My First Library

The Internet And The Library

2008-04-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

by: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

"In this digital age, the custodians of published works are at the center of a global copyright controversy that casts them as villains simply for doing their job: letting people borrow books for free."

(ZDNet quoted by "Publisher's Lunch on July 13, 2001)

It is amazing that the traditional archivists of human knowledge - the libraries - failed so spectacularly to ride the tiger of the Internet, that epitome and apex of knowledge creation and distribution. At first, libraries, the inertial repositories of printed matter, were overwhelmed by the rapid pace of technology and by the ephemeral and anarchic content it spawned. They were reduced to providing access to dull card catalogues and unimaginative collections of web links. The more daring added online exhibits and digitized collections. A typical library web site is still comprised of static representations of the library's physical assets and a few quasi-interactive services.

This tendency - by both publishers and libraries - to inadequately and inappropriately pour old wine into new vessels is what caused the recent furor over e-books.

The lending of e-books to patrons appears to be a natural extension of the classical role of libraries: physical book lending. Libraries sought also to extend their archival functions to e-books. But librarians failed to grasp the essential and substantive differences between the two formats. E-books can be easily, stealthily, and cheaply copied, for instance. The source of the e-book - scanned printed titles, or converted digital files - is immaterial and irrelevant. The minute a title becomes an e-book, copyright violations are a real and present danger. Moreover, e-books are not a tangible product. "Lending" an e-book - is tantamount to copying an e-book. In other words, e-books are not books at all. They are software products. Libraries have pioneered digital collections (as they have other information technologies throughout history) and are still the main promoters of e-publishing. But now they are at risk of becoming piracy portals.

Solutions are, appropriately, being borrowed from the software industry. NetLibrary has lately granted multiple user licences to a university library system. Such licences allow for unlimited access and are priced according to the number of the library's patrons, or the number of its reading devices and terminals. Another possibility is to implement the shareware model - a trial period followed by a purchase option or an expiration, a-la Rosetta's expiring e-book.

Distributor Baker & Taylor have unveiled at the recent ALA a prototype e-book distribution system jointly developed by ibooks and Digital Owl. It will be sold to libraries by B&T's Informata division and Reciprocal.

The annual subscription for use of the digital library comprises "a catalog of digital content, brandable pages and web based tools for each participating library to customize for their patrons. Patrons of participating libraries will then be able to browse digital content online, or download and check out the content they are most interested in. Content may be checked out for an extended period of time set by each library, including checking out eBooks from home." Still, it seems that B&T's approach is heavily influenced by software licencing ("one copy one use").

But, there is an underlying, fundamental incompatibility between the Internet and the library. They are competitors. One vitiates the other. Free Internet access and e-book reading devices in libraries notwithstanding - the Internet, unless harnessed and integrated by libraries, threatens their very existence by depriving them of patrons. Libraries, in turn, threaten the budding software industry we, misleadingly, call "e-publishing".

There are major operational and philosophical differences between physical and virtual libraries. The former are based on the tried and proven technology of print. The latter on the chaos we know as cyberspace and on user-averse technologies developed by geeks and nerds, rather than by marketers, users, and librarians.

Physical libraries enjoy great advantages, not the least being their habit-forming head start (2,500 years of first mover advantage). Libraries are hubs of social interaction and entertainment (the way cinemas used to be). Libraries have catered to users' reference needs in reference centres for centuries (and, lately, through Selective Dissemination of Information, or SDI). The war is by no means decided. "Progress" may yet consist of the assimilation of hi-tech gadgets by lo-tech libraries. It may turn out to be convergence at its best, as librarians become computer savvy - and computer types create knowledge and disseminate it. http://samvak.tripod.com

Products for the Blind Migrate From Cassette to Flash Drive

2008-03-28T18:51:00.000-07:00

Judith M. Dixon, a clinical psychologist by training and a sophisticated techie by avocation, is helping to lead the Library of Congress into the digital age.

Dixon, 55, who gave up university teaching 27 years ago to join the library's National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, is a key player on a team that has been working for the better part of a decade to create a new generation of audiobooks for the library's more than 700,000 registered blind and disabled users.

The goal is to make the digital format the backbone of the library's "talking book" program by transferring onto special digital flash drives the 60,000 titles that the library has on audiocassettes and giving patrons new machines on which to play them.

"The library system is here because free public library service is a basic tenet of our society," said Dixon, who is blind and navigates with the aid of a guide dog. "This program is providing access to people who would otherwise not have it."

Under the program, blind and disabled users may obtain audiobooks through the mail from any of the service's more than 130 regional libraries throughout the country. There is no charge for the books or the players, but to keep the machines, users must check out at least one book a year. The library plans to roll out the new machines and digital books by the end of the year.

One of the new digital cartridges can hold 46 hours of audio. In contrast, a single cassette tape holds six hours -- and then only when recorded at half-speed and on four tracks. Since the typical book is 15 hours long, the new format means all but the longest books can be contained on a single cartridge, Dixon said.

The transformation also is driven by necessity. The cassette tape belongs to a generation of technology whose time has passed. As the library-issued cassette players on which blind users play tapes fall into disrepair, finding spare parts grows harder and harder.

The Library of Congress and its users have been through technological revolutions before. The library began offering audiobooks on long-play records in 1934. It added books on cassettes in the late 1960s, but the vinyl era lasted well into the 1980s.

"This transition is probably going to have to happen a lot faster because cassettes just aren't going to be available much longer," said Dixon, who is a consumer relations officer for the library.

The new players resemble the flat, dictionary-size cassette machines of old, with large buttons and a single built-in speaker. The digital cartridge is about the same size as a cassette tape, but it connects to the player via a USB port rather than fitting over two rotating pegs.

Dixon and advocates for the blind say that relying on commercially available books on compact disc or in MP3 format is not an option. Many blind users have difficulty operating the tiny buttons of MP3 players, and the inventory of available books is usually limited to commercially popular titles.

Congress has approved $12.5 million annually for four years to help the program go digital, less than the $19.1 million that the library had sought. That means it will be able to make 3.5 million copies of audiobooks over four years instead of 4.8 million, officials said. The program's advocates plan to press their case for more money today at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the library's budget.

"The old players will start to break down and the new players will not be available yet, and a lot of patrons are going to experience a halt in service," said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind. "The talking-book program is the primary source of reading material for most blind people. Imagine if someone told you, 'You know what, you just don't get to read anything for a while.' "

By Christopher Lee

Washington Post Staff Writer

J.K. Rowling says rival Potter book would exploit her

2008-03-05T17:20:00.000-08:00

By Christine Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling would feel "exploited" if a fan's unofficial encyclopedic companion to the boy wizard series was published, she said in court papers made public on Thursday.
Steve Vander Ark has written "The Harry Potter Lexicon" -- a 400-page reference book based on his popular fan Web site (www.hp-lexicon.org). Rowling and Warner Bros. are suing RDR Books, which planned to publish the book last November.
"I am very frustrated that a former fan has tried to co-opt my work for financial gain," Rowling, 42, who wrote the seven hugely successful Harry Potter novels, said in a declaration filed in U.S. District Court this week.
"I believe that RDR's book constitutes a Harry Potter 'rip off' of the type I have spent years trying to prevent, and that both I, as the creator of this world, and fans of Harry Potter, would be exploited by its publication," she said.
The lawsuit filed in October names RDR Books, an independent publisher based in Michigan, and unidentified persons as defendants. It seeks to stop publication and requests damages for copyright and federal trademark infringement and any profits to be gained.
Rowling has said she plans to write her own definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia, which would include material that did not make it into the novels, and donate the proceeds to charity. The novels have sold more than 400 million copies.
"I feel intensely protective, firstly, of the literary world I spent so long creating, and secondly, of the fans who bought my books in such large numbers," said the British writer ranked by Forbes as the world's 48th most powerful celebrity.
RDR Books has said Vander Ark, a librarian, had spoken at Harry Potter academic conferences in Britain, Canada and the United States and that a timeline he created was used by Warner Bros. in DVD releases of the Harry Potter films.
The company and Vander Ark have said the book would only promote the sale of Rowling's work and that Vander Ark's Web site, used by 25 million visitors, had been called "a great site" by Rowling herself.
Warner Bros is a unit of Time Warner Inc, which owns the copyright and trademark rights to the Harry Potter books.
(Editing by Michelle Nichols and Stuart Grudgings)

Library Allows Free DVD Rentals For Seniors

2008-01-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

PLAINFIELD: The Plainfield Public Library allows senior citizens 60 and over to take home DVD rentals for, and provides VHS video rentals for free to all library cardholders. The library is located at 800 Park Ave.

The rental fee for new DVDs (in the library for six months or less) is $3 for a three-day period. All other DVDs rent for $1 for a seven-day period.

There is a $1 per day late fee for any overdue VHS videos or DVDs.

For more information, call the circulation department at (908) 757-1111 ext. 111. Get into the swing

with dance lessons UNION: Free swing dancing lessons will be given on Sunday, from 1 to 3 p.m. in the YM-YWHA of Union County, at 501 Green Lane.

The live band, called Full Count Big Band, is an 18-piece contemporary big band with a vocalist. Kenneth Fink is the direc tor.

Refreshments will be served.

For directions, call the Y at (908) 289-8112. Call in case of inclement weather.

Source: Yahoo!

Children's Book Award Winners Break The Mold

2008-01-15T21:51:00.000-08:00

Highly unconventional books by Laura Amy Schlitz and Brian Selznick won the most prestigious awards for American children's literature yesterday.

Schlitz, a librarian at the Park School of Baltimore, won the Newbery Medal for "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village." A collection of theatrical monologues, it was originally written as a performance piece for fifth-grade students studying the Middle Ages. The Newbery usually goes to works of narrative fiction, though other genres are not excluded.

"It was written to be performed," Schlitz said yesterday of "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!" But teachers and parents at the school persuaded her to send the manuscript to publishers, and Candlewick Press "pulled it out of the slush pile" and helped her turn it into a book.

Selznick won the Caldecott Medal for "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," a 500-plus-page category-buster that the author has called "not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things." The judges decided that Selznick's tale of an orphan who lives in a Paris train station was driven primarily by its elegant black-and-white drawings, which qualified it for the picture-book award.

Selznick said yesterday that the questions about his book's genre were "part of what makes this [award] such a surprise." His young protagonist ends up getting involved with one of the pioneers of the cinema, and Selznick said he chose a picture-heavy form "because I saw that it connected with how a director tells a story through a camera."

