The Newseum

This is possibly one of the coolest resources that I've come upon. The Newseum, "— a 250,000-square-foot museum of news — offers visitors an experience that blends five centuries of news history with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits."

In addition to its physical presence, the Newseum has a home in cyberspace at: http://www.newseum.org/ This information-packed website includes virtual versions of its permanent physical exhibits including Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs; a 9/11 gallery; Berlin Wall gallery; and a Journalists Memorial.

The gallery that I found the most fascinating is the Today's Front Pages Gallery:
Front Pages From Across America and Around the World. Here's the description from the Newseum's website: "More than 700 newspapers transmit their front pages electronically
to the Newseum every day. Up to 80 are enlarged and printed for display
in this gallery — among them one from every state and the District of Columbia
as well as a sampling of international newspapers. Additional front pages
are displayed outside the Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue."

One can access this gallery online at: http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/

More than 700 newspapers from around the world electronically submit their front pages on a daily basis. 10 are chosen for a "Top Ten" each day, but visitors to the site can access the front pages via list or map. As a neat bonus, each front page is available as a PDF, allowing one to enlarge and read the stories. A link to each newspaper's website is provided, as well.

This is obviously not the best way of getting a complete "news fix" each day, but that isn't the point; rather, as the site states: "This daily exhibit is part of the Newseum's mission to promote better public understanding of news and journalism. A front page can reveal as much about a newspaper and its community as it does about the day's news. Some days, one story dominates these front pages. But often the stories on page one reflect communities with different interests."

Fascinating!

Kimberley Barker

Library Thing

I like to inform the Westminster community when we add new books to the collection. I used to spend a looooo-ooong time cutting and pasting reviews from Amazon into an e-mail, as well as typing the titles and authors. It was such a time-consuming process and the end result, while informative, wasn't very snazzy.

I first heard about Library Thing last year. I went ahead and made an account, but didn't play around with it that much. Then, about a week ago, I was inspired to play around with it again. The result? Well, read on.

I heart Library Thing :) Now all I have to do is type in the title of a book, click on the correct one, and a record is automatically created in my Library Thing "library". All one has to do is click on the record and one will be taken to a page with, among other entries, a review from Amazon. Library Thing will also post a picture of the book's cover. It is fast, easy to do, and the end result is really nice. Check it out: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/cflibrary !

Kimberley Barker

Would you like facts with that?

One of The Economist's pizza boxes, with a pie chart showing
information on arable and permanent crop land by country.

The British news magazine, "The Economist", recently struck a deal with some Philadelphia pizza restaurants wherein pizzas were delivered in Economist branded pizza boxes-- each of which featured one of several pie charts with information related to world food distribution. This under-the radar advertising is part of the Economist's "Get a World View" campaign, meant to educate the public about various issues and of course about "The Economist" itself.

I call it darn clever guerrilla marketing!

Kimberley Barker

Viewzi

A screenshot of Viewzi

Fans of visual search engines, take note: Viewzi is here, and it is fabulous!

With Viewzi, a searcher enters her keyword (s) into a plain search box and then decides in which "view" to receive the results. The different views are lined up across the top of the page and one need only click on one to see the results for that view. The different views options are:

1) Album View (searches Amazon Music Search, Last FM Album, and Last FM Related)

2) Song View (searches Amazon Mp3, Mooza Mp3, Mp3 Realm, and SeeqPod)

3) Wide Screen Shot View and 4) Power Grid View (both search Yahoo)

5) Simple Text View (searches Yahoo and Google)

6) Google Timeline View (searches Google Timeline)

7)Photo Tag Cloud View (searches Flickr)

8) 4 Sources View (Ask, Google, MSN, Yahoo)

9)Video x3 View (searches BlinkX, Veoh, and YouTube)

10) Photo View (searches Flickr and Smugmug)

11) Weather View (searches various weather sites)

12) Amazon Book View (searches Amazon)

13) Everyday Shopping View (searches Amazon, E-bay, Target, and Wal-Mart)

14) Recipe View (101 Cookbooks Recipes, 101 Cookbooks Search, Epicurious)

15) Celebrity Photo Buzz (searches CelebBuzz and Just Jared)

16) TechCrunch View (searches CrunchBase, TechCrunch, TC by date, TC Posts Info, Yahoo)

17) Celebrity Gossip (searches Just Jared, Perez Hilton Search, Pop Sugar, and TMZ Search)

18) News View ("newspaper-style layout from major news sources")

A search for the keywords "Beethoven biography" returned a YouTube clip from the
BBC's "The Genius of Beethoven"; the book Diagnosing Genius: The Life and Death of Beethoven; the Wikipedia entry on Beethoven; a clip of a performance by the Nicholls Trio; and biographical information from The Classical Archives.

Though library resources such as books and online databases are always the best option for academic research, there's no doubt that search engines are great for answering quick questions, getting an overview of a topic, etc. What I like about Viewzi is that it very definitely separates the various returns on one's search, thereby making one's returns faster and (hopefully) more what one needs.

Give it a try and see (get it, "see") what you think.
Kimberley Barker

Retro photo fun

"rotten world" by peatle, on the Poladroid Flickr group

So I can't seem to get away from cool apps lately, lucky me. And lucky you since I feel the need to share-- I'm just nice that way!

This latest one, Poladroid, will provide you with hours of fun and add a kitchy, retro look to your Facebook photos. For those too young to remember, Polaroid cameras spat out photos instantly and you could watch the picture develop-- you can watch a video about the invention of the Polaroid here. These photos were characterized in later years by high color saturation and a white border.

