Guestberry

Johnny B. Goode Tonite!


Chuckberry! 

Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like a ringin' a bell.

Mr. Paranoid Conspiracy

The Battle for Reader Privacy

The real danger is the gradual erosion of individual liberties through automation, integration, and interconnection of many small, separate record-keeping systems, each of which alone may seem innocuous, even benevolent, and wholly justifiable.
-U. S. Privacy Study Commission

Stop government snoops from searching your library records. Sign this new petition now.

Last year, more than 200,000 Americans signed petitions urging Congress to restore protections for reader privacy that were eliminated by Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act. We were heard! The House of Representatives nearly prohibited bookstore and library searches under Section 215.

Section 215 is scheduled to expire on December 21, 2005, but many in Congress want to make it permanent. The book community opposes re-authorizing Section 215 unless it includes safeguards that protect the privacy of our reading records.


See also:

USA PATRIOT Act
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/usapatriotact.html

Confidentiality and Coping with Law Enforcement Inquiries: Guidelines for
the Library and its Staff
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/confidentiality.htm

The USA Patriot Act in the Library
http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/usapatriotlibrary.html

Analysis of the USA Patriot Act related to Libraries
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/issuesrelatedlinks/usapatriotactanalysis
.htm

USA Patriot Act Analyses
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/usapatriotactanalyses.htm

Freedom to Read Protection Act
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ifissues/issuesrelatedlinks/freedomreadprotection
act.htm"

Why doesn't everybody leave everybody else the hell alone?
-Jimmy Durante

The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
-Justice William O. Douglas

Happy Easter!

Lilyberries! 

Fugitive from a Chain Letter

Or, I Really am a Sucker for a Sappy Story

A farmer had some puppies he needed to sell. He painted a sign advertising the four pups, and set about nailing it to a post on the edge of his yard. As he was driving the last nail into the post, he felt a tug on his overalls. He looked down into the eyes of a little boy.

"Mister," he said, "I want to buy one of your puppies."

"Well," said the farmer, as he rubbed the sweat off the back of his neck, "these puppies come from fine parents and cost a good deal of money."

The boy dropped his head for a moment. Then reaching deep into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of change and held it up to the farmer.

"I've got thirty-nine cents. Is that enough to take a look?"

"Sure," said the farmer. And with that he let out a whistle.

"Here, Dolly!" he called. Out from the doghouse and down the ramp ran Dolly followed by four little balls of fur. The little boy pressed his face against the chain link fence. His eyes danced with delight. As the dogs made their way to the fence, the little boy noticed something else stirring inside the doghouse. Slowly another little ball appeared, this one noticeably smaller. Down the ramp it slid. Then in a somewhat awkward manner, the little pup began hobbling toward the others, doing its best to catch up...

"I want that one," the little boy said, pointing to the runt.

The farmer knelt down at the boy's side and said, "Son, you don't want that puppy. He'll never be able to run and play with you like these other dogs would."

With that the little boy stepped back from the fence, reached down, and began rolling up one leg of his trousers. In doing so, he revealed a steel brace running down both sides of his leg attaching itself to a specially made shoe. Looking back up at the farmer, he said, "You see sir, I don't run too well myself, and that puppy will need someone who understands."

With tears in his eyes, the farmer reached down and picked up the little pup. Holding it carefully he handed it to the little boy.

"How much?" asked the little boy.

"No charge," answered the farmer, "There's no charge for love."


-Author Unknown (to me) -Ed.

Out-of-Context Funnies!

I Guess Ya Really Had Ta Be There!


...insert probing joke here...


Thank You! Thank you very much. We'll be here all week. You've been a great audience and don't forget to tip your waitresses.

Happy Birthdayberry!

Celebrating a full month of global potential!

And about six days of fulfilling it.


Yum! 

Artsy bookmarks & I ain't Lion!

Here's a great kid's contest!



King o' the Beastsberry 

I thought this bookmark design contest was a great way to get kids involved!

Jordan Ledbetter, Kindergarten, entered the contest at Battle Ground (WA) Community Library and is a student at Homelink.

