027.8 TLA Week in Texas: LibrarySpeak 24/7

It's time for the annual conference for all the librarians in Texas to come together to learn, collaborate, and...yes, even play! Three and a half days of action packed sessions with experts on all levels about all kinds of things! Books, authors, reading incentives, everything technology-wise you can think of and everything in between that makes a library a library and THE place to be today...no matter its location or type!

Even though the event is in my hometown, I still moved downtown for the week. Why you ask? Have YOU ever driven to downtown Houston on a week day for an 8:00 a.m. anything? But more importantly, conference time has become an important time to catch up with friends and colleagues from across the state and to have lots of time and opportunities for some good old-fashioned visiting along with new fangled collaboration!

Just in my first day, I have caught up with about ten members of my Tall Texan class, had two in-depth conversations about the 2.0 library world and how to help technology and district leadership understand the importance of "open" resources, reviewed 23 Things staff development with some folks contemplating doing it in their community, and finalized details for an adminstrators' conference on the value of libraries to their schools' success! The FIRST DAY!

Made it to one formal session where two school leaders from Mesquite and Spring Branch discussed the 23 Things program in detail...and got to meet f2f some players from last summer's adventure. Lots of us got to share how we all are incorporating the 2.0 tools into our teaching and learning as we visited after the program. So much enthusiasm and excitement in the air!

I think that is one reason I enjoy conference so much. For one week at least, all things are possible...roadblocks disappear, be they the people or financial type...new ideas emerge and old ones get refreshed. All books are new and full of promise. And the day ended with the best hot-fudge sundae (complete with brownie pieces AND cherries) high up in a hotel where the view of the city lights and the lingering clouds made for a magnificent close to a very good day indeed!

Stick around this week...I have made a promise to myself to try and blog about some parts of the conference that come my way!

808.06 2.0 Book Reviews: "Rap" Your Brain Around This Idea

Want to try something new to promote books? Want to give kids an alternative to the worn-out version of a book report?

Go here to see what one of the librarians in my personal learning network has produced!
She has gone even further and issued the challenge to her students to one-up her!
Check out here what else she is doing to make the library a happening place!

Check out your "berry" cuz your visit's overdue!

741.6 WriteOnIt: Another Image Generator

Librarian Philospher passed this site on to me! Write On It.

Played around a little.

Add it to your image generator collection.
Caution: some of the frames may not be appropriate for young kids!

P.S. That's my Copper in the middle and the azaleas outside my front door in the bottom one! Springtime IS here!

688.7 Happy Birthday Barbie!

No picture of the original Barbie here...out of respect for the copyright notice on the web site stating that it is copyrighted material!

But that doesn't lessen the fact that I choose to celebrate the 50th "birthday" of an American icon. Yes, there are plenty of reasons to say otherwise...I have heard them all over the last 50 years.

I was seven, but I had to WAIT a WHOLE year until I was eight before she got to come live at my house. My birthday was only a few short weeks after hers so she was just one...and she was just a few months short of 50 when I laid her to rest...but that's a sad part of this story and this is day for happy stories!

I loved her. I didn't think she would ever be mine. My parents weren't much into "the latest and greatest" and turned deaf ears to such things as "EVERYBODY has one!"-type statements. At the time, she was hard to find and again, my parents not being super shoppers, well, it looked hopeless.

Now you have to understand...I was not a girly-girl. Anybody who knows me, can figure that pretty fast. I did lots of other things besides play dolls. I really don't remember the particular fascination with Barbie...even my mom didn't recall.

I DO remember the day however...only I didn't know at the time. All five of us were in the car driving from place to place and ended up at a drugstore ACROSS town one evening. My parents told my brothers and me to stay in the car...you could do that back in the 1950s. About 10 minutes later, they came out with a store sack...we didn't ask...we knew it would do no good. My parents were great parents...they just weren't free with information that they thought you didn't need to know!

About 3 days later, I turned 8. My party consisted of a group of 7 friends, my mom and me attending a ballet performance in our Sunday finest! It was grand and even more special because we got to stop afterwards and have ice cream sodas. That's when she was presented to me...in front of my friends...with her golden blode ponytail and back & white striped swimsuit. That began some of the greatest times I ever remember. The last time I actually remember playing with her was in the summer I was 13 with my summer friend. We would spend hours making up adventures and changing her clothes to fit the adventure!

You see, back then (at least in my circle) you had ONE doll and you shopped for clothes and accessories. We poured over the catalogs, saved our babysitting money, and put our choices on Christmas and birthday lists. And we NEVER messed with her hair!

When Barbie turned 25, I was back into the Barbie business but as the mother of two girls eventually! You bought all kinds of theme-Barbies that came with special outfits and accessories. My girls didn't have many extra outfits; they had big storage boxes of Barbies...all with messed up hair!

Things changed, but things stayed and continue to stay the same. Barbie is fun. Barbie is magic. Barbie is memories!

Happy 50th Birthday Barbie!

More stuff about Barbie and the celebration

http://barbiestyle.barbie.com/history.html

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/6300277.html Barbie trivia quiz

http://barbie.everythinggirl.com/