It's Not Too Late to Get a Public Library Card

While we're all sheltering at home, 

many Atlanta-area public libraries are offering temporary library cards for access to downloadable ebooks, audiobooks, magazines, databases and more.  

I think Paideia Library's online services are pretty cool, but we can't offer everything.  Confession -- I am a patron of three (yes, 3) Georgia public library systems in addition to Paideia's!  We are a preK-12 school with a particular mission.  The public library's mission is broader, with a much bigger audience, so they have bigger digital collections with more resources for grownups, as well as great stuff for the prek-12 crowd.

So if you've been wondering what else might be out there while we're all staying at home, check out your local Public Library.   Atlanta's two biggest public library systems, DeKalb County (DCPL) and Atlanta-Fulton County (AFPL) library systems, make it pretty easy for their residents to apply for a temporary card.  Others (Cobb and Gwinnett, and several other county systems) offer some sort of e-library services to their residents too.

Below are links to the best information I can find so far; you may have to dig a little bit, or do an IM chat with the librarian on duty, but they're all working on it.

The temporary library cards will be good until the physical library branches open up again. After that you'll need to go in person to turn it into a permanent card.

Try it -- I bet once you have tasted the cool things a public library can offer you, FOR FREE, you'll never want to be without a library card again!

Atlanta-Fulton County Library

DeKalb County Public Library

Cobb County replied to me today -- they are doing temporary cards for adults (18 & older) only.  If you're not 18 yet, get a parent to apply and use that card (it's ok).   Parents may submit temporary card requests or any questions with the online chat or email form at http://www.cobbcat.org/contact-us/.  

The Henry County Library System is issuing temporary digital cards to Henry County residents (good for 60 days, access to our digital collections). Email getacard@henrylibraries.org with your request.

Click here for links to Cobb, Forsyth, Gwinnett 
and Cherokee County (Sequoyah Regional) libraries.

If you don't see your county system listed, look in the list of Georgia-wide PINES network libraries to see if it's a member of that group.  Online applications appear to be available.  

And of course, if you're a Paideia student or parent, email me if you have any questions or need some troubleshooting assistance.

Alumni & Parents -- Do You Read Ebooks??

Dear Paideia Alumni & Parents,

I'd love your input as I decide on how to go forward with Paideia's ebook offerings.  In the comments section below, or by directly emailing me at library@paideiaschool.org, would you help me out by answering these questions?

1.  do you read digital ebooks (or listen to downloadable audiobooks?)?
2.  if yes, do you usually borrow or buy?
3. have you ever borrowed ebooks or audiobooks from Paideia's Axis360 collection?
4.  do you ever borrow ebooks & audiobooks from your public or university library collection?
5.  do you know what platform your public library uses? (often it's Overdrive/Libby, but there are others. Currently Paideia uses one called Axis 360.)

Here's why I'm asking

Whether and how the Paideia Library offers digital reading are questions we've wrestled with for years, first with the idea of e-reader devices to check out (in February 2011 -- we never really went there), then with the idea of building a downloadable digital collection, (October 2011 and May 2012) and what the collecting policy should be. Five years ago, we made the leap and launched Paideia's digital collection via Axis360, a platform now part of the Follett Library company.

Right now, Paideia's Axis360 digital collection has just over 500 titles, mostly fiction, almost entirely text ebooks and at the grade 7-12 level.  The guiding policy is to purchase ebooks meant for pleasure reading (as opposed to ones that would be used for research projects, such as Salem Witch Trials, or racial profiling).  There are other variables, imposed by publishing companies, that also influence what goes into our Axis360 collection.  Ebooks (even your Kindle and Audible purchases) aren't actually sold, they're licensed, meaning you are buying permission to use it, without all the rights of ownership (like reselling, or giving it away).   Some publishers only allow 26 checkouts per license, after which a library has to pay for the book all over again. Even worse, other publishers only license a book for 12 or 24 months, whether or not the book is ever checked out in that time!  And then some books are just not even available for the school library collection, period.

Zoom!  Five years later, it's time to re-assess.  Axis360 use is growing, but there are so many new books out that we don't have in that collection.  We haven't added much elementary-level material to the collection at all. Even though there is plenty of information showing that the first wave of enthusiasm for digital reading has lessened, and that readership of print books is rising, we can't just drop the ebooks altogether.  It's 2018, and digital is here to stay.

