In Gale’s Academic Onefile there are now audio versions of

• Annals of Internal Medicine
• British Medical Journal
• JAMA
• New England Journal of Medicine
• The Lancet

To access any of these, select “Publication Search’ and search by journal title. Select Audio version and then select the publication date you’re interested in hearing!

Two Thumbs Up for the Common Craft Show

With the goal of making "complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos", the Common Craft Show produces both free online videos as well as high resolution commercial videos for sale on a wealth of social media topics including the following titles:

• RSS in Plain English
• Wikis in Plain English
• Social Bookmarking in Plain English
• Twitter in Plain English
• Podcasting in Plain English
• Social Media in Plain English
  
  Posted below is the video Blogs in Plain English:
  
  

ALA Promotes Public Awareness of Libraries

From American Libraries Website:

"This video, played during the Opening General Session of ALA's 2008 Annual Conference in Anaheim, California, highlights the value of public awareness to the library profession. ALA presidents past and future join others in explaining how investing in partnerships, working with celebrities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julie Andrews, and using new media platforms like YouTube can result in major media exposure and increased awareness and usage of libraries. Produced by the ALA Public Information Office."

July 29 - Mission House Book Talk in Stockbridge

Mission House Book Talk with Author Rachel Wheeler

Tuesday, July 29th from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the Mission House gardens, 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

Join The Trustees of Reservations and the Stockbridge Library to meet the author of a new book about the Stockbridge Mohicans. Author Rachel Wheeler documents the experience of two different communities of Mohican Indians who accepted Christian Missionaries in the mid 18th century. Both communities did so in hopes of surviving the changes brought on by Colonial settlement. In Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Mohicans invited the Congregational Church to send Reverend John Sergeant as the new community’s first missionary while the Shekomeko community in Duchess County, New York accepted the missionaries of the Moravian Church. Both missions had dramatically different results. Rachel Wheeler, in her meticulously researched book, “To Live Upon Hope: Mohicans and Missionaries in the Eighteenth Century Northeast,” explores the differences and every day life experiences of the two communities and their search to maintain their native traditions and morals while embracing the power and adaptation of the Christian colonial reality.



Join the author, Rachel Wheeler, in an evening talk and reception at the Mission House, home of the missionary to the Stockbridge Mohicans. The event will take place on Tuesday, July 29th, from 6:00 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. in the Mission House gardens, 19 Main Street, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The alternate location in case of rain will be the Stockbridge Library, 46 Main Street. The event is co-sponsored by The Trustees and The Stockbridge Library Historical Collection and is free to the public, but reservations are recommended. For more information call (413) 298-3239, ext 3000.

~ Barbara Allen Curator ballen@cwmars.org Stockbridge Library, Stockbridge

Shutesbury's MN Spear Memorial Library's Edible Book Contest

Congratulations to the MN Spear Memorial Library for its very successful Edible Book Contest on Sunday, July 13. This event is currently featured on the Recorder.com in an article titled Books they want to sink their teeth into by Arn Albertini [Originally published on July 14,2008]. Below is an extract from Recorder.com:

"The 17 entries ranged from a cake that was a recreation of one of the characters in JK Rowling's 'Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban' to a golf hole made of vegetables inspired by 'Golfing With God: A Novel of Heaven and Earth' by Richard Merullo. The veggie green included a sand trap of humus ringed by mushrooms, a cucumber golf cart with green peppers for the clubs and a cauliflower carved into the shape of God as a golfer."

Podcasting for Schools and Libraries

Library consultant , Linda Braun, has developed a website on podcasting as a companion website to her new publication Listen Up! Podcasting for Schools and Libraries [Information Today, 2007]. Included within this website are links to recommended podcasts, software & tools, and articles & blogs.

Have you discovered EngagedPatrons.org?

From the American Library Association website:
" Engagedpatrons.org provides low-cost and free Web site services for public libraries. The site went live in May 2006, enabling even small- and medium-sized libraries the ability to offer high-quality Web services to their patrons, services that most would otherwise be unable to provide.... These services include:

• Library events listings, including patron-initiated online registration;
• Blogs, including patron comment capabilities;
• Contact forms for soliciting patron feedback;
• RSS feeds for events, blogs or other custom feeds;
• Custom database applications for libraries wishing to make local databases Web-accessible. "

High Gas Prices Threaten WMRLS Bookmobile

Dear Bookmobile Colleagues,

The WMRLS Bookmobile program is threatened by the very high gasoline prices that we are all paying today. The bookmobile is a large truck that travels to about 75 libraries in our 4 counties. It is currently on the road 2 or 3 days a week and we need to reduce that schedule to 2 or fewer days a week if we stand a chance of continuing this important traditional service.

