(Source: infoesfera.com)

(Source: infoesfera.com)

(Source: infoesfera.com)

Donovan Lambright, Automation LibrarianFrom my hotel room, I report from Washington DC in this episode, to talk about the annual Computers in Libraries conference.  Among the many good sessions that have already been held is Library Website & Library Catalog: One Stop!  We’ll take a look at the Howard County Library website, which has combined a Content Management System (CMS) and OPAC into one seamless web presence.SELCOtv 16 — CIL2009 (Source: SELCO Librarian)

Over the past few weeks, our region – specifically Montana and Alaska – have experienced a series of emergency incidents. I was traveling in Eastern Montana the week of March 2-6 when my companions and I heard of the terrible natural gas explosion in downtown Bozeman. In rural states like Montana it seems that everybody knows everybody, so the impact of this type of event is felt even on the opposite side of the state. Within 24 hours there was another blast and fire in Whitehall, MT. As if that wasn’t enough, there was the fatal plane crash that occurred in Butte on Sunday, March 22nd. The very next day, a devastating fire lit up downtown Miles City.
While none of our NN/LM Network members were directly impacted by these events, the communities in which they live and work have been severely affected. I have been in contact with some of our member librarians and the feeling that is consistently expressed is “deep sadness.” Our thoughts are with our colleagues throughout Montana.
Still brewing up in Alaska is the Mt. Redoubt eruption just outside of Anchorage. As of this writing, ash is still spewing from the volcano and flights in and out of Anchorage had come to a standstill for several days. Thus far, Anchorage proper is doing all right – we are watching and ready to help if necessary.
Had any of our Network member libraries been damaged or had services disrupted by these incidents, the NN/LM Emergency Response plan could be activated. If you need support in the case of an emergency – big or small – call 1-800-DEV-ROKS (1-800-338-7657) or call your State Coordinator for Emergency Preparedness and Response to activate the response plan.
No one likes to think about what might happen in terms of disasters or emergencies, but preparedness is key. There are some simple steps medical libraries can take to assure that services can continue in the event of an incident. …

I’m beginning to need one of those little admonitory signs, the kind you see in zoos:  Please do not feed the polar bears.  Mine would read:  Please do not recommend books to the librarian.It’s not that I don’t love book recommendations (the polar bears would sympathize here), but I’ve been gobbling them up at an alarming rate.  And two of the most recent recommendations I received were for the second book in their respective series, which means that after I read them and adored them, I just had to go back and read the debuts, too.I picked up Tana French’s The Likeness because one of my colleagues said it was one of her top three books of 2008. (Source: Turning the Page…[Combined Feed])

Will Tuppence is a 9th grade boy who enjoys Monopoly, chess, skateboarding, and astronomy. He has two best friends, Mi-Su and B. T. Will also has his 5 year old sister, Tabby, who is a constant thorn in Will’s side. Yes, Will is rather typical, except that he is constantly worried about his non-existence.   When he was 5, Will learned about protons. Protons are atoms that are indestructible. Then, one day, PD1 (proton death, day 1), Will learns that a proton has died. This is inconceivable to him, that this thing could die. Did that mean he only had a matter of days, weeks, years? What is life for? The threat of everything being gone really worries Will. It doesn’t seem to both Mi-Sue or B.T. They just keep on living and enjoying life. Of course, Will does have some hopeful moments, such as when he and Mi-Su kiss under the stars, or dreaming about going down Death Hill on Black Viper (Will’s skateboard). Will continues in his end of the world funk, until something happens. At his chess tournament, Will is interrupted in his competition by a sad turn of events. This event helps him to appreciate his sister, Tabby, and to realize what a wonderful life he really does have. Will learns to embrace life with all of it’s ups and downs and learns to live in the present. This is a very humorous and poignant story about a young boy’s discoveries. Well-written, and recommended for students in grades 6-10.         (Source: Teen Scene from Wright Memorial Public Library)

It’s 1939 in Warsaw. A young orphan boy lives on the streets, skilled at stealing what he needs. He doesn’t have a name—though he thinks it might be “Stopthief.” An older boy, Uri, takes him under his wing, and gives him the name Misha. There is much Misha doesn’t understand. He’s enamored by a parade of Nazi soldiers with their shiny boots, and wants to grow up to be one. And when a young Jewish girl named Janina invites him to her birthday party, he’s shocked to see the lit birthday candles. To save the cake from being burnt, he runs out of the house with it. When the Nazis begin to move the Jews to the Warsaw ghetto, Misha watches as high walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass are built. The Jews aren’t allowed to leave, and Misha is trapped inside, too. He begins to see that the Nazis and their shiny boots aren’t to be admired, but are a source of evil. Milkweed is a captivating, compassionate novel about the loss of innocence. (Source: Teen Scene from Wright Memorial Public Library)

If you suddenly lost your memory, would you choose your same boyfriend, your same best friend, your same hobbies and clubs? Would you continue the same battles and make the same choices? When Naomi loses her memories from the last four years following a fall down the school steps while trying to catch the new and very expensive camera her Yearbook club has just purchased, this is what she’s up against. She isn’t sure why she is dating the handsome tennis team captain except that they both played tennis. She isn’t sure she even likes tennis now. She doesn’t know why she wanted to drop photography class since she’s enjoying it so much. Why did she want to spend so much time doing Yearbook? Weren’t all yearbooks basically the same anyway? And if she was supposedly not speaking with her mother, why did she want to see her so much? Written by the same author of Elsewhere, this story will make you question your choices and wish maybe you could go back and do things differently, even if the outcome is the same. Recommended for teens ages 13 and up. (Source: Teen Scene from Wright Memorial Public Library)

Russell Crowe accepted the award for Actor of our Lifetime at the Empire awards this weekend with the following verse, mashed together from a number of poems and lyrics. He read it, then left. So is he mad, or does it have literary merit?I am celebrating my love for you with a pint of beer and a new tattoo.Imagine there’s no heaven.I don’t know if you’re loving somebody.To be a poet and not know the trade, to be a lover and repel all women. Twin ironies by which great saints are made, the agonising pincer-jaws of heaven.If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue, walk with kings but not lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; yours is the earth and everything that’s in it and what’s more, you’ll be a man.It’s only words, and words are all I have, to take your breath away.The literary expert’s viewWhat’s interesting in this witty, if not entirely coherent, collage of everything from Billy Bragg to Rudyard Kipling is the actor’s evident affection for Patrick Kavanagh’s short poem, Sanctity (“To be a poet … “). Students of Crowe’s career will recall his going GBH on a BBC man, after the 2002 Baftas, when his recitation of the same poem was edited out of the broadcast. He’d intended it as a tribute to the dying actor, Richard Harris: friend and fellow hell-raiser. Harris developed his admiration for Kavanagh via a mutual acquaintance, Hilda O’Malley (the object of Kavanagh’s love poem, Raglan Road).Kavanagh, by sheer force of raw genius, became one of his nation’s great poets. But, sadly, little recognised as such. We can forgive Crowe his bad manners in accepting his award if he has contrived to divert some of his own lavish spotlight on to Kavanagh. Lennon and the Bee Gees don’t need it.PoetryRussell Croweguardian.co. …