Vote for CNN Hero of the Year

This year one of CNN’s 10 nominees for its “hero of the year” award is a children’s librarian and children’s book author. Yohannes Gebregeorgis came to America as an Ethiopian political refugee, became a children’s librarian, and then returned to Ethiopia to work with children and literacy there.   School Library Journal

Go to CNN to see the other nominees and to vote.

23 Things +

I had used a number of these tools already, but I really enjoyed learning from everyone riding the ELL. I picked up new insights, new websites, and new ways of thinking about the tools. Though prizes are great fun, I really did this to be part of a learning community and to share ideas with others. And mad props to Heather for coordinating this journey! I found the time element to be challenging. There’s really no way to learn at the pace or depth I would like on work time with so many other demands. That part is frustrating, and invariably, I continue to explore much of this at home.

Some of the things I’d love to do/learn further on work time (to use for work related purposes (the following are not necessarily strictly social networking, but would feed in to it):

• Video editing
• Video game design + related programming languages
• Animation (Flash and other)
• Photoshop
• Dreamweaver
• Webpage design
• Time to practice Guitar Hero

I think there are unlimited possibilities of great things to do with a variety of tools. Del.icio.us is one I’m still exploring for library use. But I want to use it well and explore the deep web with it. Maximizing the potential of tagging in our catalog would be great. After making and editing a video, I really understand how time-consuming it is, and how difficult it is to achieve quality with certain equipment, file space, time, editing equipment, etc.  But I’m totally hooked. As for blogs, I happened upon some interesting topics about which libraries blog in addition to the staples such as books and activity blogs. I found one for parents of children, going green, reference/fun facts, nonfiction..

• Going Green Blog
• Did you Know? blog – topical, timely, and fun facts
• Mostly Nonfiction blog – books, but it’s a neat idea to focus on nonfiction, though it looks like this blog stopped a year ago

And a great new wiki: Wikia Green.

We are currently working on homework assignment wikis, and we are trying to consolidate them so we can get to them with one click/link. Right now I’m working on one for Chute assignments. I started one a while back for YA readalikes, and abandoned it for a bit, but went back to because it was getting a lot of hits. Now several other colleagues have joined.

Tools are terrific, and the amount to explore is exciting and mind-boggling.

Though at times I feel inundated with “noise.” There is just so much out there. After wading through my google reader, frequently I just want to curl up with a very, very good book, get to know it very well, revisit it every so often on a hammock under a favorite tree with no outlets in the near vicinity. Add my dog, family, friends, some very good wine, homemade butternut squash soup, string instruments…

Happy Birthday Hattie!

Moving On

This was fun. I had to resize all my pics, so that took a bit of time. But I think Animoto is really useful when you need to get something out there quickly. Arigatō Heather and LIB.

Kindle Dating Service

Do you want to check out the kindle before placing that order? Try a blind date – you can meet one at a coffee shop. Or show yours off at your favorite watering hole. To see a Kindle in your city, click here.

Thomas Hughes Public Library

I did some library time travel while in Rugby, Tennessee. As soon as we stepped inside the Thomas Hughes Library, we were transported to a library from more than a century ago. The furnishings and the 7,000 volume collection (donated to Hughes from various publishers) are original to this 1882 building. It’s a model of preservation. The books are in great shape! Apparently, there are several floors under the floor we walked on, and those have worked wonders in absorbing the moisture over the years.

Thomas Hughes established the Rugby colony in the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee in 1880. His vision of a utopian society included a cooperative, class-free society with a strong agricultural base and flavorings of English culture. He insisted on building a library which became the pride of the colony. So committed to libraries was Hughes that he helped found the Chicago Public Library in the 1870s after the great Chicago fire. CPL still has a Thomas Hughes Children’s Library.

Hughes is the author of Tom Brown’s School Days based on his experiences attending Rugby School in England. His earnings from the book largely underwrote his investment in the Rugby colony. The colony was only sustainable for about a decade and Hughes was hardly ever there to manage the day-to-day realities, but the utopian community building efforts live on.

An interesting tidbit: the first librarian, a German man, actually made house calls to collect overdue books.

Central Appalachian Region

I just returned from visiting my daughter in Tennessee. She works with ASP, an emergency home repair organization that serves the central Appalachian region. Here are some startling statistics:

In the Central Appalachian region they (ASP) serve…

• 8,500 homes lack adequate kitchens
• 9,000 homes lack complete plumbing
• Nearly half of the families have household incomes below $20,000
• One in four lives below the poverty level–more than 50,000 children, 90,000 adults, & 15,000 elderly

There are over 3,260 applications for emergency home repair each summer. ASP can manage approximately 350.

The Dog Beach

The dog beach is one of my very favorite places in Evanston. I took the picture (above) of it this morning before work.