"See You in the Funny Pages": Unshelved

Librarians take their "Reader's Advisory" roles seriously!

I've just discovered Unshelved, said to be the only regular comic strip set in a public library. Given that this is a pretty specific niche, I don't doubt it. And I like it! Maybe you will too.

Click on the picture to see it full-sized.

ps -- I forgot -- there's another library-related comic strip at Turn the Page.

Books: The 'Ultimate Dumpees'

link to info at Amazon.com

I love this quote, from an abundance of katherines, the new YA novel by award-winning author John Greene. In it, burned-out child prodigy Colin is devastated by his most recent lost love, the 19th Katherine to have gone out with and then broken up with him since 3rd grade. Colin become obsessed with developing a mathematical theorem involving Dumpers (people like Katherines) and Dumpees (people like himself), to predict the course of a any relationship. The Theorem isn't working out.

The reading quieted his brain a little. Without Katherine and without the Theorem and without his hopes of mattering, he had very little. But he always had books. Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they
always love you back.

How true. And how wonderful!

Search the World's Libraries with WorldCat

After you've checked the Paideia Library catalog (whether for a specific item, or for anything we may have on your topic), don't go directly to a bookstore -- try a search with WorldCat. This is a project of the venerable OCLC, one of the pioneers in computerized library catalogs.

Click on any of the results that look promising, and you'll find a box to enter your zip code. WorldCat will show you which nearby public and/or university libraries own the item you need. Maybe the Atlanta-Fulton County or DeKalb libraries, or Emory, Georgia State or Agnes Scott. Try it for yourself in the search box below. Have fun with it!

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Search for an item in libraries near you: Enter title, subject or person

When Sailing the High Seas, Avoid Indonesia

I'm reading through a stack of new-ish books, prepping for some booktalks in the coming weeks. In one of the novels I read yesterday, a survival/adventure called Red Sea, a 14-year-old girl is left to captain a sailboat to safety after modern-day pirates attack them, killing her stepfather and critically wounding her mother.

Today, I stumbled across a list called 50 Things to Do With Google Maps Mashups (a mashup is an online service or information source created by combining the power of two separate Internet sources, like a list of houses for sale with a mapping service). And wouldn't you know, somebody out there has combined 2006 data from the International Piracy Reporting Center with Google maps, to create a "Live Piracy Map" of high risk areas. Two attempted and two actual pirate attacks in the Red Sea in 2006, but oh, my. The Indonesian archipelago is the winner by a mile. Who knew?

Read already, alright?

What librarian couldn't use a knuckle tattoo every now and then?

Create your own with the Knuckle Tattoo Generator. Oh, and have a nice day :-)

All Darwin, All the Time

The name pretty much says it all. This site is a production of the University of Cambridge. It's got Darwin's complete publications with facsimiles of every page in every book (even the advertisements), plus manuscripts, reviews, mp3s and more. And (!) the entire collection is searchable.

The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online is here.

Thanks to LibrarianInBlack for the lead on this valuable new site.

Inanimate Alice

inanimatealice, an "Interactive Narrative Series," is a cool, creepy Internet-only serial. It follows the life of Alice, whose parents move around the globe for reasons not entirely understood, but having something to do with oil. Home-schooled Alice has only one friend, Brad. Brad keeps her company, reassures her in scary times, and helps out with her growing computer-game development talent.

The Guardian Online published an interview with the author last week.

Episodes 1-3 have been published to date. The matryoshka game in Episode 3 is tricky. Good luck!

Thanks to Read Roger for this digital literature.