Drum roll(yo) please.....

Well, here I am at #23; I've followed instructions and given myself a "pat on the back," but it seems like a cheer or something is more in order -- except that "things" are seeming a bit anti-climactic right about now; worried alot, frustrated often, angered sometimes, punned most always, (even made myself laugh once or twice,) awed frequently, but ultimately learned much.

Thanks to all who helped keep me inside the Nov. 21. deadline. See ya 'round in webland soon, but hope to connect in person sooner.

Down the home stretch......

I was introduced to Project Gutenberg some time ago -- impressive then, and still more impressive now. There seems no end to the growing capabilities of this site and FREE! Even their request for donations is modestly stated. I can't say I'd actually want to read any of the so-amply-offered "books" (for me, this word will always mean two covers, paper and little handwritten notes in the margins,) but I can certainly tell brilliant effort when I see it.

As for Net Library, gosh, I was intimidated. And I couldn't get into Overdrive, but I predict I would have felt the same...... just kind of tired.

Sang a little, danced a little.....

I went to the Yahoo Search suggested by thing #21 -- got samplings of Britney Spears of old, and
Shakira (she brings a whole new meaning to the Spanish I studied in junior high.) Does this mean I was "podcasting?"

The Webbies

-- tried out "Lulu", a top-rated writer's site and learned that "toward" is more American, "towards," more British -- I'll have to keep that in mind.....

We're planning to do some painting in our house, (walls, that is, not canvas), so I tried out a visual arts winner called "Color Blender". "House Beautiful Paint Brush" actually lets you" try on" countless colors -- I'm considering a very pale peach with teal trim and maybe wine and mauve accents. Daring, don't you think? But if I were an artist, I could experiment with shades of color too -- I've always felt inspired by Matisse.....

Fun!

2.0 - "Embracing Constant Change"

Certainly, once upon a time, if one wanted information that couldn't be found in home-owned World Book or Britannica encyclopedias that doting mothers and fathers invested in for the sake of assuring childrens' education (these were way too expensive for my parents , but they still felt obliged to purchase even a much cheaper and less reknown set), a trek to the library was a necessity -- how else could 5, 10, and 15 page papers be written? Well, according to Rick Anderson of the University of Nevada, how very arrogrant of we librarians to pressure patrons this way, especially if they were not "privileged with access to a good library?" -- makeTHEM come to US; what nerve! (And for that matter, can any library EVER be a not-good one?)

Now, as the decades pass and our humility so much more in tact, we no longer expect that "Muhammed come to the mountain;" the "preferred environment" for searching information and "reading" says Mr. Anderson, is, of course, the WEB, and librarians ought to, sacrificially, allow the public its comfort zone; our duties then, if there are still to be any, must focus primarily on helping with customers' (if there still remain customers) computer searches and needs, and less on print services. What about the ensuing assumption, that everyone OWNS a computer (like school teachers notoriouslly do -- how humble is that?) and the librarian should instead, and with every new day, become a "technarian?" And if the public is still inclined to make the trip to the mountain, perhaps our facility should humbly be decked out in everything technological -- empty the shelves of anything that resembles paper and replace with aisles of computers, cd players, and, perhaps most importantly, dvd players for in-house viewing pleasure. (Remember to leave room for any new gadgets coming down the pike.)

Oh, and to really hit home just how humbly we want to present ourselves, let's be rid of our title as Library (the "libr" part smacks too much of the word "book") and be re-named an "E-rary".

I know it's coming, and I'm bracing myself..... but for a little while longer, I need to un-humbly hope that a person will still leave their computers behind, not make a bee-line for ours, and ask me where Arthur Miller's dog-eared copy of "Death of a Salesman" is. Even "Cliffs Notes" are starting to take on a whole new prestige, now that a student, who's report is due "tomorrow," can get "Sparks Notes" on line.

When LIBRaries are, for me, the repositories of civilization's mammoth effort to make sense of our existence, I can't seem to "go quietly into that" keyboard night-- all of this, in my very humble opinion.

