe to bring more of the world's books to more readers around the globe. Any school child should be able to access the works of Petrarch, Dante or Vico (or, if they're so inclined, Machiavelli). In the case of these more famous authors, this is already largely possible, but what about the work of Guglielmo il Giuggiola or Coluccio Salutati? We want all of the great literature and writings of Italy to be accessible to the general public.Today we’re announcing an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage that will push this vision forward. Working with the National Libraries of Florence and Rome, we’ll digitize up to a million out-of-copyright works. The libraries will select the works to be digitized from their collections, which include a wealth of rare historical books, including scientific works, literature from the period of the founding of Italy and the works of Italy's most famous poets and writers. It marks the first time we’ve ever joined forces with Italian libraries, and the first time we've worked with a ministry of culture.Around Europe and the rest of the world, we are effectively witnessing a digital renaissance, with an increasing number of organizations running ambitious and promising book digitization projects. We're not the only ones who have seen the need to bring the world's books into digital form. Digitization of books is a tremendous undertaking, requiring the joint effort of a great number of public and private stakeholders. For this reason, we’re supportive of many other efforts at digitization, such as the European Commission's Europeana. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 825238 http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/03/boston-public-library-branch-closings.html The Boston Globe's Andrew Ryan reports on a passionate and raucous meeting at the central Boston Public Library. Nearly 400 people packed a lecture hall in the beautiful Copley branch. When City Council President Michael Ross stepped to the microphone at one point, the crowd roared, and people shouted: "The public goes first!" and "Let the people speak!" And speak they did! The city council, Mayor Menino and the Trustees of the Public Library got quite an earful from the people of Boston. Sell a page from the 556-year-old Gutenberg Bible, one woman suggested. Charge a modest fee for library cards, said another, waving a $10 bill.One man said that he was a prison librarian while serving time in Walpole and that closing any library branches would be far worse than any of his crimes.“I may have robbed a bank, but I have never burned a book,’’ said the man, John McGrath. “And that’s what you do when you close a library branch, because they are never going to reopen.’’ (snip)“It’s outrageous that it has come to this,’’ said Yann Poisson of Dorchester. “Only a fifth-term mayor could dismiss libraries as a 21st-century anachronism, something that can be replaced by Yahoo or Google.’’The library’s president, Amy E. Ryan, outlined a broad range of criteria that will be used to target branches for potential closing, including computer usage, handicapped accessibility, proximity to other branches, and the story behind each location. No decisions have been made.The library lacks a sufficient number of computers, Ryan said, and it cannot adequately staff some of its most basic programs, such as story hours.“We have to ensure that if it says Boston Public Library over the door that we have to commit resources for families, kids, and adults,’’ Ryan said.Some at the meeting, though, accused Mayor Thomas M. Menino of trying to divide the city and pit neighborhood against neighborhood. ... Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 825179 http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/new/index.php/2010/03/09/as-american-as-apple-pie-mmoca-and-mpl/ Apple Pie: Symbols of Americana in the permanent collection at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) features more than 80 paintings, photographs, prints, and objects that address American identity through imagery ranging from big cars and hamburger joints to cowboys and fields of corn. Books from the Madison Public Library - about art and the American spirit - are currently on display in the MMoCA Kids Learning Center, and available for families to use while viewing the display. The exhibit will be on display through Sunday, April 11. Looking for more books about American art? Check out our Americana companion booklist for the exhibit. See more children’s programs at MMoCA. (Source: What's New) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:41:22 +0100 825046 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/03/09/a-tool-for-archiving-your-facebook-content-twitter-too/ The archiving of social media content is an interesting and important topic that requires a dialogue between social net providers, the archive and library communities, and if possible, users. If social media continues becoming the primary way we communicate with each, who will be collecting and permanently saving this record? Does it need to be saved in the first place. Will/Should every user be responsible for their own material on their own computer or should these archives be in the cloud? Or, will it just be ephemeral and gone in a few days after posting? This topic is briefly touched on in this post by Susan Thomas from the futureARCh blog. The focus is Facebook and she reports that there is possibly some automated “friend” who will archive your content. She never heard of this service and neither have we. Have you? Thomas does introduce us to an experimental Firefox add-on that will archive some of your Facebook content on your computer. It’s called ArchiveFacebook 1.1. This is how the developers describe the add-on: ArchiveFacebook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save web pages from Facebook and easily manage them. Save content from Facebook directly to your hard drive and view them exactly the same way you currently view them on Facebook. Why would you want to do this? Facebook has become a very important part of our lives. Information about our friends, family, business contacts and acquaintances is stored in Facebook with no easy way to get it out. ArchiveFacebook allows you to do just that. What guarantee do you have that Facebook won’t accidentally, or in some cases intentionally delete your account? Don’t trust your data to one web site alone. Take matters into your own hands and preserve this information. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:22:38 +0100 824994 http://mblc.state.ma.us/jobs/find_jobs/rss.php?job_id=6076 27 hours/week, includes evenings and Saturdays. YA/Teen Services * Directs, plans, organizes, implements, and evaluates services to teens, including duties essential to the daily operation of the Teen Room. * Delivers reference, reader's advisory, and library orientation services to children, young adults, parents, teachers, and others. Instructs individuals and groups in the use of the library and resources such as the Internet, electronic databases, and emerging technologies. Uses technology to communicate with teens virtually. * Selects, evaluates, purchases, and weeds young adult materials in accordance with the allocated departmental budget, community needs, and professional standards. Analyzes collection use patterns. * Works with Library Director to plan and provide programs that best use the resources of the library, meet the needs and interests of the teen community, and promote library use. * Involves teens in planning and implementing services and selecting materials for their age group through active Teen Advisory Board. Maintains knowledge about the diversity of the teen community. Develops programs and acquires materials appropriate to their needs. * Initiates outreach to schools, youth centers, and other community groups. Establishes contacts and collaborates with these groups, particularly relevant to programming ideas. * Trains library staff in issues related to teens. * Promotes, publicizes, and represents teen services and the library to the community in cooperation with other library departments. * Sets short and long term goals and objectives for teen services as part of the overall library service plan. Analyzes current trends and issues affecting teens and incorporates these findings into overall services to this age group. * Advocates for teens in library discussions of policy, services and budget. May identify and work with the Director in pursuing grant and/or other funding possibilities. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:43:35 +0100 824871 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/umPoFrhFOGM/stieg-larsson-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo Everything you need to know about Stieg Larsson, the bestselling author of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo▶ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was originally published in Sweden as Men Who Hate Women, a title English-language publishers rightly thought read, Don't Buy This Book. It is the first of the Millennium trilogy, a series of contemporary Swedish thrillers featuring Lisbeth Salander, a semi-psychotic hacker, and Mikael Blomqvist, a leftwing investigative journalist. The film adaptation opens on Friday.▶ Stieg Larsson conceived the Millennium books as a series of 10 novels, but he died of a heart attack, aged 50, before the first volume was even published. Because he was himself an investigative journalist, there were unsubstantiated rumours Larsson had been murdered. An outline manuscript of the fourth book is believed to exist, but his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, refuses to let it be published.▶ Despite the edgy nature of the protagonists and its themes of violence against women and political corruption, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a surprisingly old-fashioned story of a large dysfunctional family set in a closed community. The writing is also old-fashioned: Larsson allows no "I" to go undotted nor "T" uncrossed as the story continues for another 60 pages after the main denouement.▶ Because Larsson and Gabrielsson never married, his estate has been the subject of a long legal battle. Under Swedish law, Gabrielsson has no right to inheritance, despite being mother to Larsson's child, and she is locked in a dispute with Larsson's father and brother who copped the lot. A 1977 will, in which Larsson left all his assets to the Communist Workers League, has been deemed invalid as it was unsigned.▶ The Millennium trilogy is published in the UK by Christopher MacLehose, the man who brought other Scandinavian writers, such as Henning Mankell and Peter Høeg, to a British audience. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 19:30:00 +0100 825061 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/4BsxHqugbr0/ Cathie Black, President Hearst Magazines; Jane Friedman, CEO, OpenRoad Integrated Media; Evan Schnittman, VP Global Business Development, Oxford University Press, Moderator Cathie Black: starting advertising campaign about how important magazines are to counter the relentless death knell publicity about magazines. Very tough 18 months, don’t have a consumer problem, have an advertising problem. But looks like a good first half and advertising starting to come back. All magazines working on a multi-platform basis now. Magazine company is a “diversified” magazine company today. Becoming an advertising agency themselves. Consumers starting to buy magazines again. Raised magazine prices on newsstand, but increased size of the publications also. Every one of her magazines has a website. In 08, 40% of profits came from overseas editions. Magazine industry will be smaller in 10 years. Will never see another 2007 advertising revenue again. Now charging for some of the services that they used to offer to advertisers. 5 years from now: digital advertising revenue today is pennies on the dollar. Devices: don’t want to be in the device business. Consortium created with 5 publishing companies to try to avoid the mistakes the newspaper industry made – give it away for free. Consortium will try to work out issues for the future. The content created for one device may not work on another device. Zinio is worth looking out. Jane Friedman: in an absolute revolution in books. Changing for the better as book publishers never know who the ultimate consumer was. No data, no statistics, the publishing business had nothing. Need to publish for the consumer and so had to understand what the consumer wanted and this was unheard of in the industry. Strong believer in the backlist. Physical books will always be around. But what is changing is how people read when they want to read. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:39:55 +0100 824965 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/iopWiqh7how/eric-hill-spot-the-dog The author and illustrator of the perennially popular Spot stories shows how he draws 'my little puppy' and explains how fell into writing the books almost by accident. Photographs by Martin Godwin and Ladybird (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:00:21 +0100 824852 http://lisnews.org/buy_one_get_one_free_and_help_these_california_libraries The used-book store, at the Carlsbad (CA) Public Library’s Dove Lane branch, is a treasure trove for bibliophiles looking for bargains. Shelves are lined with donated books that include classics, recent best-sellers, romance novels, mysteries, biographies, cookbooks and guides to self-improvement. All the money from sales goes toward funding children’s programs and new acquisitions at the library and the annual Carlsbad Reads Together program. The store makes $100,000 to $120,000 a year, said manager Taffy Cannon. Sign on San Diego also has reports from the Friends of the Escondido Library and the Vista Library. Each of the three FOLs has a bookstore. Does your library have an active FOL or a bookstore? (Source: LISNews.org) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:56:38 +0100 824916 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/LHALGZXP4qw/reading-multimedia-overload I love all the new literary platforms filling my days with fresh pickings, but I also miss taking one book at a timeTwo years ago, I had a very straightforward reading pattern. Every few days, I'd read a book. I would immerse myself in its characters and storylines, swim in its style, snatch every opportunity throughout the day to return to its enveloping world. Then I would finish it, and start another one. Things were so simple then.I wish I could blame it on the Christmas eReader, but my evolution into schizophrenic multimedia literature butterfly started long before it landed in my lap – via iPod and Audible, Twitter and Gutenberg, and brick-like new-writing magazines that take weeks to digest. My reading has taken on a strangely driven, guilty quality, as I try to justify the cost of all those subscriptions and all that hardware by consuming fiction in an unprecedentedly multiplicitous and simultaneous way. Secretly, I long to return to a world in which I had a loving, stable relationship with one paperback at a time.A day in my life as a literary butterfly starts at 7.30am, with a few snatched paragraphs of the short story in last weekend's Sunday papers over a morning cup of tea. By 8.30am, I'm fully plugged into my latest audiobook as I stride to the station. On the tube, it's the rush to plough through the story and poems in the latest, expensively imported edition of the New Yorker, before next week's lands on my mat. Throughout the day, I might catch up on a Twitter novel every few minutes, or check out the latest freemium offering from an enterprising new author. Lunchtime, and it's this quarter's Granta, now so stuffed with good things it has become Bolaño-weight and lives on my desk, banned from travelling. Back on the tube, I crack out the eReader, scroll past the 100 free books I haven't even dipped into, and try to settle into the download I just had to buy to see if it worked. