I'll be beginning the online course entitled "Five Weeks to a Social Library" on Monday, Feb. 12th. It's an exciting venture, as some 40(?) librarians across the country, and some outside, in various contexts, come together to learn about social networking software and how to apply it to the library. Did I say I'm excited about this!! While I may not be able to implement much in my particular situation, being a part of developing this notion of integrating the social technologies into what we do at the library is great.
02/11/2007
01/27/2007
01/25/2007
Young Adult Literature
I attended a seminar today, "What New in Young Adult Literature". No matter how much you pay attention, there's still so many books you're unaware of. What's so exciting about YA lit is that there is, to me, a lot of innovative efforts by authors. Various formats and subjects make for a very interesting spectrum of choice, many of which would appeal to the adult reader. That line between what's adult and what's YA is blurring more and more. Here's a couple books high on my to-read list now:
Some of the books that will be of interest:
01/23/2007
The Thirteenth Tale
I really liked The Thirteenth Tale. Vida Winter, a well-known and famous author in England, decides to tell the true story of her childhood and enlists the help of a young woman, the daughter of a bookstore owner, to write it down. Up until now, Ms. Winter has created multiple versions of her life to many different reporters.
Simple, right? Well, the truth is not so simple in this case as I so wonderfully discovered. The real story is much more complicate and interesting than you might think. The author weaves a variety of elements into the story adn the characters that add depth to the story. There were some elements I think the author could have left out or not focused on quite so much, but I easily overlooked that.
A good read that you can either immerse yourself in or just read a good story.
Orwell's Luck
I'm not quite sure what the real point to this story is, or if there really has to be one. Regardless, though, it was a really engaging story. Take one injured rabbit off your front lawn, bring it into the house and nurse it back to health, and get prophetical messages in the newspaper. Strange, yes, but good. And, Orwell (the rabbit) also brings good luck in drawing scrabble pieces. Read and interpret for yourself!
01/16/2007
Jury Duty
I have grand jury duty. It runs for two months, every Tuesday. Today was the 2nd Tuesday. I'm glad I chose to do grand jury, rather than petit. This way, I know I have it and I know when. It's for two months. What we hear, of course, is secret. We had 22 cases today and as all we're doing is deciding probable cause for the cas to go to court, we go through them rather quickly. It so happens that we hear the felony cases, many of them violent. It's interesting and I've already learned quite a bit. If you get the chance, I recommend you do grand jury.
Part of what's interesting (I don't think this is the secret part) is learning more about the judicial process that a charged criminal goes through. For example, in many cases we are the third, and last, body that will decide probable cause for a case before it goes to court. Initially I was thinking that seems inefficient, but on reflection realize it's a process that ensures true cause to charge someone and take it to court.
Another interest is meeting the other jurors and getting to know them. We've been told that it used to be jurors served 3 days a week for 4 months! They really got to know each other; apparently some hold reunions(?) A downside (somewhat) is missing 8 days of work. But, you still get your normal pay for the day (minus the $11.00 a day pay from the county).
Here's the building, behind the Gay St. Bridge.
Thanks to Magnolia Jazz for the photo!
01/14/2007
01/05/2007
The Vine Reader
The Vine Reader is a podcast I'm working on at work with my students. I wanted to post this to try and upload one of the episodes, see how it works. If interested, see http://vinereader.edublogs.org for more info and to listen to other episodes.
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