EGGszohowriter.....

..... is how I enter this new word processing format; next step, as I always say, TBC (to be continued).

Lifelong learning

The 7 1/2 habits of education can be consolidated into one grand addiction: passion for significance. With the mere devoted intention of perception, you've both given meaning and, in the giving, received your own meaningfulness. That is truly lifelong learning.

Sandbox fun

-- a little scary going in, but the other kids made room for me right away.

Wiki-dom

By George, I think I've got it!

Technically speaking, Technorati, is quite technical.

-- 2 way ticket for Blogosphere, please; it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to.... you know. Touring countless opinions on countless subjects is fun, though.

Tag -- you're it!

Delicious is, I'm afraid, just OK-tasty -- a really logical and organized way to access your most utilized sites, but "old-fashioned" bookmarking seems to be just as logical. As for the "social" part, I certainly don't want to appear anti-social, but I'd prefer to share my internet finds through either e-mail, or dare I say this? word of mouth. Yum!

Gosh, I sure generated an image, alright.....

My first try at meez-ing was close but just not quite right; last time I looked, I didn't really have a pointy chin, my hair hadn't been short since I was 12, and the brown minny skirt was a bit too minny. So, in an attempt to more comfortably identify with my alternate self, I resculpted her, reclothed her, and gave her a little friend in honor of the countless little people for whom I am Miss Evelyn, the storytimer. Replacing the old one with the new on my blog is where trouble started. I apparently cloned THREE of the not-really-meez, and could just not post the single, improved version, no matter how many keys I hit. Well, no sooner did I blog for help than there comes djazzy to the rescue. Voila! Now, you'll see a better me -- this one at least has a pony tail -- but there's still much room for even more improvement. Thank you so much, djazzy!

"All Together Now"

You Tube, I Tube, We all Tube.....

I recently went to the movies to see "La Vie En Rose," the extraordinarily poignant biography of Edith Piaf, usually referred to as France's Judy Garland (though I think such comparisons of lives is an injustice to all). I've often reached the end of films rather teary-eyed, but this one left me so overcome, I could bearly read the credits; though not at all identifying with "the little sparrow's" wretched years of decadence, I did, however, because of my own sorrows, blend my own consciousness with hers as she lay on her deathbed. It was both an art moment and a life experience I will not ever forget.

When home, I found myself unstoppably curious to see and hear the real Edith Piaf -- simply keywording in her name on You Tube brought up 1954 face and song immediately. Suddenly, the vision and sound on my small screen merged with my mind's eye and ear-return to eery reiminder of the big screen's anguishing drama, and I felt haunted by both. It seemed utterly surreal that video, taped so long ago, was instantaneously available through the machinations of technology, a contradiction that I've found frequently troubling, but neither did it escape my awareness that You Tube undeniably enhanced a movie (itself a form of miraculous technology) that had already profoundly touched me. If I do not feel antagonistic toward the invention of film, what right have I really, to think the computer has gone too far, or fear it will go still further?

Rollyo, Man

I've rolled my own search tool with Rollyo and named it "Roll Me Over." I'm really trying to roll with the punches here, but now that I've rolled, I'm not sure where I'm rolling to -- afraid this rolling stone is gathering no moss.....

I'll Library Thing if I must.....

I've surrendered to computers at my library job (accent on "surrendered"), but there, I 'm one of the still extant folk who miss the grandly wood grained, old card catalogues. I know they were bulky, always needed new entries that made looking rather "tight," and sometimes not clearly readable from all the markings on repeatedly updated cards. My searching fingers, though, just "loved to do the walking." As for my home library?..... Well, I KNOW what I've got and where everything is. The mere physical presence of this quite immense collection on my own wooden shelves envelops me with comfort, even if I haven't actually read half of what's there, and I don't want their titles arranged in a foreign reality. It's probably pretty obvious that if I wanted them "catalogued" at all, I'd do it with pen in a book.