Every other year, Fort Vancouver Regional Library District holds a Bookmark Contest to engage children's imaginations in celebrating libraries and reading. Thousands of entries from students ranging from kindergarten to 8th grade are collected and judged by library staff and community volunteers.

Grand-prize winners in each of nine age categories receive a framed copy of their original submission and are recognized at celebrations at their home branches. Ten thousand copies of each winning bookmark will be printed and distributed throughout the library district.

You can see other winners by clicking on the link above.

What the...?

Reality ain't what it used to be!

It is strange to watch whole generations adopt something that is "wrong." Take the term 'card shark.' The phrase was originally coined as 'card sharp,' but when I mention this to people they think I've lost my mind.

Or the biblical motto of "an eye for an eye" is usually thought of as justification for vengeance. In reality, as I understand it, the term was a kind of moderating force because before then the usual process was an escalation...you take an eye, we take your life!

Getworking

We can all get along!

I live in Washington's State's fourth largest city, Vancouver, behind Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane. Yes, we are bigger than Walla-Walla, Yakima, even Enumclaw! We are separated from one of the country's great metropolitan cities; Portland, Oregon (pronounced ORR-ih-gihn) by the mighty Columbia River and the state line. That's all.

So here, very recently, a metro area network has been established. The Portland Area Library System (PORTALS) is "a multitype library consortium committed to meeting the research and educational needs of people in the Portland-Vancouver metro area and beyond through cooperative and creative access to information resources and services."

The PORTALS current members include: Clark College, Fort Vancouver Regional Library, George Fox University, Linfield College, Marylhurst University, Mt. Hood Community College, Multnomah County Library (the big dog 'round heah!), Oregon Health & Science University, Oregon Historical Society, Pacific University, Portland Community College, Portland State University, Reed College, University of Portland, and Washington State University-Vancouver. Not bad company, I assure you.

PORTALS is bringing these librarians, most of whom work within a half-hour drive of Downtown Portland, together in a variety of ways. One upcoming function is An Afternoon of Book Lust with Nancy Pearl: The Pleasures and Perils of a Life of Reading! Lunch will be followed by a book/action figure signing!

Nancy Pearl is the former director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. She now writes and reviews books for local and national publications, and appears regularly on NPR's Morning Edition. She is the author of the Book Lust and Now Read This! series. She is the model for the Librarian Action Figure you may have seen on eBay! It seems to me this is a great function for the metro area, but might not have the pulling power for a state or regional gathering or convention.

But it's not all fun and games. PORTALS provides services to its member libraries including: borrowing agreements, continuing education, cooperative collection development and disaster planning. Workshops are planned for: Digital & Preservation Services, Consumer Health Classes for Public Libraries and Copyright Law and Content Licensing. Their web pages also have a lot of interesting links "designed for librarians to locate Internet resources related to their profession." That last quote seems a bit wordy, no?

Yes, I think you'll like it, www.portals.org/ or clink on the lick above!

Irishberry

Can you spot it?


Guestberry 

May you be half an hour in Heaven
Before the Devil knows you’re dead!

HAPPY ST. PADDY'S DAY!

Libraryberry Abrdgd Poetry

Read a whole poem?! Highlights here!

The World
by Henry Vaughan

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great Ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright,
And round beneath it, Time is hours, days, years
Driven by the spheres
Like a vast shadow mov'd, in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd;

Eternity. What a concept! I actually have been thinking a lot about it. I'm fifty years old now and the smart money says my life is a least half over, so it's all downhill from here.

I'd also like to pass along an item I can attribute to some noted cosmologists. I have more than a little trouble wrapping my brain around this concept so it keeps coming up for reprocessing. The statement is this: The best scientific minds now believe the Universe has no edges and no center. I repeat for effect...no edges and no center! And if you believe as Einstein theorized that space and time are interrelated, then we can look at this revelation as scientific acknowledgement of a metaphysical principle.

