LIBRARY LOUNGE

Wednesday night I had the opportunity to see Howard Zinn and a cast of others reading from Voices of a People’s History here in Boulder. This should be required reading for all high school students.

“Voices of a People’s History (www.peopleshistory.us) is a non-profit educational and social justice organization, founded in 2007 by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove with a group of teachers, activists, and artists. Through live performances and educational programs, Voices brings to life the extraordinary history of ordinary people in the United States who built the social movements that ended slavery and segregation, protested the genocide of Native Americans and war, advanced women’s rights, and created unions and the eight-hour work day.”

If this does not remind us that “If we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it”, I don’t know what will. Almost every single word that was written by these people, many, many years ago is still applicable today. The very same speeches and songs could be and are being written today with just a few minor changes.

Here is another new cool and free tool from Google:
Dial from any phone 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)
State Your Location and Business Type you are looking for (pizza, plumber, hardware store, etc.)
The “voice” will list your options, you choose one and then it dials it for you for free.

ALSC has added 35 websites to its Great Web Sites for Kids page, an online resource containing hundreds of links to commendable websites for children.
Great Web Sites for Kids

“It is no longer acceptable not to be deeply knowledgeable and engaged with the technology. Technology now doesn’t just support your services, it actually lets you do wholly and totally new things. We have something called Sounds Familiar on our website that’s around dialect in the different regions of the UK. We opened this up to schoolchildren to contribute and to populate the map with their own recordings, and now we’ve had a great Web 2.0 experience but, more importantly, we have a great new even better research resource.”

Dame Lynne Brindley has been the Chief Executive of the British Library since July 2000. She is the first woman and the first information professional to have held the post. Since her appointment Lynne has led a major strategic development and modernisation programme to ensure that the BL remains a relevant, innovative and accessible national institution in the 21st century. The BL provides services that underpin UK competitiveness in research and contributes to innovation and creativity in our knowledge society. The BL reaches out to a wide public, increasingly through its digital services. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours List 2008 for services to education.

Have a beta-test mind - just do it!: An interview with the British Library and SLA , January 2008, Written by Lynne Brindley and Janice Lachance, http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/use/2661

Creating a free account allows you to:
*Build a personal “My OpenCongress” page to track bills, people, issues, and more
*Become friends with other users and follow their interests
*Vote on bills you support or oppose, and leave comments explaining why
*Participate in building public knowledge about Congress!
Register Here!
Do you think you are too busy to keep track of issues of interest in Congress? I have tried to keep track of a few that were important to me and between locating information and sending off e-mails to my representatives in Congress it can be very time consuming. This new tool will change all of that!
Mindy

WOW!

“Ed Balls joined the Prime Minister, children, writers, and reading champions at 10 Downing Street today to launch the National Year of Reading. He called for every employer, school, library, college and local authority to get involved and sign up to the National Year of Reading by logging on to the National Year of Reading website at http://www.yearofreading.org.uk”
From e Gov Monitor Published Tuesday, 8 January, 2008 - 10:35

HOW COOL IS THAT - a whole County launching a Year of Reading!

You gotta go look at this….
http://producten.hema.nl/