Children’s Programming
Library Fair
73 Years and Counting!
While the company’s design doesn’t seem to have changed a whole lot, its services and capabilities sure have. Created by Stanford PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google officially launched Sept. 4, 1998. The interface was so simple because the founders didn’t know HTML and were looking for a quick design. Read more 
27
Jan
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon tattoo or: Män som hatar kvinnor , which translates to “Men Who Hate Women” is a #1 bestselling novel written by Stig Larsson. The movie version directed by David Fincher has gone on to to have an opening weekend of $12.75 million and $90 million worlwide so far. The book as a #1 bestseller has gone on to sell up to this point 3.4 million copies in hardcover, and over 15 million copies all together in the US. The worldwide total is that 65 million copies of the book have been sold. Read more
27
Jan
The Fantastical Journey of Mr. Tome
I’m flying through the air, opening and closing. Opening and closing. Below me, the expanse of ground reaches out, an interminable vastness that refuses to end. I am free! My compatriots had scorned my ideas of taking flight, my ideas of freedom. But they were wrong! It was all there, inside of me, waiting to be exposed.
As I moved on, I considered what they might be doing, the cowards who stayed behind on the shelves. They had allowed themselves to be categorized, placed in rows upon rows of shelves so as to be easily accessible to anyone who ‘needed’ them. Ha! Read more
26
Jan
King of Thorn
Yay! It’s Reference Thursday! Today is a look at one of my very favorite series, King of Thorn by Yuji Iwahara. I first became aware of this series in a roundabout way. In October I attended Anime Weekend Atlanta (AWA) with Virginia Greene (Circulation Supervisor and an all-around awesome person). We were watching some really cool AMVs (Anime Music Videos) when one came up called “Sleeping Beauty” and it had clips from an anime called “King of Thorn.” I was instantly hooked by the amazing art and the intriguing storyline. (By the way, you can still find this video on Youtube by typing in Sleeping Beauty AMV). Months later I was browsing the shelves at another library when I stumbled on the manga and I instantly fell in literary love with this crazy series.
25
Jan
XXX Domains: An Obvious Failure
DISCLAIMER: This article is posted for the sake of educating and informing individuals about these new domains.
Is it just me or is the ICANN plan to corral online porn going terribly wrong? We already have reports that universities are snapping up XXX domains in an effort to get ahead of porn pranksters who want to besmirch a few good online names with smut.
I guess this turn of events was obvious to anyone with half a brain.
Legitimate porn sites have little interest in the triple X domains, which went on sale earlier this week, for their businesses because they see them as potential censorship and, more importantly, they thrive on people accidentally stumbling on their URLs. In the early days of the web this was common because porn purveyors snapped up known names and brands — none of which had to feature an obvious porn domain label. That’s how “Whitehouse.com” ended up, for a time, as a porn site.
24
Jan
“If It’s Not Broken…Fix It”*
I just received my February subscription of WIRED in the mail yesterday. There were wonderful articles about cars driving themselves, high speed verbal policy debates of 350 words per minute spoken by high school students, and even a discussion about the newest (and possibly the best) way to dispose of our trash (recycling it is not). As I ogle over the glossy pages I think about the future and realize that the future is now. The future is now. Do you hear me? Are you listening? It is now! Right now. Read more
23
Jan
“Reading Is Not Optional.”
That’s what the nation’s new Ambassador for Young People’s Literature says will be the theme of his two years in office. Walter Dean Myers was sworn into the post on January 10th of this year, the third Ambassador in the position created in 2008 by the Library of Congress and the Children’s Book Council, succeeding John Scieszka of The Stinky Cheese fame and Katherine Paterson, perhaps best known for Bridge to Terabithia. Myers will tour the country during the next two years, speaking to young people, their parents and their teachers, hoping to convince them of how much reading can bring to their lives and to help them understand how it can change their lives. Read more
20
Jan
Another Book Review…
As a lover of all things literary, I find myself in a kind of book purgatory working here at the library. Because of my position at the circulation desk, I see many wonderful titles pass by me that I would LOVE to read. But alas, I must work while here at the Mary Vinson and am thus not able to read all said titles, no matter how tantalizing they may be- I must wait until I get home. And therefore, I have in my home a plethora of wonderful books, waiting for me to read them. It is here that I wish to lean on you, dear reader. I call upon your patience with me and allow me to share with you one of the titles I have recently indulged in and to also give you a description of the story that touched me.
19
Jan
Along Came a Spider
After a two week hiatus…i’m back now that things re basically back to normal here at Mary Vinson. To get things started off this time I will go with Along Came a Spider. This is a 2001 film directed by Lee Tamahori based on the original 1993 novel of the same name written by James Patterson. Morgan Freeman went on to be nominated for a NAACP Image Award for his role as Alex Cross in the movie only to be beaten out by Denzel Washington for his role in Training Day.\The movie was given critical reviews by the New York Times and the Chicago Sun-Times as the seemed to be too boring and predictable, while the book was given mixed reviews for the plot being too long as with the movie, but also being a suspenseful and exciting as told by others. Read more
19
Jan
Good Luck
Welcome back to Reference Thursday! Last week I wrote about Kaori Yuki’s Godchild and at the time I was half way through the series. I finished the last volume last night and it did not disappoint! It was epic, heart breaking, and oddly redemptive. But that was last week’s series; this week is all about Good Luck by E-Jin Kang.
18
Jan
What the World’s Biggest Websites Looked Like at Launch
1. Google