Whew! I can hardly believe I wrote that last bit. Somebody put an abbreviated version this poem into a textbook of children's literature, but this poem speaks to me...the fifty year old guy. So what does all this have to do with children's poetry? I have absolutely no idea.

Why sure, it's about all the stuff it mentions; eternity, night, light, time, the world, shadow, but I imagine even a child could see that Vaughan is outlining the conflict of light versus dark. Even a child knows that light is good and dark can be...well, unknown, incomprehensible. Since we as a species tend to fear the unknown, we can conclude that dark is to be feared, and if it's to be feared, it may well be evil.

Vaughan leaves no doubt which side he's on. 'Eternity' can be seen at night illuminating the darkness with calm, endless, bright light. Beneath that perfection, however, time drags on by the hour, the day and the year. The place is full of shadow and the chaotic, tormented sphere is tossed about.

All of this becomes so much more astonishing when you realize that Henry Vaughan wrote this sometime around 1650. Vaughan is a contemporary of Galileo, the first person to turn a telescope toward the heavens. In fact, the first refracting telescope wasn't invented until 1609! With Galileo's theories on the nature of the Universe shaking up everyone from the Pope on down, I consider Vaughan's poem ever so radical! Try to imagine a time not too much earlier when the accepted belief was that the world was surrounded by a sphere, and that sphere was surrounded by another sphere, and so on until the world was surrounded by five spheres and that, my friend, was the Universe.

The complete poem does in fact mention God, by name, and that God is good. On the other hand there is the 'dark statesman' clutching his prey from underground, and I wonder who that could be. Vaughan is reknowed for his spiritual poems and 'The World' seems more relevant today than when it was written some 350 years ago.

"...Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing, and weep, soar'd up into the Ring,
But most would use no wing.
O fools (said I,) thus to prefer dark night
Before true light,
To live in grots, and caves, and hate the day
Because it shows the way..."

If you simply must read the entire poem, click on the link above.

Mo' Nuggets o' Nowledge

A Site (well, seven actually) for Sore Eyes!

1. Law
FindLaw for Legal Professionals
http://www.findlaw.com/11stategov/wa/laws.html

Verbatim copies of most of the city, county and/or municipal codes for jusistictions throughout Washington. Opinions from the Attorney General, the State Supreme Court, and U.S. Court of Appeals and reports from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The State Constitution and Codes, plus a look at the Bills being sponsored by each member of the Washington Congressional delegation. You should be appropriately conditioned for "speech or writing having unusual or pretentious vocabulary, convoluted phrasing, and vague meanings" before attempting to peruse this site.

2. Environment
United Nations Environment Programme
http://www.unep.org/

Wow! Everything from Biodiversity to Sustainable Consumption...Bring your thirst for knowledge but none of those overpackaged snacks!

3. Travel
Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau
http://www.gohawaii.com/

Good information if you can get past all the glitz! Broadband recommended.

4. English authors
British and Irish Authors on the Web http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/UK-authors.html

Browse by author or timeframe, which can lead to some of the lesser known triumphs of the language, like the songs penned by Henry VIII. Did anyone else know about these?

5. Population of Washington

QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/53000.html

Nearly 100 different statistics about Washington state population. No explanation, just the numbers, man!

6. Movie stars
Movie Actors
http://www.movieactors.com/

Nice enough site I guess, but kind of fanzine-ish. Give me Internet Movie DataBase IMDb.com anyday!

7. Sports
The Official Formula One Website
http://www.formula1.com/

Stock cars are cool, but hey, these guys race in the rain! Unencumbered by having to look like something your mom might drive, names like Ferrari, McLaren, Senna and Fittipaldi get my motor runnin'! Only two stops in North America, Montreal and The Indy Grand Prix. Fact and photo packed site. You could hang here for the season!

Tricentennialberry

How does a 300 year old library make a comeback? By computerizing its catalogue, holding exhibitions and generally trying to make itself noticed in the scholarly world.

Marsh’s Library in Dublin, Ireland was built in 1701 by protestant Archbishop Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713) and it is arguably the oldest public library in all the British Isles. Marsh built the library with his own money twenty years after his arrival in Ireland to become Provost at Trinity College.

