Take a jigsaw to that book!

Forget what your elementary school librarian told you about taking care of books. In Altered Art: Techniques for Creating Altered Books, Boxes, Cards & More (745.5T212a), author Terry Taylor tells how to strengthen pages so you can affix heavy elements to them, create windows and doors inside books, shape books with an electric jigsaw, and she shares techniques for folding and cutting pages.

Here's the jigsaw in action:



Here's the finished product, a book on the mysteries of the brain:

Desperate librarians

I'm happy that my funding is more secure than funding for the public library in Weyauwega, Wisconsin. The librarians there have been forced to bare all to raise some much needed funds. I hope they raise a bundle.

All in a day's work

Well, jail wasn't too bad. They just needed my fingerprints and a photo. Both are high tech processes now, digital all the way. While my fingers were being scanned, though, I could hear two women shouting "Save Grandma! Save Grandma!" I sure hope they weren't talking about me.

From jail, I went to the WILL studios to be interviewed on the Focus 580 program. I thought it went well, and am grateful for the calm demeanor of host Jack Brighton. I was delighted to get a call from Uni's radio class asking a question about wikis. One poor caller seemed about to weep on the air as he lamented the perceived loss of libraries as they once were.

Back at the Uni Library, we've got a nice display of books up for Banned Books Week. Come and take a look.

Tomorrow I'm going to jail

Well, sort of. I'm registering there so I can volunteer for the UC Books to Prisoners project. Besides supplying inmates with specific book requests, the program is now sponsoring a lending library at the local county jail staffed by volunteers twice a week. My first stint doesn't come up until later in October, but tomorrow is training day for newbies like me. I learned about this opportunity from Senior English teacher Suzanne Linder, who has been one of the project's movers and shakers since its inception. For obvious reasons, you have to be at least 21 to volunteer at the prison, but there are other ways to help out!

What to read next

Solve this quandary by going to What Should I Read Next? to find "real readers' recommendations." Enter the name of a book or an author and see what the database comes up with. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of content yet but, hey, that's up to the reading public. A nice non-commercial alternative to Amazon's computer-generated recommendations based on buying habits. Thanks to Steve Cohen for alerting me to this site.

And speaking of community-built content, check out The Uncyclopedia, an on-the-mark parody of Wikipedia.

So old, sigh...

But still so good. The Stones are on tour again and the current issue of Rolling Stone has the scoop.

Look it up! Strangers in Paradise

I just finished the first compilation volume of Strangers in Paradise, the comic book series from Terry Moore. Besides being a totally enjoyable reading experience (warning to young 'uns - a bit on the mature side), it's the origin of one of my favorite images:



That last frame is the signature image for the Librarian Avengers website/blog. Or, Why You Should Fall On Your Knees and Worship a Librarian.

Cyberbullying - a real and present danger

Teenagers and the Internet. I've long contended that the dangers we grownups worry about (and legislate for) are NOT the dangers we actually need be so concerned with. Okay, so online pornography is easy for teens to get to. Filtering software can deal with blocking it, sort of. But is pornography the real problem here? An article ("You Wanna Take This Online?") on page 52 of the August 8 issue of Time Magazine reports on research that highlights the dangers I think we should be freaking out about big time. Clemson University researchers have been studying cyberbullying. One of the most alarming findings is that cyberbullying follows a gender pattern that differs from off-line bullying. In person, boys are the primary perpetrators as well as the victims. Online, it's a girls' nightmare world. The story has been picked up by other news outlets as well. I look forward to reading a more in-depth report.

A picture book for grownups about depression

Elizabeth Swados has it all. She writes music, plays, and books. She's a musician, director, composer, and teacher. But she also suffers from severe depression. In My Depression: A Picture Book (GN SWA), she uses art to portray the emotional whirlwind of that experience. In doing so, she has managed to produce a book about feeling bad that actually makes you feel good. Her whimsical drawings are also painfully honest about the paranoia, the fears, and the bad behaviors that result from depression. On this page, Swados describes how she sometimes alienates her friends and keeps them at a distance:

More ways to help hurricane-stricken libraries

First, there's the "Texas Two-Step for Disaster Relief," sponsored by the Texas library community. Besides accepting monetary donations, the Texas Library Association has partnered with the Texas Association of Mini Storage to accept recent issue books that are new or in good condition for shipment to the affected states at an appropriate time.

Send checks to:
Texas Library Association
3355 Bee Cave Road, Suite 401
Austin, TX 78746

Send materials to:
Braker Self Storage
ATTN: Katrina Book Drive
2607 West Braker Lane
Austin, Texas 78758

And...Friends of Mississippi Libraries, working with the Library Commission and the Mississippi Library Association, has established a fund for donations to rebuild Mississippi libraries.

Send donations to:
Rebuild Mississippi Libraries Fund
c/o AmSouth Bank
210 E. Capitol Street
Jackson, MS 3920

More database news

Or, in with the new and out with the old. Here's the summary:

1. We added the AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive, as posted last Friday.
2. We've canceled Nettrekker, which turned out to be not really suited to our needs.
3. The University Library canceled Encyclopaedia Britannica, which was incredibly expensive to license for the entire campus. So we picked it up for just the Uni community.

Here's the deal for getting into the AP archive and Britannica from home: use the same login name and password you use for NoodleBib. Don't know them? Ask!

New database of AP photos and other goodies

We've just started a subscription to the AccuNet/AP Multimedia Archive.

• Over one million primary-source photos from the 1840s to a minute ago!
• Graphics database of over 24,000 maps, graphs, charts, logos, flags, illustrations!
• Over 800,000 sound bites that date back to the 1920s!
• And, count 'em (or not), over one million primary-source news stories and headlines written by AP staffers since 1997!

I found this lovely photo of Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl and her action figure replica:


Find the archive on the list of online databases on our main page. To get into this resource from home, use the same user name and password you use to get into NoodleBib.

One book, one campus

The University Library has supplied us with three copies of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (305.569092Eh84n2002), which was selected to be the title for the first UIUC One Book, One Campus program. This is a good thing, because our original copy was stolen. We're putting one copy on reserve so it's always available. Another copy was checked out this morning. One left!

In the news

Corinne has just put up a display of books that reflect what's going on in the news. Besides Katrina, Iraq, and the Supreme Court nomination, there's the rise in oil and gas prices. So I had a chance to trot out a book that has one of the best titles I've ever run across: High and Mighty: SUVs--The World's Most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got That Way by Keith Bradsher (629.231 B729h):



Makes me proud of my little hybrid .

Google Purge

According to the always-interesting Onion, Google is embarking on a new project to destroy all information it can't index. But there's more:

"Book burning is just the beginning," said Google co-founder Larry Page. "This fall, we'll unveil Google Sound, which will record and index all the noise on Earth. Is your baby sleeping soundly? Does your high-school sweetheart still talk about you? Google will have the answers."

The best part about this is that any sound that can't be picked up by Google's global microphone network will simply be silenced by noise-cancellation machines in low-Earth orbit.

A neat solution to a lot of pesky problems, I say.

Helping Louisiana libraries

The Louisiana Library Association is now accepting donations to assist school, public, and academic library restoration efforts in the hurricane-affected areas. Mail checks payable to:

LLA-Disaster Relief
421 South 4th St.
Eunice, LA 70535

Hurricane Katrina and libraries

The American Library Association has posted a running list of news items on the state of libraries in the hurricane-affected areas. Libraries as far away as Memphis are sustaining damage. ALA President Michael Gorman has also posted a statement on the disaster.

I now have a whole new perspective on the cracking paint in this library.