May 19th, 2012
Not too shabby for being monkeyed and not being able to use my right wrist for anything really.
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May 19th, 2012
Tapas place: Library bar. A bar near the Viaduct, Auckland. Dim lit space filled with books in every nook and cranny. Large dining tables. Candle holders covered in melted candle wax. Lovely catch up with hometown friends …
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May 19th, 2012
St Barts Library: a quiet place to write in London
Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2012 · 1 Comment
I’ve been looking for a quiet place to write away from the distractions of home (think snacks, endless wifi and a wild peacock so loud I’m quite certain he’s heralding the apocalypse).
Here’s a good list of quiet places to write in London, but my doctor flatmate alerted me to a little known gem perfect for this purpose.
Hidden behind this slightly forbidding façade is a lovely medical library, complete with wood-panelled walls, padded chairs and thick wooden tables.
The only sound you’re likely to hear is the soft tissue of medical students’ heads hitting those thick folders of notes in desperation. There are lots of power points and large tables in comfortable alcoves on two floors (possibly three, I was too scared to venture into the basement).
It’s centrally located, between the St Paul’s and Barbican stations, and unless you’re a medical student there’s no wifi access, so perfect if you lack discipline like me.
Just mumble something about proliferative retinopathy if someone asks you why you’re there.
Do you have a favourite writing space?
Where: St Barts Hospital, London. Walk into the central courtyard, then follow the signs to the Robin Brook centre. The library is to the right next to the entrance.
Opening times: Monday-Friday 9am to 9pm and Saturday 1pm to 8pm during term times. Opening times vary during the holidays.
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May 16th, 2012
Gasport is a rural community located on the Erie Canal in Upstate New York, approximately 20 miles east of Niagara Falls. Formerly called “Jamesport”, its name was changed in 1826 when canal engineers noted natural gas rising from a spring.
The expansive area known as Gasport consists of portions of the town of Royalton and Hartland and its centerpoint is a small hamlet of 1,200 people. It is served by the Royalton-Hartland School District.
Natives of fame include Belva Lockwood (the first woman to appear on Presidential ballots), Charles G. Williams (US Congressman who served Wisconsin), Benjamin Vandervoort (the decorated WWII vet portrayed by John Wayne in the Longest Day), Warren Hull (serial star and host of Strike It Rich) and Abdullah (the medal-winning Olympic horse).
Its rural way of life and great people make Gasport a perfect slice of old-fashioned Americana.
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May 16th, 2012
From Collections to Connections: Turning Libraries “Inside-Out”
(2nd Call for Papers)
The “21st BOBCATSSS Conference”, will take place in Ankara, Turkey, from 23-25 January 2013.
BOBCATSSS is an annual conference series that is traditionally organized by students from European universities. At its 21st anniversary in January 2013, BOBCATSSS is organized by students from two universities, namely Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University and The Royal School of Library and Information Science.
From Collections to Connections: Turning Libraries “Inside-out” being the main theme, BOBCATSSS 2013 aims to bring together students, professors and specialists in the field of library and information science. Today, the world of libraries and librarians, more than ever, set for change. The focus is shifting towards creating connections between people and online resources, rather than static collections focused on the physical book. Part of information specialist’s role is to facilitate and help the users navigate through this jungle, and in due course find our own place in this ever changing world. In the light of these challenges BOBCATSSS 2013 will be a meeting place between the professionals of tomorrow, and researchers and teachers of today.
Keynote Speaker: Lorcan Dempsey
We are happy to announce that Lorcan Dempsey will give the opening speech at Bobcatsss 2013. Lorcan Dempsey is the originator of the LIS-term “inside-out”, which has inspired this year’s main theme. Lorcan Dempsey, Vice president and Chief Strategist at OCLC, oversees the research division and participates in planning at OCLC. He is a librarian who has worked for library and educational organizations in Ireland, England and the US. For more information please visit OCLC’s website.
Conference Theme(s)
The title of Bobcatsss 2013 is From Collections to Connections: Turning Libraries “Inside-Out”. The world of libraries and librarians is now, more than ever, set for change. What can we do as a librarian in this changing world, with the digital media and the digital platforms that can be used for e.g. communication and sharing other information? The focus is shifting towards creating connections between people and online resources, rather than static collections focused on the physical book. How will the role of the librarians develop in the future? What will happen with the classic libraries and librarians in the future? Does the physical library disappear from the physical room and only exist in the digital world?
