Socrates Café

First, a nod to the Word Woman:
Heterological: (adjective) failing to describe itself. An adjective is heterological just in those cases where it is not true of itself, e.g. "non-hypenated".

If something about this word's coherence or even its existence is as deeply troubling to you as it is to me (namely, is "heterological" heterological?), then you might enjoy the Socrates Café.

The Socrates Café strives to be an informal yet rigorous discussion of topics relating to the core areas of philosophy-- metaphysics, epistemology, logic, aesthetics, and, inevitably, ethics. Participants choose a broad question to explore, and then we spend the next two or so hours turning it upside-down, inside-out, and, sometimes, wrong way-round. Bring those lingering thoughts on in for a test!

Discussions are mediated with a firm but loving touch by the Library’s own Mitch Grady, who has actually had some measure of quite decent training in most areas of contemporary analytic philosophy.

Meetings are held at the Missoula Public Library on the last Thursday of each month and start at 7pm.

Word Woman

Welcome to another mind-bending episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Keep your brain fit for a lifetime with lifelong learning. Now let's get warmed up with the Word of the Week:

Bombilation: [bahm-buh-lay-shun] (noun) a buzzing, droning or humming sound. This word sounds as if it should be much more severe than the definition strictly allows; if you had said you were kept awake by bombilation all night, it seems that rubble and sirens would be expected, not just somebody's overbassed car or a neighbor's TV. -- "More Weird and Wonderful Words", Erin McKean, ed., Oxford University Press, 2003.

Example: The bombilation of the plane passing overhead broke the silence of the lazy summer afternoon.

Where did YA go?

No, not you, but the Young Adult collection and computer room. Today we officially closed off the upstairs Young Adult area to do some construction, but never fear - we still have books and a computer room for you downstairs in our small meeting room. We are going to be keeping a YA librarian down there to help you find books in the new, temporary location.



We're enclosing the YA area to let you guys be a little louder and be able to have fun while you visit the library. Today is day one, and we're already pretty far with the wall framing, so hopefully this won't last too long!



There has also been quite a bit of progress on the entryway to the Children's area. Our Gnomos Locos got busy and started painting and texturing (which I'm not sure is even a word...those crazy gnomes!) the whole structure. And what's more, we're starting to see strange things, like faces, popping out of the the top. I can't wait to see how it will turn out.

Presenting at Offline 2008

All apologies for letting the blog sit for a week without an update, but everyone here spent last week gearing up for our statewide Offline library conference. Offline focuses on technology in libraries and so I was given the task of presenting a workshop on Computer and Network Security in libraries.

Trying to figure out what to present at a conference like this is tough. I mean, how can you present on computer security to both a librarian from somewhere like Bozeman or Billings with an IT staff, and a small town librarian who does everything by themselves? Because of this I gave three totally different presentations, keeping the basic message the same: be aware of your surroundings on and offline and pay attention to general weirdness going on with your computer. As usual I had prepared too much, and had way more to talk about than I needed, but that's better than nothing. I had a great time doing it, and hopefully everyone learned something.

This was my first foray into presenting at a statewide conference, and I think I did well, I'll be at the Montana Library Association conference in April for an open source software presentation I'm really excited for.

Word Woman

Welcome to another wonderful edition of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! If you're looking for a bit more strenuous exercise than the Word of the Week, may I suggest that you go to http://www.freerice.com/index.php and try out their vocabulary quiz. The website donates rice through the United Nations for every correct answer, so not only will you be building mental muscle, but you will also be helping to end world hunger at the same time. Post a comment with your high score and see if you can beat Word Woman's benchmark of Level 50. Now, let's move on to the Word of the Week:

Pansophism: [noun] The possession of universal knowledge, or the claim to such enlightenment. -- "-Ologies & -Isms: A Thematic Dictionary", Howard G. Zettler, ed., Gale Research Company, 1978.

Example: Bob's pansophism was a constant source of irritation to his friends and family.