“Statement of Best Practices
Resources
Orphan Works – Over 150 librarians, archivists and other memory institution professionals have contributed to the development of this Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use of Collections Containing Orphan Works. Download this statement, which provides clear and easy to understand guidance for memory institutions that seek to provide digital preservation and access to collections containing copyrighted, orphan works under the doctrine of fair use.”
“For years, consumers were nervous about shopping online, figuring that entering a credit card number into a website was scarier than offering the card in a store.”
“Times sure have changed. Online shopping is booming; Forrester Research predicts Americans will spend $89 billion online this holiday season, 13 percent more than last year.”
“And shopping online has proved safer than in-store buying in recent years. Some of the biggest recent data breaches have involved in-store payment systems, while major online breaches, like the one at eBay, usually don’t involve credit card data.”
via Smart Steps at the Online Checkout – NYTimes.com.
“It’s mix of vegetables, olive oil, fresh fish and fruits may stop our DNA code from scrambling as we age, according to a study in the British Medical Journal.”
“Nurses who adhered to the diet had fewer signs of ageing in their cells.”
“The researchers from Boston followed the health of nearly 5,000 nurses over more than a decade.”
“The Mediterranean diet has been repeatedly linked to health gains, such as cutting the risk of heart disease.”
via BBC News – Mediterranean diet keeps people ‘genetically young’.
“The San Diego State University Writers’ Conference has a long history of bringing a star-studded lineup of publishing industry professionals to San Diego, and the 31st annual conference — January 23 to 25, 2015 — will deliver on that tradition.”
via Writers’ Conference Returns | NewsCenter | SDSU.
“RICK CLOUD, 68, knew that he wanted to stay in his home in Austin, Tex., as he aged. But Mr. Cloud, who is divorced, was not sure how he could do that without relying on his two daughters.”
“Then he ran across the idea of virtual retirement villages, whose members pay a yearly fee to gain access to resources and social connections that help them age in place. Sold on the concept, Mr. Cloud joined with some friends to start Capital City Village four years ago.”
“Our virtual village can connect me with people my own age so I can do more things,” said Mr. Cloud, a retired technology consultant. “I worry about being single and getting older.”
“Now, Mr. Cloud has all the support he needs. He can tap into Capital City Village’s network of more than 100 service companies referred by members. Dozens of volunteers will walk his dog or do yard work. When he wants to meet people, Mr. Cloud can attend house concerts in a member’s home, go to happy hour at the local Mexican restaurant or hear a champion storyteller give a talk. He has also made over 40 village friends.”
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/148643022
via Retirees Turn to Virtual Villages for Mutual Support – NYTimes.com.
“The dog is old.”
“Age snuck up on him. Maybe this will happen to me, too, if I’m lucky. Maybe it already has. But what human has the genes and the luck and the sheer savoir faire to disguise the years as well as this amazing specimen of canine charisma does?”
“His teeth are bright. His muzzle, black; his coat, feathery. He can bounce a soccer ball off his nose. On the street, everyone loves him. “Your dog is so pretty! How old is he?” they often ask. They’re astonished to hear the number. He’s 10. He’s 12. He’s 14. On it goes, year upon year. He’s ageless; he’s immortal.”
via Aging in Dogs – Companions Teach Us to Age Better – AARP.
“Apparently, I am more of a slacker than I thought. Not only don’t I have a bucket list, “make a bucket list” isn’t even on my to-do list. Everyone else seems to have one these days, from Cameron Diaz and Bill Clinton to bloggers who document their progress in exquisite detail. There is even a social-media site called BucketList.org, with more than 194,000 members, that can help you make a list and share it with friends.”
“Can’t we all just relax?”
via Why I don’t need (or want) a bucket list when I retire | Toronto Star.
“After a stray dog in Ecuador met a team of Swedish adventure athletes, he grew so attached to the squad that he ran for miles and swam along to keep up with them. Now Arthur the dog is world-famous — and it all started with a meatball.”
“Sweden’s Peak Performance team was in Ecuador this month to compete in the Adventure Racing World Championship, in which athletes hike, kayak, and bike during a 430-mile endurance race through the Amazonian rain forest. It’s the kind of race where athletes try to keep moving day and night (see an example).”