The thing I love most about offering digital book and audiobook lending from the Paideia Library is that it's 24/7/365!  We do our best to keep families supplied with a generous summer checkout program, but there are still going to be times when there's nothing to read and school is is closed.  Sigh.

Ownership is out, subscriptions are in (think Amazon KindleUnlimited, Spotify, Netflix).  OverDrive, still the largest, most well-known ebook borrowing platform, offers a subscription collection with over 10,000 titles available to our regional independent school membership group.   It's 4 times the annual cost, but 20 times the content, including elementary-appropriate books and audiobooks, and a bunch more stuff (that we may or may not want. We'll see.).

Would more people use Paideia's ebook collection through OverDrive?

If we had more titles available AND used the same app as the local public library systems, would it be more convenient and attractive for Paideia readers?  (ps -- take advantage of your tax dollars; use your public library often!!).  Would a more seamless process for students, staff and families who borrow from their libraries make it easier for the same folks to use Paideia's ebooks?

I think we're going to do it, at least as a test, but before I sign on the line, I'd really like to hear from adult members of the Paideia community about your ebook and audiobook use.  Parents in particular, because you can borrow from our libraries just like your kids can (take advantage of your tuition dollars; borrow from the Paideia Library!!).

Email me at library@paideiaschool.org, or leave a comment below to help me offer the best digital reading options for our community.  Thanks!!

Kindle Books + Audible Books + Fire HD = Immersion Reading:Even Better Than Tinkerbell!

Remember read-along storybooks?  The ones when you "See the Pictures -- Hear the Record -- Read the Book," and a sound alerts you to Turn the Page?  Back before apps, before CDs, even before cassette tapes, many of the original read-alongs were adaptations of Disney cartoons, released on 45 rpm vinyl records.  In the Disney ones, Tinkerbell's ringing bell signaled that it was time to turn the page to continue with the printed text.  Look Mom, I'm "reading!"

A certain fine young man I know, VB, doesn't much like to read. He enjoys the stories, but reading is hard, and slow, and tires him out.  Kind of like running. Ugh.  Who can really blame a guy for choosing other leisure activities?

Once. U-pon. A. Time . . .

For school, though, reading isn't optional.  There are a number of assistive technologies available, like text-to-speech software, and Reading for the Blind & Dyslexic materials, that let VB listen to the spoken text and read along with it, but they're inelegant. The "Robbie the Robot" voices do they best they can, but often words are pronounced oddly, or without the inflections of meaning that are obvious to a fluent human reader.

None of these options has trumped Tinkerbell, until Amazon.com (which offered a text-to-speech Kindle option that VB liked ok)  figured out how to synchronize Audible.com audiobooks with Kindle ebooks on the Kindle Fire HD tablet, using their Whispersync technology. They call it Immersion Reading, and  It's Awesome! 

Immersion Reading plays the professionally recorded audiobook synchronized to the corresponding text on the screen, with real-time highlighting of each word as it's read.  And poor Tinkerbell is out of a job -- the Fire HD turns the page automatically along with the narration.

On the slight down-side, it does mean buying the book twice, once from Audible and once from Kindle (both are owned by Amazon.com), and not all books have compatible audiobooks.  It doesn't work on a regular Kindle, though they say it will work on Android devices other than the Fire HD.

On the upside, though, since both are owned by Amazon.com, there is often a significant discount on the Audible book once you've purchased the Kindle book (The Martian  by Andy Weir was $5.99 for the Kindle book, and the Audible add-on was only $2.99.  Not all pairs are that good a deal, though).

The proof of awesomeness?  VB has asked for all his school lit books on the Fire HD, and even started reading one 3 weeks ahead of time.  He has also asked for leisure reading books (yay!  "Reader's Advisory" is fun!), and upon finishing one, he asks for another.  He says he understands what's going on much better with a human reading the story, and his work in lit class shows it.  "Reading on the Kindle Fire" even merited its own bullet-point in his recent presentation on his best learning strategies.  Wow.

After all, it's immersion in language and stories that matters, not the container.  Sorry Tinkerbell, this time I think you're out of a job for good.

Have you tried the Fire HD with Immersion Reading?  Or another assistive technology for reading?  Share your experiences in the comments.

---

VB's Top Immersion Reading Experiences So Far

Long Way Gone  by Ishmael Beah (for school)
Divided We Fall  by Trent Reedy
     (leisure reading; #1 favorite! VB is impatiently waiting for the audio version of the sequel)
The Martian  by Andy Weir (reading now)
The #1 Ladies Detective Agency  by Alexander McCall Smith
      (for school. Better than he thought it would be -- thanks to Immersion Reading!)

