the somewhat prickly and definitely private Annie Proulx is interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Proulx admits that with all the unsolicited feedback after the movie “Brokeback Mountain,” she regrets writing the story. apparently, men write her with new takes on the story, something that Proulx interprets as them thinking “that just because they are men, they understand men better than I do.” of her 3 marriages and subsequent divorces, Proulx says “You can like ‘em, but it doesn’t mean you have to sample every single one.” she sounds like a great person to sit down and have a beer with.
the committee for the Nobel Prize for literature is seriously losing some ground. with literary snobbery and possible fixed betting, it is now known that the judges assign nicknames to the nominees. sadly, such nicknames as ‘Chateaubriand’ for this year’s winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, Dorris Lessing as ‘Little Dorrit,’ and others don’t even make sense. i really can’t imagine this very highbrow group attempting to come up with catchy nicknames, how awkward….
“Draws on the lives of some of the world’s forefront writers and activists to evaluate the intimate nature of human relationships with their significant others, their work, and their inner selves, explaining the importance of balancing one’s commitments to each.
The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the Twenty-five Years After 50
Lawrence-Lightfoot, Sara
Rethinking the “third chapter” of our lives as a time of personal growth; from a Harvard professor of education.
Body Language 101: The Ultimate Guide to Knowing When People Are Lying, How They Are Feeling, What They Are Thinking, and More
Lambert, David
An illustrated primer on how to detect and interpret body cues explains how to recognize dishonesty and identify the feelings of others, in a guide that includes coverage of body language in other cultures.
Child Care Today: Getting It Right for Everyone
Leach, Penelope
“A comprehensive overview of modern child care looks at the challenges of selecting the right child care option for one’s children, its costs and who pays for it, the various options available, and the complex issues surrounding child care, while making recommendations on matching child care with the best interests of the child.
Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond
Grant, James
Why is America in financial crisis today? This book, better than any to date, explains it all-how we got here and where we are going. The how we got here is brilliantly described in a collection of pieces from Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, the Wall Street insider’s Bible. The where we are going is treated in Jim Grant’s up-to-the-minute introduction. No fan of Greenspan or Bernanke, Grant tells the unvarnished truth about America.
members of the Illinois Library Association got creative and did a fashion show Project Runway style. numerous outfits and accessories were fashioned out of library materials including newspaper bags, book covers, cds, Friends of the Library book bags, and more. check out the youtube video (a little slow in loading) and the flickr slide show. so fierce!
an out-of-court settlement was reached today between Google and the Authors Guild, as well as the Association of American Publishers, concerning Google’s Book Search which made the full-text of books available online for free including those still protected by copyright. in addition to a monetary settlement, a new licensing agreement was proposed that is in accordance with intellectual property, awaiting approval by the court. read more at the PW Dailyannouncement.
Tony Hillerman died yesterday at the age of 83 from pulmonary failure. The Los Angeles Times also includes an AP article with video. don’t forget that NoveList includes a nice, though slightly dated, author read-alikes list for Hillerman from Joyce Saricks.
I know it sounds like I’m hyperbolizing by saying how terrific all the Internet Librarian presentations were, but they truly were inspiring and filled with practical take away information. Here are my notes from Connie Crosby’s great presention on web based audio and video tools such as seesmic, ooVoo, and 12seconds tv.
Thanks to Connie for sharing her slides via Slideshare.
There is no better time to create a community of friends who can come together and execute on your brilliant idea. Cofounder of 12secondstv.
Ignite the web.
Building community
Reach out to others like you
Be part of a group
Audio creates intimacy Possibly this is one reason why podcasters may not be migrating to video so quickly As anyone who has ever listened to an audio book through headphones can speak to the intimacy of an audio experience–explains why folks become such huge fans of audio book readers.
Ideally you want to own the content so you can push out to other places. Not being able to own your content and store it on your own server is a drawback but since Talkshoe is free it allows you a chance to try this out and then explore so you can determine whether this is a workable tool for you.
Uncontrolled Vocabulary-(uses Talkshoe) a library industry talk show open to anyone to call in and discuss the issues of the day. A show such as Uncontrolled Vocabulary is a good forum to share ideas and network with other librarians. Insert Norm McDonald style note to self here..”need to lurk the Uncontrolled Vocabulary show a couple weeks and thes screw up my courage to call in. Note to self, omit the “screw up” portion of the last comment.
The hard part of Talkshoe is actually calling in to participate, strangely it’s easier to create and schedule the show. Widgets allow you to post to their blog or facebook or elsewhere. Sweet!
Conversation-allows you to read the discussion, and see the original video.
Easy to do-way easy to do. This could be very cool for libraries
Seesmic is the first of the video tools that I’ve tried out and it really is amazingly simple to create these videos. If you have friendfeed, your friends will know when you’ve posted a video and can reply to your post. I wanted to post a Seesmic video to WordPress.com, but ran into some weird compatibility issues. Ask Connie for help/advice with this.
Most videos are what you might expect, people saying, “hmmm, what can I say in 12 seconds? Hmmm, uh, well, guess that’s it for now”. However there are videos that are amazing examples of succinct video storytelling. Connie shared a video from a person who told a story about a friend who used to put sliced pickles under the windshield wipers of the cars parked in front of her apartment so that she could look out in the morning to see the puzzled looks on the faces of the people as they came out to their cars in the morning. Funny.
yes, Oprah did it again, this time picking amazon’s Kindle as one of her favorite things. i’d argue against Jeff Bezo’s comparison of the Kindle to “a cell phone” seeing as how it doesn’t make calls (how technology ignorant does he think we are?!). Jane over at “Dear Author” provides some alternative viewpoints to all the gushing. perhaps the Oprah endorsement and discount means we’ll actually see more on the streets.
So, I totally got my geek on at Internet Librarian, and learned some tremendously cool new stuff. One of the easiest to try out is Seesmic. If your laptop, or pc has a webcam and mic, you can be on seesmic and have video conversations with friends. I’ll blog about Seesmic and a bunch of other cool tools that I learned about in Connie Crosby’s amazing Instant Audio and Video presentation soon. But here’s my first little seesmic video to give you a taste of Internet Librarian.
during these trying economic times, amazon and Border’s reps are observing trends in buying: customers are turning to economic titles and cookbooks to try and understand what’s happening in the financial world. cookbooks are popular with the tightening of household budgets which translates into less eating out. fiction is on the rise with particular attention to thrillers since sometimes we all need a break. noticing any trends at the circulation or reference desks?
members of the Illinois Library Association got creative and did a fashion show Project Runway style. numerous outfits and accessories were fashioned out of library materials including newspaper bags, book covers, cds, Friends of the Library book bags, and more. check out the 