One of the reasons that Archbishop Marsh gave for building his library was that when he came to Ireland he was shocked at the fact that there was nowhere for the public to go to read in Dublin. The library in Trinity College was only open to the staff and students and furthermore if a student wanted to use the library a senior member of the staff had to stay in the library with him.

The library‘s collection is housed on the second floor of the building in an effort to keep some of the damp Irish weather from the books. The bottom floor was built as the keeper’s residence. The library contains over 25,000 volumes including about 90 printed before 1501.

"At the end of the Second Gallery are three wired alcoves usually called ‘The Cages.’ These were intended by Marsh for the protection of the smaller more valuable books, although the charming story that readers were locked in these ‘cages’ as a security measure is also part of the Library’s history. Another protective measure was the use of chains on the lower shelves of the bookcases throughout the entire Library. These chains were removed on the advice of the Librarian in the middle of the eighteenth century.”

The library contains volumes by Shakespeare, Chaucer and Molière, and counts among its patrons such notable authors as Jonathon Swift, George Bernard Shaw, Bram Stoker and James Joyce.

Guestberry

That oh so merry, Chuckleberry,
Huckleberry Hound!


Huckleberryberry! 

Oh my darlin', oh my darlin'
Oh my darlin' Clementine...

Have you heard the one....

...about the dyslexic who walks into a bra?

Darwin, Einstein and Freud walk into a bar... (stop me if you've heard this). In a group at the bar are Sir Isaac Newton, Madame Curie, DaVinci, Shakespeare, Socrates, Werner von Braun and Stephen Hawking. Now when that group gets to carousing a bit, are you going to grab the first available barstool with them, or are you going to sit at a corner table, wait to be served, and watch, or are you going to go find another bar?

If your answer is either of the latter, you have just erected a barrier for yourself. Well, to be more accurate, that barrier resides within your psyche and has for some time. How long, how high and how wide is your barrier? Now I want you to multiply that by an unknown factor (x) and you may begin to get some idea of how the immigrants, high school dropouts and even some folks of average intelligence and education feel when they walk into our bar.

Since this barrier is (hopefully) not of our own making, there is little we can do to prevent it. There is much we can do to dismantle or demolish it if we are sensitive to its existence. To come down off this pedestal-barrier, to meet every question with a down-to-earth manner, to treat all as an equal are, I think, some of the highest objectives any librarian, any educator, can aspire to.

March Magic!

First thru the Frost!


Hocus Crocus! 

Attack of the Edunazis!

An Appeal for Search Stategy Sanity

Reading Ann Low's Research Rules To Live By: Eight Strategies To Ensure That Students Use An On-line Database Effectively (School Libraries in Canada, 2003, Vol. 22 Issue 4, p30) was uncannily like this nightmare I keep having about Sister Mary Esther, my eighth grade teacher. There I stand being berated for doing something differently than the way I was instructed. Nevermind, you know, I discovered the secret of life or some such, but since I deviated from the prescribed path, I was stupid, deserving of a lifetime of degrading manual labor and pretty much doomed to hell.

And I quote from the aforementioned article; "I make no apologies for saying that in my case, our students are encouraged (forced!) to follow a research process, using the identified services that have been paid for by the Board and I do this by showing students that Grolier Online can provide the best results when trying to answer the big research questions that they have been given."

Wouldn't a better approach be to let the youngsters have their heads for a while, and then, then, show these eager minds how a strategy change can bring them better results. If you've ever been a child, then you know the wee ones don't like to be forced to do anything...and many of us never outgrow this mindset. But pseudo-enlightened educators continue to force these methods upon impressionable psyches with mottos like "It's for your own good, you know!" Aaargh!

Spring Is Sprung!

Morkberry 
The First Robin of Spring!


Here's my favorite poem from 4th grade...

Springtime in Brooklyn

Spring is sprung
dah grass is riz
I wondah where dem boidies is?

Dah little boids is on dah wing...
Ain't dat absoid?
Dah little wings in on dah boid!