To Marietta By Way of Macon . . ., or:Little Things Can Make a Librarian Happy

So yeah, I'm a little proud of myself.  Yesterday was one of those days with nothing big on the calendar, so I'm taking care of desk business and being pretty much "on call" for anybody who needs something in the library -- computer help, copier help, checking out, finding a book, the usual.

Near the end of the day, a fellow came in, sent by JH teacher Tom Painting, to get the novel Bee Season by Myla Goldberg.   We own the book, I've read it and it's supposed to be in and on the shelf.  But -- every librarian's horror story -- it's not there!  We can't find it!  A customer might have to go away empty-handed -- NOOOOOOOO!

As it turns out, the fellow is a visiting teacher and friend of Tom, and he wanted to read the first couple of pages of the novel to Tom's writing students today in class. Knowing that, I start to think. How can we get hold of just the opening passages of the novel?  Google Books? Nah, too recent.  Maybe, just maybe, Amazon.com has a "Look Inside" feature for this one.  So I go to my computer and check.  Yes, they do on the paperback edition -- but for some reason, it wasn't apparent on my screen. I checked to see if the Kindle version offered a downloadable sample.  SCORE!  There it was.  Can I somehow send it to Tom?

Not so easy.  Tom doesn't exactly love technology, and while he has an iPad, he's not fond of it.    Alternate next step, send the sample to my iPad.  Alas, you can't print previews, either from the Amazon.com site or from the Kindle Reader sample file. Think think think.  Screen shot!  From the sample (usually the first chapter or so) displayed in the Kindle Reader app on my iPad, I took screen shots of the first two pages.  Now just to print them, and we're done.

Not so fast . . .  The Handiprint service that's supposed to allow iPads to print to the library laserjet hasn't been working this week, even after some troubleshooting and reboots.   I have to tell the students to email from the iPad to their FirstClass email and print from a iMac workstation.  I had to do the same thing.   Wait wait wait for the email to go from the Photos app through my  Yahoo email account, out into the 'internets,' where a simple file transfer from Atlanta to Atlanta could conceivably be routed through Pittsburg or San Diego, and into my school FirstClass email. 

Finally the emails arrive in my inbox, and I print out the .png photo files on the library printer.  Success!  Two sheets of paper and a mission accomplished.

And that's how I ended up metaphorically travelling from Atlanta to Marietta (normally a straightforward mission, 20 miles straight up I-75) via Macon, Savannah, Columbus, Albany and possibly even Birmingham.

Kind of geeky, maybe, but it sure did feel good to send that customer away with exactly what he needed when he walked in.

---

Books! 3x

Last Friday was the year's first meeting of the high school book club, and was a great success.  Sixteen high school readers attended, and we ended up choosing The Night Circus as the first book of the year, to read for the October gathering.  We also have plans to choose and read a book together with another student club, and have a joint gathering for discussion.

Before taking recommendations and voting for October's book, though, we went around the room with introductions.  Each student gave name and grade, and the title of one (some had trouble picking just one, but that was the rule) book from summer reading that he or she would recommend to the group.  What a list!

~ ~ 

On Monday we had the first meeting of junior high reading club. We followed pretty much the same path -  snacks (always snacks!!), introductions, recommendations.  The student leaders had a list of  proposals for October (The 5th Wave, Like No Other, Say What You Will, Stupid Fast) and after voting, Say What You Will by Cammie McGovern was declared to be our next read.

Here's the list of recommendations compiled by the junior high club members:

Yes, my misspelling of Delirium is captured for posterity. Sigh.

~ ~

Lastly, my first booktalk (aka, 'travelling road show') in the junior high was yesterday.  I toted my stuff over to Tony's new ground floor digs, and gave (what I hope were) tantalizing descriptions of 17 Young Adult novels from our collection.  I must have done ok, because all of the starred titles were checked out right away; ones with extra stars have waiting lists!

* Stupid Fast by Geoff Herbach

* * * Divided We Fall  by Trent Reedy

* The Living  by Matt de la Peña

* * The Girl in the Steel Corset  by Cady Cross

* The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

* Eleanor and Park  by Rainbow Rowell

* * Will Grayson Will Grayson  by John Green and David Levithan

* Delirium  by Lauren Olivier

* Deadline  by Chris Crutcher

Wonder  by R. J. Palacio

Black and White by Paul Volponi

The Raven Boys  by Maggie Stiefvater

If You Come Softly  by Jacqueline Woodson

A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life  by Dana Reinhardt

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Creeping with the Enemy  by Kimberly Reid

The Door of No Return  by Sarah Mussi 

 It's good to be back in action.  Reading is FUN!

