Banned Books Week

The American Library Association is celebrating our freedom to read with Banned Books Week. Banned books are those that libraries, bookstores, governments and other groups have prohibited people from reading for a variety of reasons, including age appropriateness, subject matter, sexual content and religous convictions.

According to the ALA website, "BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them."

We currently have a display in the library of the most challenged or banned books from the last 15 years. If you're interested, come take a look. Two of my favorites are Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, and the Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling. You might also notice a few of your class books on the list, such as The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier.

(Sorry for not posting earlier in September. I will try my best to be more consistent for the rest of the semester!)

Dodo, eight tracks...and keyboards?!

You'll tell your grandchildren, "When I was a kid we had cell phones and hard drives!" They will look at you, astonished, and ask, "What are those?"

These are two of the things that Dave Pollard thinks will soon be phased out in favor of better, smaller, faster, or cheaper technologies. Take a look at his blog for the other ten items (it includes classrooms!). Do you agree with Pollard? Will we see the end of meetings and email in our lifetimes?

Salon.com, the host of this blog, is an online magazine that has a progressive political slant.

Welcome back!

Welcome back to SCCS, the Library Media Center and a new school year!

The library will be open 7:30-4 Monday-Thursday and 7:30-3:30 on Fridays. Please come by the library in your free time! During out first two weeks all elementary and middle school students will come to the library with their classes to review the rules and check out books. I can't wait to see you, and meet the new students!

On to business: the new books haven't arrived yet. We expect them in the library by the end of the month. I'm heartbroken about this, but in the meantime there are a few new books that were donated or bought at the Feria de Libros. Please come by and take a look.

Current displays include the Olympics, and History and Mythology in Fiction (this will help with Mr. Dahlberg's social studies assignment).

Have a great year!

Games! Games! Games!

The Smithsonian (a museum group in the US) has gathered online games from a variety of websites and put them together in one place! If you're interested in polar animals (penguins!), vikings, dinosaurs, or many other fascinating topics, check it out!

Comics galore!

The 2008 Comic Con (a convention for all things comic related) was recently held in San Diego, California. While we're all sad that we didn't get to go, have no fear, the SCCS library will be getting all sorts of new comics and graphic novels this year! Here's a quick taste of what's to come:

Neil Gaiman's Sandman (en español)
Eyeshield 21 (student request)
Bleach (student request)
Dragon Ball Z (dare we call it a classic?)
Nancy Drew, Girl Detective (you love the novels, will you enjoy this format, as well?)

Remember, anytime you have a suggestion or idea for a book you'd like to see in the library, just let us know!

Digital to print and print digitized

CNN and NPR are reporting that a German company is going publish a print version of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The single volume "will be about 1,000 pages and carry around 50,000 most-requested entries and definitions," reports NPR.

This seems like an odd move for a publishing house as there are many print options already available, and the joy of Wikipedia is based in its digital qualities of changeability and constant peer review. Being able to edit, search, link and create articles is what makes Wikipedia unique, and it remains to be seen whether it will appeal as much in book format.

In the opposite direction, Reuters is reporting that one of the oldest versions of the New Testament will be digitized. Called the Codex Sinaiticus, it's written in Greek, and parts will be available here, with the rest coming next July.

Entertainment Weekly's modern classics

Entertainment Weekly, which reviews movies, books, television and other media, recently published their top 100 list of New Classic Books. The lists consists of "the 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008."

There are some great young adult offerings on the list, for example:

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)

There are many others that are aimed at adult audiences, but would be great reads for our high school students. Come see which we have in the library!

I've read about a quarter of these, how many have your read?

Summer reading?

First, sorry it's been so long since there's been a post. End of the year bustle is my only excuse!

There has been some discussion here in the library as to whether we should allow vacation check outs. We are still deciding, but here is a definite: books are due back on May 26th. All books. No exceptions.

If we do allow vacation checking out, that will begin on June 9th. You must have returned all your normal school year books in order to be allowed to check out books over vacation. If we decide to do it. Which we probably will.

In the meantime, Ms. Zapata just sent me a wonderful article from Colorin Colorado on how helpful vacation time reading can be. Check it out here. There are a couple of wonderful things in the article that you should know, even if you don't read the whole thing:

• The number of books read during the summer is consistently related to academic gains.
• Children who read six or more books over the summer gained more in reading achievement than children who did not.
• The use of the public library during the summer is more predictive of vocabulary gains than attending summer school is.

[Direct quotes from the article!!]

So read this vacation! Please! If you're in the states, use your local public library. If you're here in Santa Cruz, come by the SCCS library.

Post-Earth Day ways to green your computer

Lifehacker has recently posted several ways to make your computer more energy efficient. If you missed out on doing something good for the planet on Earth Day, these easy steps would be great to follow!

It's great if we all do something special on Earth Day to protect our delicate planet, but it's even better if we make an effort every day to create a better world!

New Google Earth available for download

Are you a Google Earth fan? The new version 4.3 is now available for download! Get all the information and details from the Google Earth Blog.