028.9 TeenBookCon 2010: Some Reflections

Enjoyed a nice day this past Saturday volunteering for a good pal at the TeenBookCon 2010. Got to hang out with some fun librarians from the local area, folks from our favorite neighborhood bookshop and some creative and clever authors!

I had a variety of little jobs that allowed me to interact a bit with teens who love and appreciate good stories. It was fun seeing their enthusiasm for the event and their excitement over the anticipation at being in the same room with the likes of Sharon Draper. All the buzz about "how good her books are " and "I don't think I could just say one is my fav" gave my librarian's heart a good jolt of "feelin' good!" One district Librarian colleague and I checked in some of the 400 students who attended and took their lunch orders. Who knew choosing between pizza nad Chic-fi-la would be so hard a task at 10:00 in the morning? Sometimes we had to revert to reference interview techniques to get an answer and get the line moving! (KR, enjoyed working with you as always...and solving several of the world's problems as well! :-))

One of my favorite duties of the day was monitoring the authors' break room and making sure they had plenty of coffee, food, cold water, food, sodas, food, ice, and did I mention, food! And the ever-so-important chocolate, of course! (My pal and I had had a fun adventure a few days earlier wheeling a cart thru Costco's aisles picking out just the right things.) Another Librarian in my circle allowed me to move into her slot in the break-room while she went off to serve pizza to the teens (Thanks CL, I owe you in more ways than one.)

Her generosity allowed me to have that few minutes of up close and personal where, among the delightful conversations I overheard, was the discussion four authors were having, not over the finer points of book writing and publishing, but the latest and greatest in oversize scanners. It made me laugh that they were deep in discussion about technology at a book convention! But I also learned something...the scanner is important in the working with large graphic panels that they create for their novels! (The weirdest little things just fascinate me.) They assured me they were having lots of book talk too! L to R: Terry Moore, the Fillbach Brothers, and Jimmy Gownley.

AND I also got to meet a blogger (& author)that I have been following for all the years I have been messin' with blogging...and if you want the skinny on anything bookwise, you should follow Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog . You can also read her take on the day. Yes, I feel connected online with all the folks I follow, but a f2f encounter is a grand ol' cherry on top of the hot fudge sundae.

Here's the whole wonderful group of authors and info about them!

Photo credits:

Pizza Handlers - from FlickrCC by libraryink

Registration - from FlickrCC by libraryink

4 authors - by VWB

CLS - by VWB
Author group - from flickrCC by libraryink

940.5318 The Diary of Anne Frank: A Classic Retold

On April 11, 2010, Holocaust Remembrance Day, PBS and Masterpiece Theater will present a new version of the classic coming-of-age story The Diary of Anne Frank.

Click on the picture for access to a video preview.

The Great Books Foundation, a partner with WGBH, has created and gathered together all kinds of support materials to use in conjunction with this new production and the Holocaust in general.

One of the most interesting things is a VoiceThread where students, teachers, and others can go in and comment on the production and project. Voice Thread has given free access to this sample, but there is a registration involved to make comments.

Ciick HERE to go to VoiceThread.

Here is another brief preview through YouTube .

In researching this new production, I also came across the only know movie of Anne Frank herself. It is a brief few seconds of her in an upper window watching her neighbor's wedding departure. There is no sound!

And of course , with the recent death of Miep Gies (at age 100), the last survivor of the real-life members of the history-making event, there has been renewed interest in the story and will likely spill over to the new production. Here is a portion of an interview where she talks about the diary and giving it to Anne's father.

In our district, the book and the time period have always studied and discussed on several levels so we have some long-time resources that also will probably come to the forefront again with this new production. Check our "cool new"catalog for other resources.

The message remains timeless.

352.7 Census: Where's the Interesting Stuff?

I did my duty over the break. I filled out my census form.

Yep...it took me less than 10 minutes for me to fill out the 10 questions...mostly because it is just me these days.

I was asked my name, age, date of birth, race and whether I lived in an owned or rented property and how many people resided with me.

What I miss are all the interesting questions found in previous census records. Being a family historian who has poured over old census records looking for facts about my family members, I was often drawn away from my primary task looking at interesting things I found on the old sheets and interpreting the spellings and handwriting of the day! I loved it...but then I am weird that way.

One of my favorite finds was on a family sheet of mine. For many census years, folks were asked their occupations. That was always very interesting and I would eat up lots of time reading what folks did for a living. Children were often listed as "at home" or "at school." The wives were usually "keeping house" as one would expect. Imagine my delight when I read that my Irish immigrant great-great-grandmother Annie's occupation was "kept tent!" It turns out that in 1880, she and her teamster husband and four daughters (soon to be six girls!) lived in a canvas tent with wood floor near the horse barns at Ft. Concho, Texas. WOW!

I later found out that they were able to move into an abandoned officer's house because Francis, the teamster, was retired from active duty and the fort was losing population as it was beginning the process of being shut down. I have seen a replica of the house...and yes, it was an improvement over the tent, but still was a tight fit for a family of eight!

Another interesting tidbit...Francis' job as a teamster...was to move the soldiers buried in the fort cemetery to the military cemetery in San Antonio...a part of shutting the fort down. No that was not found in the census forms, but there is so much that is.

If you have never looked at an old census form, the 1880 census is available on the internet for free at several locations including ancestry.com

I bet you a dollar you will find some interesting stuff!

I am really sorry that 72 years from now when the 2010 census becomes public record, the information will be so sterile and clinical and even missing the handwriting and ink spots of the day. I can't wait to see the 1940s records (and the gems they may contain) when they become public in 2012!

Here is a video about the 2010 Census and how to fill it out.

