Summer Reading Program

The 2005 summer reading program was a terrific success! 46 children participated, logging 533 books read and making 180 book reports. In all, Southwest Harbor merchants donated:

• 20 slices of pizza from the Maine Pizza and Sub Shop
• 13 helium balloons from Carroll Drug Store
• 26 ice cream cones from the Quietside Café
• 15 popsicles from Sawyer’s Market
• 18 cookies from the Little Notch Café
• 19 hot dogs and sodas from the Downeast House of Dogs
• 21 compasses from the Sand Castle
• 12 Jumpin’ Java “dollars”
• 36 tokens from Pirates Cove Adventure Golf

The Blueberry Jammers Dulcimer Club

This is from way back in July - Thursday the 14th to be specific - that the Blueberry Jammers Dulcimer Club performed as part of the extensive series of weekly musical storytimes and other events.

Meg & Friends

Meg's books in Minerva

Meg Lippert - Storyteller - This Thursday

7pm this Thursday (8/25) - Meg Lippert will present folktales from Liberia and talk about making her picture books.

Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages

Kate sent home with Susan the Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages which had come in for the book sale and the question was, should this go in the collection. My initial reaction was, no, if you want to go on the internet, go on the internet. Then I noticed that it was from 1999 I figured its way too old - six internet years are like six dog years. But then, as I discussed it with Susan I began to change my thinking. For someone who hasn't spent a lot of time on the internet, it could be a good introduction: a book to sit down with and see some of the stuff that's available. As to 1999, I decided to put it to the test. I chose ten random urls from the book. I decided that if seven or more were still active I would recommend that we put it in the collection.

This is how it went:

• 1. http://www.nationalgeorgraphic.com/features/97/west/
  • In Firefox, it leaves me with a blank screen
  • In IE, it get a This page cannot be found error
• 2. http://www.tfccs.com - OK
• 3. http://www.yahoo.com/Education - OK
• 4. http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/eece/reggion.html
  • Firefox: The page cannot be found
  • IE: The page cannot be found
• 5. http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/mammal.html - OK
• 6. http://www.usd.edu/anth/epa/ - OK
• 7. http://lawwww.cwru.edu/cwrulaw/faculty/milles/mailser.html
  • The page you requested cannot be found. Please use one of the following methods to locate the resource in question:
• 8. http://www.spacecamp.com/ - OK
• 9. http://www.ushmm.org/ - OK
• 10. http://www.state.wy.us/ - OK

Exactly 7 good links. In addition, there is an associated web site which looks like a good place for a family to start exploring the web.

So my recommendation is that it go in the collection.

Now the question is, should it go in the children's or adult collection?

Kate's photos on display

There's a whole passel of Kate's great photos on display at the library during August.

Tags and subject headings in traditional catalogs

Richard Sassaman sent me a pointer to Ontology is Overrated: Links, Tags, and Post-hoc Metadata. I've adopted my response to him below.

Oh, yes!

I think Clay Shirky's observations and exposition of what's going on with regard to tags and classification are the most clear and insightful that I've seen.

A great essay based on the talk is here.

If I had to point to only one technically oriented source on the topic, that would be it.

For a less technical audiance my one best pointer is this.

A possible job implication: in 10 years there will many fewer jobs for professional, trained catalogers.

Unless:

1. The flood of information continues and we need both folksonomies and profressional catalogers to stay afloat
2. Professional catalogers figure out ways to add value to folksononmies.

Entrepreneurial opportunity: A folksonomy-based cataloging system for public libraries, possibly in partnership with del.icio.us and/or Amazon.

When will the first public library be cataloged with a folksonomy to the exclusion of traditional subject headings?

Care to make book on that?