Current Cites for September 2008

 

Current Cites for July 2020 is out! You can find the issue here...

Banned Books Week

In observance, I guess you could say, of ALA's Banned Books Week, NPR did a segment on how The Grapes of Wrath was banned at the end of the 30's.

It was good but I really wish they had focused on more recent titles. Going over the Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2007 might have been more relevant. At least it would have helped people understand what librarians and advocates of free speech are dealing with in this day and age.

UPDATE: WBEZ did something slightly more along the lines of what I was thinking with yesterday's segment, 'Celebrating Some of the Best Banned Books'.

2008 ILA Annual Conference

The Annual Conference of the Illinois Library Association is in Chicago this year.

It runs the whole week and is located at Navy Pier. Here's a shot of the entrance to the exhibits.

More Divine Intervention for the Chicago Cubs

As seen on the Blue Line this morning. The South Siders might have difficulties with this.

Drupal Camp Chicago Fri.-Sat. (10/24-10/25)

 Kyle and Matthew along with a few others from the CDMUG are putting together a Drupal Camp Chicago.

It's a two-day event running from Friday (10/24) to Saturday (10/25). Location is the UIC Innovation Center at 1240 W. Harrison in Chicago.

Website for the event is http://drupalcampchicago.org/. It's only a month away but they're still taking suggestions for sessions at this link: http://drupalcampchicago.org/wiki

I'll be doing a Library BoF tentatively scheduled for early Friday afternoon. The idea is:

• Showcase library-related Drupal projects in the Chicagoland area.
• Talk about future plans and aspirations, field questions and compare experiences.

Mark your calendars today!

OneWebDay 2008

OneWebDay is Monday. Here's a link to the spiffy event site:  http://www.onewebday.org/

The idea is to celebrate the benefits we derive from the Web. The hope is the more we appreciate it, the more we'll be protective of it. You can read more on the OneWebDay's About Page...

Last year I did a video of UIC students talking about how they use the web. This year I've got a ton of commitments so I'll just have to replay last year's effort. See below.

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PT Reference Gig at DePaul

Today was my first day doing reference at DePaul University Library. I grabbed a couple of volumes of the DLB and a volume of the NUC (Pre 1956) and I was in Seventh Heaven. It's only a couple hours a week but I love it!

PLAspace.org - Official Launch

Okay, today was the official launch of the new community site that I've been working on for the Public Library Association: PLAspace.org

The announcement reads:

"Today marks another milestone in the rollout of PLAspace. We officially open the doors to new CoPs and new participants.

We created PLAspace to give Public Library Association members a place where they could share ideas and work together on common interests. Today, the first official day for the site, we already have several dozen members and a half-dozen CoPs."

Old Projects Never Die : Red Scare (1918-1921)

"Red Scare (1918-1921)" was a project I did for extra credit while finishing up my MLS at Queens College (CUNY). It must have been around 1997.

The online exhibit consisted of political cartoons with some photos from the period 1918-1921. There were over a hundred images illustrating the hysteria of the time -- most scanned from hard-bound copies of the Literary Digest, then conveniently housed in the stacks of NYU Bobst Library. The exhibit is hosted by Newman Library, Baruch College (CUNY) where I went after NYU.

Anyway, every once and a while, I get a request for permission to use one or two of the images. There was a lot of interest in them around the time of 9/11 but even afterwards, the requests still come in.

I usually explain that the copyright has long run out on the images and that they're free for the downloading. The latest request was from one of the College Prep Testing Services. They want to use one or two of the images for their section on U.S. History.

I guess, I'll have to upgrade the project at some point. Ten years is a long time for content like this on the Web.