Prolific British writer Geraldine McCaughrean won the Printz Award for young adult literature for "The White Darkness." Unlike the Newbery and the Caldecott Medals, this relatively new but increasingly influential award is not restricted to American authors.

"The White Darkness" is the story of a teenage girl, not yet ready to deal with boys in the real world, who makes a "secret friend" of the long-dead Antarctic explorer Titus Oates -- only to find herself pulled into an Antarctic expedition herself. "If you're a girl, it's about sex," McCaughrean said yesterday. "If you're a boy, it's about caterpillar-track vehicles falling into crevasses."

The Coretta Scott King Book Awards, which recognize African American authors and illustrators, went to writer Christopher Paul Curtis for "Elijah of Buxton" and writer-illustrator Ashley Bryan for "Let It Shine." Curtis is the author of "The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963" and "Bud, Not Buddy," which won the 2000 King award.

The awards were announced in Philadelphia at the American Library Association's midwinter meeting.

When Schlitz began working on "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!," she wanted something that could be performed, but she didn't want to write a play. Fifth-grade classes at Park had 17 children in them, and she remembered that as a child herself, "it broke my heart" when she got only a tiny part in a dramatic production.

So she wrote monologues of relatively equal length. She wrote them in a variety of forms: some prose, but most poetry. She invented Hugo, the lord's nephew ("The Feast of All Souls, I ran from my tutor -- Latin and grammar -- no wonder!"). She invented Petronella, the merchant's daughter, and Lowdy, the varlet's child ("I love the dogs, but God's bones! The house is full of fleas!"). She based Thomas, the doctor's son, on a character from Chaucer.

"I just was exploring and playing," she says.

The monologues were a hit with the fifth-graders, and after some urging from parents and colleagues, Schlitz sent "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies" to 11 publishers in the summer of 2000. One wrote back to inform her, she recalls, that "we have shredded your manuscript."

Mary Lee Donovan, Schlitz's editor at Candlewick, credits her then-assistant, Danielle Sadler, with an enthusiastic first read. Donovan agreed with her: Schlitz's work was striking and unusual. But it was so unusual that the question became: "What do we do with it?"

Donovan suggested that the stories Schlitz's characters tell -- originally written to be fully independent of one another -- might be woven together by placing them all in the same medieval village and creating small links between them. Schlitz realized that the weaving would be easier if she added a few more monologues rather than tear up her finished ones.

There were problems finding the right illustrator (one, who loved the book, died before she could finish). And throughout there was the nagging question: What exactly is this anyway? Years went by. Schlitz had time to write and publish two other books with Candlewick: a biography of the roguish, self-taught archeologist who discovered Troy ("The Hero Schliemann") and a novel called "A Drowned Maiden's Hair."

Schlitz made a point yesterday of thanking the Park School, which encourages faculty writing in numerous ways.

Among yesterday's other award recipients were:

Newbery Honor Books: "The Wednesday Wars," by Gary D. Schmidt; "Feathers," by Jacqueline Woodson; and "Elijah of Buxton," by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Caldecott Honor Books: "Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story From the Underground Railroad," illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine; "First the Egg," illustrated and written by Laura Vaccaro Seeger; "The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain," illustrated and written by Peter S¿s; and "Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity," illustrated and written by Mo Willems.

Printz Honor Books: "Dreamquake: Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet," by Elizabeth Knox; "One Whole and Perfect Day," by Judith Clarke; "Repossessed," by A.M. Jenkins; and "Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath," by Stephanie Hemphill.

The Pura Belpr¿ Award, honoring Latino illustrators and authors: "Los Gatos Black on Halloween," illustrated by Yuyi Morales; and "The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano," written by Margarita Engle.

King Author Honor Books: "November Blues," by Sharon M. Draper; and "Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali," written by Charles R. Smith Jr., illustrated by Bryan Collier.

King Illustrator Honor Books: "The Secret Olivia Told Me," by N. Joy, illustrated by Nancy Devard; and "Jazz on a Saturday Night," by Leo and Diane Dillon.

Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Author Award: "Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It," by Sundee T. Frazier.

The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults went to Orson Scott Card, for his novels "Ender's Game" and "Ender's Shadow."

By Bob Thompson

Washington Post Staff Writer

In Colleges, Comics Art Is Becoming a Serious Matter

2007-12-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

CINCINNATI -- As a fine-arts graduate student in the early 1980s, Carol Tyler felt she had to hide her interest in cartoon drawing from teachers. An art form associated with comic books and comic strips wasn't considered college material.

Now a professional cartoonist and graphic novelist, Tyler began teaching the University of Cincinnati's first comics art class last year.

Other colleges have also started such classes as critical and academic respect for comics has grown. Courses that began in 2005 at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks are starting to lure professional artists and public school teachers. Monroe Community College in Rochester, N.Y., will start its first course next spring.

Applications have increased by at least 50 percent at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vt., which was founded two years ago and won state approval this year for a master of fine arts degree. "Schools are now recognizing the creative and commercial value of comics," Tyler said as she watched her Cincinnati students outline their pencil drawings in ink, filling in sections with black or gray tones. "An interest in comics and cartooning doesn't have to be a secret anymore."

Some students hope to learn skills useful for advertising, film, video game or illustration careers. Some just enjoy comics. Others want to produce comics or graphic novels.

"I started drawing comics when I was about 12, but had sort of put it aside," said Mariana Young, 25, who wants to be a professional cartoonist.

Tyler's students learn graphic design, composition, lettering, layout and how to draw figures that convey emotion. She also tries to show them how to organize their thoughts to deliver clear and concise ideas. Story lines have included the impact of nannies on a student's life and recollections of a colorful grandfather.

The director of the National Association of Comics Art Educators, Ben Towle, said it's too soon to have hard data on numbers or where new classes are being taught. But the association is fielding many more inquiries about starting classes.

"There are a lot of scattershot courses as opposed to dedicated programs, but you wouldn't even have seen that five years ago," he said.

Demand also is growing for established courses, and some schools have waiting lists to take classes.

The number of freshmen in the cartooning major at the School of Visual Arts in New York more than doubled from 2002 to last year. The Savannah College of Art and Design offered comics art in 1992 as an elective to a handful of students. The school now has nearly 300 undergraduates and 50 graduate students pursuing bachelor's and master's degrees in sequential art, also known as comics art.

Much of the credit goes to the emergence in the 1980s of graphic novels, which offer more complex story lines for more mature audiences than traditional comic books do. They typically are more durably bound and longer than the floppy comic magazines that told the tales of Superman or the antics of small-town teenager Archie Andrews and friends.

www.washingtonpost.com

Library Launches Downloads

2007-12-13T17:48:00.001-08:00

Loudoun Is 1st N.Va. System to Offer Video on Demand

The Loudoun County library system began offering online books to its patrons in 2000. Two years ago, it put audio books online for downloading onto an iPod.

It reached another digital milestone this week, becoming the first library system in Northern Virginia to offer MyLibraryDV, a video-on-demand service that allows library card holders to download hundreds of hours of video.

The free service includes more than 1,100 video titles -- movies, travel guides, documentaries, TV programs and children's entertainment. All that's needed to access them is a library account and a high-speed Internet connection.

The programs are offered through Recorded Books, a company based in Prince Frederick, Md., which began publishing audio books in 1979. In February the company launched MyLibraryDV, which it has marketed to libraries across the country.

Nearly 500 library branches nationwide have contracted to use the service, including those in Anne Arundel, Prince George's and St. Mary's counties, said Matt Walker, national sales director for Recorded Books. Arlington and Fairfax counties are considering registering, he said.

"Our lives are so hectic now. With this service, it's like your library's doors are always open," Walker said.

Linda Holtslander, division manager of the Loudoun County Public Library system, said the convenience of the service prompted Loudoun officials to sign up for it when approached by Recorded Books.

"MyLibraryDV allows the library to offer a broad range of high-demand programs that give our customers a quality video experience without the wait associated with copies borrowed from the branches," Holtslander said.

The time it takes to download a program depends on the program's length, the Internet connection and the hardware configuration of the computer, Walker said. Once a program has been downloaded, it remains on the library patron's computer for seven days. After the seven-day checkout period, it is automatically deleted.

The available movies include classic films and recent Hollywood blockbusters. No more than one movie may be checked out every 24 hours. In some cases, users may have to wait to download a movie because the library has limited the number of movie downloads. The download limit is reset every Thursday.

In addition to movies and TV programs such as "Antiques Roadshow," card holders will be able to download videos of authors speaking at Loudoun libraries and of other community programs, Holtslander said.

They can also download instructional videos on such topics as fitness, gardening, home repairs and cooking.

"If someone is really into cooking, they can download the video, buy the ingredients and then come back and make the meal," Walker said. Users can have up to 10 programs downloaded at one time.

MyLibraryDV's collection is constantly growing as titles are added, Walker said.

"The beauty of this service is that you don't have to leave your home, you don't have to worry about losing [a video] and you don't have to worry about returning it," Walker said. "It's free, and it's always available."

By Arianne Aryanpur

Washington Post

How to Find a Book to Read

2007-12-12T21:29:00.000-08:00

Whether you read often or only occasionally, when you go to read a book you first have the problem of choosing a book to read. Even the most avid reader could only read a tiny fraction of all the books that come out. At any given time, a book store probably contains many more books then you could read in your entire lifetime. How do you choose which books to read? Let me suggest a few ways to select a book.

Ask Friends - Ask friends, family members, and other people you know for recommendations. Friends work especially well for getting book recommendations, because they usually share the same interests as you. Also, friends know your personality well, so they can better guess what books you personally would like. Asking your friends for book recommendations will probably help your friendship also, because your friends will feel complimented that you want their opinion.

Authors You Like - Out of the books you have already read, try to think of your favorites. You can look at other books by the authors of your favorite books.

Bestseller List - Many newspapers publish lists of the currently best-selling books. If your newspaper does not have a bestseller list, you can also find bestseller lists on the internet or you can ask a book store clerk to see best-selling books.

Join A Book Club - Book clubs usually simply consist of a group of people who get together to choose a new book to read and discuss the book they previously chose to read. Most commonly, book clubs read one book per month. They usually do not cost anything, but the members may all put in some money for food and refreshments. Usually, the members of the book club take turns hosting. You can probably find a local book club by going on craigslist. Also, many public libraries have public book clubs.

