Review: The Death of the Detective

The Death of the Detective by Mark Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

While I appreciate the author's cast of characters and lush writing style, the bleak, noir tone of this mystery is not my style.

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Review: Ira's Shakespeare Dream

Ira's Shakespeare Dream by Glenda Armand
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A welcome addition to picture book biographies, this is a finely illustrated biography of Ira Aldridge, the nineteenth-century black American actor who pursued his dream of becoming a Shakespearean actor and rose to fame on the English stage.

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Review: Another Day

Another Day by David Levithan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not a sequel to Every Day ... it is sort of a companion novel in that this is from Rhiannon's point of view. While I appreciated Levithan's interesting approach in Every Day, this book is not quite as satisfying and I think it is Rhiannon who spoils it for me. She is just so weak, pliable, and eager to bend her thoughts and behavior to Justin's will that I am irritated with her point of view! Yet, in her encounters with A, Rhiannon shows more spunk. Levithan does an excellent job of reflecting the many lives A is exposed to and Rhiannon's struggles between her loyalty to Justin and her attraction to A.

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Tesla's Attic by Neal Shusterman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An intriguing beginning for a new trilogy. After a disastrous fire that claimed the life of his mother, Nick moves to Colorado Springs with his father and brother into an old decrepit house that belonged to a great aunt. In the attic Nick finds lots of junk and broken objects that, strangely, sell like hotcakes at his yard sale. There is adventure, danger, and humor as Nick and his new friends discover the strange properties the attic objects possess and try to reclaim them before they do damage.

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Cozy Classics: Pride & Prejudice

Cozy Classics: Pride and Prejudice by Jack Wang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This series is delightful! Although questionable as board boards for babies and toddlers, the illustrations, featuring photographs of well-crafted, needle felted objects, are the highlight of this salute to classic literature. Single words are paired with an illustration on the facing page. Some work well ... "friends" is accompanied by felted, smiling depictions of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy with the first page of PRIDE & PREJUDICE visible in the background; but "mean," which depicts Mr. Darcy ignoring Elizabeth Bennett at the dance will not be understood by the very young. This would be a great little gift for teens or adults who love the novel, or a vehicle for a parent to retell the story using the words and illustrations as guideposts to the plot. Also available: MOBY DICK, WAR & PEACE,LES MISERABLES [digital version courtesy of netgalley.com]


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Cozy Classics: Moby Dick

Cozy Classics: Moby Dick by Holman Wang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The adorable illustrations, featuring well-crafted, felted creations, are the highlight of this salute to classic literature. As a board board for babies and toddlers, it is questionable. Single words are paired with an illustration on the facing page. Some work well ... "sailor" is accompanied by a felted, smiling sailor with the first page of MOBY DICK appearing in the background; but "find" appears with a sailor in the crow's nest pointing toward the distance. Some of the concepts will not be understood clearly by the very young. This would be a great little gift for teens or adults who love the novel, or a vehicle for a parent to retell the story using the words and illustrations as guideposts to the plot. [digital version courtesy of netgalley.com]

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Bookshelf video

Very Creative ... "Organizing the Bookshelf"

The Black Cat

The Black Cat by Martha Grimes

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Richard Jury is back and crossing mental swords with his nemesis, Harry, over the murder of woman at THE BLACK CAT pub. Once again, Melrose Plant is enlisted to help Jury in the investigation and the interplay of these old friends provide a touch of irony and humor amid the murder investigation.

No spoilers here . . . Grimes fans will welcome the Chief Inspector's return along with other familiar characters. I especially enjoy the return of Mungo, Harry's dog, who has his own caper in this book . . . engineering the return of a kidnapped cat to THE BLACK CAT pub.

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Handmade Journal Giveaways

Click on this: Fire and Ice is offering a giveaway of handmade journals, many inspired by favorite books.

A new season

As the leaves change and the weather cools, it is also a new season within the library.  Mr. Johnston's retirement means staff will certainly miss his steady leadership, dry humor and amusing ties, but this is also an exciting time as we welcome John Spears, a new Director who will challenge us in new directions.

In anticipation of meeting with the new Director, I am writing up a precis of the Department's programming and services.  What a pain ... and yet, it is exactly what I should be doing every few years in order to focus on where we are putting our energy!  The monthly reports or annual summary too often look at a our progress as small chunks.  It's satisfying to step back from this pointillism and take a look at the whole picture.