“Just before starting one stage, the team’s Mikael Lindnord made friends with a dog, sharing a meatball with him. Lindnord thought that would be the end of it — but then the dog followed him, and essentially forced his way onto the team.”
via Dog Follows Athletes Through Mud And Water, And Melts Hearts : The Two-Way : NPR.
“Tallying up nearly two million views across Vimeo and YouTube in two weeks, my favorite thing on the internet today is still “Cymatics,” a music video from Nigel Stanford from his new album Solar Echoes. Stanford put together a series of science experiments that demonstrate how sound can move matter around and combined them into a pretty solid music track and a very awesome video. As explained in the making-of post, Stanford and director Shahir Daud filmed the demonstrations first and then took the sound that made them and created the track with it second — but don’t let that take away from the magic here. The magic is science, and also the magic is a dude wearing a full-body chain mail Faraday suit getting zapped with a Tesla coil while using a kick drum to turn a stream of water into a perfectly formed spiral. Science!”
via Watch the magic of sound and science in ‘Cymatics’ | The Verge.
Thanks for posting this to David Brin (on Facebook)…
“BLETCHLEY, England — When “Captain Ridley’s shooting party” gathered here in late August 1938 as weekend guests at Bletchley Park, a Buckinghamshire country house, they were accompanied by one of the finest chefs from the Savoy hotel. But the hunting that took place wasn’t the usual. The visitors were members of MI6 and the Government Code and Cypher School in Britain, scouting out a retreat for code breakers who would be needed in the coming war.”
“By now, of course, the estate’s cover is fully blown. This mock-Tudor, mock-Gothic, red brick mansion, framed by aged trees and with a picturesque pond, has become familiar from documentaries and television broadcasts and will soon become even more well known from the new film “The Imitation Game.” ”
via Where the Real ‘Imitation Game’ Happened – NYTimes.com.
“If you have been wanting to buy a particular app, but waiting for the price to drop, this might be the best weekend of the entire year. Many apps are on sale from today through Cyber Monday. You might even find some apps you weren’t aware of. Here’s a number of the more notable apps that are on sale, most of them at least 50% off, but there are tons more. You can always search “Black Friday Sale” or “Cyber Monday Sale” in the Google Play Store to find even more apps. Hit the break for our roundup.”
via Black Friday and Cyber Monday Android app and game sales roundup | TalkAndroid.com.
“When a dog hears his owner – whether it’s an affectionate call, a curt command, or an unpleasant reprimand – do the words merely go in one fuzzy ear and out the other, or are they really listening? And if they are listening, how much do they comprehend?”
“According to research published Wednesday in the journal Current Biology, the brain of man’s best friend is specialized to process multiple components of human speech, with some regions specializing in the verbal contents of speech and others specializing in the familiarity with and emotional tone of the speaker.”
via Can your dog understand what you’re saying? – CSMonitor.com.
“RALEIGH, N.C. — Writer and editor Marianne Gingher gave 21 authors a wide-open assignment: write about any subject they chose as long as North Carolina was at the core of the story.”
“What she got for a collection of essays titled “Amazing Place” were stories as varied as the state’s geography and arranged that way, from the mountains to the Piedmont to the coast.”
via 21 authors write about how NC influenced them | CharlotteObserver.com.
Good teacher.. I took her creative writing class years ago.. She wasn’t sure what I was doing, but she encouraged me all the same…
“Scott Bonner, the library’s director and its only full-time librarian, kept the building open to provide programming for local students and to offer adults a safe place in the midst of the tumult. The decision marked a renewal of the library’s work in August, when it opened its space to impromptu classes during local schools’ long closures during protests this summer. On Tuesday, Bonner said, it was tough to gauge just how visitors were reacting to the news.”
“I’m seeing a mix of moods,” Bonner told Library Journal. “Our volunteers are excited and optimistic, and here to help, and then I have patrons who come in and literally hold my hands and cry — they just needed someone to hold onto and talk to. And everything in between, including people who are doing the regular walk-in, walk-out stuff.”
via Book News: Despite The Tumult, Ferguson Library Keeps Its Doors Open : The Two-Way : NPR.
“The author, most recently, of “The Escape” was a library rat growing up: “Libraries are the mainstays of democracy. The first thing dictators do when taking over a country is close all the libraries, because libraries are full of ideas.” “
“What books are currently on your night stand?