Amazon - Amazon usually has ratings for books based on users who rate the book. It also has customer reviews of many books. When you view a book, it will show other books that you may like if you liked that book. That means you can get recommendations on Amazon by first finding some of your personal favorite books.

You can probably find other ways to help you select a book to read. If you want to try a certain book, you can avoiding losing money by simply borrowing the book from a library. If you do not like the book, you can stop reading it and return it.

Whatever you do, good luck and have fun!

Scott Hughes

www.articlesbase.com

Google's Book Scanning and Copyright Laws

2007-11-08T17:09:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, the search goliath rolled out stand-alone book search services in 14 countries. The same day, the Text and Academic Authors Association (TAA) became the latest publishers' organization to call Google's opt-out strategy backwards.

Authors, Publishers and publishing associations are not happy. While Google only publishes the full text of books in the public domain, it is still copying entire books for which it has no permission. Google claims it can do this because the books are being scanned from versions owned by public libraries. Fearing an avalanche of lawsuits, Google backed off.

In August, Google stopped scanning copyrighted books in public library collections. At the same time, it gave publishers the right to submit lists of books the publishers didn’t want scanned. As you can image, publishers still aren’t happy.

The Arrogance of Google

Once viewed as the underdog to giants such as Microsoft, Google continues to act like the local school bully. In this case, the company has taken such an arrogant approach that lawsuits are inevitable. Google is going to take a beating in the lawsuits and here is why.

Consider the neighborhood you live in. What if a local crime syndicate informed every household it was going to steal everything in each household. Undoubtedly, there would be calls of outrage. In response, what if the crime syndicate then suggested you could send a list of items in your house that you didn’t want stolen? This is exactly what Google is doing.

Google’s decision to scan every book in the world is idealistic, but laughably simple minded. At a time when the recording industry is suing teenagers for file swapping, one would think Google would get a clue.

SD Lawyer www.articlesbase.com

British Library Books Go Digital

2007-10-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

More than 100,000 old books previously unavailable to the public will go online thanks to a mass digitisation program at the British Library.

The program focuses on 19th Century books, many of which are unknown as few were reprinted after first editions.

The library believes online access to the titles will help teachers.

""If there are no modern editions teachers cannot use them for their courses,"" said Dr Kristian Jensen, from the British Library.

""What we can read now is predetermined by a long tradition of what has been considered great literature,"" he added.

At full production approximately 50,000 pages per working day will be scanned.

---------------------------------- Project's output

Approximately 30 terabytes of storage will be required to accommodate the project's output.

The first 25 million pages are expected to take two years to complete. Texts which are hard to get hold of will particularly benefit from the digitization.

For example, authors who were only ever published outside the great centers of literary life have tended not to remain in print and have often been forgotten.

Now, these authors will have a second chance to reach a readership.

""By digitizing the whole collection, we give access to the books without the filter of later judgments, whether based on taste or on the economics of printing and publishing,"" Dr. Jensen said.

The new category of digitized titles will supplement other early historic printed books which the British Library has already made available for viewing online through previous projects.

Those are included in two commercial resources: the Early English Books Online and the Eighteenth Century Collections Online.

Both collections are freely available to higher education institutions in the UK.

Other digital resources in the British Library will soon include two million pages of 19 Century newspapers and one million pages of 18th Century newspapers.

---------------------- Text searchable

Digitized publications will be accessible in two ways -- initially through Microsoft's Live Search Books and then via the Library's website.

The books will be fully text searchable, meaning users will be able to look for keywords within a publication, making research easier and enhancing interaction with the material.

Whereas Microsoft is working with the British Library, Google is digitizing the work of five of the world's other renowned libraries - Stanford, Harvard, and Michigan university libraries, the New York public library and the Bodleian library in Oxford.

Due to copyright restrictions and intellectual property issues, the agreement between Microsoft and the British Library covers only ""public domain"" materials.

""We have taken great care to exclude 19th Century works by authors who died after 1936, for there is copyright in the item for 70 yeas after the death of the author,"" Jensen said.

(Source: BBC)

LIBRARY MAY NOT SEE $100G PAYMENT

2007-10-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

PASSAIC -- Two partners in a development company, one a mayoral appointee to the Passaic Valley Water Commission, promised to pay the library $100,000 as part of a developer's agreement with the city.

But now the city's library, strapped for cash, may never see the money.

George Capodagli and Rigoberto Sanchez own River Edge at Passaic Urban Renewal LLC. The two entered into an agreement in 2005 with the city's Redevelopment Agency to develop a six-acre parcel of land into a 138-unit residential community along the river.

Sanchez is a close friend of Mayor Samuel Rivera, who appoints all members of the Passaic Redevelopment Agency and all but one member of the city's Planning Board.Rivera, who can appoint two members to the Passaic Valley Water Commission, appointed Sanchez in January 2005.

The developers were supposed to enter into a contract with the owners of the six acres by April 30, 2006. The contract stipulated that the company would pay the library $50,000 after receiving final approval for Phase I of the project and an additional $50,000 after construction was finished.

The Planning Board approved site plans for the project in May 2006. The developers never paid the first installment. The developers were unable to negotiate a purchase price with the property owners, Walter Jurczak and Matt Realty of Branchville in Sussex County. They have been in default of the agreement for more than a year. The Redevelopment Agency, whose members are appointed by the mayor, has taken no formal action against the developers.

In June, River Edge asked the Redevelopment Agency for a three-year extension. Last Thursday, the Redevelopment Agency commissioners formed a subcommittee to negotiate the extension and other changes to the agreement.

Redevelopment commissioner Miguel Frias said Tuesday that no action was ever taken against the company because the city did not want to lose its business.

"If we sent them a default letter, and we start charging penalties, I think that's just going to turn them off," Friassaid in a telephone interview. "I don't think the best move of the city is to have them just leave and not do anything."

Clause likely to be amended

Redevelopment Agency Director Glenn Carter said Tuesday that the clause requiring River Edge to donate to the library will most likely be amended in any new agreement.

"There's just no nexus between building 120 units and having to contribute to the library," Carter said. "You want to have some relationship between what the developer is doing and what you are getting."

Former Redevelopment Agency director Donna Rendeiro said she put the clause in the contract upon the suggestion of a City Council member.

"It's typical in redevelopment for a municipality to negotiate in benefits to the community," Rendeiro said. "Given the financial state of the library, it made sense."

Library Board President Craig Miller said he had no idea the developers owed the library money.

"We were never officially informed about this agreement," he said. Miller said he would look into what could be done about ensuring that the developers comply with the original agreement.

In the spring, library officials said they could not afford to keep the Reid Memorial Branch Library open because repairs to its leaky roof were too costly. Library officials said they would need $155,000 to keep the librarian open. Mayor Rivera said he would start a private foundation to save the library.

But library officials contend the Reid requires a lot more money than the $13,500 Rivera said was needed to repair the roof.

"If someone makes a commitment to the children, the seniors and to the reading public, we expect the pledge to be fulfilled," Miller, of the library, said.

Developers got stalled

Rosario Presti, River Edge's general counsel, said the developers were unable to move forward with the project because of the poor real estate market. He said the developers did not believe they were obligated to pay the installments mentioned in the redevelopment agreement because they had not received approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection for the project.

"The way we interpret it is that we haven't received the final approval to trigger that installment," Presti said. "The time isn't ripe for us to make the installment."

Both Sanchez and Capodagli have contributed to city elected officials, according to campaign finance reports. Capodagli gave $2,000 in campaign contributions to Jonathan Soto, a former councilman who is a member of the Passaic Redevelopment Agency and its former chairman.

Soto and Rivera were arrested on federal corruption charges earlier this month accused of accepting bribes in exchange for influencing local and regional governing boards. Rivera allegedly bragged that he controls five of the seven commissioners on the Passaic Valley Water Commission, according to a federal corruption complaint.

On Wednesday, Soto refused to comment for this story.

Sanchez, who owns Apolo Taxi, gave the mayor $2,200 for his 2005 re-election campaign. Capodagli Property Co. gave $2,200 to the campaign.

Neither Capodagli nor Rigoberto returned calls for comment Wednesday.

Rivera denied involvement in the negotiations.

"Rigo(berto Sanchez) is very close with me, I put him on the water commission," the mayor said Wednesday. Rivera said that he had nothing to do with the Redevelopment Agency's decision to consider a new contract with the developers.

"I have a lot of close friends, and I never do nothing for them," Rivera said. "Any contractor who makes a contract with the city should live up to it."

Resources: northjersey.com

Library finds abolitionist text, memoir

2007-10-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Volunteers sorting through donated books for a book sale found an abolitionist text and a slave's memoir, both dating back to the 1800s.

The books were discovered together last month in a single leather-bound volume that was clearly an unusual find, said Liza Holzinger, coordinator of the Bethlehem Area Public Library's book sale.

"When this appeared on my desk, I couldn't believe it," Holzinger said. "I was pretty impressed by it, especially after I started doing research on the topic."

The volume contained a first edition of Lydia Maria Child's 1833 book, "An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called African," and an 1840 second edition of "The Slave: Memoirs of Archy Moore."

Daniel Wilson, professor of history at Muhlenberg College, said Child's book was an early abolitionist text that received a lot of attention when it was published.

"They've got something valuable there," he said. "I'm not a book dealer, but this was a very influential text in terms of abolition and convincing people, particularly in New England, to adopt the abolitionist cause."

Holzinger said Child was a well-known author of popular novels and the advice manual "The Frugal Housewife." In "An Appeal," she wrote about the cruelty of slavery and its contradiction to the nation's founding principles.

There is no indication why the books were rebound together or who donated them, Holzinger said. She expects to price the volume for at least $500 at the book sale. The library is not interested in keeping the book because its rare book collection focuses on the Lehigh Valley, Holzinger said.

Resources : yahoo

Never Pay Full Price for a Book!

2007-09-21T23:12:00.000-07:00

Are you an avid reader? Are you trying to instill a love of reading in your children?

My whole family loves to read! Right before bedtime every night, every one of us can be found with our nose in a book!

It would be very easy for us to spend a fortune every month on books. But, since we don't have a fortune to spend every month, over the years I've found several ways to get good books and never pay full price!