Are you in a book club?  Is it fun?  Comment!

A Week of Tales:Folk and Fairy, Writing and Telling

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-->  Junior high readers: the links are at the bottom of this post

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Hello Friday!

This post has been dual-purpose.  The first version, which was live on Thursday, was written quickly to get links available to John & Sydney's class.  This, more verbose version, is to let you know what's been going on in the library that needed fairy tale links.

Three times since school started, I've raided the elementary library's 398.2 section (that's folk and fairytales in regular people talk) to select picture books and collections for high school and junior high classes.

Last week Thrower's high school lit class, "American Male Voice," came in to find inspiration for a storytelling assignment.  From classic tall tales to Paul Feig's hilarious memoir, the guys browsed and chose stories to learn and tell in front of the class.  I also introduced Margaret Read MacDonald's method for learning a story in one hour, found in The Story-Teller's Start-Up Book.  For students who wanted to create their own stories to tell, I showed  some of  Donald Davis' prompts from Telling Your Own Stories, such as #7, "Can you remember a night your parents never found out about?"  Teenaged guys were intrigued by that one.  Thrower and I both remember Davis' best storytelling advice from his visit to Paideia -- "where there's trouble, you've got a story."  Everyone's got trouble, and everyone's got a story to tell.

This week, Oman & Tom's class came on Monday afternoon, and John & Sydney's class came on Thursday afternoon to get started on a creative writing assignment tied into the summer all-read book, Far Far Away by Tom McNeal.  Each student browsed picture books and fairy tale collections to find a tale for revision -- fracture it (á la Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man), radically change the setting,  write from the point of view of a minor character -- so many possibilities!  Alas, even Natalie's awesome collection wasn't big enough for 60 kids.  The links below supplemented the print collection, so everyone could find a favorite fairytale to rewrite.

To end the week, this morning the whole junior high participated in a fantastic Skyped conversation with author Tom McNeal, who turns out to be a thoughtful, gracious, and pretty darn cool guy.  I won't give away the surprises of Far Far Away, but the nucleus of the story is a rewoven

"Hansel and Gretel." In the idyllic Midwestern hamlet of Never Better, two young people with sub-optimal parents find themselves in the clutches of a child-eating villain.  Throw in a few funny bits, teenage rivalries, plot twists and the ghost of Jacob Grimm, and you get much much more than just a fairytale.  Props to my colleague Greg Changnon, homebase teacher, for the commitment and energy he gives to promoting reading in the junior high.

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Fairy Tales to Read Online

 Brothers Grimm -- Links to  many tales - just text, not too pretty

European Fairy Tales (includes Andersen, Grimm, Perrault and others)

Classic Fairy Tales -  most of the most well-known, reteller unknown

Fairytales.biz - fairytales from around the world, reteller unknown

"The Story of the Three Little Pigs" - retold by Joseph Jacobs

"The Three Little Pigs" - retold by Andrew Lang

"The Gin-ger-bread Boy" - as first published in St. Nicholas magazine in 1875



Ebooks - original collections to read online or download to iPad (all at Gutenberg.org)


Grimm's Fairy Tales -

Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm -


The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault -

The Tales of Mother Goose, as first collected by Charles Perrault in 1696  -


Andersen's Fairy Tales by H.C. Andersen -

Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, First Series -

Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, Second Series -

Awards, Apocalypses, and a Personal Challenge

So far in 2014, between federal holidays and 'snowtastrophes,' it hardly seems like we've had school at all.  The headmaster promises that we'll have a 5-day school week soon, but who knows when?? Not this week (hooray for winter break!!!).

At its mid-winter meeting, the American Library Association announced its latest slew of book awards for children and young adults, so even though I haven't been writing weekly blog posts, I've been hard at work. 

The two awards lists most valuable to Paideia junior high and high school readers are the Printz Award (one winner plus honor books) and the Alex Awards (a list of 10 titles).  You may recall my chagrin last fall when the National Book Awards announced its long-list of nominees for 2013 and I had barely heard of any of them.  Well, fast forward to deja vu all over again.  Of the ten Alex books and five Printz books, I'd heard of only two (Lexicon and Eleanor & Park), and only had one in the collection (Eleanor & Park - but at least I had read it and loved it). Oh, the shame.  I did feel a bit better upon discovering that neither the Atlanta-Fulton County nor the DeKalb Country public library systems had all 10 titles, and one wasn't in either system at all.