You mean on the floor? I have so many books that I have to stack them on the floor. At the top is “The Woman Who Died a Lot,” by Jasper Fforde. Also in the stack are Raffaella Barker’s “From a Distance” and Helen Rappaport’s “Four Sisters.” I met both of these wonderful writers while I was in England on a book tour. Not only are their works incredible, but sharing their company and hearing their personal stories was equally wonderful.”
via David Baldacci: By the Book – NYTimes.com.
“When you think of the history of Thanksgiving, you’d be hard-pressed not to picture funny Pilgrim hats and stereotyped Native Americans. These days, most of us know that the sanitized story we learned in grade school bears little resemblance to the real history of the Plymouth colony. But it might still come as a surprise to hear that, as Anne Blue Wills argues in a 2003 article in Church History, Thanksgiving as we know it was deliberately invented in the 19th Century.”
“Wills traces the holiday’s traditions, the reunions of dispersed families in their childhood homes and the tables groaning under the weight of turkey and stuffing and pie, to the popular magazines that were beginning to give the nation a more unified culture in the mid-1800s. In particular, she writes that Sarah Hale, the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine “badgered national leaders” to formally recognize the holiday, which Abraham Lincoln did in 1863.”
via The Modern Invention of Thanksgiving | JSTOR Daily.
We hear a lot about how college students “only search in Google these days” or “never look past the first page of results.” How true are such commonly held assumptions? Are they supported by recent examinations of student research behaviors? For answers, I looked at seven studies published within the last three years. Here is what I learned:
via How college students *really* do research – findings from recent studies | usable libraries.
“Walk into the Strand Book Store, at East 12th and Broadway, and the retail experience you’ll have is unexpectedly contemporary. The walls are white, the lighting bright; crisp red signage is visible at every turn. The main floor is bustling, and the store now employs merchandising experts to refine its traffic flow and make sure that prime display space goes to stuff that’s selling. Whereas you can leave a Barnes & Noble feeling numbed, particularly if a clerk directs you to Gardening when you ask for Leaves of Grass, the Strand is simply a warmer place for readers.”
via How the Strand Keeps Going in the Age of Amazon — Vulture.
“About 15,000 attendees enjoyed the 2014 National Trademark Expo featuring over 40 exhibitors, participants and displays. The Expo educated the public about trademarks, thereby advancing the USPTO’s mission to deliver intellectual property information and education to the public.”
via About the USPTO’s National Trademark Expo.
“Out on the sidewalks of the Flatiron district, a Manhattan without melodrama shuffles along. But just inside a building on East 23rd Street, a white-haired man dressed to kill aims his baby blues right where you live, and utters the password to your grand escape.”
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Robert Osborne.”
“He says it again and again and again, smiling congenially at the camera that dangles over a warm set designed to evoke his living room. Hi, I’m Robert Osborne. Hi, I’m Robert Osborne. Hi, I’m Robert Osborne.”
via Robert Osborne Is the Face of TCM – NYTimes.com.
“You’ve blown your budget on a new smartphone, tablet or laptop — but now you need to buy content to run on it. No cash? No worries.
Whether you’re into media — like TV shows, music, movies or e-books — or software, such as a Microsoft Office alternatives, there’s no shortage of places to get good and legal stuff, without having to spend a dime.”
via How to get free e-books, TV shows, music and more.
“I knew that even if I were second or third rate, it was astronomy that mattered.”
“This sentence, written by Edwin Hubble recalling his youth, tells us a lot about this stubborn, ambitious, sometimes even snobbish and arrogant young man. A man who eventually broke the promise made to his father and followed the path dictated by his passion.
As a result of Hubble’s work, our perception of mankind’s place in the Universe has changed forever: humans have once again been set aside from the centre of the Universe. When scientists decided to name the Space Telescope after the founder of modern cosmology the choice could not have been more appropriate.”
via Edwin Powell Hubble – The man who discovered the cosmos | ESA/Hubble.