Main topics of the Conference include (but are not limited to) the following:
Serving Society in a Digital Age
The world is changing faster than we know it and everybody has a say in the matter. People are creating and sharing online in a way never experienced before. They tweet, make Facebook updates and they want to make an impression. How can we be sure that both new and old is preserved; what is important to keep and what are the demands of the digital population?
Information Professionals as Change-Agents
Challenges demand creative thinking, entrepreneurship and innovation. One of the digital challenges for the users is to be able to navigate through the digital jungle of information. A part of being an information professional is to help people become e-literate. How do we meet the challenges in our profession and how can we influence the agenda?
Designing New Library Spaces
Today it’s not enough for a library to be able to contain collections. The space itself has to be engaging and inspiring to facilitate the users need for information, experiences and cultural inspiration. A plethora of libraries being built today are not only new icons but are also trying to reach the above mentioned goals in new ways. How can we the information professionals encourage this trend?
Mobile Information Services
We live in a world of hand held devices, and information has to be instantly accessible. More and more information is being digitized, and the volume alone is staggering. One of the tasks of the information professional is to create accessible designs, not compromising the content. Ideas can come from unlikely sources however. Are we capable of listening outside our own ranks?
Developing New Competencies
Lifelong learning is a term easy to use, but hard to master. Which competencies do we expect the users to need, and what can they expect from us? Are we as information specialists sufficiently prepared to guide them? Are we able to combine the need-to-have with the nice-to-have skills the patrons want to a satisfying degree and how do we keep improving?
Submission of Papers
In addition to papers, short papers, posters and workshops on conference topics. General papers on library and information science are also welcome. Student contributions will be given priority. Please use the template available on the Conference web site to prepare extended abstracts for your contributions and proposals, and send them to us using the Conference Management Software (conftool) at https://www.conftool.pro/bobcatsss2013
Requirements for Abstracts
An extended abstract is required. Detailed information can be provided from the template. The abstract has to be in Word format (i.e. doc or docx). There should be an author description (first name, surname, department, degree, university, city, country, e-mail), a title and a subtitle, three to six keywords. It should only contain plain text (no figures and no tables), and the extended abstract should be between 500-700 words in Times New Roman, font size 10. Please also include your references and your citations using APA style.
Important Dates
First call: March 15th 2012
Second call: May 15th 2012
Third call: July 24th 2012
Deadline for abstracts: September 24th 2012
Author’s notification: October 24th 2012
Final paper submission: November 24th 2012
Conference: January 23rd – 25th 2013
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May 13th, 2012
A place to be heard through reading, technology, learning, creating, sharing, thinking, and listening. We want you to be heard too!
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May 13th, 2012
A miraculously mad masterpiece. The marvel of The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is how the film ever got made in the first place. This onslaught against American morals in small towns, against the wartime romances of servicemen, against just about everything that the country held sacred during WWII was reckless, exaggerated, and very funny.
Preston Sturges was at his irreverent best with his screenplay and direction of this most unlikely story. Betty Hutton is Trudy Kockenlocker, a man-crazy blonde who lives with her bitchy sister Emmy (Diana Lynn) and her policeman father (William Demarest). She gets drunk during one wild, passionate night with a soldier, whom she thinks she may have married, and becomes pregnant. The soldier, who she recalls is named something like “Ratsky-Watsky,” vanishes, and since being pregnant in a small town without being married is the worst thing that can happen in a girl’s life, Trudy’s sometime bank clerk boyfriend Norval (Eddie Bracken) is tapped to be the father of her child. In one mix-up after another, Novral winds up being sought by authorities for impersonating a soldier, forgery, corrupting the morals of a minor, kidnapping and robbery. It looks bad for the young couple, and the only thing that can save them is a miracle. Of course, one does.
Every role is handled with deftness, and Sturges even gets in a few holdovers from an earlier success, The Great McGinty, by having Brian Donlevy and Akim Tamiroff stop by for a few well-chosen words. The idea of having squeaky-clean Hutton shown as a (shudder) girl with loose morals was a sensation that somehow eluded the censor’s scissors. Some say that the plot managed to escape snipping because the picture was so funny that no one could take it seriously, but the truth is that this movie kept a tight grip on reality and that’s what made it so hilarious.
The manic Hutton, always an acquired taste, here gets a hilarious part that requires the frantic energy of a whirling dervish on speed. She was never better, and the same goes for the nervous Bracken, the grouchy Demarest and the wisecracking Lynn. Sturges, having begun his uninterrupted string of comic masterpieces in 1940 with McGinty, reached a peak in satirical zaniness with this one. Remade (sort of) in 1958 as Rock-a-bye Baby.
