March 2011 Archives
Posted March 29, 2011
Flip through the Dictionary of Regional English (DARE) once and you will never forget it. Maps of where words are used? Fantastic. Text below from the University of Wisconsin (who have been the host institution creating DARE); Like other dictionaries, the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) is arranged alphabetically by headword, from A to Z. What is different about DARE is that it shows where people use the words that are included. We all know, for example, that Americans have many names for the kind of sandwich that includes meats, cheeses, lettuce, tomatoes, etc., served in a long bun. What DARE can tell you (and can often illustrate through the use of maps based on fieldwork) is where the words hero, hoagie, grinder, sub, torpedo, Cuban, etc. are the local terms for this sandwich. And what about the words people use for the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street? Boulevard, devil strip, grass plot, neutral ground, parking, parking strip, parkway, terrace, tree bank, tree belt, and tree lawn are just a…
Posted March 18, 2011
The main purpose of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture was to summarize USDAs research developments. However, the Yearbook, which was published (with a couple of exceptions) annually from 1894 to 1992, has a broad appeal outside of the scientific community. In fact, Congress passed a law to provide for its publication as part of an effort to make agricultural information more readily available to farmers and other interested citizens. -via the National Agricultural Library Digital Repository (NALDR) The format of the yearbooks was to take a certain subject each year (e.g. 1940: Farmers, 1966: Protecting our food, 1967: Outdoors USA, 1982: Food from farm to table, 1990: Americans in agriculture…) and include essays, photos and papers on various facets. The NALDR has digitized almost the whole run (from 1938-1992). Have to admit they are a little dry… not quite as fun as the USDA Handbooks. The covers though! They are fantastic. The Massachusetts State Library blog ran a feature on them the other week, and the Preservation Librarian there (Lacy Crews…
Posted March 16, 2011
Last November I received a Kindle as a birthday present. I wasnt sure if I really wanted one when I first got it and actually considered swapping it for a Nook. I ultimately decided to go with the Kindle because, even though I cant borrow books from the library with it, it felt less buggy and I knew that some of the features that made the Nook a strong competitor were being made available soon (by February) on the Kindle. (This includes real page numbers and the ability to borrow and lend books from and to other Kindle users.) Like most e-reader users I know, I now think of my Kindle as a great alternative to carrying around a heavy book or trilogy, but not a full replacement for physical books. It is possible to love both! I also love how much easier the e-ink is on my eyes than staring at a computer screen for hours. But the problem is that these nifty features didnt seem readily compatible with Library School. For one, none…
Posted March 14, 2011
While I am not a childrens or young adult literature person, I am obsessed with the Hunger Games trilogy. They are getting closer to casting Katniss for the live action movies (I am very okay with the current top choice of Jennifer Lawrence see Winters Bone) but I thought I would describe the time these novels consumed my life, because it was during finals week. I read the first book because it was one of the summer reading assignments for the middle school in the town I work for. Our library purchased around twenty copies and our Childrens Librarian was very excited about this book. I could not take the book out during the summer because there were so many children who needed it for credit. So, September came and I was consumed with school work, and reading another leisure book. By the time I got around to checking out the Hunger Games it was already finals . I picked up the first book 2 days before a paper was due. I intended to…