Images:

Census form census.gov

1880 form screen shot from personal collection

538 Magnets: Apps Fun!

These are SO cute...magnets that look like I-phone/I-touch apps!
The company is currently out of stock...not surprised based on all the bloggers who are writing about them. They even come packaged like the front of a device!

At the rate I'm going, I would probably get more use out of these magnets instead of the real thing!

Images: from Jailbreak Toys

153 Thinking...on Many Levels

Take two minutes (and a few seconds) and watch this...



Now react...

741.5 Make a Wimp of Yourself!

Go here and "wimp" yourself!
Stay on the site a few extra minutes...it's fun watching yourself!

My wimpy self in action

A trailer of the movie coming out on March 19th is also available here.
Included at the site are some other fun things related to the movie and book.

027.8 Libraries: The 12 Steps to the Future

Some people make things SO easy...

and Doug Johnson, the Blue Skunk guy (and one of my virtual mentor heroes) does it AGAIN with his latest post where he lists 12 differences in the libraries of yesteryear and those of the future! Go there and read them for yourself...all signify the changing, transforming libraries that I am seeing around me.

He DID ask us to "join in" so here's my thoughts...

#9 regarding organizing by a set of rules vs organizing in ways that make sense to users. Makes the cataloger's compartment of my little heart skip a couple of beats...YES, I want to be good to my users, but I also want them to be successful in any library they go into and if we get "too" creative in our arrangements, I fear we will suffer from the grocery store syndrome (why can't grocery stores adopt similar arrangements---I hate hunting for canned mushrooms in some stores!) Please, please, think thorough creative arrangements c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y...especially if you want your users to be independent users who can go from the catalog, take the address (call#) and actually find what they want and need without the librarian being the traffic cop!

#8 I definitely want whole-school ownership of the library. It is fabulous where I see it in action. But I still want the professional librarian there...and in my dreams, I wish for more than one professional librarian, but unfortunately dreams aren't coming true in these economic times so I will be content with one (and extra adult hands please?) Unfortunately, administrators and powers-that-be, because they really don't understand our purpose and our contributions to student success, often think they can eliminate the professional librarian because "everyone" and "anybody" can hand out books and equipment. This one worries me a lot because of how it can be interpreted.

I will take his six descriptors and last statement and put them right here where you can read them quickly and easily

Change IS tough, but if we want to be around to take part in the excitement of the future, we must!

027.8 Libraries, Librarians & Kids: Outta the Blogs of Babes!

Super Star #4 paid homage to her Librarian and the excitement in her school library in a recent blog post

"The library is the BEST place in the history of the world!!!!!!!!!!!"

This young 5th grade girl likes everything in her library...the books, the technology, the contests, the freedom to explore what interests her. How lucky she is to have that kind of place to visit.

Her blog reflects her many interests in and out of the library and school. But I can tell that reading is a big part of her life because of all the attention paid to books in her blog posts.

Yes, she celebrated the addition of new MACs, but truly reflects the value of the technology she likes by U-S-I-N-G it to tell her stories! She makes Animotos like some of us make grocery lists...all the time! Sometimes to honor books, some times about her favorite animal--dogs, or her favorite sport--soccer.

I don't ever think she stops to wonder what she should be doing...she just does it because the opportunities are available to her...and her Librarian creates the atmosphere of choice.

But you know what jumped out at me...because of her Librarian (and other teachers involved in her learning,) this 5th grader has been telling her story for THREE school years...3rd, 4th and 5th in a blog! For one-half of her young school life, she has had a place to tell her stories to authentic audiences. She has had a place to come to experience all kinds of new experiences, be they thru a book or a keyboard. And she has had the support and safety net of the Librarian who wants her to reach for the stars in her path.

Super Star #4 is lucky indeed...and I for one can't wait to see what other adventures she shares with us!

028.6 Cybil Awards: Round 4

The 4th set of Cybils Awards list is out.

For those who may be unfamiliar with this book award, all of these winners have been selected by a panel of bloggers who took extensive lists of nominated titles made by blog readers! All books were published with in the last year since the previous contest so these are the latest and greatest out there!

There are various catagories for different reading tastes and different ages. The groups include fiction picture book, nonfiction picture book, easy reader, early chaper book, poetry, graphic novel, fantasy and science fiction, middle grade fiction, YA nonfiction, YA graphic novel, YA fantasy and science fiction, and YA fiction.

Here is a list of the top nominees in each of the catagories for 2009. If you are looking for new additions to your collection you may want to take a look at these choices and see if they meet your needs.

Past winners for 2008, 2007, 2006

Artwork: used wth permission by Cybils

551.5 Weather iMovie: Another Adventure with My MAC

I had an opportunity to work with iMovie and have some expert help around while I doing it. I used an idea from D#1 as inspiration for the project. It isn't the best example, but did allow me to start understanding the process. Although it is more intense than PhotoStory, it helped that I had experience with the Microsoft product.

I was able to import a series of images from several sources and add sound effects and music from iTunes to fill out the project. Nope, no voice over yet...time ran out. Yes, I know I have said I don't like to record, but this time I really was going to do some, but the unit will be over if I take anymore time with this...and I have another much more important project to create. So voice-over will have to come later.

I did save the project several ways so that it could be played in on a MAC or PC or directly from my channel on YouTube. Again for practice. Also the reason for adding it to my blog...practice, practice, practice!

One thing I did notice...when saving images, save them at the largest file possible. I usually save Flickr CC images at medium size or around 500 psi, but I noticed some of these images were blurry when I viewed it in full screen. So I will check that out on the next one I do.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you have suggestions for better productions, please share.

UPDATE: I took the YouTube version down becasue too much was cut off on the right side...and this version, an mp4 upload makes it hard to read some text...o, well...I'll do better next time!