New Arrival: Science!

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Science does not know its debt to imagination," and if that's true, I can hardly think of a better place to make science pay off that debt than the basement of a public library.

We've been blessed here at the Missoula Public Library with some wonderful exhibits on loan from spectrUM, an interactive science museum located just across the river at the University of Montana. Right now we have a Gravity Well and a Chaotic Pendula.

I especially like the chaotic pendula, which could be a great name for a heavy metal band stuck in the eighties. Imagine the name chiseled out of rock with lightning bolts erupting in all directions...

Anyway, what better thing for a library to have than an exhibit design to explain chaos. Each spin will result in a different series of twists, turns and tumbles based on miniscule differences in the way the center knob is turned. If you've never seen one and can't make it to the library, here's a video:



There's a third exhibit on the way, which I assume will be here by the end of the week. Be sure to take a look at the exhibits next time you're in the library.

Word Woman

Welcome to another astounding installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain in tip-top Olympic form with life-long learning. This week's word is one of my personal favorites, and one that is often misspelled and mispronounced, being of that difficult greek root persuasion:

on·o·mato·poe·ia

Pronunciation:

\ˌä-nə-ˌmä-tə-ˈpē-ə, -ˌma-\

Function:

noun

Etymology:

Late Latin, from Greek onomatopoiia, from onomat-, onoma name + poiein to make — more at poet

Date:

circa 1577

1 : the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (as buzz, hiss) 2 : the use of words whose sound suggests the sense

— on·o·mato·poe·ic \-ˈpē-ik\ or on·o·mato·po·et·ic \-pō-ˈe-tik\ adjective

— on·o·mato·poe·i·cal·ly \-ˈpē-ə-k(ə-)lē\ or on·o·mato·po·et·i·cal·ly \-pō-ˈe-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb -- "onomatopoeia." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2008.
Merriam-Webster Online. 27 August 2008

Example: Poets often utilize onomatopoeia in order to make their prose more descriptive and life-like.

12 Years Overdue

Well...not necessarily. We found this 12 year old checkout receipt in the book "Cavalier in Buckskin" today during our afternoon bookdrop. Click the picture for a larger view. According to the receipt we were actually open on New Year's Day in 1996.

Since our resident library historian Vaun is off today, I couldn't ask when we abandoned the dot matrix receipt printers, but it had to be within a year or so of this receipt by my calculations. We have some ancient computer equipment in storage around the tech offices, but no printers capable of producing this.

You never know exactly what will fall out of a book when you pick it up here in the library. The really interesting part is that since we re-barcoded the book it has been checked out 29 times. That means that at least 29 people have seen this, maybe used it as a bookmark, and returned it with the book. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

Word Woman

Welcome to another wild and wonderful installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! This week's offering is dedicated to MPL's own Master of Ceremonies in charge of Socrates Cafe - a hotbed of philosophical debate which takes place on the last Thursday of each month:

Beg the question: Begging the question doesn't mean evading the question by giving an indirect answer, as is often assumed. The old phrase, which can be traced back to the 16th century, is the rough equivalent of the logician's 'petitio principii' and means 'to stack the cards in an argument by assuming something that hasn't been proved before the debate begins.' Beg the question actually means that someone is acting like a beggar, asking his opponent to concede the argument at the beginning. 'O shameless beggar, that craveth no less than the whole controversy to be given him!' an early English author wrote in explaining the term. -- "The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins", Robert Hendrickson, Checkmark Books, 2000.

Example: The Master of Socrates Cafe often accuses the Word Woman of begging the question when the two of them are debating a topic.

Blast From the (Library) Past

Check out this amazing post-apocalyptic video to teach kids about the library. I like that the female lead is known as "Ms. Bookcart." This is just the first in a series of videos that were apparently shown in Mississippi on the Public Broadcast network there.



courtesy of boing boing.

New Reading Chairs

The comfy leather reading chairs have arrived. Last week we set them up in the reading area near the newspapers and the reference desk. So far they seem like they've been quite the hit. I had to wait until early this morning to get a picture of them without anyone sitting on them, and most times I've walked by they're close to full.

How's your garden growing?

With the rising cost of food these days, more people are looking to cut their grocery bill by trying their hand at gardening. Ah, the taste of a nice, juicy, home-grown tomato -- what could be better? But what do you do with your harvest once the growing season is over? A good question, and one that you can find some answers to at your public library. Now, I'm not just talking about books and audio-visual materials, though we have plenty of those available for your use as well. Just look in the non-fiction section starting at 635 and you'll see what I mean.