Enter the personal challenge: in 2014, I am going to read all 10 Alex books, and at least the Printz winner, and report back here in the blog.   Five years ago this challenge didn't go so well -- I hit #4 and wondered who in the world thought this book needed to be written, and I disliked #5 so much I didn't even skim to the end. And then I gave up.  2014 is off to a better start, with two down and 9 to go, and I'm feeling very optimistic that it's a good crop this year.

2014 Alex Awards 
(given by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of ALA)

~ The Alex Awards are given to ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.

Links go to a book's entry in the Paideia Library online catalog, if we have it.

• √ Lexicon: A Novel  by Max Barry.  The latest utterly plausible dystopian thriller from this Australian author, and my first challenge choice.  I listened to the audiobook from Atlanta-Fulton public library (an excellent production).  I've been a Max Barry fan since 2003's Jennifer Government.

• √ Help for the Haunted by John Searles.   Sylvie survived the night her ghost-hunting parents were murdered, and figures out who they really were and what really happened.  The second challenge choice, finished.

• In progress  The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu.  A couch potato becomes host to an ancient alien who's partnered with world makers and breakers through history. I've got this on my iPad, and am reading it now.  

• Brewster by Mark Slouka. Friends Ray and Jon plot an escape from their dead-end town and dysfunctional families.
   
• The Death of Bees  by Lisa O’Donnell.  Two Scottish sisters with dead parents buried in the back yard.

• Golden Boy by  Abigail Tartellin. The life and struggles of a seemingly successful intersex "golden boy."  Novels exploring mismatched physical and emotional identities seem to be in vogue lately -- I know at least a couple of teens who would have been relieved to see themselves in these pages.  The 2014 Stonewall young adult winner,√ Beautiful Music for Ugly Children, centers on a F-to-M transgender teen.

• Mother, Mother  by Koren Zailckas.  A novel about a dysfunctional family and a mom with serious control issues.  I'm not super-excited about this one (sounds scary), but we'll see.

• Relish by Lucy Knisley.  A graphic novel memoir with recipes.

•  The Sea of Tranquility  by Katja Millay.  Traumatized and lonely teens find each other and heal.
  
  
• The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence. An epileptic British misfit science geek  befriends an aging American Vietnam War vet.

2014 Printz Award

The Michael L. Printz Award is an award for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature.

• Midwinterblood   by Marcus Sedgewick.  "Doomed love circles back through the centuries in a series of seven intricately plotted, interlocking stories set on a mysterious, isolated island." I have not been able to sell Marcus Sedgewick (we have two or three novels) to Paideia readers.   He's definitely not a cookie-cutter writer, on the dark, Gothic-y side of paranormal, and I'm a bit skeptical. But I'll read it, and let you know.

Find out more about all five of the 2014 Printz award and honor books at Omnivoracious.com (Amazon.com's book blog).

My goals for Thursday and Friday's Winter Break? Clear and re-home the redundant dining room table, and READ!

 Have you read any of these 15 books yet?  Which one sounds best to you?  Comment below!

Reading Club Updates

High School Reading Club - The January book is Beautiful Ruins  by Jess Walter (also available in the ebook collection).  The meeting will be after school on Thursday, January 9 (the first Thursday of short term).

Junior High Reading Club - January book is Every Day  by David Levithan.   We usually meet on the 3rd Monday of each month, but since the 20th is MLK, Jr day, we'll meet on Monday, January13 instead (the 2nd Monday of January).

The December JH club book was Legend, a dystopian thriller by Marie Lu.  We discussed the book, watched a couple of video interviews with the author, and played a trivia game on people, places and events in the book.  Two winners went home with the 2nd and 3rd books in the trilogy, Prodigy and Champion.
The trilogy is available in a single volume in the ebook collection.

Zombocalypse Now!well, actually, really only just Thursday afternoon

Info and Links for High School Reading Club, November 14

World War Z  by Max Brooks

Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and Ann Bancroft. He is also the author of  The Zombie Survival Guide.   WWZ is a sequel of sorts to the survival guide.

Max Brooks' website.

Harvard Doctor Explains Newly Discovered Zombie Virus on Live Radio And Creates a Panic!

(ps -- he was only kidding)

 

Zombie Pandemic -- CDC's Zombocalypse Preparedness Graphic Novel!!