-Anonymous

'Sissy's Got A Dolly!'

My Inner Child Runs Amok

A game inspired by Impunity Jane: The Story of a Pocket Doll; a book for children by Rumen Godden.

Any number of any age 5+ can play indoors or out.

Gather all the players and determine a 'batting' order. The first player leaves the group and picks up an object from within the pre-determined play area, say the living room. The first player may, for example, pick up a book! The player returns to the group and says "Look what I have!"

The group screams in horror and derision, "Sissy's got a Dolly!"

Player responds..."It's not a Dolly. Watch this!" The player then does an improvisation using the object in an unexpected way. The book could become a handheld fan, a comb, a mirror, etc., and the group guesses at each new incarnation. Once a correct guess has been made, the player may continue (without undue delay, say ten seconds) to change the book into different improvised items, each time announcing "Look what I have!" and the group responds, "Sissy's got a Dolly!" and the player responds, "It's not a Dolly. Watch this!" If the group cannot guess within reasonable length of time, Sissy tells what it is and may then announce another incarnation.

An outdoor chair becomes a shovel. A leaf becomes a hat or stationery. A shoe becomes a telephone. Sound effects or related commentary are encouraged. Once the player can no longer think of a new way to use the object, any player may take the object and center stage and perform his/her improvisations. If two or more players want to take the book next, those players might use rock, paper, scissors or Sissy could preside over "I'm thinking of a number between one and ten," or perhaps an adult supervisor could choose. Once all who desire to have taken a turn with the book, the next player gets to be Sissy and there is a new object.

I think in an effort to get through the batting order a bit quicker, once a player has had a turn with an object, that player may not return to the same object with a newly thought of incarnation after relinquishing the object to another player. Put another way, a player gets only one turn with each object, regardless of how many incarnations they perform during their turn.

It would be fairly easy to incorporate a scoring system, but I am disinclined to do so. Oh, by the way, the screaming is optional; speaking the phrases in a normal tone may work better for some groups in some situations. You could change the game a bit by having an adult supervisor/scorer pick each object and assign it to the player, or maybe start the game by offering the chosen object to the first player who wants it.

Praise the Stored

And Pass the Erudition!

Another grey London day. In his second floor office, looking past the heavy burgundy drapes, I can see the ivy encroaching on the windowpanes. Control holds the reciever to his ear, listening carefully. After half a minute, no more, he frowns, sets the phone in its cradle, and looks at me across mahogany desktop. "Your mission, Jack, should you decide to accept it, and you'll pardon the messy syntax: What's needed is extrude, reviewed and accrued, dude!"

How could I refude, uh, refuse?

GREAT BOOKS INDEX http://books.mirror.org/gb.titles.html

'An Index to ONLINE Great Books in English Translation,' but it ain't necesarily so. Authors are listed here in order of their birthdates; most of them dead guys, from Homer to George Orwell.

Say you and the chorus are considering a revival of 'Antigone' by Sophocles. You can find it here, if you are intrepid enough to get through the many broken links.

Moliere, that French master of farce is listed. I became a fan after performing in one of his plays in experimental theatre way back when. There are a handful of his scripts including 'School for Wives' but sacré bleu, it's in French! I did take French One three times in high school, but I decided not to indulge myself at this time. So kind of hit or miss, and when you get there they might have the despised advertisments waiting for you. Still if you're looking for Melville's 'I and My Chimney,' you got it!


THE ONLINE BOOKS PAGE http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Listing over 20,000 free books on the Web and updated yesterday, the Online Books page has many more titles listed than Great Books Index, but misses some of the more obscure titles by well-known authors. While you will find Melville's 'Moby Dick' here in two incarnations, 'I and My Chimney' didn't make the cut.


THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ONLINE CATALOG http://catalog.loc.gov/

I get sweaty palms just thinking about it! Choose 'Basic Search' or 'Guided Search' or a handful of other catalogs!