1. Garage and yard sales are a prime source for both hardback and paperback books. There are people who will buy a book, read it once, and they're ready to get rid of it. I pick up lots of books at yard sales and never pay more than 50 cents each.

2. Used bookstores are another place to find good reading material. Store policies differ but most do something like sell the books at half the cover price. If you bring in books to trade, a store will usually give you credit for one-fourth of the original purchase price. I sometimes buy books at garage sales for 50 cents, read the book, and take it to the used book store where I get more than my 50 cents in credit.

If I find a book in very good condition at a yard sale for less than 50 cents, I will buy it even if I don't want to read it because I can trade it in for credit at the used bookstore.

3. Trading with friends and family is yet another way to get good reading material. My mom and I live 200 miles apart, but we always have a bag of books to trade whenever we visit each other. After we've both read a book, then it goes to the used bookstore.

4. I have recently discovered that the Dollar Stores in our area (and probably in yours, too) have books, hardback and paperback, for $1.00 each. The selection is not very large, but they have fiction and non-fiction and books for grown-ups and children, too. A book can make a great gift and at a $1.00 price it makes great economic sense, too.

5. Bookstore chain stores, like Hastings, have clearance tables somewhere in the store all the time. It takes some time to look through them, but I have bought many gifts from these clearance tables.

6. If you know of a book you'd really like to have, why not just let your family know? Your mom or your sister or husband would probably love to give you a gift for Christmas or your birthday that is something that they know you really want.

7. And don't forget your local library! The library is a wonderful place to get a book you've been wanting to read without having to buy it. You can also read the latest issues of most magazines at the library. I consider public libraries to be one of the "finer things in life"!

So, if you, too, are an avid reader, or if you're guiding your children to a lifetime love of reading, there are lots of ways to "read on the cheap"!

by: Cyndi Roberts

The Growing Ebook Industry and Market

2007-08-24T00:18:00.000-07:00

STEPHEN King is one of the few authors who tried to jump onto the Internet bandwagon. He sold one of his latest novels in "batches" – readers had to pay to read them. But "e-books" are still in a state of infancy. Publishing buzz about "digitised books" has yet to catch fire. Stephen King, like many others, gave up.

But that does not mean "e-books" are dead. In fact, if you are a believer in the ICT revolution, it is going to be the "in-thing" in the near future. E-books will change the face of modern publishing. Look at the writing on the wall. The Internet is changing the way we communicate, work, interact and shop. And the onslaught is only beginning.

In the US alone, there are 203 million Internet users and China registers 103 million more. That is merely the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, the Internet is changing newspapers as well. The 400-year-old industry has no choice but to make adjustments. Every major newspaper is moving trying to take advantage of online space. Or could it be that they have got panicky in reacting to the threat of online possibilities? And remember, advertisers, too, are attracted to the Internet. Television will have to compete with it for advertisement revenue.

Last year, Internet advertising in the US alone registered RM38 billion, perhaps a fraction of total advertisement expenditure, but growing significantly.

The book industry, too, is panicking. Let's look at what the Big Three in the Internet Kingdom are doing – Amazon.com, Google.com and e-Bay. Amazon celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. Currently, it has 49 million active users and last year it registered RM26.3 billion in revenue. E-bay, too, is 10 years old. It is currently the biggest online auctioneer.

It has millions of items on sale, grouped into more than 40,000 categories or sub- categories. Last year, 150 million registered users worldwide bought and sold goods worth RM155 billion.

One must not forget Google. It prides itself as a "search company" but, lest you forget, its power is making book publishers and traders jittery. If Google and gang are given the right to hawk books on the Internet, why buy books in their traditional form?

In fact, publishers are up in arms against Google's idea of scanning books digitally. Big publishers are suing. Recently, the Association of American Publishers filed a complaint in the New York District Court. They believe Google is infringing copyright laws. The move was initiated by the Big Five in book publishing – McGraw Hill, Pearson Group, Penguin, Simon & Schuster and John Wiley and Sons.

Google's idea is to scan books from major libraries. Using one of Google's services, you and I can now look for certain relevant passages, facts and quotations in the digitised version of the books. It saves you the trouble of looking up Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot in your library in case you need a quote. Google's defence has been the concept of "fair use" – a legal doctrine allowing copyrighted materials to be used for purposes of learning and research.

Google, apparently, has other ideas – it is developing the Google Print Library Project which will scan millions of books in the libraries of some of the most renowned universities in the US. Little wonder that even the US Authors Guild is hostile.

The legal battle will make us look again at copyright laws as we understand them, and ask if they are obsolete and demand due attention in line with the Internet revolution. Who will eventually benefit from the outcome? The public at large, Google argues. The publishers and writers beg to differ.

Its detractors argue that Google acted in its own economic self-interest. After all, this is a company with a market capitalisation of RM380 billion. It started with a simple idea – to make a cyber- space search easier. Imagine if it could expand the horizon of search to copyrighted book contents. Google is also exploring the possibility of "book rental" on the Net. In fact, a major publisher is said to support the idea.

Basically, consumers rent an online copy, say, for a week. Amazon.com, too, is looking at another possibility. Its Amazon Pages will offer for sale a page, a section or a chapter of book to be read online. In another revolutionary approach, Amazon is looking at the possibility of enabling buyers of traditional books to get access to an online copy.

Joe Bella

Informasi Penerimaan CPNS Departemen Luar Negeri ( DEPLU ) Tahun 2007

2007-08-12T23:26:00.000-07:00

Telah di buka penerimaan CPNS Departemen Luar Negeri ( DEPLU ) tahun 2007. Pendaftaran Di buka Mulai tanggal 7 sampai dengan tanggal 21 Agustus 2007. Bagi yang ingin mengikuti seleksi penerimaan, di harapkan segera mendaftarkan dengan melengkapi persyratannya.

DEPARTEMEN LUAR NEGERI REPUBLIK INDONESIA

P E N G U M U M A N

Nomor: 0951/KP/VIII/2007/02 PENERIMAAN CALON PEGAWAI NEGERI SIPIL DEPARTEMEN LUAR NEGERI TINGKAT SARJANA (GOLONGAN III) DAN DIPLOMA 3 (GOLONGAN II)

TAHUN ANGGARAN 2007

Departemen Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia membuka kesempatan kepada Warga Negara Indonesia pria dan wanita:1. Sebanyak 100 orang lulusan S1, S2, S3 menjadi Calon Pegawai Negeri Sipil (CPNS) Golongan III untuk dididik menjadi Pejabat Diplomatik dan Konsuler (Diplomat/PDK) ; Sebagian dari 100 calon PDK akan diseleksi secara khusus dari lulusan terbaik universitas negeri di luar Jawa.
2. Sebanyak 50 orang lulusan Diploma 3 menjadi Calon Pegawai Negeri Sipil (CPNS) Golongan II untuk dididik menjadi Bendaharawan dan Penata Kerumahtanggaan Perwakilan (BPKRT); dan
3. Sebanyak 50 orang lulusan Diploma 3 menjadi Calon Pegawai Negeri Sipil (CPNS) Golongan II untuk dididik menjadi Petugas Komunikasi (PK).I. PERSYARATAN UMUMa. Warga Negara Indonesia yang bertaqwa kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Esa, setia dan taat kepada Pancasila, UUD 1945, dan Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia.
b. Berkelakuan baik dan tidak pernah dihukum penjara atau kurungan berdasarkan putusan pengadilan yang memiliki kekuatan hukum tetap yang dibuktikan dengan Surat Keterangan Catatan Kepolisian.
c. Tidak pernah diberhentikan dengan hormat tidak atas permintaan sendiri atau tidak dengan hormat sebagai PNS/Anggota TNI/Polri maupun sebagai pegawai swasta.
d.Tidak berkedudukan sebagai CPNS dan tidak sedang terikat perjanjian/kontrak kerja dengan instansi lain.
e.Tidak bersuami/beristrika n seorang yang berkewarganegaraan asing atau tanpa kewarganegaraan.
f. Sehat jasmani dan rohani.
g.Bersedia ditempatkan di seluruh wilayah Negara Republik Indonesia atau negara lain yang ditentukan oleh Pemerintah.

II. PERSYARATAN KHUSUS

A. PEJABAT DIPLOMATIK DAN KONSULER (DIPLOMAT/PDK)

a. Berijazah Sarjana (S1), Magister/Master (S2) atau Doktor (S3):
1. Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik (Jurusan Ilmu Politik, Hubungan Internasional, Studi Kawasan, Ilmu Komunikasi, Sosiologi, Ilmu Pemerintahan dan Administrasi Negara).
2. Ilmu Hukum (Hukum Internasional, Hukum Bisnis, Hukum Perdata, Hukum Tata Negara).
3. Ilmu Ekonomi (Jurusan Studi Pembangunan, Manajemen, Akuntansi).
4. Sastra/Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya (Arab, China, Inggris, Jepang, Korea, Perancis, Rusia, dan Spanyol).
b.Lulusan Perguruan Tinggi Negeri, Swasta yang terakreditasi Badan Akreditasi Nasional Perguruan Tinggi, atau lulusan luar negeri, dengan persyaratan IPK: S1 minimal 2,75 (dua koma tujuh lima); S2 dan S3 minimal 3,00 (tiga koma nol nol).
c. Menguasai bahasa Inggris dengan baik (lisan dan tulisan) dan/atau bahasa PBB/asing lainnya (Arab, China, Jepang, Korea, Perancis, Rusia, dan Spanyol).
d. Berusia maksimum:
• 28 tahun pada tanggal 1 Oktober 2007 (lahir setelah 30 September 1979) untuk tingkat Sarjana (S1).
• 32 tahun pada tanggal 1 Oktober 2007 (lahir setelah 30 September 1975) untuk tingkat Magister (S2).
• 35 tahun pada tanggal 1 Oktober 2007 (lahir setelah 30 September 1972) untuk tingkat Doktor (S3).

B.BENDAHARAWAN DAN PENATA KERUMAHTANGGAAN PERWAKILAN (BPKRT)
a. Berijazah Diploma 3 (D3):
1. Jurusan Akuntansi.
2. Jurusan Manajemen Keuangan.
b. Lulusan Perguruan Tinggi Negeri, Swasta yang terakreditasi Badan Akreditasi Nasional Perguruan Tinggi, atau lulusan luar negeri, dengan persyaratan IPK: minimal 2,75 (dua koma tujuh lima).
c. Menguasai bahasa Inggris dengan baik (lisan dan tulisan) dan/atau bahasa PBB/asing lainnya (Arab, China, Jepang, Korea, Perancis, Rusia, dan Spanyol).
d. Berusia maksimum 28 tahun pada tanggal 1 Oktober 2007 (lahir setelah 30 September 1979).