“Artificial intelligence has arrived. Today’s computers are discerning and sharp. They can sense the environment, untangle knotty problems, make subtle judgments and learn from experience. They don’t think the way we think—they’re still as mindless as toothpicks—but they can replicate many of our most prized intellectual talents. Dazzled by our brilliant new machines, we’ve been rushing to hand them all sorts of sophisticated jobs that we used to do ourselves.
But our growing reliance on computer automation may be exacting a high price. Worrisome evidence suggests that our own intelligence is withering as we become more dependent on the artificial variety. Rather than lifting us up, smart software seems to be dumbing us down.”
via Automation Makes Us Dumb – WSJ.
A New Vocabulary for American Towns
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/11/new-american-vocabulary/383011/
“The Earth is on track for its warmest year on record, federal scientists said Thursday after temperatures in October climbed to historical highs.
Despite relatively cool weather across much of the United States this year, including big snowstorms along the East Coast in recent days, four of the past five months worldwide have seen record-breaking average temperatures, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Record heat has flogged large chunks of Europe, Russia and the Pacific Ocean, scientists said.”
via Planet, California on pace for warmest year on record – SFGate.
“While exhibits at the Met, MoMA or the Whitney might get most of the media attention — and tourists’ admission fees — there’s a slew of under-the-radar (and underrated) institutions scattered throughout New York City worth a visit. From a *very* impressive collection of trolls to a museum dedicated to animals from the torah, we round up ten hidden gems that should be on your shortlist the next time you want a dose off-beat culture.”
via PAPERMAG: New York’s 10 Coolest Hidden Museums.
“In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims — early settlers of Plymouth Colony, held a three-day feast to celebrate a bountiful harvest. This event is regarded by many as the nation’s first Thanksgiving. The Wampanoag Indians in attendance played a key role. Historians have recorded ceremonies of thanks among other groups of European settlers in North America. These include the British colonists in Virginia as early as 1619.
The legacy of thanks and the feast have survived the centuries, as the event became a national holiday 151 years ago (Oct. 3, 1863) when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a national day of thanksgiving. Later, President Franklin Roosevelt clarified that Thanksgiving should always be celebrated on the fourth Thursday of the month to encourage earlier holiday shopping, never on the occasional fifth Thursday.”
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/460695403
via FFF: Thanksgiving Day: Nov. 27, 2014.
Ten Years Later, What Are Members of the Lost Cast Doing?.
“Ricardo Heredia, the former executive chef at South Park’s Alchemy Restaurant, beat out 400 other chefs from around the world Tuesday night to win the $100,000 grand prize at the 2014 World Food Champion in Las Vegas.
The contest was the finale of the 2014 World Food Championships, which drew 25,000 foodies a day to a seven-day competition in downtown Las Vegas.”
via San Diego chef wins $100K in global cook-off | UTSanDiego.com.
“Our guide to the year’s biggest meal, with our best recipes, advice and instruction. From turkeys to pies, yams to brussels sprouts, these are the essentials of a perfect Thanksgiving.”
via Thanksgiving Recipes – NYT Cooking.
“North Carolina and sweet potatoes go way back. The relationship, according to the food writer Sheri Castle, hinges on a history of abundance. “Sweet potatoes were plentiful, even among the poorest folks of any ethnicity,” she said. “Enslaved Africans used sweet potatoes in place of yams and other West African root vegetables.” To this day, the state is a national leader in growing the crop.”
via Thanksgiving Recipes Across the United States – NYTimes.com.
“Like the independent bookstores he photographs, Bryan David Griffith is a bit of a throwback. He does have an email address, but if you want to reach him on the phone, you have to dial a landline, and most likely track him down through his answering machine. His yearlong project covering more than 20 independent bookstores around the country was photographed with a large-format film camera; he travels to each location from his home in Arizona via a makeshift camper in which he sleeps, loads film, and stores his equipment.
“I’m kind of old-school,” he said. “I have an engineering degree, so it’s not like I’m a technophobe. I just haven’t adopted technologies that don’t enrich my quality of life.” ”
“Giving thanks will be a little costlier this year, but — and here’s something you can be truly thankful for — it probably won’t empty your wallet.
The price for putting Thanksgiving dinner on the table for 10 people is expected to rise slightly this year, clocking in at $49.41. That’s 37 cents higher than in 2013. For that, you can blame dairy products, coffee and that all-important marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole, according to the annual informal survey of consumer grocery prices performed by the American Farm Bureau Federation.”
via Cost of Thanksgiving Is Going Up, but Not by Much | NBC 7 San Diego.
