Boo!

I really miss working with kids on a Hallowe’en day like today. I love Hallowe’en. I remember as a kid always having to wear a winter coat underneath my Hallowe’en costume and that I always thought it ruined the effect. This year I bet the kids will be happy and look better than ever as they don’t need their coats – the weather is gorgeous! I’ve seen a few kids in costume already – a princess, Peppie le Pew (is that the right spelling?) and I even saw a (librarian) kid at heart dressed as a subject tree! Pretty creative costume! Sometimes Hallowe’en gives me nightmares about dentists… I think it has to do with the chocolates and candy and the crazy teeth people carve into their pumpkins and wear with their Hallowe’en costumes.

In case like me you are interested in the history of Hallowe’en (Samhain, All-hallows eve, Feralia, Pomona, and All-hallowmas) you could begin your search here and if you are really keen here is a boo-ography of facts about Hallowe’en in general and a on the topic.

For those of you with some understanding of binary math and hexadecimals, I just found a funny which talks about “why Oct. 31 equals Dec. 25 in Hexadecimal” and thereby “why computer geeks celebrate Hallowe’en on Christmas”. Essentially, the punch line is: “Octal 31 has the same value as decimal 25. Both octal and October are abbreviated as oct and both December and decimal are abbreviated as dec. October 31 is Halloween and December 25 is Christmas. Ha ha! He he? Ho ho.” Umm… well, I guess about all I can say to that is…

Boo!

muah ha ha ha!

Wishing you all a ghoulish day filled with scares and treats!  Happy Hallowe’en!

Planning to start a Reading Buddies Program or have one in place already?

Karen Horsman, of CBC Radio’s Metro Morning program (which can be found at 99.1 FM on your radio) has recorded a radio segment on the success of the Reading Buddies program at the Whitby Public Library. The program will be aired in two parts.

Part 1 – November 6 at 7:20 a.m.
Karen chats with her son, “the reluctant reader”.

Part 2 November 13 at 7:20 a.m.
Karen interviews her son’s teen reading buddy, catches some of the background interactions which happen during the Reading Buddies program at the library, and interviews the library technician who runs the reading buddies program at the Whitby Public Library.

I hope you get a chance to listen in on this one!

My reading list…

At the moment I am reading Anne Enright’s novel “The Gathering”. It won the Man Booker Award and is apparently a really depressing book, — according to the NY Times, Anne Enright described her book as being “an epic about a suicide, alcoholism, sexual troubles, repression and other family dysfunctions — that readers should not expect to be cheered up by it.” I am reading this one because I recently read the Life of Pi, also a Man Booker award winner, and was wondering to myself if I might like another book which has won this award. From reading the criteria for the award and the back of the book they don’t seem to share much in common with one another though.

I just picked up copies of the following books from the library:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

This book is said to explain how the mind works through examining how we use words. Pinker was chosen in 2004 to be one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine – not sure their criteria for that and I think it would be quite interesting to take a look at what qualifies a person to make that list or if there is any real set of criteria which the Times follows for that. Pinker is a Prof. of Psychology at Harvard University. I am looking forward to this book as it strikes me that this will be a really interesting and thought provoking read.

The Unfinished Canadian: The People We Are by Andrew Cohen

My understanding is that this book examines what it means to be a Canadian by looking at our past, our politics and our institutions. I am interested to read bits and pieces of this book, but not sure if I’ll be reading it from cover to cover.

Have any of you read these books? What are you reading right now or about to bite in to? This could be a pretty interesting discussion — there are so many great books that I want to read and my list is continually growing!

word on the street…

Librarian Activist writes that a rally is being organized by citizen members of the Toronto Public Library Board and the Writers Union of Canada  and that an invitation is extended to all Toronto residents who value their public libraries as democratic, educational and cultural hubs to join us to support fair taxes.  The rally is being held at Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge Street on Sunday, October 21st from 12-1pm.

The reasons for the rally:

“The Toronto Public Library gets 91% of its funding from the City of Toronto. So as Toronto goes, so does the Library. If the Library is asked to make cuts, the only discretionary fund with enough money in it to cut from is our materials budget (books, CDs, DVDs, etc.) This could mean that the TPL purchases 350,000 fewer materials in 2008. Consequently, patrons would only find the book they are looking for in one of every three trips to the library.”