C.PETUGAS KOMUNIKASI (PK)
a. Berijazah Diploma 3 (D3):
1. Jurusan Teknik Telekomunikasi.
2. Jurusan Teknik Informatika.
3. Jurusan Teknik Komputer.
4. Jurusan Teknik Elektronika
5. Jurusan Matematika.
b. Lulusan Perguruan Tinggi Negeri, Swasta yang terakreditasi Badan Akreditasi Nasional Perguruan Tinggi, atau lulusan luar negeri, dengan persyaratan IPK: minimal 2,75 (dua koma tujuh lima).
c. Menguasai bahasa Inggris dengan baik (lisan dan tulisan) dan/atau bahasa PBB/asing lainnya (Arab, China, Jepang, Korea, Perancis, Rusia, dan Spanyol).
d. Berusia maksimum 28 tahun pada tanggal 1 Oktober 2007 (lahir setelah 30 September 1979).

III. PENDAFTARAN
a. Melakukan REGISTRASI ONLINE melalui website http://www.deplu. go.id dan mencetak formulir registrasi beserta pernyataan menyetujui ketentuan dan syarat yang ditetapkan.
b. Registrasi online harus disertai dengan pengiriman berkas lamaran yang disampaikan kepada Panitia Penerimaan CPNS Deplu Tahun Anggaran 2007.
c. Setiap Pelamar hanya diperkenankan mengirimkan satu berkas lamaran dan mendaftar hanya untuk satu kategori seleksi PDK atau BPKRT atau PK.
d. Registrasi online baru akan diproses setelah Panitia menerima berkas lamaran yang disampaikan melalui Pos Tercatat mulai tanggal 7 s/d 21 Agustus 2007 (CAP POS) dan sudah diterima Panitia selambat-lambatnya tanggal 24 Agustus 2007, ditujukan kepada:

Ketua Panitia Penerimaan CPNS Deplu TA 2007

PO BOX 3195

JKP 10031 (UNTUK PDK)PO BOX 3189

JKP 10031 (UNTUK BPKRT)PO BOX 3190

JKP 10031 (UNTUK PK)

e.Panitia hanya menerima berkas lamaran yang disampaikan melalui PO BOX tersebut di atas dan tidak menerima format penyampaian lamaran lainnya.
f. Formulir Registrasi harus dilengkapi dengan lampiran:
i. Surat Pernyataan Menyetujui Ketentuan dan Syarat yang telah dicetak dibubuhi meterai Rp.6.000;
ii. Fotokopi KTP yang masih berlaku/Fotokopi Paspor bagi pelamar dari luar negeri;
iii.Daftar Riwayat Hidup terakhir;
iv.Satu lembar fotokopi ijazah (D3, S1, S2, dan/atau S3) berikut transkrip nilai yang sudah dilegalisir (cap dan tanda tangan asli) oleh Dekan/Direktur Program atau Ditjen Dikti Depdiknas bagi lulusan Perguruan Tinggi Luar Negeri (Surat Keterangan Kelulusan/Ijazah Sementara tidak dapat diterima);
Catatan: bagi lulusan luar negeri yang memiliki transkrip nilai tidak berskala 4.0 harap melampirkan konversi transkrip nilai dengan skala 4.0 yang disahkan oleh Ditjen Dikti Depdiknas.
v.Fotokopi Akte Kelahiran;
vi.Surat Keterangan Sehat dari dokter (terbaru);
vii.Fotokopi tanda pencari kerja (kartu kuning Depnaker) yang masih berlaku;
viii.Surat Keterangan Catatan Kepolisian (SKCK) yang masih berlaku;
ix.Pas foto terakhir ukuran 3×4 (berwarna) sebanyak 3 lembar: 1 lembar foto ditempel di formulir lamaran dan 2 lembar lainnya ditulisi nama pelamar di bagian belakang foto.

g. Lamaran beserta lampiran tersebut pada butir (e) disusun rapi sesuai urutan di atas dalam map kertas jepit berlubang dengan warna:
i. Biru untuk S1 – PDK,
ii. Kuning untuk S2 – PDK,
iii. Putih untuk S3 – PDK
iv. Hijau untuk D3 – BPKRT.
v. Merah untuk D3 – PK.
h. Map lamaran beserta lampiran dimasukkan ke dalam amplop warna coklat dan ditulis pada pojok kiri atas kode lamaran PDK atau BPKRT atau PK.
i. Berkas lamaran yang tidak memenuhi persyaratan tersebut di atas tidak akan diproses.
j.Berkas lamaran yang diterima Panitia menjadi milik Panitia dan tidak dapat diminta kembali oleh Pelamar.

IV. TAHAPAN DAN JADWAL SELEKSI
Seleksi penerimaan PDK, BPKRT dan PK dilakukan dengan tahapan-tahapan sebagai berikut:
1.Seleksi Administratif;
2.Ujian tulis substansi dalam Bahasa Indonesia dan Inggris (meliputi masalah nasional, internasional dan pengetahuan umum) pada 31 Agustus dan 1 September 2007;
3.Ujian kemampuan/penguasaa n Bahasa Inggris atau bahasa asing lainnya (Arab, China, Inggris, Jepang, Korea, Perancis, Rusia, dan Spanyol) berdasarkan pilihan peserta pada akhir bulan September 2007;
4.Tes Psikologi dan Wawancara Substansi serta Tes Penguasaan Teknologi Informasi/Komputer pada awal bulan Oktober 2007;
5.Seleksi dilakukan dengan sistem gugur dan keputusan Panitia tidak dapat diganggu gugat.

V. PENGUMUMAN HASIL SELEKSI
1. Hanya Peserta yang telah melakukan registrasi online dan memenuhi seluruh persyaratan untuk melamar/persyaratan pendaftaran akan dipanggil untuk mengikuti ujian tulis substansi.
2.Pelamar yang berhak mengikuti ujian tulis substansi akan diumumkan pada 25 Agustus 2007 melalui website Deplu http://www.deplu. go.id.
3.Kartu Tanda Peserta Ujian harus diambil sendiri oleh peserta ujian di Pusdiklat Deplu, Jalan Sisingamangaraja No. 73, Jakarta Selatan, dengan menunjukkan kartu identitas diri. Apabila diwakilkan harus memberikan Surat Kuasa bermeterai dan dengan menunjukkan kartu identitas diri Peserta dan Penerima Kuasa.
4.Jadwal pengambilan Kartu Tanda Peserta Ujian akan diumumkan kemudian melalui website Deplu http://www.deplu. go.id.
5.Ujian Tulis Substansi akan dilaksanakan pada tanggal 31 Agustus dan 1 September 2007 dengan tempat yang akan ditentukan kemudian.
6.Peserta yang lulus pada setiap tahapan ujian akan diumumkan melalui website Deplu http://www.deplu. go.id.

VI. LAIN-LAIN
1.Seleksi masuk Calon Pegawai Negeri Sipil Deplu tidak dipungut biaya.
2.Deplu tidak bertanggung jawab atas pungutan atau tawaran berupa apapun oleh oknum-oknum yang mengatasnamakan Deplu atau Panitia, sehingga Peserta diharapkan tidak melayani tawaran-tawaran untuk mempermudah penerimaan sebagai CPNS Deplu.
3.Bagi mereka yang telah dinyatakan lulus hingga tahapan terakhir seleksi tetapi mengundurkan diri diwajibkan mengganti biaya yang telah dikeluarkan panitia sebesar Rp 15.000.000,- (Lima Belas Juta rupiah) untuk PDK dan Rp 10.000.000,- (Sepuluh Juta Rupiah) untuk BPKRT dan PK.
4.Lamaran yang dikirimkan kepada Deplu sebelum pengumuman ini dianggap tidak berlaku.
5.Informasi resmi yang terkait dengan seleksi CPNS Deplu 2007 hanya dapat dilihat dalam website Deplu http://www.deplu. go.id. Para pelamar disarankan untuk terus memantaunya.

Jakarta, 7 Agustus 2007
A.n. MENTERI LUAR NEGERI
SEKRETARIS JENDERAL

TTD

Pendaftaran di lakukan secara Online, Untuk Regristrasi dan mendapatkan Formulir Klik Di sini

How to Copyright and Protect your Material

2007-07-27T23:03:00.001-07:00

Duane Jacobson

I have many people to contact me, to get information about how to copyright their material. For nondramatic literary works: including fiction, nonfiction, books, short stories, poems, collection of poetry, essays, articles in serials, and/or computer programs.

Go to your local library and ask for the Short Form TX. You must answer all questions in all the boxes. You "must" send a copy of your material that you want copyrighted, along with processing fee, and application form to: Library of Congress, Copyright Office, 101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, D.C. 20559-6000

* Note: Copyright fees can change at any time, please contact the Copyright Office for a current fee pricing. You may write to the above address or call (202) 707-3000. If you do not want to be identified as the author, you must use the Standard Form TX

I am not affiliated or employed with Library of Congress, if you have any questions please call Library of Congress of the number given. I hope this information is helpful, to those that are needing assistance in getting their work copyrighted. Good Luck!!

E-book Popularity is Growing by the Day

2007-07-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Books have gone through a rapid transition from placing a mail order using a catalog, to ordering Online, to now having the book being an instant download to your computer for reading on the screen or printed out on your home printer. One of the hottest topics in the library and book world today is e-books. Hard cover books and the newer e-books both have a place in our lives.

An e-book is the same as a hard copy book, only you read it on your computer screen, or you can print it, and then just read it as normal hard copy. Our younger kids like to read inexpensive e-book stories on the computer screen. We prefer our reading on hard copy printouts. We make printed copies of all our e-books, and we keep all our e-books on CD too.

In most cases, an e-book quickly downloads to your computer in the popular Adobe Portable Document Format, or PDF. The Adobe Reader, if not already installed on your computer, is a free download.

Stephen King brought e-books to the attention of the world by distributing his novel, Riding the Bullet, exclusively in e-book form. In the first 24 hours of availability, 400,000 copies were downloaded - more than any other book in any format! A quick scan of any of the e-Library sites will leave you in awe. From old classics like Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, to favorites like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, right up to the most recently written novels, romance, how-to, and scientific books. The list of categories will leave you breathless.