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:37:30 +0100 824853 http://lisnews.org/are_public_libraries_glorified_babysitting_services "My town officials think all we're running here is a babysitting service" a librarian recently shared in a moment of frustration. She went on to mention studies about the proven impact on cognitive abilities when toddlers are actively engaged in library programs like Lapsit versus passively engaged with toys & videos. This was news to me; my how the educational product companies and toy manufacturers had shaped my understanding! I also hadn't thought of toddler programs as educational initiatives. When I've seen adults and toddlers together at the library, I've usually thought "oh, aren't those kids adorable" and "I'm glad people are getting together to have fun". Though it now seems obvious, the educational and literacy component of Lapsit was lost on me. This last point was intriguing, so I did some quick research. I googled "Lapsit" and got plenty of results from library websites around the country. I clicked through to the top 20 (all different libraries, by chance) and searched for the terms literacy and education in the page content, in images or as part of the navigation. 80% made no mention of literacy or education in conjunction with Lapsit 20% contained the term literacy 10% contained the terms literacy and education Clearly these stats don't tell the whole story, but they tell a good one about the help libraries need presenting information to the public. ********* Last month, library consultant Larry T. Nix (a.k.a. The Library History Buff) wrote about libraries' success with early education programs in Little Kids and Public Libraries. The science behind the importance of learning in children ages birth to three is overwhelming. Public libraries have proven they can implement excellent programs to serve this age group. The public education community is struggling to implement four year old kindergarten much less provide programs for this age group. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:10:38 +0100 824917 http://lisnews.org/world_without_public_libraries On the whole, I'm not much of a book reader. Most of my reading is done online; I read a handful of books every year, mostly non-fiction, based on various whims. Right now, I'm reading The World Without Us, a captivating exploration about how the world would revert (or not revert) back to a pre-human emergence. Some of these things have been dramatized into a series on the History Channel by a different name, providing the added element of CGI to show how buildings would collapse, infrastructure would fail, nature reclaims the suburbs, and how all that would remain for future archeologists is our stainless steel cookware. For the scientist in me, it's fascinating to see everything humans have made becoming undone by the natural forces of this world. So, in touching upon the premise of the book, I thought, "What would the world be like without libraries?" How would our demise come? Unlike the book, which asks the reader to suspend disbelief and accept the total sudden disappearance of humankind, I cannot propose nor fathom asking the same for libraries. In attempting to avoid hyperbole, I think the mechanisms of the library’s demise have already proven themselves present. It will not come through lack of innovation or adoption of technology or practices; our relevance and willingness to change in this digital information age has certainly been established. No, the end will come as it has for some libraries over the past two years: through budget cuts. Funding for all library types (public, academic, school, and special) has hung in the balance for the last couple of years after budgets tighten and communities and companies look to trim their expenditures. You need go no further than typing in the words “library budget” in a Google News search to see the current toll that is being exacted.  One problem, as I see it, is that the library as a community service does not fit nicely into any government spending niche. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:47:19 +0100 824748 http://mblc.state.ma.us/jobs/find_jobs/rss.php?job_id=6075 The Middleborough Public Library is looking for an cheerful, upbeat and flexible person to fill the position of Childrens Librarian. The position will be part time with benefits beginning on Monday May 3. For the months of May and June, the candidate selected will work 20 hours / week. At the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1, the number of hours will increase to 30 hours/week. The Childrens Librarian is responsible for all facets of collection management for toddlers through grade 6, planning and conducting family story hours, managing the Summer Reading program and all other aspects of the operation of the Children’s Library. (Source: MBLC Job Listings) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:43:36 +0100 824707 http://bb.lori.ri.gov//viewtopic.php?t=8093&sid=d6d7d55f680989cf708425e503c18654 (Source: LORI Discussions Groups :: View Forum - Jobline -- to post, send email to webmaster@lori.ri.gov) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824723 http://bb.lori.ri.gov//viewtopic.php?t=8104&sid=d6d7d55f680989cf708425e503c18654 (Source: LORI Discussions Groups :: View Forum - Jobline -- to post, send email to webmaster@lori.ri.gov) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824713 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/HnTYM1eZ1HA/solar-by-ian-mcewan Cape, £18.992000 He belonged to that Salman class of short, fat, ugly, clever men who were unaccountably attractive to women. But Michael Beard was anhedonic; his fifth marriage was disintegrating and he should have known how to behave as his philandering had ended the previous four. This time, though, it was his wife, Patrice, who was having an affair with Tarpin, a horny-handed Essex builder who knew nothing about cavity-wall insulation.Beard waited for Aldous to collect him. Gosh, how he hated the polar bear rug in the hall. Still, everyone would soon have one, he supposed, if the polar ice-cap continued to melt. Not that Beard was yet wholly committed to the climate- change agenda, but having won the Nobel prize for his Beard-Einstein Conflation on Photovoltaics, an idea he was very thankful he was never asked to fully explain, he had been happy to head the New Labour Climate Change Laboratory."I'm afraid it's not a Prius," Aldous said. "I'm not surprised, as they were only sold outside Japan in 2001," Beard replied. Aldous was one of his pony-tailed post-docs who was being forced into working on the New Labour cul-de sac of wind turbine energy. Beard nodded off. He was very familiar with the McEwan Conflation of cramming loads of dull facts about climate change into a book and calling it fiction."Tarpin hit me," said Patrice. "He hit me too," Beard replied as he went off to visit an endangered glacier in the Arctic for 30 pages. He returned to find Aldous in his flat. "I admit I'm having an affair with your wife," said Aldous, "but I've worked out that your Conflation can satisfy the world's energy needs." At which, Aldous slipped on the polar bear rug and died, a victim of climate change."I could make it look like Tarpin did it," McEwan thought. He had no real experience of writing comedy and the gags creaked as much as the plot. ... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:05:13 +0100 824698 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/VVBd1XshIrI/endometriosis-hilary-mantel-women-health The "debilitating illness" (Teen motherhood not all bad, says Mantel, 1 March) from which Hilary Mantel suffers has a name: endometriosis. She has made no secret of suffering from it, having documented its horrific course in her biographical book Giving up the Ghost.As this is Endometriosis Awareness Week, perhaps you'll admit that a disease from which up to one in 10 women silently suffer, wrecking lives, families and fertility, deserves to be given a name. The cause and cure of endometriosis remain unknown partly due to its lack of profile compared with other complaints which don't involve the apparently still taboo subject of menstruation.Activities around Endometriosis Awareness week may be found at www.endometriosis.org. The point is to stop this "debilitating illness" which has already left too many women childless, or otherwise coping with intolerable pain. I know, I happen to be one of the statistics.Diana Wallis MEPLib Dem, Yorkshire and the HumberEndometriosisWomenHealthHilary Mantelguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:05:01 +0100 824699 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lansinglibraryteen/podcast/~3/jqYLBdUv-Bo/march-book-of-month.html From School Library Journal, 10-1-2008:According to tradition, when the Martin children turn 15, they inherit a suite in the family's small Manhattan hotel and a job: to take care of the rooms and their occupant. On Scarlett's 15th birthday, Amy Amberson sweeps into the suite that Scarlett has just inherited. The woman is demanding and brash, but she does have her charms (and large amounts of cash). In the beginning, Scarlett is overwhelmed, but then her role becomes that of Mrs. Amberson's assistant for her projects, which change on a whim. When Amy decides to help the theater troupe that Scarlett's brother is involved in put on Hamlet, the teen begins a romance with one of the actors. Then everything starts to go awry, and when things get tough, Amy abandons ship, and plucky Scarlett is left to step in and save what needs saving, something that she does with flair. Scarlett's brand of humor is particularly dry and well articulated. This novel blends sibling rivalry and the importance of family, friendship, and romance into a plot that is charming and well delivered.Emily Garrett Cassady, North Garland High School, Garland, TX (Source: Lansing Library Teen Dept. Podcast) Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:01:22 +0100 824635 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/QufuHfM8C64/2010-siba-book-award-long-list.html The 2010 SIBA Book Award "Long List" has just been released, containing a complete collection of all the eligible books nominated by Southern Independent Booksellers as favorites for 2009. The list features 101 different books in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, cooking, and children's/young adult that are either set in the South or by a southern author (or both!) and were published in 2009. The long list will be sent as a ballot to SIBA member stores, who will then vote to choose finalists in each of the four categories. A jury of SIBA booksellers will then choose winners in each category. Finalists are announced in April. Winners are announced July (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:07:36 +0100 824742 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/03/08/prelingers-save-the-orphaned-films-and-books-that-libraries-abandon/ From the Post: How to explain what [ResourceShelf Reader] Rick and Megan Prelinger are up to? The California couple searches out all that stuff you probably saw and read in your childhood — films about corn production, home movies of Detroit, propaganda manuals about good manners — and collects it. When a library has to get rid of a roomful of old books because of budget cuts or to expand its computer center, it’s the Prelingers to the rescue. [Snip] “Public libraries are under enormous pressure for how to use space,” says co-founder Megan Prelinger. “They very often have to get rid of something old every time something new comes in.” Often, they dump publications that have to do with business, industry, landscape, land use — all things that can still be useful to us as we figure out how to plan for tomorrow. “Libraries have to throw things away for many reasons, and it’s almost never because the material isn’t valuable,” she says. [Snip] Too often, the Prelingers learned, what we throw away as worthless today may turn out to have value tomorrow. Somewhere thirty or forty years back, we may uncover a crossroads we took in our thinking or in the development of an idea, and discover it may be worth exploring that alternate route again. In fact, of the 1,000 people who come visit the library each year in San Francisco’s SoMa district, many are people seeking raw materials to inspire new ideas. Source: WalletPop See Also: Prelinger Archives (via Internet Archive) (Source: ResourceShelf) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:24:37 +0100 824598 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SellersLibraryTeens/~3/8pWGh_QX_lM/ironman-by-chris-crutcher.html Synopsis(taken from Chris Crutcher's website)Bo Brewster has been at war with his father for as long as he can remember. Following angry outburst at his football coach and English teacher that have cost his spot on the football team and moved him dangerously close to expulsion from school, he turns to the only adult he believes will listen: Larry King.In his letters to Larry, Bo describes his quest for excellence on his own terms. No more coaches for me, he tells the talk show icon, no more dads. I'm going to be a triathlete, an Ironman.Regulated to Mr. Nak's before-school anger management group(which he initially believes to populated with future serial killers and freeway snipers), Bo meets a hard-edged, down-on-their-luck pack of survivors with stainless steel shields against the world that Bo comes to see are not so different from their own. It's here he meets and falls in love with Shelly, a future American Gladiator, whose passion for physical challenge more than matches his own.My ReviewIronman was a heartfelt story about learning to accept that you can't change who your parents are, but you can stop yourself from becoming them. That was Bo's worst fear, to end up exactly like his dad. To him there was nothing worse in the world. As he struggles along, trying to make sense of the world, Bo works hard to compete in Yukon Jake's triathlon, pushing against anyone who wants him to fail, even his own father. This was about the third time I've read this book cover to cover and it still gets me every time. The raw emotion and the stories that leave to breathless. There are no sunshine and daises in a Chris Crutcher book, you feel the life these kids live and you wonder, that could have been me. Wonderful read. (Source: Sellers Library Teens) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:39:38 +0100 824734 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/aIkFyzlZAvY/jfk-assassination-jacqueline-kennedy-letters Selection from 15,000 condolence letters sent to JFK's widow and stored at library published for first time in bookA young mother, writing shortly after the assassination of John F Kennedy on 22 November 1963, encapsulated the mood of millions. "Surely this generation," she wrote, "has a deep scar on our hearts which we will carry to our graves."The comment was buried for almost a half century in a largely unexamined and previously unpublished collection of letters stored at Kennedy's presidential library in Boston.They were part of a massive outpouring of grief across America and around the world, expressed in more than 1m letters of condolence to the dead president's widow, Jacqueline Kennedy.About 250 of the letters have now resurfaced to public view in the form of an edited book compiled by a history professor at New Hampshire University.Ellen Fitzpatrick had been researching another book on the Kennedy legacy. "I wanted to get back to that moment in the early 1960s when John F Kennedy had really energised the American people," she said.As she explored ways to divine the mood of JFK's time in office, Fitzpatrick recalled when she was 11 and Jacqueline Kennedy appeared on television seven weeks after her husband's death, thanking the nation for the 800,000 letters of condolence she had received.Within two years that number would rise to up to 1.5m. Most of those letters were destroyed, but about 15,000 sent from within America were kept and stored in the Boston library. Fitzpatrick read every one."They came from every state in the union. From big cities and small towns. There were letters from Eskimos in Alaska and cherry farmers in Florida," she said.A child from Dallas, Texas, where Kennedy was shot, wrote: "Some mean man killed my Dady too, here in Dallas. My Dady was a soldier. ... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:47:39 +0100 824700 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/LE7w5uPm_qU/sir-kenneth-dover-obituary Distinguished classical scholar and academic who broke new ground with his book Greek HomosexualitySir Kenneth Dover, who has died aged 89, was a towering figure in the study of ancient Greek language, literature and thought. Very few could approach the range and quality of his scholarship, especially his synthesis of philological, historical and cultural acumen. His name became known to a wider public partly for his groundbreaking 1978 book, Greek Homosexuality, and partly for the publication of his controversial autobiography, Marginal Comment, in 1994.Greek Homosexuality treated the topic with unprecedented openness and nuanced definition. The work drew together the evidence of literature (not least a prosecution speech in a sensational Athenian court case); visual art (Dover inspected hundreds of sexually explicit vase-paintings, often in the basements of museums); and history, mythology and philosophy. The result was a compelling picture of the complex web of sexual and social practices that constituted the phenomena now grouped together under the label of Greek homosexuality.The book proved a turning-point in the modern study of ancient sexual cultures, leading to the growth of this field in the 1980s (and not just among specialists – Michel Foucault was among those influenced by it). Later in life, Dover was sometimes impatient that the subject had become an academic industry and that Greek Homosexuality had become the best known of his works, partly occluding what he felt to be his own central achievement as a historian of the Greek language. But the book is deservedly admired for harnessing scholarly sophistication to a shrewd and broad-minded historical imagination. If parts of Dover's argument have been challenged in relation to the kind of weight given to different sorts of evidence, the book remains an indispensable resource.Dover was born in London and educated at St Paul's school and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read classics. ... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:45:54 +0100 824701 http://www.tangognat.com/2010/03/08/library-wars-and-other-manga-in-the-march-previews/ This is shopping day at my blog, I suppose, as I take a peek at the March Previews: Viz Viz has some great stuff coming out this month, like Afterschool Charisma #1, Children of the Sea #3, Butterflies Flowers #3, and 20th Century Boys #9. But by far the most exciting thing that I’m looking forward to [...] (Source: TangognaT) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:14:41 +0100 824688 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/7oVgVmUtGp8/best-and-worst-of-times-publishing Even in its supposedly golden ages, the book trade has been sustained by shifting large quantities of junk, and so it remainsJust at the moment there's a constant background murmur of complaint from what one might call the New Elitists that the pure well of our literature is being polluted by – for example – celebrity novels and ghosted memoirs. To say nothing, of course, about the explosion of stuff that's appearing, unmediated, on the web. (Previous blogs here have touched on this theme, I know.)But how new or different is this, actually? My answer is that the process of literature, from long before Shakespeare, has always involved oodles of ephemera (spelt C – R – A – P). You can illustrate this assertion from virtually any period from the Middle Ages onwards, but I want to choose just three discrete moments when a contemporary IT revolution sponsored what seemed to be an unruly proliferation of popular self-expression.First, there's the classic paradigm shift of c1470 to 1500, the post-Gutenberg era when William Caxton was first in business. After centuries of painstakingly produced hand-made books (manuscripts) the new print culture came as an incredible liberation. And what did it produce ? Almost nothing of lasting consequence apart from Caxton's edition of Thomas Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" and his pioneering edition of The Canterbury Tales. Instead, a lot of his effort was devoted to etiquette guides for the aspiring middle class, and books for children. Well, I'm exaggerating, but not much.Ripple-dissolve a century to 1580 (when young Will Shakespeare was just 16). For the next 40-odd years there would be something that, with hindsight, looks like the Golden Age par excellence: Marlowe, Raleigh, Bacon, Jonson, Webster, Spenser, and Shakespeare himself of course. Yet, at the time, contemporaries who flocked to the playhouses also complained of drowning in paper and ink – squibs, broadsheets, pamphlets etc. ... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:02:23 +0100 824509 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2010/03/08/minority-report-unbreaking-public-education/ Is there anyting more frustrating and heartbreaking that what seems to be happening to public schools? Education — standardized testing, school reform, teacher training — these are all things I’ve followed with a passion beyond that of a book reviewer and concerned citizen, but the zeal of a parent with children in the “system.” The cover story of Sunday’s “The New York Times Magazine,” Building a Better Teacher, focused on the broader angle of teacher training (not aimed at public schools but let’s face it, you don’t hear or read so many complaints about private schools). Last week on National Public Radio, Diane Ravitch, education historian and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education, was interviewed on Morning Edition on March 2 because of her turnaround from conservative supporter of No Child Left Behind to supporter of public education, a position she’d ardently held some 40 years earlier. On the same day, NPR reported on the massive firings of teachers and staff at a public high school in Rhode Island. The story featured deeply hurt teachers who felt singled out for blame for the decline in student achievement and teary students sorry to see their teachers go. It was hard to listen to, but when failure has been so massive and so long in the making, somebody has to be held accountable. Does the blame reside in poverty and hyper-segregation, lack of parental involvement, too much emphasis on standardized testing, inadequate funding, too many non-English speaking students, poorly trained and prepared teachers, the teachers unions, short-sighted politicians, or any combination and all of the above? I’ve read enough books to know that fingers are pointing in all directions. ... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:28:20 +0100 825039 http://librarychronicles.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html#1085288879080056375 So often these incidents start with the convenient anonymous "neighbor's complaint" As seven New Orleans police cars converged on the corner of Second and Dryades streets on Mardi Gras night, Big Chief James Harris of the Seminole Warriors grabbed for the five youngest members of his Mardi Gras Indian tribe, all of them younger than 6. Holding up his feathered purple, green and yellow wing, Harris tried to slow the cars, but they kept moving through the thick crowd of parading Indians and spectators, sirens blaring and tires squealing Harris said he barely was able to pull the children to the sidewalk. “They were scared,” he said. “One ran this way and the other ran that way.”Starting about 6 p.m., the police cars raced for at least 15 minutes, according to cell-phone video accounts, and officers insulted bystanders, spectators said.The episode, which a police commander characterized as a routine effort to clear streets sparked by a neighbor’s complaint of Indians with guns, has stirred memories of the events of St. Joseph’s Night 2005, when officers sped through crowds and told Indian chiefs to remove their extravagant suits or go to jailI know a lot of cops really hate Mardi Gras. They work long hours. People are assholes to them. I get it. But it's part of the job and when they start taking their frustrations out on people like this, “It was manic,” said Patrick Keen, a barber from nearby Brimmer’s Barbershop. When he asked an officer why they were circling the block, Keen said, the officer called him a crude name and complained that the Indians “are messing up my night.”Two other men said they were treated unpleasantly by the same officer, said Keen, who said he walked up to Sgt. David Liang and asked to file a complaint. He said Liang ran a criminal check on Keen, finding nothing, before getting on his radio and describing the complaint, which Bardy said is being investigated. well... you don't get to do that. ... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 825119 http://ricklibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/03/century-and-some-change-my-life-before.html Ann Nixon Cooper died at age 107 in Atlanta in December 2009, just before her book A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name was published. The positive view of her death is that she finished the book in time before she departed, and that she had had enough of the fame that being mentioned for voting for presidential candidate Barack Obama had brought her. She had already lived a full life. She did not die too soon. Hers was a life to celebrate for its goodness.In some ways, Cooper's life was fairly ordinary and not really bookworthy unless we are all bookworthy as representatives of our time. What singled her out was vitality at an advanced age and living an affluent life (though never conspicuous) in the black community of Atlanta through the days of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement. She served as a witness to the great talents and work ethic of blacks when white culture was denying that blacks were equal. Filled with photos as well as Cooper's memories, contemporary readers see and hear in A Century and Some Change how the families of black professionals could have nice houses, send their children to good schools, know powerful people, and yet still be expected to step to the side of a sidewalk to let whites pass or sit in the back of the bus.A Century and Some Change celebrates the good more than regrets the bad. It is a thoughtful book that may be quickly read. I recommend it for older readers wanting to remember the past and younger readers needing to know about segregation and forgiveness.Cooper, Ann Nixon. A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name. Atria Books, 2010. ISBN 9781439158876. (Source: ricklibrarian) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824667 http://philbradley.typepad.com/phil_bradleys_weblog/2010/03/sortfix-for-easy-searching.html I've mentioned SortFix before, but I had an email suggesting that I take another look at it. It's a really simple engine, and one that will appeal to children. Basically it's a multisearch engine that takes content from Google, Bing and Twitter. However, the way in which it works is what is interesting. Simply type in a search (I started with civil war statistics) and SortFix then pulls results from each search engine which it makes available in a tabbed window. It also pops up boxes under the search area called 'Power words', 'Add to search', 'Remove' and 'Dictionary'. These are then populated for you, and you simply click and drag to the appropriate box as needed. This is what it looks like: Dragging and dropping then changes the search that's being run for you. It's a very simple, but effective concept. Perfect to get children to think about how to construct better searches. (Source: Phil Bradley) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824558 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/03/helping-students-get-their-first-postcollege-job-at-a-price.html Ms. Mitler is offering a high-end service that hopes to find a thriving market in unemployed 20-somethings. For $400 an hour, she is coaching recent college graduates in how to land their first job. Everyone seems to know someone whose child graduated dean’s list and  (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824548 http://csbsjulibrary.blogspot.com/2010/03/research-on-poverty.html The Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) is a center for interdisciplinary research into the causes and consequences of poverty and social inequality in the United States. As one of three Area Poverty Research Centers sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it has a particular interest in poverty and family welfare in the Midwest.Information includes recent publications, news, events, research and the FAQ answers basic questions like:Who is poor? How many children are poor?How is poverty measured in the United States-sg (Source: CSBSJU Library Blog) Mon, 08 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824495 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=32232 The Teen Depression Awareness Project: Building an Evidence Base for Improving Teen Depression Care Source: RAND Corporation Presents findings from the Teen Depression Awareness Project, which explored how depression affects teens, the factors that influence teens’ readiness to seek treatment for depression, and the barriers that teens and parents face when seeking care. (Source: Docuticker) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:18:32 +0100 824395 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/ikqFURmsuME/future-british-libraries-margaret-hodge Coffee shops, gigs, free cinema tickets, flashy architecture . . . is this the future of our libraries? Stuart Jeffries on government plans to shake things up – and the people standing in their way'It will be much more than just a library. Perhaps we should call it a palazzo of human thought," says Mike Whitby, Birmingham city council's leader, as he reclines in his vast office. He's talking about the new £193m Library of Birmingham, currently under construction at Centenary Square between those other two Brummie palazzi, the Repertory Theatre and the former civic centre called Baskerville House.Cardiff, Newcastle and Swindon already have new super-libraries, while Liverpool and Manchester's central libraries are undergoing multimillion-pound renovations. Councillor Whitby thinks Birmingham's will be better than any of them. Thanks to Dutch architects Mecanoo, the library will be a highly transparent glass building wrapped in delicate metal filigree, housing within its 33,500 sq m a few million books (fingers crossed). It is a key component in the city's bid to be the UK's capital of culture in 2013 and should help fulfil Whitby's aim of putting Birmingham in the top 25 world cities by 2020, as ranked by the Mercer Quality of Living survey (it currently comes joint 56th, with Glasgow).Whitby's office looks out on to the existing Birmingham Central Library, an inverted modernist ziggurat built in 1973-4. This is the building Prince Charles famously described as a place where books were incinerated rather than borrowed. Unlike him, I once spent long, happy hours reading here, amazed that so many books (2.5m of them, stretching over seven floors) were at the disposal of a non-princely nobody like me. Now culture minister Margaret Hodge has given the go-ahead to flatten this Grade II-listed building; demolition will be completed over the next five years. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:30:01 +0100 824352 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33093 Enforcement of the Criminal Laws Against Medicare and Medicaid Fraud (PDF; 1.1 MB) Source: Greg Andres, Acting Assistant Deputy Attorney General (before the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security) Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars are spent to provide health security for American seniors, children, and to the poor and disabled. We have a duty to ensure that taxpayer funds are well spent and that our citizens who receive treatment paid for by the Medicare and Medicaid, and other government prograpms are receiving proper medical care. While most medical providers and health care companies are doing the right thing, Medicare and Medicaid frause cost the American taxpayer billions of dollars that could be spent on patient care. Medicare and Medicaid fraud also can corrept the medical decisions health care providers make with respect to their patients and thereby put patients at risk of harm. (Source: Docuticker) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 20:06:24 +0100 824399 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/D9XlSkKv5xM/ You know the Pixel Qi screens that are one of the forthcoming “better-than-e-ink” display technologies? Gizmodo and the “What’s Happening at Pixel Qi” blog note that a DIY 10” screen replacement kit will be out in the second quarter of this year, bringing the ability to swap out your netbook’s 10” LCD screen for a transflective Pixel Qi model that can be read in direct sunlight. Writes former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen in the Pixel Qi blog: It’s only slightly more difficult than changing a lightbuld [sic]: it’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation. In the same entry, Jepsen writes about a group of girls in Nigeria in the One Laptop Per Child program who opened a “laptop hospital” to do repairs and screen-swaps themselves. Interesting to see that young geeks and tinkerers are the same the world over. There is no word on what the price of the display kit will be. But given that screens are traditionally the most expensive part of the gizmos that include them, I wouldn’t bet it’s going to be all that cheap. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:50:07 +0100 824273 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MaestrosBibliotecariosDePuertoRico/~3/God35KU9Oh4/leer-es-un-juego.html Discovery Kids, ha creado un espacio titulado Leer es un juego. Es un sitio muy interesante y entretenido que anima a los estudiantes a leer.Para visitar el mismo ir a la siguiente dirección: http://www.tudiscoverykids.com/juegos/numeros_y_letras/nivel_avanzado/leer_es_un_juego/ (Source: Maestros Bibliotecarios de Puerto Rico) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 13:42:00 +0100 824420 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33078 The Green Mom Eco-cosm: A Social Study into their Motivations, Convictions and Influence Source: From blog post: By listening to what those mothers were saying and reading about what they were doing, we arrived at three primary categories to capture and explain the majority of green moms: Super Greens. The most radical in their views and furthest from the mainstream in their lifestyle choices as a result of their commitment to the environment, Super Greens are incorporating their eco-convictions more thoroughly into every aspect of their and their families’ lives. Through a green lens they closely examine how they live, the choices they make, and the products they use. Eco-Moderates. The Eco-Moderates reflect a more receptive, somewhat compromising attitude toward green products. They represent a broad group of mothers who are very concerned about the environment but also concerned with balancing the realities of juggling career, family, home, and their desire to live a more eco-aware life. Mainstream Greens. More likely to align philosophically, if not always literally, with the concept of green consumerism, Mainstream Greens still shop at big-box stores but are on the lookout for greener versions of the products they already buy. They are focused on making “smarter choices” and often talk of making “baby steps” in a greener direction. Two distinct profiles that deserve additional attention are tucked within the three primary categories: Natural-Parenting/Simple-Living Enthusiasts. The women in this niche partially overlap within the Super Greens and Eco-Moderates. Hallmarks of Natural Parenting include natural childbirth, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and co-sleeping, to name a few. Their philosophy strongly incorporates green values, as illustrated in their approach to food, which emphasizes homemade, organic meals and locavore tendencies. Green and Frugals. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:26:10 +0100 824271 http://liszen.com/trends/story.php?title=Child_Behavior_Help_-_Blog_Archive_-_Saugus_Public_Library_--- Saugus Public Library bookmark March 8-12 Saugus Advertiser Many of Jonathan Kellerman's books feature the character Alex Delaware, a child psycholog (Source: pligg - all) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:00:24 +0100 824309 http://vivabibliotecaviva.blogspot.com/2010/03/estudos-sobre-mulher-na-ciencia-da.html Adjabeng, A.,  "Las bibliotecas como recurso para Acrecentar y Apoyar el Desarrollo Económico para la Mujer".  IFLA Council and General Conference, No. 70, 2004. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/037s_trans-Adjabeng.pdfDescriptores: Mujeres/Bibliotecas/Aspecto económico/Aspecto social/Discriminaión socialResumen: Los asuntos que se centran en la mujer han asumido una dimensión más profunda. Muchas actividades se han llevado a cabo para alarmar a los gobiernos, a organizaciones gubernamentales y no gubernamentales, instituciones políticas, sociales y económicas sobre los problemas de la mujer en general. Una de dichas actividades la Década para la Mujer de las Naciones Unidas 1975-1985, un periodo creado por las Naciones Unidas para crear una amplia conciencia en todo el mundo sobre los asuntos centrados en la mujer. Adjabeng, A.,  "Libraries as a source of relevant information to support and enhance economic development for women".  IFLA Council and General Conference, No. 70, 2004. http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla70/papers/037e-Adjabeng.pdfDescriptores: Mujeres/Bibliotecas/Aspecto económico/Aspecto social/Discriminaión socialResumen: Issues concerning women have assumed a wider dimension. Many activities have been carried out to alert governments, governmental and non-governmental organizations, political, social and economic and academic institutions about the problems of women in general. One of such activities was The United Nations Decade for Women 1975-1985, a period set aside by the United Nations to create a widespread awareness in the whole world on issues concerning women. Alfaya Lamas, E., Fernández Mariño, P., and Villaverde Solar, D.,  "Análisis de datos mediante observación documental en las noticias de prensa sobre misoginia".  Jornadas Españolas de Documentación, No. 11, 2009, pp. 298-301 . http://www.fesabid. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 825058 http://outofthejungle.blogspot.com/2010/03/copyright-for-fashion.html The Globe also reports on Harvard Professor and Guggenheim fellow Jeannie Suk's argument that fashion designers need a tailored (ahem!) copyright provision covering their designs. Professor Suk's article, The Law, Culture, and Economics of Fashion, in vol. 61 Stanford Law Review (March, 2009), is summarized in the abstract, in part: Despite being the core of fashion and legally protected in Europe, fashion design lacks protection against copying under U.S. intellectual property law. This Article frames the debate over whether to provide protection to fashion design within a reflection on the cultural dynamics of innovation as a social practice. The desire to be in fashion - most visibly manifested in the practice of dress - captures a significant aspect of social life, characterized by both the pull of continuity with others and the push of innovation toward the new. We explain what is at stake economically and culturally in providing legal protection for original designs, and why a protection against close copies only is the proper way to proceed. We offer a model of fashion consumption and production that emphasizes the complementary roles of individual differentiation and shared participation in trends. Our analysis reveals that the current legal regime, which protects trademarks but not fashion designs from copying, distorts innovation in fashion away from this expressive aspect and toward status and luxury aspects. The dynamics of fashion lend insight into dynamics of innovation more broadly, in areas where consumption is also expressive. We emphasize that the line between close copying and remixing represents an often underappreciated but promising direction for intellectual property today. The Globe article tells that Senator Charles Schumer of New York is sponsoring a bill to create copyright protection for fashion designers. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824370 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/CH9IkUVdYE0/where-god-love-book-review Anita Sethi applauds a collection of stories in which love triumphs over failings of the fleshLove hangs out in forbidden places in this short story collection: it steals into the heart of a woman for her friend's husband; it blooms in a brief affair between stepmother and stepson. Amy Bloom, author of a well-regarded book about gender, Normal, as well as several novels and story collections, here pushes the boundaries of socially accepted relationships, testing the concept of "normal" love, not only romantic but also parental and platonic.It is where love no longer hangs out, however, that proves most poignant, for this is a collection haunted with the raw pain of having lost what was most loved. There is a marked emphasis on physical deterioration, with foot problems proving a particular motif. William suffers from gout yet his lover, Clare, does not mind his "grotesquely" floundering foot, swollen and purple, nor does her affection diminish throughout her children's chickenpox, or the "dark smell" of her mother's dying. Clare, too, can't walk after spraining her ankle. Scattered through the pages are hypertension pills, indomethacin, cholesterol pills, Viagra. The test of love is to look after those in sickness as well as in health.The word "unbearable" recurs, for these sensitive stories each capture moments at which body or heart are at breaking point. "I felt the strings holding me together just snap," confesses one character. If Bloom exposes human fragility, she also depicts the strongest, most steadfast love – what it is to love the least lovable of people, unwaveringly, even after death or drug addiction do them part.The tonic against fallible human relationships is the daydream. In contrast to the humdrum reality through which they have stumbled, fallen and finally "given up all hope of ever walking on beautiful days", characters muse on stories of the great Greek gods. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:15:01 +0100 824112 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/Vhe3SxLE54g/pattern-in-carpet-margaret-drabble The pieces of Margaret Drabble's memoir don't all fit together, but they paint a compelling picture of family lifeThis book's subtitle suggests it is about puzzles and the author's fondness for them,, and it is true that Drabble tells the story of jigsaws diligently. We learn they were invented in London, in the 1760s, by engraver and cartographer John Spilsbury, and that they do well in times of economic depression. But in another sense jigsaws are a red herring. Drabble suffers from depression, and jigsaw puzzles are one of her strategies for dealing with this melancholy. They are a problem that can always be solved, an escape from words. She did them as a child when her depression first surfaced and more recently when her husband, Michael Holroyd, was ill. Jigsaws are the (often tenuous) connection between things she wants to think about; they give her licence to wander. The result is a disordered book and some readers will dislike it for that reason. But but I enjoyed it, perhaps because I used to do jigsaws myself and so knew how to approach it. Just as the dedicated puzzler always holds some pieces back, to be slotted in at the last moment, so I guiltlessly put certain sections to one side and focused instead on the family stuff, where the narrative springs to life.Margaret DrabbleBiographyRachel Cookeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:08:42 +0100 824115 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/xciQqyy647U/apathy-for-devil-book-review Nick Kent was the leather-clad rock journalist of his age. But, says his NME colleague Julie Burchill, his memory for events is as bad as his prose. As for his personal hygiene…If someone picks up the memoir of a past acquaintance without turning first to the index to check if he (or she) is in it, then he (or she) is either a saint, a liar or Stevie Wonder. I am none of these, and was rewarded by promised appearances on pages 297-8 and 334 of this memoir by a man who was a colleague at the dear old New Musical Express in the years 1976-79. Sadly, in a literary twist on the old saw "Listeners hear no good of themselves", I am featured in one cameo as an "opportunistic firestarter" and in another as "a strange teenaged girl with a pronounced West Country twang, sullen eyes and a vibe about her that could best be described as 'Myra Hindleyesque'".As Kent was so off his bonce due to various medications of both a street and legal kind that he regularly apologised to the NME office hat stand when he bumped into it during this time, one hardly expects 20/20 recall. However, I did take particular exception to the passage: "I liked the idea of Julie Burchill coming aboard – she certainly knew how to shake things up – but the reality was often hard to stomach, particularly when one found oneself in close physical proximity to the young woman."I have many faults, but smelling is not one of them. On the contrary, it was Kent who was the stinker – literally and metaphorically – to the extent that he could single-handedly clear out a crowded lift in the King's Reach Tower where the NME had its offices. This accidental talent, so far as I could see, was surely the only reason that anyone ever sought out his skanky company.At least he comes clean (a first for him, to my knowledge) right there in para one, page one: "When you get right down to it, the human memory is a deceitful organ to have to rely on. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:08:31 +0100 824116 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/Fhrup2zjY6U/dave-eggers-zeitoun-hurricane-katrina Author, publisher and literary trendsetter: Dave Eggers is all those, and he's fast becoming the conscience of liberal America too. Here he tells how he went from 'staggering genius' to the man who gives a voice to the downtrodden and dispossessedI'm a little nervous of meeting Dave Eggers. On the way to San Francisco, where he lives and runs his groovy and influential publishing empire, McSweeney's, I consider his reputation. When Eggers published his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, he mostly refused to do interviews except by email, and then his answers were spiky and oblique, and occasionally just a joke. He once railed against a journalist who he said had quoted him off the record with a fury that seems to me to have been just a touch disproportionate. Sure enough, before I leave London, I get an email from an assistant warning me that he will only talk about his new book, Zeitoun, and that it will drive him nuts if I ask him "what he had for dinner the night before last" (I reply that I have never asked anyone, ever, what they had for dinner the night before last and I certainly would not dream of flying half way round the world to pose such a question). As for his human rights work and many charitable projects, these things are so intimidating. Faced with such abundant goodness, I furtively examine my conscience and find it wanting.As it turns out, though, I am wrong. Entirely wrong. Granted, he is not big on self-revelation. But he is neither difficult nor mean. McSweeney's is in the Mission district of the city: it's like Camden only with wider roads and more second-hand bookshops. When I arrive, I'm led past the desks of half-a-dozen bright young things and into his office, which is small and gloomy and womb-like. Time to break the ice. You hate doing interviews, don't you? I ask, sitting down (there is no desk; he works on an old sofa). "No, not at all," he says. ... Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:08:07 +0100 824118 http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/madreads/index.php/2010/03/06/the-isolates/ I am often in the market for an author I haven’t read before and to find one I sometimes troll the debut author lists in some of the journals.  That’s how I came across Asta in the Wings by Jan Elizabeth Watson. It starts in Maine, in the 1970s, where 7-year-old Asta and her 9-year-old brother Orion live with their mother, Loretta, in an isolated house in the country.  Loretta seems delightful at first; she acts out movies with the children, regales them with family stories, shares her Big Movie Book with them.  The kids don’t go to school, and do their lessons at home.   But it doesn’t take long to realize that something is pretty wrong in the household. Asta narrates the story.  As she describes her daily life, you gradually come to realize that Loretta’s crazy.  Asta and Orion believe everything Loretta tells them so they never venture outside in order to protect themselves from the plague out there and the dead bodies piled up on the side of the road.  Loretta locks them in the house when she goes to work and they entertain themselves with TV, their games, and for meals, choose from unlabeled cans of food.  They are used to, and like, the feeling of hunger as it is a sign that their bodies are keeping them healthy.  But Asta’s optimism doesn’t hide from the reader the fact that Orion is getting very ill, maybe even starving. Then one night, Loretta doesn’t come home.  The next morning the kids leave the house, in their mother’s boots and coats as they don’t have their own, to look for her.  They know so very little of the outside world, it’s amazing they manage.  Asta helps herself to some sweets in a store they come across and gets kicked out.  Eventually they get on a school bus, where a sympathetic driver figures out what’s going on and gets the police involved. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:18:29 +0100 824156 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33072 Cause for Concern: National Study Shows Reverse in Decade-Long Declines in Teen Abuse of Drugs and Alcohol Source: Partnership for a Drug-Free America After a decade of consistent declines in teen drug abuse, a new national study released today by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America® and MetLife Foundation points to marked upswings in use of drugs that teens are likely to encounter at parties and in other social situations. According to the 2009 Partnership Attitude Tracking Study, sponsored by MetLife Foundation, the number of teens in grades 9-12 that used alcohol in the past month has grown by 11 percent, (from 35 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2009), past year Ecstasy use shows a 67 percent increase (from 6 percent in 2008 to 10 percent in 2009) and past year marijuana use shows a 19 percent increase (from 32 percent in 2008 to 38 percent in 2009). The PATS data mark a reverse in the remarkable, sustained declines in several drugs of abuse among teens: methamphetamine (meth) was down by over 60 percent and past month alcohol and marijuana use had decreased a full 30 percent over the past decade from 1998-2008. Underlying these increases are negative shifts in teen attitudes, particularly a growing belief in the benefits and acceptability of drug use and drinking. The percentage of teens agreeing that “being high feels good” increased significantly from 45 percent in 2008 to 51 percent in 2009, while those saying that “friends usually get high at parties” increased from 69 percent to 75 percent over the same time period. The Partnership/ MetLife Foundation Attitude Tracking Study (PATS) also found a significant drop in the number of teens agreeing strongly that they “don’t want to hang around drug users” – from 35 percent in 2008 to 30 percent in 2009. + Full Report (Source: Docuticker) Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:44:30 +0100 824141 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=33057 Juveniles in Residential Placement, 1997–2008 (PDF; 146 KB) Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (USDoJ) The number of juvenile offenders in residential placement in publicly and privately operated juvenile facilities has declined steadily since 2000. In 2008, fewer than 81,000 juvenile offend- ers were housed. This is the fewest juvenile offenders counted in a national census of juvenile facilities since 1993, when the tally was slightly less than 79,000. (Source: Docuticker) Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:36:34 +0100 824145 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=32766 Youth Deaths: The Reality Behind the ‘Knife Crime’ Debate (PDF; 253 KB) Source: Insitute of Race Relations The media portrayal of, and government response to, the ‘knife crime epidemic’ created a distorted image of the reality on the ground, according to new research undertaken by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR). The evidence suggests that, whilst some marginalised young people are carrying knives, the image of violently nihilist, feral, often Black or ethnic minority teen gangs armed with knives and guns is, at best, only a snapshot of the grim reality for a very small minority. At worst, this kind of imagery, replicated unchallenged and unqualified on our screens and from the dispatch box, leads to a punitive and misguided political climate which may ultimately fail the very teenagers it aims to reach. Here, the IRR publishes a summary of its key findings for 2008. It aims to provide a description of who was killed and by whom and in what circumstances – a factual description which was largely missing from much media and political evaluation at the time. (Source: Docuticker) Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:15:41 +0100 824147 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2010/03/06/reference-question-of-the-week-22810 I only got involved with this towards the end, but in plenty of time for the punch line. A woman called in to reserve a meeting room for later that day, and during the process, apparently she asked: Can the ceilings of any of your meeting rooms be raised? I didn’t hear about this until the next day, but it should have been a tip-off that trouble lay ahead. However, she was told there was an available room, and she would need to fill out our online reservation form to reserve it. That night the woman came in with her group, which is when I got involved. It turns out she never did actually reserve a room, but just showed up expecting one. All our rooms were in use by then, so after much scrambling around trying to find an available space, I ended up dividing our large meeting room with the movable wall - then I went back downstairs to the Reference Desk feeling satisfied about accommodating a patron’s request. About ten minutes later, the Children’s Librarian came down to see me. Our Children’s Room is right next to the meeting room, so she can often hear what’s going on in there, even at moderate noise levels. I thought she was going to commiserate about our online room booking system or not having enough meeting space to meet community demand, but instead she asked: Did you tell that group they could use a catapult? Ha. Apparently, this group was a school group, and for a science project they built and are experimenting with a catapult. It wasn’t quiet as large as the one in the picture, but still it was too big, too loud, and too dangerous for us to let them use it in the library. I’m actually a little bit in awe of them for apparently thinking it would be perfectly okay. Now, you know I like medieval siege weapons, but perhaps this is a good rule of thumb: if the library’s ceiling is too low to do something, then that is something you cannot do in the library. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:25:47 +0100 824095 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/EFmothrmsKQ/ One of my favorite op-ed columnists is Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald. I don’t always agree with him, but like certain other columnists (Froma Harrop, Paul Krugman, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, Linda Chavez, and George Will), I always read his opinion piece. Some people are worth reading and their opinions worth considering, whereas lining the litter box is the proper place for certain other columnists (Michelle Malkin comes readily to mind) – they simply lack any pretense to intelligent conversation. (If I want to be harangued, my wife and kids can do the job expertly.) In a recent column, Pitts observed: “But objective reality does not change because you refuse to accept it. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge a wall does not change the fact that it’s a wall. And you shouldn’t have to hit it to find that out.” This made me think of the ebook war between ebookers and publishers. Each side in this war has firm positions and beliefs from which they seemingly will not bend. eBookers expect low prices, no DRM, no geographical restrictions, near-perfect editing and formatting; publishers expect high prices, DRM, and good-but-not-perfect editing and formatting. Pricing and DRM are the hot button issues (along with geographical restrictions for those ebookers living outside the United States). The reality for ebookers is that in the near term DRM is going to remain. Bang your head against that wall as often as you like, but until publishers find a way to minimize their financial gamble and until authors feel confident that ebookers will pay and not pirate, DRM will be part of ebooks. The financial stakes are simply too high for some publishers and many authors to give it up. Even the ebookers’ “friend” Amazon hasn’t been touting a non-DRM world for ebooks. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:09:57 +0100 824046 http://biblioragazzi.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/the-childrens-interactive-library-diamo-una-sbirciata/ Sembrava un progetto troppo ardito anche da immaginare (ve ne abbiamo parlato in un precedente post) invece…tutti ad Arhus? (Source: biblioragazzi) Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:56:42 +0100 824403 http://joblist.ala.org/modules/jobseeker/controller.cfm?rssjobid=14551 Librarian - Children's Services (Sno-Isle Libraries, Washington) Librarian – Children’s Services Job 7454 Closes: 3/24/2010 Full Salary Range $4092 - $5624/month, 40 hours/week, plus benefits Oak Harbor Library, WA Sno-Isle Libraries is offering an excellent career opportunity for a Librarian in Children’s Services who will plan, develop, and create programs and materials for presentation of children’s programs. Communicate with other agencies, institutions and organizations serving children in the community. Provide general readers’ advisory and reference services. Sno-Isle Libraries value diversity in its workforce. We are committed to seeking bi-lingual applicants. Go to www.sno-isle.org/employment for complete job information and required application process. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:40:02 +0100 823809 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/lfU2jWb2abA/lucy-mangan-bridget-jones For some men, and indeed some women, its success was proof that women were the marriage/baby/calorie-obsessed idiots they'd always suspectedOh say, please say, it isn't so. As I write this, the news has just broken that Hollywood studio NBC Universal and its UK subsidiary, Working Title, are moving into television production. Their main aim is to adapt for the small screen Working Title's stock of more than 90 cinema releases. Foremost among them, it is widely assumed, will be Bridget Jones, a name that acts on me as sunlight on a vampire, kryptonite on a Superman, erroneous apostrophes on Lynne Truss. It makes me want to combust, wither and rageragerage all at the same time.Just as Reagan and Thatcher ruined my childhood with the threat of imminent nuclear holocaust (I know of course now, after much detailed explanation from my loving husband, that they were actually doing the very opposite of what I feared and were instead instrumental in keeping the world safe for bankers, I mean, us), Helen Fielding and Bridget Jones ruined my 20s. The only difference between them was that my early death would now be self-inflicted rather than imposed (by cross-launched missiles). The vision of one's 30s enshrined in Bridget Jones made suicide seem not so much a viable option as a noble calling, given that the apparent alternative was to deliquesce into a puddle of desperation, neurosis and self-pity.It was, I know, meant to be a funny book. But my friends and I looked around with fear-filled eyes and ovaries at the nods of recognition and the unquestioning public embrace of her as the acceptable face of slightly-older womanhood. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:10:12 +0100 823791 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/GhiFur-3RQc/ian-mcewan-solar The novelist explains to Nicholas Wroe why he's chosen to grapple with climate change in his new book, SolarJust inside the front door of Ian McEwan's London home, the one in the shadow of the BT Tower made famous in his novel Saturday, is the obligatory recycling box full of paper, plastic and glass. "Of course we recycle," he laughs. "Who doesn't? And I'm all in favour of cutting 10% off our carbon. And of domestic solar panels. Anything that slows our consumption is useful. But ultimately I don't really think the bottle bank is going to get us out of this. And being virtuous is not going to get us out of it either. Civilisation is going to need another energy source."McEwan's own view – having been persuaded by thinkers such as Stewart Brand, and despite his own long-held suspicions of the industry – is that nuclear energy is probably our best bet in the medium term. Michael Beard, Nobel prize-winning physicist, glutton and the protagonist of McEwan's latest novel, Solar, has an even more technologically complex solution. His work in the field of artificial photosynthesis as a way of harnessing the sun's power has made him rich and famous. Beard got his Nobel for "modifying Einstein's photovoltaics", and McEwan enthusiastically explains that the bleeding-edge science in the book is real, if some way from practical application. "If you go to America the amount of ingenuity being deployed, and the private capital – until this present recession – being invested in nanotechnology and solar energy is astonishing."For McEwan science is the road not taken, and he talks slightly enviously about his geneticist son's work and training. At the age of 16 he "agonised" at school over the arts or science route. "My maths was actually pretty mediocre, but I did love science and eventually even 'got' calculus, although I always felt if I so much as sneezed I would probably lose it again. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:08:11 +0100 823792 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/_MUaNW4lwVI/trespass-rose-tremain Rose Tremain's latest novel is a cautionary tale, says Alex ClarkReaders of Rose Tremain's 11th novel who find themselves inspired to rush off to the French countryside she lovingly conjures will hardly be able to claim they haven't heard the warnings of "buyer, beware" that nestle between the vivid descriptions of brooding hilltops and babbling streams, particularly if they feel inclined to take their chequebooks with them and acquire a prime piece of real estate. In her first novel since the Orange prize-winning The Road Home, which told the story of an eastern European's journey through a bewildering and inhospitable contemporary Britain, she turns to the mountains and villages of the Cévennes to bring us a different vision of cultural collision and the experience of the outsider.The most significant outsider is Anthony Verey, a once-renowned antiques dealer from Chelsea who finds himself in the shadow of "a universal letting-go" – of fame, money, vigour and desire. Sitting in his forbiddingly elegant shop, kept permanently chilly to lengthen the life-span of "the beloveds", the collective name he bestows on the acquisitions he fears he will miss most in death, he is a man in need of escape, which obligingly arrives in the shape of his ever-dependable sister Veronica. A garden designer enjoying a late-flourishing love affair with Kitty, a mediocre watercolourist in southern France, Veronica has admitted few passions into her life aside from Susan, the horse which mitigated the miseries of her childhood, but Anthony is one of them; and when he decides that what will transform his old age is a splendid house in the Cévennes, Veronica throws herself into making his sketchy dreams a reality.Such a bond of sympathy and co-operation does not exist, however, between the narrative's mirror brother and sister. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:08:08 +0100 823793 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/Y6maNOlC-YA/loaded-guns-emily-dickinson-gordon Elaine Showalter enjoys a boldly original view of 'the poet next door'Any writer brave enough to undertake a biography of Emily Dickinson has to grapple with a century's burden of cultural baggage – numerous biographical mysteries, extreme and conflicting interpretations of her work, and her sacerdotal role as muse for other American poets.Dickinson's life story is both alarmingly uneventful and heavily weighed down with the legends of the recluse, the wraith and the virginal spinster in a white dress. Was she the victim of a secret unrequited love, revealed in her ecstatically submissive letters to an unknown, married "Master"? Was she the unhappy woman genius confined by her sex and class, "starving of passion" in "her father's garden", as William Carlos Williams wrote? Was she the lesbian who adored her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson, and unconsciously revealed her longings in "clitoral imagery"? Was her social withdrawal after the mid-1850s neurotic, or a strategic choice for her art? Why did she refuse to publish during her lifetime all but seven of her 1,789 poems?In the 20th century, Dickinson became the inspiration and muse for a generation of American women writers. Adrienne Rich wrote about her as "Vesuvius at Home". The novelists Carol Shields, in Mary Swann, and Joyce Carol Oates, in Mysteries of Winterthurn, both channelled Dickinson's voice through invented women poets. For male American poets, Dickinson has appeared as a more challenging and threatening muse, one to be conquered and seduced. Billy Collins describes the experience of entering into her poetic world as "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes": "I could plainly hear her inhale / when I undid the very top / hook-and-eye fastener of her corset / and I could her hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:06:50 +0100 823796 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/vFBriwVFK0s/hanif-kureishi-collected-stories-tayler A sense of urgency makes up for a lack of range in Hanif Kureishi's stories, says Christopher TaylerDuring the 1980s and early 90s, Hanif Kureishi's screenplays, novels and plays made him not only a famous writer but a talismanic figure to young Asian Britons and metropolitan liberals of anti-Thatcherite stamp. Like Philip Roth, with whom he was friendly, he served as a glamorously provocative pin-up to second and third-generation immigrants brought up to be unassuming and well behaved. In his screenplay for My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and his novel The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), pop music, sex and cultural self-invention were lined up against Tory England and suburban self-denial, with little doubt about which side Kureishi favoured.His novel The Black Album (1995) and the story "My Son the Fanatic", which he adapted into a movie, also tackled the confluence of Islam and identity politics. By the late 90s, though, ageing, divorce and disillusionment were increasingly becoming his stock in trade. Patrice Chéreau's film Intimacy (2001), adapted from Kureishi's writings, distils some of the key ingredients of the later, sadder work: forlorn drug-taking, affectless extra-marital sex, grimy London locations.The pieces gathered in Kureishi's enormous Collected Stories date exclusively from the later part of his career. The book reprints the collections Love in a Blue Time (1997), Midnight All Day (1999) and The Body (2002), adding only a slim volume's worth of new material. In consequence, it has a hung-over feel; in spite of the sexual charge to many of the stories, Kureishi's past as a greedy celebrant of urban transgression is mostly a rueful memory.Again and again, the characters look back on their 70s radicalism and 80s prosperity with a mixture of nostalgia, bewilderment and regret. ... Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:06:45 +0100 823798 http://www.newrambler.net/lisdom/373 Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc — LeBlanc spent a decade hanging out with two young women in the Bronx and the many people who came in and out of their lives — boyfriends, husbands, children, friends, and other family. It’s a long book, and one that took a long time to write, and one that took me a long time to read, but I am still stunned at how she managed to make me go from a sort of revulsion to a real love of these people in the course of a few hundred pages. The History of Love by Nicole Kraus — January’s book discussion book. Meh. Not a bad book in any way, just not one I got very excited about. [listen] That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo — While I love all of Russo’s books (and I’ve read most of them), I kind of keep hoping that someday he will write Straight Man again. That Old Cape Magic comes closest, as it also deals largely with academics. It’s not as funny (but few things could be), but it’s quite good, and the narrator did a decent, if not inspired, job. Not My Daughter by Barbara Delinskey — Delinskey’s novel about high school girls who form a pregnancy pact and its effects on them and their mothers (who are all best friends, too!) is just as melodramatic and terrible as you might suspect. Melodrama is my favorite indulgence, though, so it worked for me. [reread] A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L’Engle — I had forgotten, or perhaps I never knew, how very preachy L’Engle can sound at times. I was rereading bits of A Wrinkle in Time because I was thinking about using it for a set of booktalks, and I was thinking about how I always think of that book as a sort of touchstone for smart kids who grow up feeling isolated and as though no one understands them. ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:31:20 +0100 823932 http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/archives/2010/03/05/games-and-libraries-wendy-leseman-akla10.html started out playing “Just Dance” on the Wii (whoo-hoo!) Wii is a great place to start when you’re ready to learn how to use a Wii, send your 12-year old out of the house because they show you too quickly you can teach yourself to do this (really, you can) why gaming? – connect with patrons who are gamers; they love it when you show an interest in something that’s important to them; it’s good to know about gaming regardless of what type of library you’re in – promote multiple types of literacy – increase traffic – it’s fun applied for ALA’s Gaming, Learning, and Literacy grant with the Verizon Foundation got $5000, $4000 of which was spent on Wiis & DDR for each library in the school district had a few logistical problems but money from the Verizon Foundation was slow in coming, which forced some changes she also loans her equipment out to teachers also exploring having kids create games using Scratch $1000 for gaming at her school — computers, console, and board games kids have become the experts and help each other they do a family fun night at least once a year Wendy sets up DDR and Guitar Hero + Band Hero PS2s aren’t as versatile as the Wii but can still be good to get you started, especially with DDR had trouble finding games that would run on their old computers – used Civilization, a vet game, Star Wars (which is the most popular and is her only T game) gets shy and non-sports kids involved it’s fun to watch them socialize and help each other now we’re playing group Backseat Drawing — awesome! showed some books with game themes they also read a lot of guides and cheats — they do a ton of reading around gaming mentioned “Libraries Got Game” by Brian Mayer and Chris Harris and their alignment of board games with AASL’s standards (much love in the room for this) Wendy was supposed to defend the grant to the school board because they weren’t sure they wanted to accept “gaming” money, but they had ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:59:12 +0100 823912 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/03/05/penguin-publishing-the-ipad-and-the-book/ A look at some of the ideas Penguin has for reading and using books with the iPad. This post includes a 3 minute 20 second video where you can see some of the ideas in action. Source: Scholarly Kitchen See Also: First Look: How Penguin Will Reinvent Books With iPad Many of Penguin’s iPad books seem hardly to resemble “books” at all, but rather very interactive learning experiences, from its Dorling Kindersley and kids imprints – the Vampire Academy “book” is “an online community for vampire lovers” with live chat between readers, and the Paris travel guide switches to street map view when placed on a table. [Snip] “We will be embedding audio, video and streaming in to everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about. “So for the time being at least we’ll be creating a lot of our content as applications, for sale on app stores and HTML, rather than in ebooks. The definition of the book itself is up for grabs.—-John Markinson, CEO, Penguin Publishing This article includes a video. Source: paidContent.uk (Source: ResourceShelf) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:48:24 +0100 823886 http://www.lisnews.org/urban_think_orlando_now_soon_be_gone Another indie (FL) bookstore is about to close...Urban Think! Kim, from the blog Bookstore People stopped by when visiting relatives and spoke with the owner whose news was not good news. From the blog: While my nieces were destroying the children’s section (I love being the aunt and just watching them), I distracted Jim by asking how business was going. Not great. He mentioned how the locals would drop by, pick up a dog biscuit for their pooch, then recommend he carry a great book they loved and bought from Amazon. Ouch! I suggested he try the message I saw from the Capitola Book Cafe – just don’t buy ALL of your books from Amazon. Alas, even before I could post this review, the store announced it would be closing at the end of the month. Bookstore closings tend to trigger terrific sales, so stop by to say goodbye and purchase. (Source: LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:21:44 +0100 823764 http://lisnews.org/urban_think_orlando_now_soon_be_gone Another indie (FL) bookstore is about to close...Urban Think! Kim, from the blog Bookstore People stopped by when visiting relatives and spoke with the owner whose news was not good news. From the blog: While my nieces were destroying the children’s section (I love being the aunt and just watching them), I distracted Jim by asking how business was going. Not great. He mentioned how the locals would drop by, pick up a dog biscuit for their pooch, then recommend he carry a great book they loved and bought from Amazon. Ouch! I suggested he try the message I saw from the Capitola Book Cafe – just don’t buy ALL of your books from Amazon. Alas, even before I could post this review, the store announced it would be closing at the end of the month. Bookstore closings tend to trigger terrific sales, so stop by to say goodbye and purchase. (Source: LISNews.org) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:21:44 +0100 823732 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FlaJobline/~3/8tnRTiJ0dnI/summer-reading-program-coordinator.html Leduc Public Library requires a creative and enthusiastic student to organize and deliver this year’s Summer Reading Program. This position requires excellent communication and organizational skills and a passion to deliver programs that encourage children to celebrate the wonders of literacy.This temporary full-time position runs May 17h through August 27th, 35 hours per week, and reports to the Youth Services Coordinator. The bulk of the work will take place during the day Monday through Friday however some weekend or evening shifts may be required. Experience working with children and knowledge of children’s literature will be a definite asset as is enrollment in a MLIS, Library Technician, or post secondary Education program.Salary: $17.00 per hour Duties: Creation and delivery of age appropriate Summer Reading Program activities for 6-12 year olds which includes storytelling, crafts and puppetry.Coordinate summer reading performers and guestsPromotion of Summer Reading Programs (e.g., visits to schools)Supervision and coordination of any teen volunteers (ages 12-15)End of summer evaluation of all programs and activitiesContacting local businesses regarding program donations Ability to lift at least 50 lbsOther duties as assigned Resumes with references should be sent by March 19th, 2010 at 4:00 p.m. local time to:Carla FrybortLibrary DirectorLeduc Public Library#2 Alexandra ParkLeduc, ABT9E 4C4Fax: (780) 986-3462cfrybort@library.leduc.ab.caOnly those applicants that have reached the interview stage will be contacted. (Source: FLA Jobline) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:11:50 +0100 823922 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/KHnj/~3/F6AB9SQ5XUI/ Egmont will be launching 21 titles which will be priced at 80% of the pbook version. Ten titles will be available this month. Egmont says that it feels that this price structure is “fair” and that half price would be too much of a discount. Included in the release are: You’re a Bad Man Mr Gum (Andy Stanton), Just Henry (Michelle Magorian), West End theatre hit War Horse (Michael Morpurgo), and children’s classic The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams). Egmont described ebooks as the “least exciting” platform for the children’s market. More info here. Digg us. Slashdot us. Facebook us. Twitter us. Share the news. (Source: TeleRead: Bring the E-Books Home) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:30:37 +0100 823874 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/s6LBTRq39Ys/literary-feasts-for-children It seems only right that children, whose appetites are so often voracious, enjoy devouring stories full of victuals. What sticks in your mind from the food and drink in your childhood reading?Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is released today, the latest adaptation of Lewis Carroll's books. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are packed with descriptions of food: treacle wells, wine that doesn't exist, jam you can have tomorrow but never today (so you never actually get to eat it) and the Bread-and-Butterfly, which lives on nothing but weak tea with cream in. If it can't find any, it will die. ("'But that must happen very often,' Alice remarked thoughtfully. 'It always happens.'")There's much to learn from food in children's books. Starvation was all too often inevitable in Victorian society, even if your diet wasn't limited to weak tea and cream. Plus Alice needs to be more sensible. Eating cake you've just found because it says 'EAT ME'? Drinking out of a strange bottle on the grounds it's not labelled "poison"? It's hardly clever. But kids in literature are far too keen to accept treats from strangers – just look at Edmund Pevensie in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Turkish Delight is his downfall. Will he sell out his siblings for a quick sugar rush? Why, yes he will.CS Lewis filled his books with religious imagery, so one line of thought says Edmund's face-stuffing is simply a warning against temptation, a caution against being lured by the sins of the flesh. It's also an effective warning against gluttony and stranger danger. Think before you scoff and don't take sweets from people you don't know, especially if you're lost and / or have just emerged from a magic wardrobe. You might find they've cancelled Christmas. ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:20:00 +0100 823575 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/Rn9XxaiRYAo/fresh-parallel-world-fantasy Stories of other worlds adjacent to our own are perennially popular, but the latest generation are refreshingly recognisableParallel-world and portal fantasies, involving characters who step into worlds beyond, are perennially popular, especially with children. As in CS Lewis's Narnia, or Alan Garner's grittier Elidor, the young protagonists often discover that they've breached the gap in order to fulfil a prophecy, and have heroic clean-up roles to play. Subsequently, they may return home safely, or even wind up as royalty - or both. Perhaps portal fantasy goes down so well with children because the idea of being a fate-sent hero in another world contrasts pleasingly with the reality of being a homework drone and washer-up in this one. And teenagers already inhabit the parallel world of adolescence, where all the colours are brighter but the greys and blacks are quicksands of despair. But the Narnia books are falling out of favour, not only because of the Christian only-just-subtext but because of the insidious suggestion that death and sweet fruit in Aslan's country are preferable to growing up and developing an adult sexual identity. Current variations on the theme of travel between worlds seem to be moving away from chivalric escapism, encouraging the reader to see their own world newly vivid instead.China Miéville's UnLunDun, like Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, features a contiguous fantasy capital, UnLondon, alongside the everyday one. Miéville's poetic, cartographic imagination produces an uncity defended by broken brollies ("unbrellas"), a half-ghost love interest, Hemi, and a contemporary, pollutant villain – the Smog – and his UnLondon is a far cry from Neverland or bucolic Narnia. The fantasy convention he has most fun with, though, is the idea of the prophesied Chosen One (or, in UnLondon, the "Shwazzy"). Of the two 12-year-olds drawn into UnLondon, it's charismatic Zanna who's supposed to be the Shwazzy. ... Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:02 +0100 823577 http://www.takomapark.info/library/books/archives/002160.html Under a War Torn SkyL M Elliott Bronte I originally read this book for school, I went to a small Montessori school and we read books having to do with the time period we were studying, so while we learned about WWII in history class we read this book in English. This was one school book that year that I flew through. Henry Forester is in the Air Force, but when he gets gunned down deep in enemy territory he must rely on the help of others to get him home alive. This book is so sad and the story it tells so true for many of our boys caught under a war-torn sky. The writing is fast-paced and the story just flies by, you rush through it to see if he lives or dies. Since this has a guy as the main character and is a war book I would recommend this for young kids in general (10-12). (Source: Book Comments) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824503 http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/2010/03/kids-and-parents-attending-community-colleges-together.html Across the metropolitan area, enrollment at virtually every community college is at a record high. Within the surge, there is a boomlet of parents and children attending school together, experts say. The phenomenon is a convergence of two market forces: A larger-than-usual crop of recent high school graduates diverted from pricier schools by the recession, and their elders who are back in the classroom, hoping that retraining is the path to more stable and lucrative employment. Read more at: (Source: The Kept-Up Academic Librarian) Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 823608 http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/new/index.php/2010/03/04/take-the-national-financial-capability-challenge/ Help high-school students to take control of their financial futures! The U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Education have teamed up to launch the National Financial Capability Challenge for 2010, an awards program designed to engage teachers in teaching personal financial fitness, and to increase the financial knowledge of high-school aged students across the country. Encourage your high-school teachers to register for the challenge by visiting challenge.treas.gov prior to March 14th.They’ll receive access to educational materials and a toolkit to help students prepare to make smart financial decisions. An online challenge exam can be administered anytime between March 15 - April 9, and top performers from all schools will be nationally recognized. Spread the word in your community by posting a flier, and ask your teachers to participate in the Challenge! Looking for more information on personal finances for teens? Check out the Teen Finance Series, with information about savings, credit, debt, finding money for college, and more. (Source: What's New) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 22:26:40 +0100 823538 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FreakonomicsBlog/~3/evqLCzfvjic/ Each week, I've been inviting readers to submit quotations whose origins they want me to try to trace, using my book, The Yale Book of Quotations, and my more recent research. Here is the latest round. (Source: Freakonomics Blog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:30:03 +0100 823439 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lansinglibraryteen/podcast/~3/luCDdaamMBY/march-events.html Teen Tech Week: Learn, Create, Share @ Your Library: March 7-13Stop by the Teen Desk throughout the month of March to get your internet scavenger hunt. Those who complete their scavenger hunt may be eligible for a prize.Movie Night: National TreasureWednesday, March 10 @ 5 p.m.Grades 6 and upSince his childhood, Benjamin Franklin Gates has known that his is a descendant of a long line of people whose job it has been to guard a treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers. They hid clues to its where-abouts in the country's currency and on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Now, Ben has learned of a plot to steal the Declaration, and has only one option: he has to steal it himself. Even if he pulls off this monumental task, keeping the treasure safe is still going to be incredibly hard, especially since the FBI now knows of his plans. Rated PGCD CraftThursday, March 11 @ 5 p.m.Saturday, March 20 @ 5 p.m.Grades 6-12Celebrate technology by transforming it into something new. Use pieces of CDs to create picture frames, disco balls, or your own artistic mosaic.Sign-up is appreciated but not required."Off the Shelf" Book Discussion:Lemonade Mouth by Mark Peter HughesMonday, March 22 @ 5 p.m.Grades 6-12A disparate group of high school students thrown together in detention form a band to play at the school talent show and end up competing with a wildly popular local rock band.Sign-up is appreciated but not required.Reminder!The Read for a Lifetime program ends March 31st. Stop by the library once you've read four books from the list in order to get your Certificate from the State of Illinois and your chance to win a gift card. (Source: Lansing Library Teen Dept. Podcast) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:21:34 +0100 824636 http://www.cla-net.org/weblog/2010/03/2010_california.php Please visit the 2010 Summer Reading Workshop page to view this year's summer reading training workshop and find information on: setting the scene and decorating the library; programming ideas for children, teens, and adults, including storytimes, book discussions, games, crafts, environmental programming, and programming on a budget; offsite summer reading programs; teen volunteers; and planning your adult summer reading program. The workshop is divided up by topic for ease of viewing, and powerpoint presentations and handouts are also available for download. If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback on the videos, please email Natalie Cole at ncole@cla-net.org. For full information on the 2010 California Summer Reading Program, please visit http://www.cla-net.org/summer-reading. The workshop took place on November 5, 2009, at the Arthur F. Turner Community Library in West Sacramento, a branch of Yolo County Library. It was presented by CLA in partnership with the NorthNet Library System. Thank you to the members of CLA's 2010 California Summer Reading Program steering committee for preparing and presenting our workshops, and to Infopeople for hosting the videos on their server. The California Summer Reading Program is a project of the California Library Association, supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. Submitted by: Natalie Cole, PhD Programs Director California Library Association (Source: CLA Weblog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:57:19 +0100 824696 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/6fhMIHsN07Q/jack-pole-obituary Respected British expert in American history, prolific author and cricket fanaticJack Pole, who has died aged 87, was one of the most erudite and insightful of British historians of early American history, and one of the first British historians of America whose work was taken seriously by US historians. He had the courage to tackle the big ideas of American ideology – among them liberty, equality and representation. He also anticipated, in work shared with his friend Jack P Greene, the modern interest in Atlantic history. Throughout his career, he showed great intellectual independence. Because he could take a very broad view, and root it in detailed mastery of the archival sources, he compelled respect even from those who did not expect to agree with him.His intellectual method, in fact, resembled his style in the game of cricket, the other great obsession of his life. Crouched at the wicket, he would defend, if necessary, for hours, with infinite tenacity, then abruptly deliver the most elegant of off-drives or a blatant slog over the bowler's head.For 10 years until 1989, he held the Rhodes chair of American history at Oxford University and a fellowship at St Catherine's College. He succeeded in ensuring that American history should be taken seriously at Oxford, and caused waves by insisting that it should be taught only by qualified specialists. He was also one of the ringleaders in the successful move to deny an honorary degree to Margaret Thatcher, not (as Conservatives who did not know him maintained) out of snobbery, but because he considered that Thatcher had damaged British higher education.For such a careful researcher, Jack was a prolific author. His 1966 book Political Representation in England and the Origins of the American Republic first established his reputation. ... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:41:00 +0100 823398 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/GzNPiv1G53Y/barbara-bray-obituary Translator, critic, script editor and partner to Samuel BeckettBarbara Bray, who has died aged 85, was one of the most significant links between British and French literature in the 20th century. She was the principal translator and an early champion of Marguerite Duras, who was her close friend, and also translated the work of Jean Genet, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh and Alain Robbe-Grillet. As a young and influential script editor at the BBC in the 1950s, she fostered the work of many writers including Harold Pinter and, perhaps most importantly, Samuel Beckett, who became her personal and intellectual partner for more than 30 years.An identical twin, she was born into a lower-middle-class family in Maida Hill, west London, and raised in Harrow. She attended Preston Manor county grammar school, in Brent, and went to Girton College, Cambridge, where she took a first in English. She married John Bray, an Australian-born RAF pilot, after they both graduated from Cambridge. She spent three years with him teaching English in Cairo and Alexandria before returning to London and landing a job, in 1953, as script editor in the drama department of the new BBC Third Programme, one of a handful of women then in positions of responsibility there.Working under Val Gielgud, Donald McWhinnie and John Morris, she was at the spearhead of a risky enterprise to introduce the postwar British public to avant-garde 20th-century drama. She was involved in recommending, commissioning and translating work by Duras, Robert Pinget, Ugo Betti and Luigi Pirandello. Bray supported Pinter in particular, assuring him a steady flow of commissions after the failure of his London theatre debut, The Birthday Party. Pinter wrote A Slight Ache, A Night Out and The Dwarfs initially as radio commissions for her, and remained grateful to her throughout his life for this crucial early support. ... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:01:59 +0100 823399 http://www.docuticker.com/?p=32951 IRS Has $1.3 Billion for People Who Have Not Filed a 2006 Tax Return Source: Internal Revenue Service Unclaimed refunds totaling more than $1.3 billion are awaiting nearly 1.4 million people who did not file a federal income tax return for 2006, the Internal Revenue Service announced today. However, to collect the money, a return for 2006 must be filed with the IRS no later than Thursday, April 15, 2010. The IRS estimates that the median unclaimed refund for tax-year 2006 is $604. Some people may not have filed because they had too little income to require filing a tax return even though they had taxes withheld from their wages or made quarterly estimated payments. In cases where a return was not filed, the law provides most taxpayers with a three-year window of opportunity for claiming a refund. If no return is filed to claim the refund within three years, the money becomes property of the U.S. Treasury. For 2006 returns, the window closes on April 15, 2010. The law requires that the return be properly addressed, mailed and postmarked by that date. There is no penalty for filing a late return qualifying for a refund. Though back-year tax returns cannot be filed electronically, taxpayers can still speed up their refunds by choosing to have them deposited directly into a checking or savings account. The IRS reminds taxpayers seeking a 2006 refund that their checks will be held if they have not filed tax returns for 2007 or 2008. In addition, the refund will be applied to any amounts still owed to the IRS and may be used to satisfy unpaid child support or past due federal debts such as student loans. By failing to file a return, people stand to lose more than refunds of taxes withheld or paid during 2006. For example, most telephone customers, including most cell-phone users, qualify for the one-time telephone excise tax refund. ... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:10:19 +0100 823457 http://library.blog.wku.edu/2010/03/04/march-is-womens-history-month/ Pearl Carter Pace “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” observed Harvard professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.  But what about a woman who took issue with the behavior of others — for example, the rumrunners of Cumberland County?  Pearl Eagle Carter Pace, born in Tompkinsville in 1896, became the first woman in Kentucky elected to a four-year term as sheriff.  Before taking office in 1938, she had taught school, kept the books for several family businesses, and become the mother of three children.  Succeeding her husband, Stanley D. Pace, as sheriff, she declared war on the bootleggers of Cumberland County.  Although she insisted that she’d never used a gun, she was tagged with the nickname “Pistol-Packin’ Pearl.” After her husband’s death in 1940, Pace immersed herself in state Republican politics.  In 1953, President Eisenhower appointed her to the War Claims Commission; as its chairman in 1959, she became the second-highest ranking woman in the administration.  Pace’s work for numerous civic, political, business and professional organizations in both Kentucky and Washington, D.C. continued, despite failing health, until her death in 1970. Through the generosity of her family, the Kentucky Library & Museum holds a large collection of Pearl Carter Pace’s personal and professional papers.  Included are her arrest log book and other sheriff’s records, dozens of speeches, correspondence relating to her political and civic work, photos, family letters, and much more.  A finding aid for the Pearl Carter Pace Collection can be downloaded at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/dlsc_mss_fin_aid/299 Search for more women’s history resources in KenCat. (Source: Western Kentucky University Libraries Blog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:11:28 +0100 823560 http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/books/rss/~3/aqM2YLCtc38/evolutionary-psychologists-romantic-fiction Darwinian mating instincts are apparently behind prevalence of cowboys and doctors in Harlequin's titlesWhy are women attracted to books with titles such as The Texas Billionaire's Pregnant Bride and The Nurse's Brooding Boss? It's because they portray the embodiment of female desires, evolved over centuries, according to two Canadian researchers who analysed more than 15,000 Harlequin romance novels to see if they bore out evolutionary psychology.Theorising that mating instincts, developed over thousands of years, mean that women want a wealthy, fit, fertile, committed man, the researchers speculated that titles published by Harlequin – the owner of Mills & Boon – would be heavy on words such as baby, father and paternity; wealth, tycoon and billionaire; marriage, engagement and bride; and handsome, attractive and athletic.Analysing a total of 15,019 books, Anthony Cox from the Centre for Psychology and Computing in Dartmouth, Canada and Maryanne Fisher from the department of psychology at St Mary's University in Nova Scotia found that "love" was the most frequently used word in Harlequin romance novel titles (occuring 840 times), followed by "bride" (835), "baby" (696), "man" (672) and "marriage" (612). Other frequently used words included "cowboy" (314), "night" (340) and "nurse" (224). Delving deeper, into the most popular professions in the romance books, they found that "doctor" topped this count with 388 making it into titles, followed by "cowboy" (314), "nurse" (224) and "boss" (142). "Prince", "rancher", "knight", "king", "bodyguard", "sheriff", "pirate" and "midwife" all came in behind."The 20 most frequent words clearly suggest long-term commitment and reproduction are important to readers. ... Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:58:29 +0100 823401 http://www.swissarmylibrarian.net/2010/03/04/digital-natives-are-not-they-just-are Ever had one of those moments where, in a second, some random bit of information unexpectedly clicks and your world makes so much more sense? Being a librarian, my most recent example came reading the title of Bobbi Newman’s recent post, For Digital Natives There Is No Web 2.0. Yes, of course. For kids growing up with the internet of today, this is their Web 1.0 - because they’ve never known anything else. This is a total (probably long overdue) mindshift for me. My library is currently trying to figure out how to use Web 2.0 tools to reach kids in our community, and this one title changed the way I think about the task. We talk about tools kids may or may not use in their daily life, but for many kids, these tools are their daily lives. This realization actually makes our task easier, but it certainly raises the bar for how good a job we need to do. The video that prompted Bobbi’s post is below. She also points out in a subsequent post what a digital native is not. From the New Canaan High School Library (Source: herzogbr.net blog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:01:26 +0100 823341 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/3DRwCClE3Bw/canadian-library-association-announces_04.html The Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award Committee of the Canadian Library Association / Association canadienne des bibliothèques is pleased to announce the shortlist for the 2010 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator's Award. This award recognizes an illustrator of a noteworthy Canadian book, published in 2009, that appeals to children up to the age of 12 years. The winners of the Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award and Honour Books will be announced prior to the Canadian Library Association National Conference. The award will be presented at the CLA National Conference and Trade Show at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton on June 3, 2010. The finalists for the 2010 Amelia Frances Howard-Gibbon Illustrator’s Award, in alphabetical order by title, are:* Have I Got a Book for You! / Illustrated by Mélanie Watt (Kids Can Press)* The Imaginary Garden / Illustrated by Irene Luxbacher (Kids Can Press)* It's a Snap! George Eastman’s First Photograph / Illustrated by Bill Slavin (Tundra Books)* Me and You / Illustrated by Geneviève Côté (Kids Can Press)* Perfect Snow / Illustrated by Barbara Reid (North Winds Press / Scholastic Canada)* Pierre Le Poof! / Illustrated by Andrea Beck (Orca Book Publishers)* Timmerman Was Here / Illustrated by Nicolas Debon (Tundra Books)* Vanishing Habitats / Illustrated by Robert Bateman (Scholastic Canada)* When Stella Was Very, Very Small / Illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay (Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press)* You're Mean, Lily Jean / Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (North Winds Press / Scholastic Canada) (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:33:32 +0100 823280 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/iRcS/~3/pVtIDLQILgU/ali-sparkes-wins-2010-blue-peter-book.html "A tale of two cryogenically frozen children from the 1950s, brought back to life in 2009, has won the Blue Peter book of the year award. Frozen in Time was written by Ali Sparkes, who previously worked on BBC Radio 4's Home Truths. Her previous books include the Monster Makers and Shapeshifter series. Dinkin Dings and the Frightening Things, by Guy Bass, and Why Eating Bogeys is Good For You, by Mitchell Symons, also won awards. Frozen in Time won the top accolade on the special episode of Blue Peter broadcast on Wednesday, in honour of World Book Day" - BBC (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:23:26 +0100 823284 http://rabid-librarian.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-favourite-medical-disorder.html Medical librarians have to have a familiarity with various medical terms and syndromes. Quite a few of us have a fascination with the myriad types of illnesses to be found in medical science. Here's a link to my own personal favourite, a serious disorder where a parent (usually the mother) will fake or induce illnesses in her child to gain attention for herself. She is usually a model parent, the last person one might expect to harm a child. For more, follow this link: Munchhausen syndrome by proxy A danger in being a medical librarian is hypochondria. So many syndromes have fairly common symptoms that it is easy, once you read about it, to feel that it might explain your own problems. I tend to both somatatise my emotions and mildly experience hypochondria (although most of the time I've been right, rather than wrong, on what ails me). Fortunately, Munchhausen by proxy isn't something that is subject to that, really. :) (Source: The Rabid Librarian's Ravings in the Wind) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 825092 http://morriscty.blogspot.com/2010/03/feria-de-latinoamericana.html The vivid green Nano is one of the raffle prizes to be given away during our Feria Latinoamericana, March 21st, Sunday, 1-4:30PM. With a small grant from the NJ State Library, a matching grant from Usborne Books, strong support from our co-sponsors, the Morris County Office of Hispanic Affairs and assistance from the Whippany Park High School Spanish Honor Society, the Hispanic festival will offer:master guitar lesson with Darren O'Neill, professor at the John J. Cali School of Music, Montclair University (bring your instrument);ethnic dance performed by a children's troupe;bilingual story reading and free books for children;a tour of the library, in Spanish;dominoes play everywhere!We expect to also offer displays of Latin American crafts and art.Join us! (Source: @MCL) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 824809 http://westwoodchildrensdept.blogspot.com/2010/03/love-aubrey-by-suzanne-lafleur.html “It’d been a good three days: crackers and cheese for breakfast, TV; crackers and cheese for lunch, TV; crackers and cheese for dinner, TV, bed. Nothing to think about but TV and cheese. A perfect world. Then I ran out of cheese.” Like most children (if books are to be believed), Aubrey covers for her mother after she disappears. She doesn’t tell anyone that she’s all alone, she doesn’t answer the phone, and she doesn’t answer the door. When she runs out of cheese, she takes the money she got for her birthday and goes to the store, buying only the important things, like SpaghettiOs with meatballs, Cheerios, bread, some vegetables, and a pet fish. The aloneness doesn’t last long. Aubrey’s grandmother is worried and comes down to Virginia from Vermont on the train (and she hates to travel!), and when she understands that her daughter Lissie has gone off and left Aubrey alone, she takes her back to Vermont with her while she tries to find her. The story just gets better from here. Aubrey doesn’t want to give in and be happy, but Gram is too good at getting her to cooperate for her to fight it for long. Also, she becomes instant friends with the girl next-door, Bridget. Aubrey bottle up her feelings inside (this may be why she feels sick to her stomach so often) and really only lets them out in letters she writes to her younger sister’ imaginary friend. The author only gradually lets the reader in on the back story –what happened to the rest of Aubrey’s family. In the end, Aubrey has to make a difficult choice: whether to go back to Virginia with her mother, or to stay on in Vermont for a little bit longer. Review by Stacy Church (Source: book bits) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 823590 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/03/03/incarceron-the-movie/ According to Variety, Fox 2000 has purchased the film rights to Catherine Fisher’s series.  John Palermo will produce the film.  There was a bidding war for the series with at least two other studios competing for it.  I adored the book Incarceron and it does read very cinematically, so I can see it adapting with ease to the screen.  What do you think? Related articles by Zemanta The Next Harry Potter? Fox Options Fantasy Series ‘Incarceron’ (cinematical.com) Fox 2000 Wins Film Rights to Fantasy Novel ‘Incarceron’ (screenrant.com) (Source: Kids Lit) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 823517 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/03/04/legend-of-the-guardians/ Some first photos from Legend of the Guardians, the film version of Guardians of Ga’Hoole, have been released at USA Today.  The film is based on the first three books in the lengthy series.  The film will be released on September 24th, 2010. The images are simply amazing with beautiful lighting and gorgeous textures: Visit USA Today to see more. Related articles by Zemanta First Look At Zack Snyder’s Owl Movie, Legend Of The Guardians (cinemablend.com) (Source: Kids Lit) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 823516 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/03/04/i-can-help/ I Can Help by David Hyde Costello Little Duck is lost in the tall grass and is helped by Monkey.  This starts a chain of helpful actions where one animal helps the next.  Monkey is caught by a giraffe when he falls from a tree, Giraffe is helped when Gorilla bends a branch low enough, Gorilla’s splinter is pulled out by a bird.  And it continues, one after the other until the chain loops back when Little Duck helps Elephant find a cool pool of water.  Unfortunately, moments later Little Duck is once again lost in the grass, but now there are lots of animals willing to help! Very simply written in short sentences, this book clearly demonstrates how one good deed gets repaid again and again.  Costello’s art is as clear and simple as his text with illustrations filled with deep colors that are very inviting.  As the chain continues, each animal is united with a parent after they are helped.  This small touch adds to the warmth of the book.  It is also pleasant to see that each animal gives thanks for the help they receive.  Perfection for toddler or even baby storytimes, this book exudes a bright friendliness that all children will find inviting.  Appropriate for ages 1-4. Reviewed from library copy. (Source: Kids Lit) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 05:00:00 +0100 823515