pafa.net

7 Ways Your Public Library Can Help You During A Bad Economy: Handy short article on the ways library services and resources can help people at ANY time, not just during a bad economy.

1. You can get pretty much any book at the library
2. Yes, we have movies
3. Kids Activities
4. Save Money and maybe your life!
5. Make new friends
6. Find a new job
7. Libraries listen to consumers!

Really interesting comments from library users listing lots of additional services that they find valuable. I loved this comment in particular:

Using my local library has been one of my resolutions for 2008 and I can report that its going great. I’ve saved a ton of money by reading books from my library vs. Amazon.com. I use Amazon.com to research and keep track of titles and when I’ve read one of those titles from the library I check the “I own it” so I can get better recommendations.

Can’t wait for the day we all have catalogs that have those sorts of “amazon” features….. someday soon?

(via LISNews)

My nephew is writing some wonderful stuff!

Interpreting the Evolution of English - Accents, dialects, slang and how we got from King James to hip-hop swagger.

Reviews of: The Prodigal Tongue, by Mark Abley and By Hook or by Crook, by David Crystal.

By Timothy Farrington, editorial staff of the New Yorker.
Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2008; Page W8

One of the things I love about traveling all over to teach is hearing about new projects and ideas from the library staff in my classes. I always come back with a bunch of scribbled notes on pieces of paper that eventually sift out of my notebooks, folders, pocketbook and who knows where in my suitcase.

So here are the notes that have surfaced from last week’s trip to CT:

• Mystery on Pine Street - Wacky, fun, stop-motion claymation style video created by kids at the Cornwall (CT) Free Library as part of their 2007 Summer Reading Program.
• Forman School Library - Short audio book teasers to encourage summer reading. The mp3 files are stored on their wikispaces account and presented with an embedded audio player.
• Writers Club - Norwalk (CT) PL - Great project had kids reading their own riddles, writings and offering book reviews. They’ve used the handy playtagger audio player that comes from del.icio.us. Nice simple way to embed an audio player on a regular web page.