If your eyesight is not what it used to be, here is an area where e-books really shine. You can quickly change the type size, screen brightness, or e-books can even be used with text-to-speech software.

Some other attractive features come to mind:
- You can buy an e-book without leaving home, from your personal computer.
- Instant download after buying, to read, save on your hard disk, or print.
- Text can be searched.
- Takes up little space.
- Low cost.
- Does not wear over time.

The average reader might simply want to read books, and the Adobe format mentioned above is quite adequate for most readers using a standard desktop or notebook computer. For the more advanced e-book reader, there is a myriad of e-book formats, some using dedicated handheld reading devices. Their features include, portability, replicating page turning, integrating multimedia contents such as video, audio, animation and images, and even more. For some readers, the advancing reader technology is as exciting as the e-book's contents.

If the e-book evolution has passed you by, now is the time to catch up. There has never been a better time, with so many free and paid e-books available from so many sources. If you are a reader, you are only a click away from obtaining that special book you have been looking for. If you are a writer, you are only a click away from producing an e-book. An exciting e-book experience is in store for you.

Brian Bees

www.articlesbase.com

Motivating Children to Read at Home

2007-07-18T00:07:00.000-07:00

Parents, you are your children's first - and lifelong - teacher. By instilling a love for reading in them, you will be opening up their world to a lifetime of adventure, information, and so much more. What a special gift! Here, then, are ways to help motivate your children to read at home.

1. Start when they are non-readers. Toddlers love colorful picture books and can learn vocabulary, colors, shapes, turning pages, and other pre-reading skills by talking about pictures.

2. Read poetry and finger plays. Not only are they funny and interactive, but the rhythm makes them easy to learn.

3. Listen to books on tape and follow along with the printed version. These tapes should engage youngsters through different voices for different characters. Use them on long rides, vacations, rainy days, or when you are too busy to sit with your children.

4. Buy books for presents, especially personalized books which have your children's names in them. They will want to read these books over and over again!

5. Have many kinds of books available in the house. Try to organize them in tubs. For example, have separate tubs for books about animals, places, biographies, sports, and so on. Label the tubs with pictures for non-readers and words for readers.

6. Read to your children DAILY. Have a special time to read together in a comfortable setting and let them choose the book. You will notice their interests and have a special bonding experience.

7. Read with intonation and different voices for all the characters. By sounding happy, sad, or angry, the words will come to life and the story will become more meaningful. As your children become older, let them read the words of a character so you can read together.

8. Let your children ask questions and discuss pictures. When they are older, discuss characters and plot. If your children feel comfortable asking questions, that will carry over to the classroom.

9. Subscribe to a magazine of your children's choice. This will let them practice making decisions and affirm that their interests matter.

10. Write positive notes to each other and leave them around the house. A personalized note at breakfast will set the tone for a great day!

11. Get your children a library card and make sure they use it!

12. Be a role model for your children by reading all kinds of printed material yourself, such as cereal boxes, newspapers, mysteries, cartoons, word puzzles, billboards...whatever you want. The more variety your children see you read, the more variety they are likely to read, too.

13. Show your youngsters that reading is a part of daily life. Do you watch television? Read a TV schedule. Do you cook? Read a recipe. Do you like sports? Read the newspaper's sports section. Do you need to assemble something? Read the directions. Do you want to go to a restaurant? Read the menu. Your children need to see that reading is relevant to their lives!

14. Write a family book and add to it once a month. Each person could be responsible for his own chapter. After three months, for instance, sit altogether and read the book. At the end of the year, reread the entire book!

15. Instead of giving sweet treats for a job well done, reward your children with extra reading time before going to sleep, a trip to the bookstore, a trip to the library, a bookmark, or something else to do with reading.

16. Have a Reading Theme Party where guests dress up like their favorite book characters. They can play Musical Chairs with a twist. Under each chair, place a book. When the music stops, the guests read part of that book. Take note of one child and make sure to stop the music when he is at different places. In that way, everyone gets to read several books. As a party treat, try giving a gift certificate to a bookstore where children may want to find a particular book and finish reading the whole thing!

17. If your children are struggling, start with their interests and have them choose books they will enjoy. Have them write their own books around a theme they like and read it to everyone they know. Let them create a word puzzle focusing on one of their interests and give it to people to fill in. Your children could also write a book or make a word puzzle about someone else and give it as a present.

I hope these ideas are useful and inspire your own creative thinking.

And remember...Reading is FUNdamental!

by: Freda J. Glatt, MS http://www.sandralreading.com

Google Adsense Bahasa Indonesia

2007-07-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

Kabar gembira, buat yang punya google adsense, Sekarang Kita bisa lebih mudah, terutama yang kurang bahasa Inggrisnya, Akan tetapi untuk saat ini hanya penggunaan AdSense for Search saja yang diperbolehkan di situs berbahasa Indonesia. Untuk ad units dan referral units masih harus menunggu kebijaksanaan lebih lanjut sehingga kita tetap perlu berhati-hati apabila memasang kedua jenis produk Google tersebut di situs atau blog kita.

Selain hal diatas, hampir semua halaman di Google AdSense telah menggunakan bahasa Indonesia, termasuk halaman TOS / Policies. Bagi yang bahasa Inggrisnya pas-pasan tentu saja ini sangat menolong tuk terus beradsense. Untuk mengaksesnya, kita dapat mengubah setting language yang ada di akun Anda , kemudaian kita akan bertemu halaman berbahasa Indonesia. Selamat mencoba…

Parents Can Teach

2007-07-06T23:26:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest obstacles facing parents who wish to take their children out of the public school system for home schooling is fear – especially fear about their abilities to teach. No parent wants to be responsible for their child missing out on any important educational elements but, in most states, parents don’t have to be certified teachers in order to instruct their children at home.

When it comes to home schooling, parents have to be prepared for the fact that they’re going to be doing some learning of their own. You can’t automatically be an expert in every topic that you’ll need to help your child with, and each parent will find their own strengths and weaknesses. The key is to avoid passing those weaknesses onto your child. Angela MacArthur, editor of homeschoolingplus.com, reminds parents that “The trick is to be ready to be flexible and creative. The fact is, parents can teach – and they might actually prove to be the best teachers for their children!”

Really, the great thing about home schooling is the flexibility – you decide what’s going to be taught and how. This means, if there’s something that you don’t feel comfortable with you can always find alternate ways to teach it to your child. This is where you really get the chance to give your child an education they’ll never find in a traditional school. Many home schoolers take advantage of video and internet sources (as do many teachers and professors in campus school settings). Some also decide to learn with the student so that a sense of exploration and discovery shape the lesson. Instead of providing straight answers and direct guidance, parents join the child in solving problems and researching the topic.

There are a number of different resources and paths to take when you’re teaching your child. Why take the ‘traditional’ route when you’ve already decided that it’s not right for your child? When it comes to subjects you’re unfamiliar with you could:

• sign your child up for an individual class (either in school, online or at a community center)

• arrange for your child to sit in on college lectures

• attend a speech or other community event

• attend a tour guided by an expert

• consult an author or other type of expert for tips, or even invite them to your home to speak with your child

• canvas other home schoolers and see if there are lessons that you could ‘pool’: you teach several children in your area of expertise and your children attend ‘classes’ at another home schooler’s place for any topic that you need help with

If none of these options appeal to you, then it’s your responsibility to educate yourself in the subject area so that you can pass that knowledge on to your child. Make sure you do your homework and be prepared for questions!

Don’t let fear or uncertainties stop you from home schooling your children. Remember, teachers don’t know everything! Most public school teachers specialize their learning throughout their post secondary education and have to refresh their memories – or even learn something new – when they’re preparing to step into the classroom. Things will be no different for a home school teacher.

Source: www.articlesbase.com

How To Write A Research Paper

2007-07-01T21:33:00.000-07:00

Introduction

Writing skills are essential for succeeding in high school, college, and at a job. Writing is not just an end result, but also a process that helps us develop our ideas and think logically. Begin by brainstorming topics, collecting information, taking a lot of notes, and asking a lot of questions. Keep your notes and sources organized as you go.

When developing a topic,one should look for patterns and relationships, try to draw conclusions, try discussing one's ideas with classmates, teachers and parents. A new os diffrent perspective can help shake up ones thinking.

How to get Started

The first step towards writing a quality research paper is to organize what is to be written. It is always nice to develop an outline to help to stay on track as we write, identifying the main points and what is to be the conclusion. The introduction should give your reader an idea of the essay's intent, including a basic statement of what the essay will discuss. One should always keep the basic outline of a simple easy first and follow it , further changes can be made as required but the basic layout is followed always. The following are the parts of the basic layout of an essay or a research paper:

The Introduction
The Body
The Conclusion

The introduction should give the reader an idea of the essay's or papers intent, including a basic statement of what the essay will discuss. The body presents the evidence that supports the writers idea. Here concrete examples should be used and generalities should be avoided as much as possible. The conclusion should summarize and make sense of the evidence presented by the writer in the body (The Keys to Effective Writing, 2005).

These are the steps to be followed before writing any kind of paper or essay. After these basic guidelines are followed ammendments can be made according to the nature of the research paper and according to the different writing styles. Writing College research papers

College courses demand many different kinds of writing that employ a variety of strategies for different audiences. During college, it may be required to write long essays or short answers in response to examination questions or one may be asked to keep a journal, write a lab report, and document the process one uses to perform research. College writing or writing college research papers, also called academic writing, is assigned to teach the critical thinking and writing skills needed to communicate in classes and in the workplace. The quality of one's writing depends on the quality of the thinking one does about his topic or his assignment.

The whole writing process is divided into three steps namely prewriting, writing, and rewriting or revising phases.

Prewriting: In the prewriting phase one ponders over the questions like what he has to write about, what are his feelings about the topic to be written, how is the topic to be approached, how to organize the materials and the audience who will be reading the paper.
Writing: In this phase the plan is implemented by working out the details and fine-tuning thoughts.
Rewriting: In the phase of rewriting or revising, the material or paper written is reviewed and techniques to for improving it are applied.

