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Written on: May 10th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
This week’s Sunday Reviews from the New York Times lead off with a number of worthy-looking books on philosophy and philosophers that I did not have the heart to read, for which, my apologies to philosopher-Delawareans in our library community. However, there were a bunch of interesting-looking titles on non-philosophical subjects which can be found at one of your Delaware libraries- see below for details and links:
Written on: May 6th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts, Informal learning, Learning Journeys
I’m filling in for Kathy to talk about an exciting new virtual exhibition we are unveiling this weekend: The Art of Journals.
The Art of Journals is inspired by Delaware painter Victor Letonoff and the link between his journaling and his artwork. Letonoff’s journals, which he calls sketchbooks, provide insight into his artistic process as well as the evolution of learning and experimentation as art is created.
Visitors to the virtual exhibition can view the journal pages where Letonoff worked out his ideas and the finished paintings that resulted. They will also be able to watch videos of Letonoff explaining his art and look at three of his sketchbooks in their entirety.
The Delaware Division of the Arts is currently sponsoring an exhibition of Letonoff’s work, Capturing the Light, on view at the Mezzanine Gallery in Wilmington at 820 N. French St. (2nd Floor) through May 27. All of the works of art featured in the virtual exhibition The Art of Journals are part of Capturing the Light, plus many more! The public can explore Letonoff’s process with The Art of Journals before or after visiting Capturing the Light to gain an understanding of how the paintings were developed, and to help potential artists understand how to develop their own artistic processes.
The Art of Journals is tied to the Delaware Libraries Learning Journeys program. Learning Journeys helps participants discover, explore, and discuss their informal lifelong learning paths. The program enables participants to unleash their inner genius through the power of tracking and building inspiration over a lifetime (i.e., journaling).
We hope you explore The Art of Journals and visit Capturing the Light!
Written on: May 5th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
Click on the links to see lists of new additions to the Delaware Library Catalog:
Written on: May 4th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
Naruto! Rave Master! Full Metal Alchemist! These titles may not mean much to a regular adult library reader, but they’re some of the hottest titles imaginable if you’re a Delaware teen library user. Manga (Japanese graphic serials) have long been wildly popular with kids, and are now increasingly recognized by educators as contributing to early literacy, especially for reluctant readers.
Manga titles such as the ones listed above are some of the most frequently circulating titles at almost every library that stocks the genre – and at Laurel Public Library EVERY title in their top 10 is a manga, which means that they’re growing an enthusiastic generation of library users who take care of their library now and will support it in the future.
Written on: May 3rd, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
Quick hits from the weekend book reviews:
Written on: April 30th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
A highlight of this year’s Delaware Library Association annual conference was a booktalk by the author Sarah Schmelling about how she came to write Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float. The book is an extended version of Schmelling’s original concept for a Facebook newsfeed version of Hamlet– originally published by McSweeney’s and then extended- and inspired in part, according to the author, by sleep deprivation following the birth of her first child.
Sarah was insistent that Ophelia is a parody of neither the works themselves or Facebook culture, nor is it a Cliff’s Notes- she defined it as a “corollary” to the original works, and hopefully will engage people to return to the originals (in the same way that Twilight has increased reading of Wuthering Heights, perhaps?) in the same way that she was- Sarah was very grateful that the project caused her to re-read or read for the first time some of the greatest work in Western literature. Writing the book made this work come alive again and rekindled her love and respect for many of these novels.
While Sarah felt that the ease of transition of most of the works given the Facebook treatment really confirmed their ongoing relevance, there were a couple of books that didn’t work out as planned. Joyce’s Ulysses was just too hard, for instance, and the a draft newsfeed version of Catcher in the Rye was simply too sad to read, so Sarah replaced it in the final book with a Facebook profile of Holden Caulfield.
Finally, Sarah is particularly excited by the enthusiasm that students and teachers have shown for these versions of so many books that are typically assigned reading in American high schools. She gets a lot of feedback from educators about how they’ve used her format as a teaching and learning tool in classroom work.
You can click here for Sarah Schmelling’s website, or here for the book’s website. More of Sarah’s writing is available here.
Written on: April 29th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts, Informal learning, Learning, Learning Journeys
…on the brain this week. First, in my continued search for Civil War journals/letters written by women, I happened upon this gem. Women’s Letters: America from the Revolutionary War to the present offers cultural insight into a population rarely mentioned in history classes when I was a girl. Taken as a whole, the shared correspondences read very much like a journal. Second, it looks like we will be presenting the Learning Journeys program this June at the Chautauqua sponsored by the Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs in the Lewes Historical Complex. That triggered a renewed search for Commonplace Books, the 17th-19th c. version of our learning journal, for our Delaware Library Catalog. Third, be on the lookout for an amazing journaling adventure with our partners, the Delaware Division of Arts next month. Intriguing, right? And last, I have a stack of 11 books waiting to be returned the library…but they need to be entered into my GoodReads journal first! Told you…journals on the brain.
Written on: April 28th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts, News
As part of the Division of Libraries’ work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, all of Delaware’s public libraries participated last year in a survey which measured the impact of access to public computing services in public libraries. From March to June 2009 400 public libraries across the United States participated in a web survey hosted on library homepages and related websites- in Delaware, more than 400 respondents answered questions about how they used free public computing services for civic engagement, economic opportunity, access to health information, and social inclusion.
The map above shows the concentration of responses across the state, and you can read the full report for Delaware at this link or in the embedded version below the fold. In brief, however, the results of the survey make a strong case in support of the value of public access computing in our public libraries- respondents found these services to be invaluable in many different aspects of their lives from finding employment, accessing egovernment services, seeking out reliable health information, and participating in civic and social relationships.
Written on: April 26th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
I noticed this morning that today is the birthday of James Audubon, America’s most famous ornithologist and naturalist. He was born 225 years ago in Haiti, and fled to the United States 18 years later. In his most famous work, he illustrated more than 1,000 American birds in a series of 435 engravings- releasing them to subscribers 5 at a time over the course of 11 years. (the plate featured above is Buteo lagopus, or the Rough Legged Hawk)
If you want to see the illustrations in all of their original size and majesty, you could do worse than take a trip to Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Every Friday, the Academy turns over a new leaf in its mammoth “double elephant folio”-sized bound collection of original plates from Audubon’s Birds of America (more than 50 inches tall!) If you go back every week for 8 1/2 years, you’ll see the full collection. Alternatively, you can check out a much more portable at 23 inches tall, “baby elephant folio” version of the book from your Delaware public library.
Written on: April 26th, 2010 by: in Blog Posts
Two highly recommended books in this Sunday’s New York Times come from the one particular side of the political aisle. No Apology, by Mitt Romney and Karl Rove’s Courage and Consequence “offer far deeper insights than have ever been available before” into the the men themselves and to some extent the future and the past of the GOP. Rove’s book offers a nuanced and ultimately respectful view of the last President’s accomplishments, along with an account of his own life and thoughts on political strategy and campaigning. Romeny’s book is not “a classic candidate-in-waiting book”, but is full of his hallmark “corny sense of humor, blunt patriotism and strait-laced formality”, as he presents a plainspoken critique of the current administration and an obvious preview of themes we will hear more of in 2012.
Other titles reviewed this week include The Heights, by Peter Hedges- a “remarkably cheerful” view of a struggling middle class family’s adaptation to suburbia, and Stuff by Randy Frost, which presents 20 years of research and case studies of compulsive hoarders.
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