1. Double Indemnity
2. Ivan the Terrible, Part One
3. Meet Me in St. Louis
4. To Have and Have Not
5. Laura
6. A Canterbury Tale
7. Henry V
8. THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK
9. The Woman in the Window
10. Jane Eyre
11. Going My Way
12. Hail, the Conquering Hero
13. Since You Went Away
14. National Velvet
15. Wilson
16. Gaslight
17. Arsenic and Old Lace
18. Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
19. The Uninvited
20. Murder My Sweet
21. Lifeboat
22. Mr. Skeffington
23. The Lodger
24. This Happy Breed
25. The Way Ahead
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May 10th, 2012
By Jean Webster
It’s been said that it takes a village to raise a child. In Grahamsville, it has taken a community of people to raise a new library, one that dwarfs the 1898 original, which still stands.
When my husband and I visited Grahamsville recently, we were amazed by the size and beauty of the new building. What an undertaking for this community, where we lived for 30 years. To think that a group of people in this hamlet of about 2,000 could raise enough money to build a new library boggles the mind.
The first Daniel Pierce Library was a cozy place, as old fashioned as the era in which it was built. It was always busy with people borrowing books, reading newspapers, or heading to meetings. The Boy Scouts met upstairs, and in the basement were groups like the Alchemy Club (poets who met monthly), the Monday Art Group, and others.
But the library board eventually recognized that the building was so crowded that they couldn’t order new books without disposing of old ones. A new building was needed, but how to afford it in a town and county far from prospering?
In 1898 there was a rich patron. Daniel Pierce, the founder, had grown up on nearby Thunder Hill, but he went west to make his fortune. Near the end of the 19th century, Pierce visited his hometown, and discovered that the only library was in a small storefront that also housed the funeral parlor. He donated seed money to build a public library with the condition that it be named for him. But Pierce never endowed the library, which had to be supported by the town after it was built.
The 21st century’s library construction became a community project, much like the building of a medieval cathedral in 12th century Europe. Joann Gallagher, the longtime librarian, says one person – Grahamsville resident Phil Coombe Jr. – spearheaded the plan to build the new library, to raise the needed funds, and to find workers.
Coombe, a former state corrections commissioner involved in the building of several prisons, said he wanted the town to have a library that would last 100 years.
A large portion of the money for the construction was gathered through community grants and construction grants from the New York Public Library System. Additional funds came from people in Grahamsville and the surrounding area. Smaller donors who gave more than once included Tri-Valley School children, who contributed their pennies, dimes and nickels. Ann Holt, a Grahamsville resident and retired Sullivan County Community College science professor, has donated over $300,000 and will have a room named for her in the new library.
I remember the Pumpkin Parties, which originated in the 1990s to generate money for the library. The parties still take place every October at the Fairgrounds, and are a great place for families to celebrate Halloween and the arrival of autumn. Though the proceeds aren’t huge, all go to the library.
But money wasn’t the only commodity local people gave. Just as in medieval times, Gallagher told me, local artisans, plumbers, architects, and woodworkers offered their time and expertise. In fact, anything the building needed doing was done by volunteers. Vendors even supplied materials at cost. Gallagher calls all these people “fabulously generous.”
It’s a beautiful building, constructed and furnished inside and out with style and thoughtfulness. It will be used for all those meetings and large events, maybe even weddings.
In addition, a museum dedicated to the towns of Mantela, Lackawack, Eureka, Old Neversink and Bittersweet – all flooded out during the constriction of the nearby Rondout and Neversink Reservoirs – has been added to the library building with funding from New York City. Fittingly, this Time and the Valley Museum joins the new Daniel Pierce Library at the center of town.
Tags: Daniel Pierce, Grahamsville, library, webster
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May 10th, 2012
On your computer, check if you’ve changed the place of your iTunes library. If the library isn’t in the default place anymore, Nokia Link won’t be able to get any info from it. The default place for the library is usually [local hard disk drive] > Users > [username] > My Music.
If you want to copy the music that you have in iTunes, but you don’t want to change the place of the iTunes library, then choose the folder that contains the music you want to copy instead of choosing iTunes from the programs list.
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May 7th, 2012
Access your Bucks County public library anywhere!
Visit the Bucks County public library mobile website. Search for books, DVDs, audios, videogames, and more. Find an interesting program at the library, place holds, renew items, follow our blog, download directly to your mobile device, or contact us. Use our new easy and quick search – just type in the first couple of letters of words and see the search in action while you type.
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