• Follow Todd, Julie, and their dog Max as a strange new disease begins spreading, turning ordinary people into zombies. Stick around to the end for a surprising twist that will drive home the importance of being prepared for any emergency.

Max Brooks talks about the history and types of zombies
and how to survive in the event of a zombie pandemic.




World War Z official movie trailer - nothing like the book, stars Brad Pitt


Everything Wrong with World War Z In 6 Minutes or Less - by CinemaSins


Music & culture references 

Iron Maiden - The Trooper (Charge of the Light Brigade) - Battle of Yonkers
Redgum - I Was Only Nineteen (Vietnam, mentioned twice by 2 different characters) -
The Smiths - How Soon Is Now - creepy documentary soundtrack
Free to Be You and Me Babies & song (soldiers act out skit & sing) -
Johnny Clegg - Asimbonanga - ("have you seen him?" 2nd interview with T. Sean Collins)

Short film - Alice Jacobs is Dead

More Zombies in the Library

• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (and a graphic novel version too)
• Gil's All-Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
• The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
• My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgewick
• The Demon Trapper's Daughter by Jana Oliver
• Soulless by Christopher Golden
• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
• Boneshaker  and Dreadnought  by Cherie Priest

• The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis (non-fiction, investigates Haitian vodoo zombies)

Discussion --
We talked about the role of women, how some people seemed to have gone crazy (the feral girl, Redeker/Xolelwa Azania, the downed female aviator who may or may not have communicated with someone in the bush who saved her).
Some were let down by the lack of a huge narrative arc (conflict, crisis, resolution) while others liked piecing together the action from the separate interviews. 
Some were frustrated by the fact that we never know exactly what happened to the boy in China to start the pandemic -- we talked about the parallels with the spread of H1N1/swine flu in 2009, the exact origins of which we can only guess.
We jumped off of some of the questions in this blog post.

Next Time - 
We're reading Beautiful Ruins  by Jess Walter.   Meeting will be on Thursday, January 9.

Free books for iPad and Kindle

Below are a few public domain books that look interesting, recently converted to ebook formats and available to download for free from Project Gutenberg.  The first one could be a Kindle beach read -- it's been compared to Peyton Place!

• The Trial of Callista Blake by Edgar Pangborn
  1961 crime novel of adultery, scandal and murder -- a young woman is on trial for poisoning the wife of her married lover.

• The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
  Published in 1839 as Darwin's "Journal and Remarks", and also known as Darwin's Journal of Researches, this is his account of the second exploratory voyage of his ship the HMS Beagle, from 1831-1836. A vivid and exciting travel memoir as well as a detailed scientific field journal covering biology, geology, and anthropology, Darwin's notes include comments illustrating his changing views at a time when he was developing his theory of evolution by natural selection

• History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 1 by Edward Gibbon - Project Gutenberg
  Published in 6 volumes, from 1776-1789, "the work covers the history of the Roman Empire, Europe, and the Catholic Church from 98 to 1590 and discusses the decline of the Roman Empire in the East and West. Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources, at the time, its methodology became a model for later historians. This led to Gibbon being called the first "modern historian of ancient Rome."
  
  

21st Century Gutenberg Revolution:Free eBooks for iPad & Kindle

If I gave in to frustration, I'd be totally bald from pulling out my hair over the ebook dilemma.  The best delivery systems either don't have the titles I want to offer or cost way too much for our little school, or both.  We are "evolving" on this issue, but for now progress is stalled.

When I first got my iPad and began to explore ebooks, I scoffed at friends who were all about free ebook downloads.  "They're all ancient," I thought, "who wants to read that?"  Yes, a librarian who was being a dumbhead about the classics. Gosh, sometimes I am so dense.  In any case, I'm now getting a daily list of all the books in the public domain that have been added to the Project Gutenberg electronic book collection, and you know, there really is some good stuff there!

"Public Domain" is a legal concept -- under United States law, creators (or assignees) automatically own the right to decide what happens to their creative works as long as they live, and the right extends to the creator's estate for 75 more years.  After that, unless an extension has been granted, that creative work goes into the public domain -- it is owned by the people.

Project Gutenberg began in the 1980s as a labor of love by a man named Michael Hart.  Since the beginning, PG volunteers have hand-typed and proof-read thousands of public domain texts, in many languages.  The first PG electronic books were computer only, but now almost every title is available in Kindle, Nook, iPad and other e-reader compatible formats.  Some even include full color illustrations!