During these steps, there are some phases, which also take place before the final draft of the research paper is ready. The first phase would be understanding the assignment or research topic, which has been explained as prewriting earlier. Understanding the assignment or the research topic includes thinking over the fact that what kind of research topic it is and what is the main purpose of the research topic. Then in this context comes the issue of using systematic techniques such as the use of classic strategies, these strategies are ways to develop or organize a research paper, these include definition, division and classification, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, and process analysis.

Another important factor is looking at the topic from a multiple perspective, when a topic is viewed from multiple points of view; relationships which have not occurred before are visible. This approach invites the writer to look at the topic as an entity, as a process or a part of a process, and as a system or part of a system (The Writing Process, 2005).

Doing exploratory research is included here with the prewriting techniques because library research often is a way to generate ideas. As we review the literature on a subject or read in a particular area, we may note ideas that will help us get started with the writing. Analysis, the basis of many other strategies, is the process of breaking something into its parts and putting the parts back together so that one can better understand the whole. When we focus on understanding something better by comparing and contrasting it to something else, we identify and analyze the similarities and differences. Synthesizing information, all the opinions and research in support of the thesis or research paper are incorporated together. The relevant facts, statistics, expert opinion, and whatever can directly be observed with your own opinion and conclusions to persuade the audience that the thesis is correct is integrated. Synthesis is used in supporting the thesis and assembling the paper. In applying the strategy of evaluation after synthesis, first, the criteria to be used to evaluate the subject will be established and then applied to the specific parts of the subject that is being judged, and conclusions would be drawn that whether it meets the criteria.

The final draft is what we hand in as the completed paper. Before turning in the final draft, we should read what we have written all the way through at least once more. a black pen on the final paper. Choppy sentences, poor or nonexistent transitions between paragraphs, grammar and spelling errors, and other characteristics of a first draft should all disappear

by: Fawad Imam http://www.articlecity.com

The Future of Bibliographic Control

2007-06-21T23:40:00.000-07:00

The Future of Bibliographic Control
Group to Make Recommendations by End of 2007

Advances in search-engine technology, the popularity of the Internet and the influx of electronic information resources have greatly changed the way libraries do their work. To address those changes, the Library of Congress has convened a Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control to examine the future of bibliographic description in the 21st century.

Libraries are looking at ways to catalog the avalanche of both print and digital materials that come to them for classification and control, and library managers worldwide recognize the need to examine critically the role of the catalog and its relationship to other methods of finding information. Building on the results of the Library’s Bicentennial Conference on Bibliographic Control for the New Millennium (2001), the new group will achieve the following:

Present findings on how bibliographic control and other descriptive practices can effectively support management of and access to library materials in the evolving information and technology environment,
Recommend ways in which the library community can collectively move toward achieving this vision, and
Advise the Library of Congress on its role and its priorities.

José-Marie Griffiths of the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill chairs the group.

“I agreed to chair this group because these issues are facing all libraries. It is an important opportunity for different sectors of the information profession to examine a common problem and recommend solutions that will benefit librarians and users,” she said.

Deanna Marcum, associate librarian for Library Services at the Library of Congress, hosted the first meeting and thanked the Working Group members for volunteering their time and expertise. Marcum is the convener of the group and will receive its recommendations.

“The Working Group will provide extremely valuable insight and guidance to the Library of Congress and the entire library community in an area critical to the future of librarianship and the continuing role of libraries in American society,” Marcum said.

During its inaugural meeting at the Library of Congress Nov. 2-3, Working Group members concluded that, rather than planning a single summit meeting on the future of bibliographic control, the group would schedule three regional meetings during 2007. The venues will be in or near large airports in different regions of the United States to make it easier for a broad range of participants to travel to the meetings.

The Working Group also organized issues and affected parties into three broad categories: Uses and Users, Structures and Standards, and Economics and Organization. Each category will be the focus of one regional meeting in 2007. The meetings will be preceded by distribution of a background paper that gives an overview of the current environment in which bibliographic control operates.

In July or August, after the three meetings have taken place, the Working Group will meet again to draft a report and recommendations by Sept. 1 for public comments, which will be taken into account in the group’s final report, to be issued by Nov. 1, 2007.

More information on the Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control is available at a special public Web site, www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

Members of the Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control

Working group members are José-Marie Griffiths, School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (chair); Richard Amelung, American Association of Law Libraries; Diane Dates Casey, Janet Swan Hill and Sally G. Smith, American Library Association; Brian E.C. Schottlaender, Olivia M.A. Madison and Judith Nadler, Association of Research Libraries; Gary Price, Special Libraries Association; Robert Wolven, Program for Cooperative Cataloging; Daniel Clancy, Google Company; Jay Girotto, Microsoft Corporation; Clifford A. Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information; and Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC. Assisting the Working Group from the Library of Congress is Library Services Executive Secretariat Beth Davis-Brown.

www.loc.gov/bibliographic-future/.

The Successful Use Of Free Articles

2007-06-14T19:31:00.000-07:00

One of the best ways to increase your site’s visibility and traffic is by authoring articles and then offering them for free at a variety of locations. Each article contains your URL, thus creating a link back to you every time it appears on the internet.

The power of links with respect to search engine placement is tremendous, and having your name spread across cyberspace increases your credibility and reputation. A successful article creation and distribution campaign can pay huge dividends.

However, it is easy to turn this potential bonanza into a disaster! An unsuccessfully operated campaign can lead to negative publicity and poor performance. It also risks wasting the considerable time and energy required to conduct an article campaign. Those considering using content as a promotional tool need to make sure both the production and distribution components of the strategy are enacted flawlessly.

Poor content is a very common error. Excited at the prospect of building an extensive backlink library, the site owner quickly authors a series of haphazard articles and submits them to various locations.

Although acting quickly does help increase your exposure quickly, poor content leads to very poor results.

Many sites that welcome submissions may refuse to use the article. The power of articles is well-known and many sites are flooded with free submissions. As a result, they are becoming more selective and may decide not to accept a less-than-stellar piece.

A poorly worded or uninformative article, even if accepted at an article clearinghouse, is unlikely to be picked up by other webmasters. One of the chief advantages of an article campaign is its potential for exponential growth. An article appears in one location, leading three others to use it. Those three sites lead to use by others, ad infinitum.

If the actual content is of low-quality, that growth potential is nipped in the bud even if the article is accepted by an initial target.

Inferior copy also reflects poorly on the author and his or her site. Although a primary goal of an article campaign may be increasing backlinks, one must also realize that people may actually read the article—and that it has the author’s name and URL attached!

Instead of promoting the business, a poorly-written article can actually advertise inadequacy—potentially driving business away and reducing the supplying site’s credibility.

Using free articles as a promotional tool requires well-written and well-edited content that provides readers with valuable information.

It is not only important to write good articles, it is important to distribute them correctly. Shooting your article off to a half-organized list of potential targets can seriously undermine your campaign’s effectiveness.

A successfully article-based advertising campaign requires a well-researched and comprehensive list of submission targets. When one considers the effort required to produce effective content, it makes no sense to follow through with a less-than-optimal distribution plan.

Distribution should be targeted to sites that are likely to accept the submission and are visited by others similarly interested in your content and using it. Additionally, article authors should make sure the sites to which they submit allow clickable URLs in resource boxes and must be sure to take advantage of those locations providing an opportunity to use anchor text in their links.

Appropriately distributing an article can be tedious work. The sites that accept submissions often require completing a membership process prior to presenting the article. They may require an eventual confirmation after an email is sent to the author before publishing. They use different submission forms, making automation extremely difficult.

However, great distribution is at the heart of a successful article campaign.

Using free articles to increase your exposure and link-base is effective. That effectiveness, however, is contingent upon great execution in both production and distribution.

By C.E. David, . http://www.articlestaff.netfirms.com/

How to Build a Library

2007-06-10T22:07:00.000-07:00

In these days of cuts to social services, libraries, particularly small, local libraries, are among those bits of so-called “government waste” that are getting sliced from the meatless bone of public funding for social programs. Although I personally can’t see how the government can afford billion-dollar boondoggles (such as the missile “defense” systems that don’t work even under artificially favorable conditions), yet not be able to afford the much cheaper and extremely effective bulwark to our democracy that is a library, the fact remains: small libraries around the country are being closed because of lack of direct or indirect federal support. Philanthropists are attempting to juggle their dollars to where they will do the most good, and there are a thousand urgent cries for help from all those other worthy social programs that no longer have help from us, the taxpayers. Books, in this climate, seem unimportant, or less important, to those picking up the tab for what is our collective responsibility.

So the smaller libraries close. No neighborhood library? Oh, that’s okay, you can drive into town to the main library, if your town is big enough to afford a library. No car? Well, we have a library van, so you can hitch a ride to the once-a-month delivery site. What, no library van anymore? It got cut? Or maybe your village was too far away to get library van service, or it’s off the road system? Hmm. Well, let’s see, maybe your main library will allow you get your book by mail. Not enough money in the budget for postage? Gee. That’s too bad.

But there are some alternatives. They require a place to put the books, and a few people to contribute them, and maybe a volunteer to help organize them.

Option one: the book exchange

For decades, Ester has had a book exchange shelf. (From time to time, we’ve had two book exchanges going, with the shelves in different locations.) The shelf is in a more or less public place, and anyone who is done with a book and doesn’t want to keep it drops it off there for someone else to read. The ettiquette is simple: drop books off if you pick them up (or at least try to), bring back the books you borrow, don’t trash them, don’t take them and sell them to the local used book store or at a garage sale (they aren’t your books). Some book exchanges, like Book Crossing, are worldwide affairs with websites. Others, like the one here in Ester, are small, local exchanges. These work pretty well and are self-maintaining. But they mean you never know what the reading material will be, and if you’ll ever see a particular book twice. They will reflect what your neighbors are reading, but not necessarily what you might want to read. The selection at any given time is small. And sometimes people do grab the books and sell them, since there is nothing to stop them but their own conscience. Sometimes it is hard to find a place where you can safely have the exchange shelf, or the shelf might have to move and find a new home. But they are free.

Option two: the private library

This is great, if you can afford all the books and have the space to put them. Some people will loan out books from their private collections, but I’ve learned the hard way that loaned books can vanish, never to return. I forget who I gave them to, the borrower forgot who they got them from, or moved away, or can’t find my address. Philanthropists might set up a private library for the public to use (this used to be the only kind of public library there was), along the lines of a public library, but the focus may be restricted or one might not be able to take the books from the library.

