- Taking Play Seriously at the Public Library with Young Video Gamers The New York Public Library recently organized an event as part of their “Game On @ The Library!” initiative to showcase their latest addition to their collection - video games. Game consoles, such as Nintendo’s Wii, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 amongst others, were put around the lobby of the library for anyone to try out the different video games on giant TV projector screens. And they hope to expand their range of games to even online PC games such as ever popular World of Warcraft. (via LISNews)
- Seven Deadly Words of Book Reviewing This is meant more for my personal note as I do a little book reviewing for MPOW. Anyway, some choice words that you should avoid using when doing your book reviews such as poignant, compelling and intriguing. (via LISNews)
- Lookybook An ebook site dedicated to children’s picture books. Definitely worth a look if you’re a children’s librarian. Currently, there are about 200+ titles and the site hopes to expand that to 1000 by the mid of the year. Reading is free and you don’t even need to register. However, registration to the site allows you to create bookshelves, read and write reviews, and email interesting books to your friends, amongst other privileges. (via LibrarianInBlack)
- The Great Library Card Collection A 15-year-old boy in Suisun City, California has amassed over 3,000 library cards from all 50 states in the US as well as 74 countries. However, he has only managed to scan in library cards from Northern California, Southern California and Western United States. Not too sure if he has one from MPOW.
- No more ginger beer as Famous Five updated The good old days of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five have been changed forever. They drink ginger beer when they meet up or eat cream buns. They have moved on to pizzas and mobile phones. Even the make-up of the Famous Five have been updated to fit the more contemporary look of our world now with a more international cast of characters. Even te storyline has been updated to the more current issues such as pirate DVD operations.
- Teachers are using comics, now called ‘graphic novels’, to captivate reluctant readers If you think graphic novels are just full of superheroes, then think again. There are now graphic novels of every subject including the complete works of Shakespeare as well as many other classics. Even in MPOW the demand for our graphic novels far out-stripped supply. But I guess we need to bring in more than just superhero-related ones. One of my personal favorites is the Bone series by Jeff Smith. I’ve got the 1000-page tome of the entire Bone series that was released a couple of years back though I’ve also got the single issue ones when it was re-published by Image Comics. (via Library Stuff)
- Bookhunter by shigabooks A webcomic about Bookhunters searching for a priceless book that was stolen from the Oakland Public Library in the year 1973. Very interesting storyline!
- Every issue of Elfquest free One of the oldest independent comics, Elfquest, has now made every issue of the comics available online. Go read it! (via Boing Boing)
- The 100 Best Last Lines from Novels (PDF file) Hmmm … interesting stuff! American Book Review has compiled a list of 100 best last lines from novels. Are there any favorites that you have that are not on the list? Leave them in the comments below. (via kottke.org)
- Boatipedia - How Do I? … Library FAQs Library FAQs by Boatwright Memorial Library uses a wiki as its content management system. Personally, I think it’s a very cool idea. Maybe I can convince some of my colleagues to look into this. (via LibrarianInBlack)
Really funny comic! So far, I’m not aware of any parent leaving their children in our libraries as punishment though I’m sure there will definitely be some that we are not aware of.
So, librarians out there, do you get kids your libraries that their parents have left them there as punishment?
- 100 books every child should read A pretty long article that has been broken up into 4 parts. This first part is just an introduction into the joys of reading, particularly when you start at an early age. The other three list the books according to the age of the child: early years, middle years and early teens.
- Kerpoof What’s this you ask? Well, this is the children’s version of Facebook without the deluge of ignoring application invites. The site is for children to communicate and collaborate with each other online. And the site only allows kids that know each other to interact online. Interestingly, the company that runs Kerpoof says that more and more schools are using it in the US. I guess teachers are also making of online tools as much as librarians in engaging kids. (via Techcrunch)
- Bookchase® Ever wanted to run your own little bookshop, but without laying out the actual capital? Well, now you can! A company in the UK has developed the world’s first board game about books. And it does look really interesting. The price is a little steep for a board game at S$90 before shipping, but I know who would be interested in playing it. (via LibrarianInBlack)
- MCL Learning 2.0 Chance upon this site when I was doing some search on Web 2.0 usage in libraries. Very interesting and I’m sure we can use some of this to encourage more staff to dip their toes into the giant pool of Web 2.0 tools and technologies. I think I’ll also be using this to prepare for my talks to teachers on the use of Web 2.0 tools for schools.
- Librarians at the gates Although this news article is about the striking library staff in Victoria, Canada, I particularly like the quote from one of the reference librarians, Peter Thompson, who says, “If you don’t like working with people, you won’t like librarianship.” How true!!! Read the article for more inspiring quotes from this same librarian. (via LISNews)
- Public Transportation Meets Public Library Very interesting concept to put book vending machines at BART stations (that’s like our MRT stations). However, the concept might not work in Singapore given that most libraries are at close proximity to the MRT stations. But maybe we can put it at, say, Changi Airport for travelers to pick up a book on their way out of the country. (via Library Stuff)
- Baghdad’s Brave Librarian A intriguing interview with Dr. Saad Eskander, director of the Iraq National Library and Archive in Baghdad. Surprisingly, he also faces the same problems as other librarians around the world of people talking loudly in the library and lost books. The additional problems he face quite regularly are sniper fire and Kotyusha rocket attack or a car bomb attack on his library’s front door. (via Library Stuff)
- Drive-through window at Decatur Library? I guess you would have already envision how a drive-through window at a library. Well, in this case, it was a car that drove through the window of the library. Thankfully, no one was hurt in this accident. (via Library Stuff)
- The Apple Store - amazing customer service story The librarian experienced a tremendous experience in terms of customer service at an Apple Store in the States when he went to buy a MacBook for Christmas. He was wondering if libraries can offer such a service. (Sidenote: Such experiences don’t happen in the Apple retailers in Singapore.) (via Tame The Web)
Apparently, someone (most probably a military officer with NATO) left a USB thumb drive in one of the public computers in a Swedish public library. In the USB thumb drive were classified military data on the Swedish deployment with NATO in Afghanistan as well as an intelligence analysis of the attempted assassination of the Lebanon’s prime minister.
Thankfully, someone turned it in to the library staff and it has been safely returned to the Swedish military. However, no one is sure if anyone else had a look at the information or copied it.
To date, I’ve yet to find any such USB thumb drive with sensitive information (and I wouldn’t want to). Then again, our public libraries don’t allow the insertion of any USB devices into our public computers. But there have been cases of stolen laptops left unattended by their owners. So, if you bring laptops and other electronic devices into the public libraries, be sure to take good care of them as there are all sorts of people loitering in the public libraries.
- A hunger for books Unless you have been leaving under a stone or kept away from all news, then you would know that Doris Lessing has been awarded the “Nobel Prize for Literature”. So, here’s her acceptance speech. Very inspiring reading.
- 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners (Flash plugin required) An online tutorial, created by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County, for their own patrons to teach them about the importance and how-to of lifelong learning and in the process, create a personal learning plan. Hmmm … an interesting way to communicate and engage with library users. (via LibrarianInBlack.net)
- Spell wears off as children ditch books Apparently, children in Scotland are going back to the PCs and consoles after the Harry Potter craze as a survey has shown. I wonder how many children in Singapore are doing the same thing. (via LISNews)