Below is just a tiny sample of the public domain books you can download for free from Project Gutenberg.   The annotations are mine (a drawback to the project is that there's no synopsis or other description for any of the titles, so using a few research skills, and Wikipedia, does come in handy).  The PG catalog also includes audiobooks (both human-read and computer-read), and if you'd like to practice reading in  Yiddish, Norwegian, Tagalog, or any of 60+ other written languages, PG has ebooks for you too.

• The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 
  "The Lady with the Dog" was first published in 1899. It tells the story of an adulterous affair between a Russian banker and a young lady he meets while vacationing in Yalta. This collection includes 7 other short stories by Chekhov.

• Unicorns by James Huneker 
  A collection of essays, published in 1917, by American music writer and critic James Huneker. Included are essays "In Praise of Unicorns," on George Sand, James Joyce, Henry James, Brahms, Wagner, Cezanne, and "The Great American Novel."

• Two Boy Gold Miners by Frank V. Webster
  Frank V. Webster was a pseudonym controlled by the Stratemeyer Syndicate (publisher of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books). This pseudonym was used on books for boys from the early 1900s through the 1930s. Two Boy Gold Miners was published in 1909.

• Tom Swift and His Motorcycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road  by Victor Appleton. 
  The first book (1910)  in a long-running series from the Stratemeyer Syndicate.  Tom is a teenage genius inventor, modeled after such real-life inventors such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, whose adventures have inspired young people from Issac Asimove to Steve Wozniak.  As with so many older books, readers should be aware that ethnic and racial depictions can follow negative stereotypes, and parents may want to be prepared to discuss changes in society since then.

• Life of Beethoven by Anton Schindler  
  Anton Felix Schindler was an associate, secretary, and early biographer of Ludwig van Beethoven. His "Life of Beethoven," first published in 1840, had a great deal of influence on later Beethoven biography. He claimed to have been Beethoven's best friend.

• The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood 
  1910 horror story by Algernon Blackwood, one of the most prolific writers of ghost stories in the history of the genre.   In the Canadian wilderness, a hunting party separates to track moose, and one member is abducted by the Wendigo of legend (a malevlolent canibalistic monster, possibly created when a person ate human flesh).

• The Man in Black by Stanley John Weyman
  Written by an author much celebrated in his time, and later by modern author Graham Greene, The Man in Black is a short and spellbinding Cinderella tale with a monkey, a cruel, crafty-eyed showman and the evil of the man in black, a charlatan and wizard. This is a tale of corruption, abuse of the innocent and the complete destruction of evil by good. One of the most imaginative and clever works by Weyman, it is a magnificent tale.

• The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan
  
  
• The Million Dollar Mystery by Harold MacGrath 
  Harold MacGrath (September 4, 1871 - October 30, 1932) was a bestselling American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. This 1915 novel was written from MacGrath's work on the 1914 serialized silent film, and was also adapted for a second "Million Dollar Mystery" film in 1927.  There's a review of the novel (with plot summary) at http://www.angelfire.com/planet/edwardian/million_dollar_mystery.htm
  
  
• The Book of the Little Past by Josephine Preston Peabody
  A 1903 collection of poems by Josephine Preston Peabody, entitled "The Little Past", which relate experiences of childhood from a child's perspective. Josephine Preston Peabody (May 30, 1874 - December 4, 1922) was an American poet and dramatist, born in New York and educated at the Girls' Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College. From 1901 to 1903 she was instructor in English at Wellesley.

If you have an eReader, but aren't quite sure how to go about downloading from Project Gutenberg (or for that matter, from your Atlanta area public library), zap me a message, come on by the library and we'll try to get you set up.  It's one of those tricky things that, once you know how, it's not so hard, but a helping hand is really really useful in getting started.

Are you planning to read any classics over the sumer?  On paper, or "pad?" 

Linking & Thinking: A Week of Brain Fodder (weekly)

A weekly collection of annotated links to blog posts, articles and websites about information, school and teaching.

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• Easing Their Citation Pain: Putting the Focus on Critical Thinking in Research with EasyBib | The Unquiet Librarian

  Uber-librarian Buffy Hamilton describes her decision to add a paid school subscription to EasyBib to her teaching tools. Many students already know the free web version of EasyBib. Her school already has NoodleBib (as Paideia does), but Hamilton says that the learning curve is steeper and more frustration for students who are still struggling with why they need citations in the first place.