And yet ----- I do see the fascination in discovering the "Zeitgeist" lists of "the 50 lowest-rated authors" and "Authors who Library Thing"..... and the the part where you can "talk" to other book lovers is cerainly enticing. And yet ----- how worrisome that so many referred to this site as "addictive." And yet ----- the same fingers that long to once again slide over card catalogue index cards are not immune from the pull of the keyboard that takes you to an alternate universe's library. And yet -----

Movin' on up.....

-- hope I've done this correctly -- found some library related blogs through the Blogslines newsreader -- went to Library Journal.com and found: "In the Bookroom" and "E-Views."

Also, LISNews (Librarian and Inormation Science News) -- how interesting the story about Brooklyn, New York's (not quite the Bronx, my "hometown," but close enough to bring back a lot of memories) libraries firmly establishing a "shushing" ban. NOISE ALLOWED!, they preach -- the traditional institution will now be viewed as the new COMMUNITY CENTER. Hmmmm.....

Thing #8

Mission accomplished.

Self-doubt.....

I'm, troublingly, these days, feeling a bit the hypocrite; while not quite ranting into a megaphone, I've been rather vocal, both in passing conversations and heavy-duty discussions, about my great unease with "all this technology." Relating various examples and anecdotes (some hilarious, like the time I was in a 2 person restaurant restroom and, behind both our locked doors, the woman next to me asked "how are you doing?" "Getting along," I answered in polite shock. "How are the kids?" was the next chatty question. "OK, " I said, but this was now feeling horribly awkward. "We should be home in an hour -- I hope you'll be able to babysit for us again next week......" she continued. UNSPEAKABLE EMBARRASSMENT and some rage too! My restroom buddy had been TALKING ON HER CELLPHONE), I've staunchly believed that, for however much civilization has gained, we've lost far more. This comes not merely from the exhaustion of trying to keep up with new inventions inside of new inventions that keep changing the rules, but from a visceral, philosophical worry that our human-ness is being insidiously replaced by fantasies of robotics.

And yet, are not the car, the telephone, the television..... technological advances I would so much rather have than not, in fact, if I'm to be truthful, would not have the courage to live without? A haunting story shared with me recently describes, though in very sketchy detail, an in-his-50s writer whose mother committed suicide in 1973, much before call-waiting, caller ID, or the common use of answering machines. It seems that a final plea for help, in a phone call to her son, might have saved her life.... if she could only have left a message .

I 've searched the internet for instantaneous pictures of tick bites (a touch of panic came over me when lyme disease was likely), welcomed the sudden beep of a much-awaited phone call from my daughter while already talking to a friend (though the seeming rudeness of leaving one for another still distresses me), not answered calls from a recognized Purple Heart employee asking for donations just a week after I'd made a donation to the Salvation Army , and left countless messages for less than life-threatening matters. Am I a hypocrite?

My bulb's flickering again....

I think I've just been in the presence of genius: endless kaleidoscopic images with the mere movement of a non-cheese-eating mouse, futuristic sounds and colorful moving dots coming from a "whitney music box," and an opportunity to draw a picture that will then find a picture that looks like the picture I've just drawn ( wasn't there once some kind of T.V. quiz show based on this concept?) -- that minds can both figure out and create these "pages" is certainly indescribably impressive; still further mind-bloggling, are the countless bloggers who, I fear, spend an inordinate amount of time blogging about these sites and, of course, other bloggers -- all makes me want to grab a book, turn a page, write, draw, read..... and, oh yes, look into a pair of eyes.

A Flicker of Hope

-- think I "get the picture"; especially appreciated those autobiographical postage stamps, though, truth be told, if I must bug, I'd rather jitter than shutter.

Things and thoughts and theories, oh my.

-- feeling a bit of writer's stage fright. I seem to be venturing into current technolgy like one enters freezing waters at the beach, hot day or not; first, just a toe touch, then ankles, knees and waist; after a moment or two (or three or four), a few weightless jumps, and the whole-body dunk is accomplished -- what pride! I think I'm ready now for 20 more things.