Archive for October, 2006

I am so HAPPY! :)

Wednesday, October 18th, 2006

I just received a call today that my blog for teens: PPLYA / PARMATEENS was reviewed and approved by teens for VOYA! Yeah! Now I just have to finish transfering everything and make everything wonderful for the world to see. Unfortunately, I don’t know how many of the Hilton teens actually look at it…

Trip in the way back time machine.

Monday, October 16th, 2006

Okay this dates me… or not. I’ve been feeling melancholy lately. The melancholy like this: sober thoughtfulness; pensiveness. Not this: the condition of having too much black bile, considered in ancient and medieval medicine to cause gloominess and depression. I’ve been thinking about all the shows I watched and toys I played with as a kid, although mostly the shows. Growing up in the 80’s and in the city (southwedge) of Rochester as I did, you didn’t go outside to play too much, especially when both of your parents had full-time jobs. Instead, you stayed inside and

  1. beat your sisters (I have two younger Jen and Sam) up
  2. played imaginary games having to do with your imaginary things
    1. boyfriend
    2. apartment
    3. job
  3. make weird food substances that you wouldn’t eat in a million years if an adult prepared them, but when you prepared them, it was okay
  4. create “houses” out of sheets, pillows from the couch and chairs
  5. beat your sisters up some more
  6. dance like ballerinas (there were three girls, no boys) to classical music on WXXI
  7. Listen to the funky record collection your dad has, but only when he’s around because
    1. he’d kill you
    2. you don’t know how to work the record player anyway
  8. watch Nickelodeon and PBS

I will only speak about 8 tonight. The 80’s had some really funky stuff out there. And I think they may be even funkier in my eyes because I was six in 1985, so some of the shows are sort of vague memories at that.

Some of these shows include:

  1. Today’s Special
  2. Pinwheel
  3. Dangermouse
  4. You Can’t Do That On Television
  5. She-Ra, Princess of Power and He Man
  6. Fraggle Rock
  7. Sesame Street
  8. RANGER BOB! (on WUHF, before it became Fox 31) There’s even an honest to goodness fan website dedicated to Ranger Bob!

Just thinking about them, I long for the days when I was young and free. All this thinking has gotten me tired, and I didn’t even get to talk about any of the shows. ( Ah well. BTW, if you look on youtube, you can find snippets of most of the shows. Because I know you want to. LOL! Double BTW. I’m glad that people are trying to improve the Southwedge, because its a really great area. And that’s not just because I grew up there, although it helps!

I own a piece of the Internet!

Saturday, October 14th, 2006

Jeff just purchased http://cathythelibrarian.com/ for me. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. I would like to try and keep my “blog blog” separate from my “professional blog” with my resume on it, although I try not to put anything too damaging here… well except for the poetry. Still it might be nice to have everything together… although I guess everything is together here. ARRGH. The Internet is a time consuming place.

I just found out that I was mentioned at one of the director’s meetings… due to my incessant fiddling with the Internet. The directors were talking about taking the virtual reference desk down, and some people were saying that they still use it… anyway, somehow my name was mentioned because I use del.icio.us for the library.

It sounds like the reference desk is doomed, so I’m going to try and get as much of the stuff onto a del.icio.us account as I can… although upon looking at some of the stuff, I don’t think I’ll even bother. Some of the sites are people’s personal musings. I took Digital Libraries at Buffalo. We created a site for teachers. Many of the sites on the virtual reference desk would not make it. You don’t want to send people to sites of questionable origin. Granted you may not have created it or anything, but just as we (as librarians) try to buy the best quality books that we can, we should also hold the same standards for our websites.

  1. Don’t link to websites that haven’t been updated in forever.
  2. Don’t link to websites that are more ads than content.
  3. Don’t link to websites that don’t leave an “about this site” section. You want to know if you can trust the information.
  4. Look carefully at the url. While not always the case, there are some webhosting sites that you KNOW aren’t going to be used by professionals.
  5. Look at the url again. Make sure that you link to the main page of the site and not a section of the url that’s five or six layers in. If upon looking at the homepage, its something completely different, you should think twice about adding it. Its also wise to do this in case there may be… objectionable material on the rest of the site.
  6. DO remember to post somewhere that you cannot be held accountable for the information on the sites you are linking to. You’ll notice most schools, government websites do this to save their skins.
  7. Do check up ocassionally to make sure that the links are still live. This can be mind numbing, but its important maintenance, just like cleaning your fish tank.

I really like using del.icio.us. They let you download buttons so that as you are surfing the web, if you find something you like, you can just click a button, add some tags and voila! You have added a new link! Plus you can see other people who have linked to the same sites you have and steal their links.

So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. I’m trying to go through the links as fast as I can before they take it down, so that I can add them to my del.icio.us account… although there is a site that archives websites, so you can check things out even if the site is gone. What is it?… Ah yes, the Internet Archive. And they have archived the library website! Yippee! Oh dear. I’m a nerd… good night!

Story time sagas

Friday, October 13th, 2006

I haven’t been getting many to come to my story times. Part of my problem may be that I don’t really have a good strong core story time collection yet. A lot of the books are from the previous librarian’s collection, most of which I know I won’t use.