LCSHDB http://fantasia.cs.msstate.edu/lcshdb/index.cgi

A Web Interface designed to help you access the Library of Congress Subject Headings DataBase developed by Mississippi State University. Often handy for day to day reference work, indespensible for catalogers. Get to know it...you WILL use it!


BLINX TV AND VIDEO SEARCH http://www.blinkx.tv/

A dozen, mostly recent video clips of my search "Mount St. Helen's." One was a paid subscription service, at least one needed you to tell them who you are and get a pass from Microsoft before viewing, but if you gotta see that C-SPAN clip on disaster preparedness, it's here. Broadband users only, please!


ALL SEARCH ENGINES http://allsearchengines.com/

"The net's top search engine index, a handy search engine directory." Choose major search engines or 'topic' search engines like adult search engines or education search engines. Click on reference search engines and get 15 destinations, some new to me! Looking for the latest? Try "Hog Search - NEW! Fun new search engine." The name says it all: allsearchengines.com.


MAJORGEEKS.COM http://majorgeeks.com

If you can deal with all the olive drab, there's a world of geek chic raht'cheer trooper! Want to know what the RSS fuss is all about? Use the Google search-majorgeeks.com window and get 81 hits. There were more than 250 geeks and geekwannabees in the forums when I dropped in this afternoon. I have found some amazing things all grouped together for my appreciation and understanding. Majorgeeks.com, it'll make your head spin, and it'll feel good, soldier!


WASHINGTON EMPLOYMENT SECURITY DEPARTMENT www.go2ui.com
Washington State's online "unemployment office" presented by the Employment Security Department's Unemployment Insurance Division. How did that get in here? Well, I can say with complete confidence, this can be a handy page!


INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE www.irs.gov

Your tax dollars at work gathering your tax dollars. I think they are finally getting thier act together. It may not be any more pleasant, but it's lots easier to deal with the Department of the Treasury than it used to be.


COMPLETETAX www.completetax.com

If you don't have a lot of offshore holdings, you might qualify to do your entire return online for FREE! You won't even need a calculator. Take your W-2's and sit 'em by the keyboard, and strap in...it's going to be a bit bumpy, but worthwhile nonetheless. It works for me!

Do the Brits pay taxes?

La Sage aux Folles

Advice Worth Twice the Price. No Extra Charge!

Storytelling 101 - I must say from my own brief experience with children's theatre as a young man, that performing for children is almost always rewarding and almost as often, confusing. Some things are pretty well guaranteed to get a reaction, but often it varies and some other times you get a reaction where you've not had one before.

As every performance is different, so is every audience. So my advice is to find a performance and an audience you like, and stick with 'em!

No need to thank me. Just pay it forward.

Mr. Paranoid Conspiracy

Radio Frequency IDentification

Mr. Paranoid Conspiracy here! I want to take a second and talk about the "privacy issues" with RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification).

RFID technology implants a transmitter (of sorts) within the book, perhaps in a spot that you'll not know it's there. Upon checkout, the transaction becomes part of your record.

Now, in a time of global distrust and paranoia, do you want the government looking at who's checking out any number of texts flagged as "possibly subversive?"

And you can't tell me that only non-innocents will get caught up in the government snooping. It wasn't too many years ago the police came knocking on my door to accuse me a phoning in a bomb threat. They got this erroneous information from the phone company.

I had indeed phoned the place hours before the incident, but I certainly did not make anything remotely like a threat. In fact, I was asking if they had an item I wanted in stock. But somehow technology (or the humans trying to interpret info generated by it) failed.

Now add the fact that eventually, fueled by Patriot Act inhibitions, the government could conceivably take the library out of the loop by placing a covert RFID reader outside the library (or bookstore), say mounted on a lamppost.

Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you...and they only need the smallest excuse.

Guestberry

ChocolateCoveredberry 

Since we'd like to spur our gentle readers into participating in Guess the Next Guestberry, we've decided to offer a premium. The next reader with a correct answer will receive a nearly new copy of the 1995 Writer's Market! Your opportunity to play and win is located elsewhere in this mess...look around! To claim your prize send us a pre-paid mailer, and we'll get that right out to ya!