A little while ago my Twitter friend grdnldy wrote a post that said, “How did I miss this, digital drugs http://tinyurl.com/69tsex“ I wrote back and said, “Perhaps because the hype is more than the reality. Perhaps a bit of breeding hysteria for something that might not really be a real issue.” But, actually, before I wrote that reply, I did a quick Google search and found that several media outlets had recently run a story on digital drugs. (more…)
Wednesday morning, Kelly and I tested the online play and live streaming, and everything ended up working out great (see my previous post for info on the setup)! Be sure to check out the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Teen Media page on Friday, August 22nd @ 3:00 PM for streaming video directly from our Wii. We’ll be streaming the menu process as well, so if you catch us early you can see how to set things up.
Oh, and as promised, now you can watch the video of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s public “call out” to the teens of PLCMC, featuring Shing, Spig C, and myself on the mic:
There’s still time to register for the first ever YALSA Young Adult Literature Symposium. Check out YALSA’s new video ad for the event and find out from members why it’s worth attending.
As I explained in my last post, the audiobook program run by the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) is called the Talking Book program.
Lindsey Dunn broke the news about how the Digital Talking Books and System is moving forward — in a nutshell, switching from cassette books and players to digital books available on cartridge or via download and listened to on digital players.
I’m happy to share with you the Press Release from NLS which provides more details on the program, available at NLS Flash. It includes a photo of a NLS customer using the new digital player. Once more information becomes available, I’ll post that, also. In the meanwhile, if you have questions about the program or the new player or the download program, let me know!
Also, as a reminder, Talking Books is a free library service that is open to all people whose low vision, blindness, or physical handicap makes it difficult to read a standard printed page. The service includes the loan of the player.
This is a cell phone picture my colleague took of the screen for Super Smash Brothers Brawl (SSBB) when we were testing the wireless connection with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh for our online tournament on August 22. As Joseph Wilk’s previous post indicated, we have gone through process to find out how the connection works and to test run it before the actual event. Though I have to admit, when we did make connection at our libraries, it felt a bit like touching down on the moon.
The LAN adapter for my library arrived in the mail the other week and I have a lot more confidence that the connection will work better than the laggy wireless. (more…)
On Tuesday, August 5, at approximately 11am EST, Marc Aronson is going to participate in a live stream to talk about his book Race: A History Beyond Black and White and about how and why he is bringing it into a virtual world. Participants can watch, hear, and interact, via text chat, with Marc and Kevin Jarrett, faculty in the Graduate School of Education at Walden University. You do not need an account to watch and listen but you will need to sign up for a free one if you want your teens to be able to participate in the chat. The session will also be recorded so that it can be accessed at a later date.
As everyone knows, Breaking Dawn will be released August 2nd. And libraries across the country will be partying until dawn. On the ya-yaac list, Dawn McMillan and the teens at the Boone County Public Library had the great idea to create Twilight Saga fortunes, based on quotes from the three books so far.
When I was a teen, I loved coding. Though it’s been over 10 years since learning Javascript and coding much of anything, I was able to use a combination of W3 Schools, Tizag Tutorials, and a hint Google searching to whip up a rudimentary widget that translates their great work into an online fortune teller. (more…)
Yesterday the New York Times published the first article, in a series, on the current state of reading. The focus of the first article is on the topic of electronic reading and whether or not reading text messages, blogs, web sites, etc. counts as reading. This is not a new question of course, and it’s a topic that I’ve posted on this blog about before, however, it’s important to pay attention to the New York Times story, and follow-up articles, for a few reasons, including: (more…)
In Pittsburgh, getting teens to rally for a common cause can be tough. Our city’s teens are often affected by intense neighborhood loyalties and splintered social groups. However, if I have learned anything from the last several years of Steelers playoff runs or the Penguins’ most recent trip to the Stanley Cup, it’s that a city-affiliated team can still band teens together like it did when I was a teen, when my dad was a teen, and so on.
Your library can connect with this energy by gaming online, giving teens a chance to face off against other libraries throughout the world. That’s why, for the last few months, Kelly Czarnecki and I have been planning a YALSA first: an online Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament between the teens from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (which will be livecast online). Now that things are finally picking up, we’re going to each blog about the process, highlighting our unique challenges. (more…)
In my last post of the series, I detailed how to get the most bang for your buck with budget camcorders. However, while many of them offer basic software, you might want to expand what you can do with your footage. Thankfully, there are many free options–some of them right under your nose.
For the many of you using Windows at work, Microsoft has bundled its operating system with Windows Movie Maker. Windows Movie Maker is a competent free program that will serve a number of simple projects, such as book trailers or breaking up long Wizard Rock sets (run the Windows Update program for the latest update). Check out the getting started page to see what you can do with the program. For more info, take a look at the tutorials on About.com or Atomic Learning. (more…)