Upon looking at the books that I REALLY like using:

  1. Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus
  2. Catalina Magdelina Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan is her name (BTW I didn’t even look that up I know the book so well)
  3. Winchell cuts the cheese
  4. Big Green Monster

Well, I guess for the moment those are my core collection… I’m very sure that there are a couple others, but I can’t think of any.

Anyway, after looking at my tiny core collection, I realized a couple of things (another list…):

  1. I really like really silly books
  2. I like books with repetition, that allow the kids to get involved
  3. I like books that are pretty short
  4. I like books with bright colors

I realize that this is my mission now, if I want to save story time. I need to find more books like these. Last week, I read a couple books and I was afraid that the kids were going to die. I read them to myself beforehand, but it wasn’t until I started reading them that I realized they were WAY too long. They were books about food. I think one was about a giant carrot, one was about food having a food fight, and the other one was so forgettable that I’ve forgotten.

Tonight I had ZERO kids at my story time. I was sad. (

However my evening was brightened up when the Knit Wits (a group of knitting ladies that are my mom’s age and up) asked me to read them some picture books for them. And they loved it!

That got me thinking… why not do story time for senior citizens? Does that sound crazy? I mean I wouldn’t hand out coloring sheets or do rhymes, but why not tell stories to senior citizens? Afterwards I could leave out tea and cookies and let them mingle.

Of course I was thinking about this at about midnight, so I don’t know if it holds up in the morning light. Still.

Today’s thoughts

Thursday, October 5th, 2006
  • my sister is going to (hopefully) do a practicum at my library. I can’t wait to see what I can get her to do…
    • plan summer reading
    • blog work
    • grant?
  • work on story time for babies, which I hope to do this spring

Fun times in Rochester

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

My sister just sent me a link to this blog about the malls of America. There was a video of Midtown mall in Rochester, “A town of quality”.  I remember the clock that they talk about, which is gone now. Just like the Christmas monorail. ( Such a charming little video. Lots of families. All white people. Rochester as a bustling metropolis.

See for yourself, and tell me what you think.

Strong Museum

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

I had the day off today. My mom, grandma, sister, Jack and I all went to the Strong Museum. Good grief. We needed all four of us to keep track of Jack! He’s amazingly fast when he wants to be. Plus there was so much to see that he just wandered from place to place and while we were looking at one thing, he would be off on to something new. There were so many neat things to see. They have kept some of the old things that they had before, and added a lot more new things too. The Sesame Street set and Wegmans set was the same. They added a train that the kids could ride, an airplane, a whole reading play center. It was quite a bit of fun, especially since this time I actually had a child with me. Jack had almost too much fun, if that’s possible. We spent about three hours at the museum, and by the end everyone was ready for a nap, or already napping. We hadn’t a chance to go to the Butterfly House so we’ll have to go back sometime.

It was fun watching all the little kids running about having a great time, and their parents hurrying behind them, trying to catch up. I even met one of the moms that comes to my story time for 1 – 2 year olds. Her son couldn’t be bothered with me, but the mom spoke to me for a minute or two. I also saw my choir director’s wife with her children, but I just popped out of a window and said hi, so I don’t think that she recognized me, and I may have scared her.

Overall, a great time, but I think we’ll have to go back, so that we can see more. I spent so much time chasing after Jack, that I didn’t get to see too much… especially upstairs where they have the collections of old toys and dolls. Jack’ll have to be a little older to appreciate that, I think.

I got a new way to walk (walk, walk)

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

I thought that I would do a daily list of thoughts I’ve had through the day… I figure that since there are so few of them, it shouldn’t be too bad.

  • grant for teenage moms to encourage reading
  • paint a tote bag with a mermaid on it… (tee hee another craft with no time to do it)
  • learn how to play the ukulele I borrowed to add spice to story times
  • do some winter programs – gocks (goth sock puppets) and lego building competition
  • start working on infant story times (teen hee any excuse to play with babies)
  • finish Christmas shopping

Early childhood literacy

Monday, October 2nd, 2006

This past week was SO busy (How busy was it?) It was so busy I can’t believe its time for a new week already!

On of the most memorable of the events was the Early Childhood Literacy program, which I think was last Tuesday. Days blur into each other.

The program was useful, although at certain points, I think the presenter went into too much detail about the lives of her children, grandchildren, and herself. However, she was very enthusiastic and I got caught up in the feeling.

I was also able to spend time with Kelly, the librarian at Brockport and Xandi, a future librarian and current staff of Webster library. I think its always fun to see other people’s takes on librarianship, and the people we serve.
The program encouraged us, as librarians, to search for ways to show parents that even their very young children could enjoy books, before they can read, before they can speak, before they can even understand human speech. Our part is to show the parents that don’t have the time or patience for their children that they need to make the time.

Unfortunately, the people that we need to reach, do not go to libraries. We have to go out into the community and reach out to these people with our picture books and hand puppets in tow. We have to let them know that even if they can’t read very well, there are ways to share with their children.

She discussed how children that are read to from very early on, have much more brain activity than those with limited interaction. She went on to say that even if the child only wants to eat the book, that’s okay, because they use all five senses when interacting with books.

It got me thinking that a grant might be in order. If I could work with teenaged mothers to encourage them to read with their children. I could set up programs and make kits. It would be super!