Option three: the volunteer or membership library

A membership library is like a private library, but semipublic, and paid for by dues and/or donations from its membership. The staff may be paid or volunteers. We also have this type of library, staffed by volunteers, here in Ester. It and the book exchange are mutually supportive: duplicates or beat-up books from the library go to the book exchange, and books might get picked up from the exchange shelf and put in the library. The John Trigg Ester Library (JTEL) has a very broad criterion for membership: you pays your dues, you is a member. It is a part of the Ester Community Association, and therefore a nonprofit and designed to serve the residents of the Ester area (although we have a few members from Goldstream or Fairbanks or Nenana). Other membership libraries may have more restrictive criteria.

The JTEL is a do-it-yourself library: that is, no librarians hang out in the library all day to help you check out a book, or whack you on the head with a ruler for talking too loud, or show you where a book might be. Library members have to figure it out themselves.

Making our local library a volunteer library is lots cheaper and less complicated than paying for staff, if less reliable or consistent. But it has worked for more than five years.

So let’s say your small town has decided that it needs a library, and decides to follow the route Ester has taken. Where will the library be housed? Where will you get all the books? Who will decide what books should be in it, and how the membership should be determined? Who owns the books? Who’s going to organize them?

Using the JTEL as my example again, I’ll outline the steps to building your local library:

First, find a bibiliophile. You want some person who really likes books, who thinks books and reading and literacy are really great, and thinks everybody should have their nose in a book. The person should be public-spirited, easily suckered into volunteering, and not so busy that they won’t be able to follow through on what they volunteer for.

Then, casually mention what a shame it is that there isn’t a local library within your patsy’s—sorry, public-minded individual’s—hearing. Maybe add a few comments about book exchanges, or the books you saw at the dumpster site.

Wait for a while.

Find another person with a similar zest for books. Repeat, only this time add something like, gee, I bet So-and-So (your first sucker) would be interested in trying to set up something like this. When the second person points out that you could do it, protest that you are way too busy, and rush off to that appointment you forgot about that starts in ten minutes.

Eventually, you will find that the local book nuts will take this on, and you won’t have to worry about it—unless, of course, you are the local book nut. In that case, here’s what you need to do next:

1. Find a place to house the books. A benefactor willing to provide a room or a small building, or even a bookshelf in a more or less public place, for free or on the cheap, is vital. Otherwise, you might have to do this yourself. A local business or philanthropy association might be willing to provide space. This may be the most difficult part, so assure your potential landlord that it won’t take up much room. It won’t—at first.

2. Find the books. This shouldn’t be a problem, unless you are picky. The JTEL is supplied by dumpster divers, who regularly find tons of books at the recycle platforms at the transfer sites. The JTEL had a book drive in its first year, and people brought books from all over. The university libraries, Noel Wien library, and the Literacy Council all have regular book sales, and cull their shelves from time to time. Real gems can be found for free or not much money. In communities with no college libraries, it may take longer to build up your collection, but it still shouldn’t be a problem.

3. Find help. Once your library is started, you will need help unless you are independently wealthy and unemployed. Even then, you’ll probably need library volunteers. Teachers, parents, and the aforementioned books nuts are your best bet.

4. Ask for donations and make sure people pay their dues. A library is a good thing that benefits the entire community, and people will be glad to help, even if it is only a dollar or two. Don’t be afraid to ask. Spread the word about the library, invite people to join. Use the money to buy supplies. The JTEL uses card pockets, and before we were given three boxes of library cards, we used 3x5 index cards. The card pockets are the biggest expense, after rent. People will donate supplies, too: bookends, pens, bookmarks, tape, glue sticks, card pockets, library cards, envelopes, stamps, paper, computers, bookshelves.

5. Get organized. The JTEL was originally simply a place where people stored their books for the public to use, and the donors were really still the owners of the books. Or no one owned the books, depending on how you looked at it. Once the collection gets beyond a few hundred titles and the membership gets beyond a few tens of people, you may want to form or join a nonprofit corporation. The JTEL joined the ECA, and formed a library board, which is following the informal and very open collections policy of the orginal.

6. Eventually, you may want to throw a fundraiser. Have a clear goal in mind, and get help. Then get some more, and delegate. Make sure it’s fun, and send out thank-you cards to everyone who helped.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that a library is more than just a bunch of books, particularly a library built from books donated by members of the community. A library like the JTEL is a tangible expression of a community’s intellectual life. Its members’ politics, entertainment, fantasy, religions, philosophies, occupations, and hobbies are all expressed in the items donated, and every book is meaningful to the membership. They come to the library and recognize a book they donated, or see that a neighbor’s name is in a book on the shelf. The mutual support represented by those books, the gift from one neighbor to another, brings a town closer together, and makes the library not just a guardian of literacy and freedom of thought (and therefore democracy), but of the very sense of community itself.

http://esterrepublic.com/Editorials/editorial71.html

From Children's Stories to Study Skills: Help Your Children Succeed in School

2007-06-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

Introduction

As a parent who wants the best for your children, there are undoubtedly many things that you already do every day to help your children succeed in school. The purpose of this article is to provide some practical ideas for you to try. Some of these suggestions may be new to you, many will be familiar, and some are just plain common sense but, hopefully, they will all serve as reminders of the many simple steps you can take that are too often taken for granted or forgotten about, due to the hectic pace of everyday living.

Read to your kids, whatever their ages

First of all, read to your children. We all know that this is important, but I'd like to point out that reading aloud should begin in infancy. It can contribute to your baby's developing attention span and receptive language skills. In addition, I'd like to encourage parents to read to growing children, even once they are able to read on their own. Don't stop once your kids are in elementary school for, whatever the status of their reading skills, hearing a good book read aloud is an experience apart.

Being read to allows children to focus more on the descriptive passages and the action, rather than having to struggle with understanding every single word. It also allows them to hear great children's stories that are beyond their current reading level, and it's a wonderful way for a family to share a magical experience. Choose a children's book that can also be enjoyed by you as an adult, and have a family reading session each evening or each week. A classic children's story, such as "The Wind in the Willows," or the Harry Potter books might be perfect for your family, depending on the ages and interests of your children.

Encourage independent reading and library use

Offer quality children's literature to your growing children and encourage them to read on their own - at their own level and at their own pace. Fiction and nonfiction can both open up new worlds of knowledge and experience and help prepare kids for success in school and in adult life, and don't forget that online children's stories are an exciting new resource to add to your reading repertoire.

Take your children to the local public library. Be sure that each member of the family has his or her own library card. Help your children see the public library not just as a place associated with homework and drudgery, but rather as an exciting doorway to interesting information and adventure. Encourage library book borrowing related to any special topic that interests your kids - from astronomy to adventure stories, from fact to fantasy.

Get your kids to participate in some of the special free extra activities and programs that are regularly scheduled in many public libraries, like storyhours, craft projects, films, and summer reading clubs. Take your children to museums, concerts, puppet shows and the like. Expose them to any forms of entertainment and cultural enrichment that you may be lucky enough to have access to.

Develop effective research skills and good study habits

Help your kids develop research skills that will serve them well, not only on school projects, but later in daily life as an adult. For instance, if you're planning a family trip, let the kids conduct library and Internet-based research on possible destinations, sites of interest, driving or flying routes, and how to dress appropriately for the climate of your destination spot. If you're thinking of buying a new car, let your kids take part in your consumer research, comparing different car models according to a variety of pertinent criteria.

Nurture good study habits and self-discipline. Set aside a regular, daily study time for homework in a quiet, well-lit room. Be sure that your kids have a study environment that's sound physically, as well as conducive to mental concentration. A quiet room is important, but so too is good lighting, a chair that provides good back support and access to all the materials that your children need to complete projects. Supply them with pencils, erasers, rulers, and so forth.

Encourage kids to keep their desk or other study area neat and well organized. This will prevent lots of time-wasting searches for materials and will really pay off as your children get older and their school assignments become more complex. Good organizational skills, which include the arrangement of physical objects, plus the logical structuring of the steps involved in completing any given project, can last a lifetime.

Take an interest in your kids' day-to-day school life

Take an interest in your children's school projects. Encourage them to show you reports they've written or pictures they've drawn. Make them see that you care about what they're doing and about how they're doing, but don't make them feel like they're constantly being monitored or judged. Don't add pressure, just give them plenty of support, encouragement and praise for jobs well done. Provide them with the resources they need (such as Internet access, library time, books and magazine articles) to do a good job on school assignments, but... resist the temptation to do the school projects for them.

Take the same approach with everyday homework. If your child's having trouble with a math problem, review the rules, explain the procedures, and check the results, but don't just give a child the answers. The learning process is more important than a list of correct answers to hand in to the teacher.

Help them discover their special talents

Set aside some time for engaging in special activities with your children. Build a model volcano together, perform science kit experiments, design a family tree, build your own dollhouse, draw maps, etc. Make learning into a fun and creative process. Help your kids discover their own unique aptitudes and talents, as they discover new subjects that might interest them throughout their lives. Stimulate your children's natural intellectual curiosity and spark their desire to learn more, to take a subject to a deeper level.

Give your kids an opportunity to participate in extra-curricular activities: to learn to play a musical instrument or to play team sports, for example. Again, expose your children to as many different skills and pastimes as possible, so that they can discover which ones will really click with them. See where their aptitudes and proclivities lie, but don't force them to participate in something if they don't enjoy it and don't put undue pressures on them. It's a cliché, but don't try to vicariously live out your own dreams through your children.

Go to PTA meetings, attend school plays and music recitals. Once more, it's important to show your kids that you care and that you share their interests and concerns, that you know what's going on in their lives and that you're proud of their achievements. This kind of regular positive reinforcement can help them develop self-confidence and a solid sense of self-esteem.

Go that extra mile

Among the most precious gifts that you can give to your children is your time. Put them first and make time for them. Build a happy, stable home environment, full of love and security, and you've already gone a long way towards helping your children thrive and succeed both in school and in life. Be involved in the big and the small events that make up their daily lives. Offer your support, encouragement, resources and love. Be there for them, no matter how busy your professional life is or whatever other commitments you have. Before you know it your children will be grown up and what they'll become depends largely on you. For their sake, as well as for your own, make the most of their childhood.

There are no pearls of wisdom here, just a refresher course in things that we've all heard a million times, but don't always stop to take them to heart. They're so important that they deserve our attention, to periodically remind us of what really counts in life.

Barbara Freedman-De Vito, http://www.babybirdproductions.com