Wondering if it is a real possibility that TPL may no longer be able to purchase new books???

Check out this story published by the CBC about a Nova Scotia library system that has had its budget cut so much they can no longer afford to purchase new books.

YouTube through the eyes of a Cultural Anthropologist & undergraduate students

A couple months ago a good friend introduce me to this video by cultural anthropologist Dr. M. Wesch.

Through Stephen’s Lighthouse blog, I just found out about the latest MWesch video on students and learning today.  I enjoyed this one even more!

Also, I found a page where I can check out videos by undergraduate students like the ones below on what they learned from participating in the YouTube project. Check it out and see the project from the eyes of these students. I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I did and hope that you really learn something from them too.

If this project has peaked your interest too, check out the Mediated Cultures website to learn more and get involved too!

National Dictionary Day…

I had no idea before today that there even was a National Dictionary Day!  To celebrate, we can all open up the Oxford Language Dictionaries Online website.  They are offering free access to their site until October 21st.  BUT don’t expect to find this site to be anything at all like Google Language Tools or Babel Fish Translation.  Oxford translates a single word at a time and provides multiple meanings so that you can (hopefully) determine the context.  HOWEVER, it contains useful phrases, information about festivals and holidays as well as weblinks for teachers and people learning the language too.  Although this is all very interesting indeed, I still must admit that I would not pay for this service as I would not use it often enough.  I much prefer to access my hardcover dictionary, except for the fact that I have to lug it around with me in the event that I need it – or stop at the library or bookstore!

A Heartwarming Tale from the Reference Desk

Yesterday I helped an elderly man, who was extremely young at heart, wise and quick, to search for genealogy information on Ancestry.com library edition. I really do not like genealogy questions but I put my heart into it and really helped him out. The man was not at all comfortable using a computer on his own, but when I sat down in front of the computer and translated his request into Ancestry.com he was able to see for himself a small portion of the plethora of information available on the Internet. He sure was interested to learn. I think it helps when we can show people the content that they would like to see is available on the Internet. To make a long story short(er), I found the information he was looking for and he was so happy that he gave me a high five! Would you believe it? It truly was a memorable moment for me. I hope that he will come back to the library to take our introductory computer classes. Any ideas on how to people like this young-at-heart (elderly) man to return to the library to take computer courses?

Profanity in the Dictionary

I love random facts and so I have to share with you Tim Kelly’s recent interview with Katherine Barber, editor-in-chief of (one of my top favourites) the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. This article talks about what inspired the first edition of the C.O.D. in the 1960s, how words are added to the dictionary, and of course, how profanity is dealt with in the dictionary!

 

Update: Yippee!  Katherine Barber is on the front page of today’s copy of Whitby This Week (Oct 14 2007).  You might want to read this story if you are interested in butter tarts and other Canadianisms!

Encouraging Elderly Internet Users

As part of my job, I teach adults, especially older adults how to use computers and I know that showing these individuals how to use computers and the Internet has a tremendous effect on their lives. That is why I was so happy to read this article.

Shapira, N., Barak, A. and Gal, I. (2007). Promoting older adults’ well-being through Internet training and use. Aging & Mental Health, 11(5), 477-484.

Basically, Shapira et al. are saying that computer and Internet usage can contribute to older adults’ well-being and sense of empowerment through promoting accessible and ease of interpersonal interactions, promoting cognitive functioning and helping older adults to regain a sense of self control and independence.

How does this happen?

“Involvement in various types of online social or political activism can contribute to feelings of self-worth. Retrieval of medical or mental health information, which is of special value to many seniors, can promote self confidence and help reduce anxiety. Online shopping, banking, gaming, donating and learning are effective ways to overcome physical handicaps.” (Shapira et al. 2007, 477)

Yet another reason why we should ensure that using the computer and the Internet is a successful experience for anyone who wants to learn.

We all need to reach out and put forth our best efforts to help bridge the social digital divide, so hoping this article will motivate you too!

Library 2.0

In case you are interested, SOLS (Southern Ontario Library System) has posted a page of links on libraries and how they are using Web 2.0.  If you haven’t already looked at this, you might be interested.