Currently only available for Macs, Poladroid works like this: 1) download and launch Poladroid (it's free!), 2) drag & drop your photos, 3) look at or print your Poladroids. You can see what people have done with this app by viewing examples in the Poladroid Flickr group.

Happy editing!

Kimberley Barker

Donnie the Genius Doberman

So I was watching National Geographic Channel last night (yes, I am a nerd. I'm fine with that), and they were airing a show called "Genius Dogs". One of the featured canines was a Doberman Pinscher named Donnie, who was about four years old when he was adopted from a local shelter. After living with his new family for a while, Donnie began to exhibit some unusual behavior: he began arranging his 80+ stuffed toys in specific patterns and sequences. Some of these included triangles, circles, all frogs, all monkeys, all face up, all face down, etc.

Donnie's owners began documenting his arrangements through photos and eventually contacted Barbara Smuts, a psychologist who researches social behavior among dogs. You can see what happened in this YouTube clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGQ0n0A71xQ

Is it random? Is Donnie a doggie genius? Is this his method of artistic expression?
You decide.

Want to know if your dog is a genius? Interested in dogs and pets in general? Then check out these books in the CFL :)

• Cesar's Way : The natural, everyday guide to understanding and correcting common dog problems / Cesar Millan with Melissa Jo Peltier
  636.7 MILLAN
  
• Pets in America : a history / Katherine C. Grier
  636.088 GRIER
  
• The Lost Pet Chronicles : Adventures of a K-9 cop turned pet detective / Kat Albrecht with Jana Murphy
  363.28 ALBRE

Librarian Barker

Vampires!

Ok, so who DOESN'T love a good vampire novel? I know that I do, and my favourite series at the moment (and for the past couple of years) is the Twilight Series, by Stephenie Meyer. This series includes:

Twilight

Eclipse

and

New Moon

Here's the basic premise, taken from the author's, Stephenie Meyer, website:

"TWILIGHT tells the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father, and becomes drawn to Edward, a pale, mysterious classmate who seems determined to push her away. But neither can deny the attraction that pulls them together... even when Edward confides that he and his family are vampires. Their unorthodox romance puts her in physical danger when Edward's nemesis comes to town and sets his sights on Bella."

The two subsequent novels tell of their deepening relationship and the dangers that continue to surround Bella, a mortal who knows too much about the undead. The 4th and final novel, Breaking Dawn, is scheduled for release on August 2, 2008.

The Carlyle Fraser Library owns all three of the first three novels in the series and will OF COURSE pre-order Breaking Dawn!

In other Twilight-related news, I read that the Twilight movie is in production!

Kristen Stewart has been cast as Bella Swan.

Robert Pattinson has been cast as Edward (If he looks familiar, think Cedric Diggory from "Harry Potter").

Here are a few other vampire novels that I've enjoyed. The CFL owns them all, so if you're interested, stop by and check them out! (Reviews courtesy of Amazon.com)

Blue Bloods, by Melissa De la Cruz

From School Library Journal

De la Cruz has revamped traditional vampire lore in this story featuring a group of attractive, privileged Manhattan teens who attend a prestigious private school. Schuyler Van Alen, 15, the last of the line in a distinguished family, is being raised by her distant and forbidding grandmother. Schuyler, her friend Oliver, and their new friend Dylan are treated like outsiders by the clique of popular, athletic, and beautiful teens made up of Mimi Force, her twin brother, and her best friend. What they have in common is the fact that they are all Blue Bloods, or vampires. They don't realize that they aren't normal until they reach age 15. Then the symptoms manifest themselves and they begin to crave raw meat, have nightmares about events in history, and get prominent blue veins in their arms. Their immortality and way of life are threatened after Blue Blood teens start getting murdered by a splinter group called the Silver Bloods.

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause

From Publishers Weekly

Zoe is 16 and facing bereavement: her mother is dying of cancer, and her father seems to be excluding her from her mother's hospital bedside. No one dares speak to Zoe about the family tragedy, and she is isolated by grief, anger and fear. Then she meets the alluring, enigmatic Simon ("His eyes were dark, full of wilderness and stars"), who has an uncanny ability to recognize her feelings. After a series of nocturnal meetings, Zoe learns that Simon is a vampire kept alive by his thirst to avenge the death of his own mother three centuries ago. Drawn to him by an empathy charged with both longing and fear, Zoe agrees to participate in a dangerous scheme to trap Simon's mother's supernatural killer. The two emerge from their encounter able to mourn and acknowledge their losses. First-novelist Klause is excessively ambitious in her juggling of genres and themes; as a result, her suspense is uneven, her love story inadequately rooted and her resolution just a bit pat. Nevertheless, the use of the vampire figure to exorcise Zoe's complex feelings and often striking prose attest to an intelligent and original eye.

The Historian: A Novel by Elizabeth Kostova

If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.

-- Kimberley Barker

Book Review Beret-- Episode 3-- "Breakfast with Buddha"

Librarian Barker reviews "Breakfast with Buddha" by Roland Merullo. She likes it, she really likes it!

Book Review Beret, Episode 2, Pandora's Daughter

Kimberley reviews Iris Johansen's monumental waste of time, Pandora's Daughter.

Book Review Beret, Episode 1, Ghostwalk

Features a review of Ghostwalk, by Rebecca Stott.