If you're more into interactive learning, however, we have some upcoming programs which may be of great value to you. Kathy Revello from MSU-Missoula County Extension (contact her at 258-4206 or Caroline at 721-2665 for more info) will be giving a series of lectures on food preservation at the end of August. All of the programs will take place in the Large Meeting Room here at the Missoula Public Library, and each is a stand-alone lecture, so you need not attend the entire series to get the full benefit. The schedule is as follows, and as always there is no charge:


Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 (7:00pm-8:00pm)

Natural Preserving through Canning: Learn the basics of preserving food by canning. Types of canning, equipment, resources, procedures and safety will be covered to get you started. You will learn when to use a boiling water bath canner and when to use a pressure canner. Display of equipment and products will be present and hand-outs will be given.


Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 (7:00pm-8:00pm)

Natural Preservation through Freezing and Drying: Learn the best method for preserving different fruits, vegetables and herbs. Equipment, procedures, containers and safety will be covered.


Thursday, August 28th, 2008 (7:00pm-8:00pm)

Preserving Your Bounty for Gift-Giving: Learn how to create special food gifts from your garden or pantry. Containers, wrapping, mailing tips, resources and safety will be covered. Make something special and unique this holiday season for your friends and family!

Word Woman

Welcome to another astounding episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! In honor of the International Olympic games going on even as we speak in Beijing, here is a term which relates to governmental bureaucracy, an unavoidable symptom of running a country of any significant size:

FOG: Frequency Of Gobbledygook in government publications, etc. Both the British and the United States governments have spawned various bureaucratic languages that have been described as gobbledygook, a term coined in 1944. The FOG index determines how much gobbledygook a particular government publication contains. Not to be outdone by the "feds", the city governments throughout the United States have generated their own variety of gobbledygook known as URBABABBLE. While the government in Washington, D.C. specializes in BUREAUCRATESE and PENTAGONESE, a name for the jargon of the American military industrial complex that entered the language in 1952, the language of the British government is criticized and corrected by the Plain English Society, which deplores gobbledygook. -- "Kind Words: A Thesaurus of Euphemisms", Judith S. Neaman and Carole G. Silver, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985.

Example: The FOG index tends to be particularly high in government economic publications during times of recession.

Teen Book Reviews

We now have a section of our website devoted to teen book reviews!

Members of out Teen Reading Club have put together six reviews so far and posted them to our website. Read them right here. They've reviewed diverse genres from romance to fantasy to fantasy romance, and plan on putting more reviews up in the coming weeks.

Having teens post their own book reviews is great, because no matter what we read as librarians about what is cool, or what teens want to read, it always comes down to the readers. So in a way we're skipping the middleman (or woman as it may be) and letting the people actually checking out and reading the books tell US about them.

...and if you're a teen who wants to get in on the action, just stop by the YA room and chat with one of the librarians there. They'll let you know exactly what you need to do to get your reviews up on the site.

Farewell

My fellow blogger and longtime co-worker Brianna finished her last hours at the library today. She's moving on to the greener pastures of Bonner to work at the school library there. It's no Hawaii, but at least she'll get to put her recent MLIS to good work. It was a bittersweet day, since we had a HUGE staff potluck of delicious food, but lost one of the best librarians we've ever had here at the library.

I'll miss working with Brianna and wish her all the best in her next job. Bonner is sure lucky to have her!

Word Woman

Welcome to another exciting episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! This week's word was brought to my attention by my co-worker, Anita, who ran across it in a library publication. Here is the relevant quotation:

Mondegreen:

"The ants are my friends/They're blowin' in the wind." New Yorker magazine's blog The Book Bench celebrated the fact that "Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has finally found space for the word 'mondegreen,' which it defines as 'a word or phrase that results from a mishearing of something said or sung.'"

Example: For other amusing mondegreens, point your browser at "The Archive of Misheard Lyrics" -- http://www.kissthisguy.com/

Altered Books!

Wow, what a turnout! Eighty people showed up at the library last night to peruse the entries for our Altered Books contest as part of First Friday. We're anxiously awaiting the tallying of the votes to find out who won in each of the categories. There were so many great creations, I just couldn't pick a favorite, so I had to abstain from voting. Here are some pictures that Joyce took at the event:





























As popular as it was, we're considering doing it again as part of the Festival of the Book.
Let us know if the idea appeals to you.

Word Woman

Welcome to another innovative installment of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Tonight is a very exciting night at the library, because this will be our premiere display in conjunction with First Friday. My co-worker and fellow blogger, Ben, has posted some great pictures and further information on this event in the last few weeks. Just scroll down and take a look for yourself. We will be showing off our Altered Books in the Large Meeting Room, so if you find yourself downtown tonight, stop in and enjoy our bookish creations! Now, let's get going with the Word of the Week:

Garrulous (gehr-uh-luhs) - excessively loquacious; talking about trivial matters; wordy. -- "The New York Times Everyday Reader's Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words", Laurence Urdang, Ed., Weathervane Books, 1972.

Example: There are some who accuse Word Woman of being garrulous, but really it is just her love of words speaking.