Discovery Wrap Up

This has been a lot of fun and I hope we can continue this process for other learning opportunities.  Although I had been using some of the elements we looked at (i.e. del.ici.ous, flickr), I discovered other tools that I will continue to use, such as pageflakes, Google Docs / Zoho, and RSS feeds. I think it would be nice to produce some podcasts that could be posted to the library website, but that is a new goal on the learning curve!

Thanks for putting this web discovery together.

Exploring Web2.0 Tools

[[I thougtht I had already posted on these last few assignments!]]
I chose the 'page starter' category and tried both Pageflakes and iGoogle.  On Pageflakes I like that you can create a series of start pages: a general start page; a news page to view headlines from various sources; a web 2.0 page that displays flickr, twitter, facebook or other apps you can choose.  On iGoogle many of the sasme widgets are available but it is a single start page.  I like the look of iGoogle and how you can pick from several colorful headers.  The LabPixies 'notes' and 'to do' lists are very useful on the iGoogle site.

Office Productivity

Applications like Zoho and Google Docs certainly simplify committee work or just sharing files with yourself.  I saved a few files on Zoho that I work on in my office, on the YS service floor, at home, and when I am at the Black Road branch.  This really helps because [1] I don't have Office 2007 at home and [2] my profile doesn't come up easily when I am at the branch.  I do wonder about the security of having files floating in cyberspace, so I'm not sure I would trust really private files to these applications.

Online Book Communities

I have an account with Goodreads and I enjoy participating in several reading groups; currently the Newbery 2010 reading group is my favorite.  Youth Services also uses LibraryThing to organize booklists accessible from our Kids Stuff tab on the library's website.

I find sites such as del.icio.us, Goodreads, and LibraryThing very useful.  Rather than compiling bookmarks on a single machine, with these sites you can access the lists and tags from any computer and easily share suggestions created by others.

Social Bookmarking

I have used both del.icio.us and Diigo to tag information from the internet.  I think I tend to use delicious more often because I'm used to tagging sites for Infozone: the JPL Youth Services account.  I like the features in Diigo that let you highlight or place sticky notes on tagged sites, pdfs or documents.

Youth Services staff have been playing around with several sites to improve access and services to our patrons.  From the Kids Stuff section on the library's website, the HOMEWORK CENTER tab lists subject tags linked to our Del.icio.us account, giving patrons suggestions on websites and articles.

RSS

RSS feeds make it convenient to stay current not only with news sources but also with favorite bloggers.  I set up my reader to include feeds from some of my favorite book review blogs, Newbery discussions, and picture book discussions.  Many of these people or organizations also post notices on Twitter so following them there as well helps me keep up to date.

Blog about Technology

The capabilities of the internet are quite awesome, but with that capability comes problems as well.  I see people trusting the internet implicitly because such an overarching presence seemingly must be authoritative when this is far from the truth.  Although more information is readily available, the problem is more information is readily available!  Inaccurate information, too many logons and passwords, increased identity theft risks ... these are a few of the drawbacks that come with increased access and speed of retrieval.  When the powergrid goes down or servers are compromised, will the new generation know how to kick it 'old school'?

To complete this assignment, I've posted comments on several others blogs.

Video Sharing

OK (maybe against my better judgment), here is a book review for y' all. 

and, I can't resist posting a link to this hilarious video: Your Life Work -- The Librarian. It is an episode of US Government film series on careers from 1946. I'm not embedding it because it is 10 minutes long!

Photosharing

Book Bench

"Jordan Rose, vice president Randolph Rose Collection, has a seat on one of the company's latest bronze sculptures . . . ."

I am intrigued by book furniture ... so often I wish I could buy the things I see on the spot! Another group on Flickr you should check out is Reading in Public.  The Marin Poetry Chair and San Luis Obispo Reading Chair are two more of my favorites.  Click here to see my Gallery.

Book Bench photo taken June 11, 2009 by ALA The American Library Association

Wikis

I like the video example of how wikis can be effective for group collaboration. This approach would assist library staff in working on projects or sharing information. I am skeptical of wikis for factual information ... as with any source, authority and currency are key ... but some of the "how to do it" wikis are very useful as a source of information.