  
  

• The Portal Problem, Part 1: The Plight of the Britannica « The Scholarly Kitchen

  Don't blame the Internet for killing the Encyclopedia Britannica -- blame Britannica.
  
  "Britannica’s challenge in the future is not going to be convincing people that it offers value. It’s going to be convincing people that what it offers — a very small amount of highly reliable information — is worth paying for, given that people can easily get a very large amount of reasonably reliable information for free."

  
  

• Speed and Retention - Are e-Readers Slower and More Forgetful? « The Scholarly Kitchen

  It seems to be true. Because reading a paper book involves many many sene and contextual cues missing from an ebook - smell of an old book, embossed dust cover with colorful images, paper feel and sound of turning pages, spatial clues such as left page, right page, progress through the book -- it's harder to recall what's read electronically.

  
  

• Thinking more about ebooks and libraries and what big publishers should do – The Shatzkin Files

  This article looks at both library and publisher arguments in the ebook loaning controversy. The author calls for careful experimentation on the effect library loans might have on sales of older book titles no longer on the "hot" selling lists, and proposes a 2-3 year "lease" on popular book categories to protect publisher sales.

  
  

Posted from Diigo.

Linking & Thinking: A Week of Brain Fodder (3/25/2012)

A weekly collection of annotated links to blog posts, articles and websites about information, school and teaching.

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• The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction - NYTimes.com

  Hard science to back up what we've know all along -- the brain can learn emotions, sensitivity and experience from reading, not just living. In tests watching which areas of the brain become active when reading about different things, scientists found that there's no neurological difference between and action and reading about an actionl -- the same parts of the brain go to work. AND, when reading metaphor or evocative description -- a description of a skunky smell activates the smelling regions of the brain as well as the image regions. Reading DOES

  
  

• ACRLog » The Trouble With Books

  A better title might be "In Defense of Books" --
  "Books can bridge that gap between very general and very scholarly that is difficult to find in a journal article. They often cover a broad subject in smaller chunks (i.e., chapters), and can provide a good model for narrowing a topic into one that’s manageable for a short research assignments. Books can also help students exercise the muscles that they need for better internet and database searching as they mine chapter titles and the index for keywords."

  
  

• Open Resources - Transforming the Way Knowledge Is Spread - NYTimes.com

  There is so much freely available that was impossible to access only a few years ago, and a motivated student CAN put together a high quality education w/o formal college (or really even high school). The sticking point is, and always has been, motivation -- and that's something no college or university can provide, open online or otherwise.

• Racial Lens Used to Cull Curriculum in Arizona - NYTimes.com

  Wow. Arizona has banned Mexican-American studies, including YA novel Mexican White Boy by Matt de la Peña, in high schools. Imagine banning Asian American studies in California, or African American studies here in Atlanta. How can they do this and get away with it?

  
  

• E-readers grow; libraries can't get many titles

  Yup -- more of the same thing. It's not time to jump into ebook yet, largely because I don't think we can really supply what I believe (though I could be wrong) our Paideia readers want.

  
  

Posted from Diigo.

"Somehow Reading Related"

I have always been drawn to silk-screened posters from the first half of the 20th century. They're simple & bold, and often were the origins of catchy phrases that have become part of our cultural vocabulary ("Uncle Sam Wants YOU!"). Last month, the release of the Red Tails feature film and discovering this great 1943 poster


inspired a Black History Month display of library books on African Americans in the military. The poster is now on my office door - the airman is terribly dashing, isn't he?

I've been doing some research on copyright and Fair Use this week, and it's worth noting that a wonderful thing about government published materials is that they are immediately and always in the public domain. After all, we the taxpayers are the publishers. Cool, huh?

There's been a WWII "School Garden Army" poster at the circulation desk, but just been swapped out for this WPA poster (definitely "reading related").



It turns out there are more WPA-created literacy posters at the Library of Congress' American Memory website. Display inspiration for the coming months!





On my iPad for March reading are several free ebooks -- I'm halfway through the first Tom Swift novel (from Project Gutenberg; it's Tom Swift and His Motorcycle, or, Fun and Adventures on the Road -- did you know that the Taser stun gun name is an acronym of "Thomas A. Swift's electric rifle?") and Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. (on the Kindle Reader app, from Amazon.com). Also from Project Gutenberg and on my iPad are Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio (the original), Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, and The Scarlet Pimpernel. I'm thinking hard about the ebook situation for Paideia, and definitely taking a fresh look at the "vintage" reading available in the public domain. Stay tuned for more on that topic soon.

What's on your "always meant to read" list for March?