Bookmobile Department staff members are looking at our libraries to compare them in these ways:

• which libraries evidence the most need of the service by showinga history of borrowing larger numbers of materials each visit
• which libraries are served with multiple stops by WMRLS Deliverytrucks each week in addition to the bookmobile service
• which libraries are in communities that have smaller populations(the Together We Thrive grant, for example, is aimed at libraries in towns of under 2500 population)
  

Geography is also being taken into consideration because it is possible that some libraries which are close to WMRLS headquarters might be able to send staff or volunteers to our headquarters to borrow directly from WMRLS. How much delivery service our bookmobile libraries receive is also important because those that get multiple deliveries weekly are in a stronger position to request deposits of materials by delivery van in lieu of a bookmobile visit.

Soon I will be having conversations with the Directors of libraries that seem to us to be best situated to give up bookmobile service at this budget-challenging time. But we would love to hear from you if you think that you can manage without bookmobile!

I invite you to think about the criteria I mentioned above as well as the relative strengths of your own collections; if you think that you can replace bookmobile service with deposits that we would deliver by van, or if you could send staff or volunteers to WMRLS headquarters by appointment to select directly, I'd love to talk to you about these possibilities.

All that is certain right now is that changes are needed. I thank you very much for giving this your consideration.

Sincerely, Mary King, Regional Librarian, WMRLS

Manga Manga Manga!

Teens love manga, the Japanese style of comic books, and many fans try their hand at writing and illustrating their own manga. Now they can get advice and insider tips during free drawing workshops at the Springfield City Library led by Bettina Kurkoski, the published and award winning artist of My Cat Loki. Bettina will give fans an inside look into the life of a manga artist and how she got into the industry. From a step-by-step walkthrough of her working process (scripting and storyboarding, toning and lettering, and everything in between) and tools of the trade, to tips and techniques to get you started on your own manga. Teens can bring their own work for a mini-critique session following the discussion.

Sign up for one of these workshops:

Monday, July 21, 6-8 pm, Central Library Community Room, 220 State Street;

Tuesday, July 22, 11 am-1 pm, Pine Point Branch Library, 204 Boston Road;

or Tuesday, July 22, 2-4 pm, Forest Park Branch Library, 380 Belmont Avenue.

Teens can call 263-6828, ext. 425 or sign up online at http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/

Kurkoski grew up in Western Massachusetts in Montague, and now lives in Plymouth, where she works as a freelance illustrator. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 1996 with a BFA in Illustration, she entered Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga 2 competition in 2003, and placed as a runner-up. Though My Cat Loki is Bettina's first professionally published series, she also illustrated the convention exclusive cover for Star Trek the Manga: Shinsei Shinei, both cover and short story "Communication Breakdown" for Star Trek the Manga: Kakan ni Shink ou and her latest, Warriors: Rise of Scourge, all available from Tokyopop.

A regular guest at Springfield Library Chibiconn, and a familiar artist on the New England Anime convention circut, Bettina is one of the most giving library guests we have ever hosted. Her workshop is HIGHLY recommended by this Anime Librarian!

Sarah H-W

Springfield city Library

ABC News: "Could Google Monopolize Human Knowledge?"

Must reading from the ABC News website:

"Could Google Monopolize Human Knowledge?
As Microsoft Backs Away From Digitizing Old Texts, Some Worry One Source Could Privatize It All By GREGORY M. LAMB, CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 12, 2008"

ALA Conference Blogs

Read about individual librarian's ALA Annual Conference reflections by visiting the ALA Blogging Annual website. Of very special interest is the wonderful Anaheim en Mass. blog which is authored by members of the Massachusetts School Library Association.

Free Louis L'Amour Book Offer

To celebrate the centennial of Louis L'Amour's birth, Bantam Books is giving a complimentary copy of his memoir EDUCATION OF A WANDERING MAN to "any free lending library in the U.S.A.". Click for more:

http://www.randomhouse.com/bantamdell/lamour/