“As we’ve been crisscrossing the country visiting towns and cities for our American Futures project, I always look forward to stopping in the town’s public library. Every town has one. They’re often lovely buildings. (Thank you, Andrew Carnegie!) They offer a first pulse of the town. (Are they vibrant and bustling?) The librarians are as knowledgeable as the newspaper editors and as welcoming as the Chamber of Commerce. Who wouldn’t love a library?
The library visits have taken me by surprise for a couple of reasons, starting with how I sorely needed to catch up with the times and see how libraries have evolved since I visited them regularly. (The Internet and an empty nest changed my habits.) Three recent library posts are from Columbus, Ohio, Charleston, West Virginia, and Winters, California.”
via A Field Trip to America’s Public Libraries – The Atlantic.
“Charles Champlin, an arts critic and memoirist best known for his writing about movies for The Los Angeles Times, died on Sunday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88.
His daughter Susan Champlin confirmed the death. She did not specify a cause but said he had had Alzheimer’s disease.”
via Charles Champlin, Critic and Memoirist, Dies at 88 – NYTimes.com.
“San Diego’s 11 best new restaurants of 2014
Published on 11/18/2014
By Sara Norris”
via Best New San Diego Restaurants of 2014.
“With Thanksgiving fast approaching, some of us have an awful lot to be thankful for.
Those annoying political ads leading up to the primaries, after all, are over and laid to rest. Russian President Vladimir Putin having attended the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia and feeling the cold shoulder from foreign diplomats is thankful for miraculously escaping without having his food poisoned. Wedding planners from coast-to-coast are grateful most of all this year, now that legislatures and voters in 35 states –and the District of Columbia have legalized gay marriage. I understand business is booming.”
via Thanksgiving Tip Sheet for Journalists – DailyNewsGems.
“After dropping downloadable audiobooks earlier this year, Barnes & Noble is returning to the business with the release of the Nook Audiobooks App for Android devices. The app offers access to 50,000 digital audiobooks, and features audiobook samples, recommendations and regularly discounted titles.
The Nook Audiobooks app is available today, November 19, in the Google Play store. To launch the new app, Nook Media has a limited-time offer of two free audiobooks from a weekly list of bestselling titles. The audiobook app—which is separate from the Nook e-book app—is launching on the Android operating system. (Nook tablet devices are produced in partnership with Samsung, which uses the Android OS.) Support for Apple’s iOS 8 platform is slated for Spring 2015.”
via Barnes & Noble Gets Back Into Downloadable Audio.
“Google is kind of a big deal, to say the least. The tech giant has blossomed over the course of the past decade, quickly becoming part of the global lexicon, and establishing itself as an official verb in the dictionary. Although the company wears many hats, its most valuable asset has always been its phenomenal search engine.
Related: Our guide to using Google Drive
Unfortunately, Google isn’t one to automatically recognize punctuation and grammar within search queries. However, the symbols and punctuation listed below are exceptions to the rules, ones that allow you to better refine your search results when used in conjunction with your desired search terms. Just don’t add any spaces between the symbol and your search phrases. Otherwise, Google will ignore your commands.”
via The 35 Best Google Search Tips and Tricks | Digital Trends.
“Below are short descriptions of the OSCI catalogues released to date, with links to explore these scholarly resources further. Some catalogues are not optimized for Internet Explorer, so we recommend viewing with alternate browsers such as Google Chrome, Safari, or Firefox.”
via Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative: Browse the Catalogues.
Art catalogs online from Getty…
“For the first time since statins have been regularly used, a large study has found that another type of cholesterol-lowering drug can protect people from heart attacks and strokes.
The finding can help millions at high risk of heart attacks who cannot tolerate statins or do not respond to them sufficiently. And it helps clarify the role of LDL cholesterol, the dangerous form. Some had argued that statins reduced heart attack risk not just by lowering LDL levels but also by reducing inflammation. The new study indicates that the crucial factor is LDL, and the lower the levels, the better.”
via Study Finds Alternative to Anti-Cholesterol Drug – NYTimes.com.
all things library and life.. from a librarian
