LLEAL ENGLISH COURSE

LLEAL WRITING CONTEST WINNERS

2011-07-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

2011-07-22T15:25:00.001-07:00

ENGLISH COURSE ELASE LANÇA CAMPANHA FILANTRÓPICA EDUCACIONAL

Os alunos do English Course ELASE participarão do Projeto Cultural Bilíngue Eco-Filantrópico, objetivando tanto aplicar quanto aprimorar os conhecimentos adquiridos em seu curso do idioma English e simultaneamente divulgar a consciência ecológica e ainda estimular a cultura da filantropia, através do Projeto denominado LLEAL SCAVENGER HUNT.
Os alunos do English Course ELASE, com idades entre 10 e 12 anos, participarão por 90 dias de uma campanha de reciclagem de materiais, conjuntamente com escolas situadas nos Estados Unidos da América, através da organização DoSomething.
O projeto propiciará aos alunos, além no natural intercâmbio linguístico-cultural, a abordagem prática de aspectos do idioma, como vocabulário e gramática, bem como escrita, na condição de aluno bilíngue, Português/English, tomando ambos como primeiro idioma.
Além do aspecto criativo da tarefa educacional a ser desenvolvida pelos alunos do curso, salienta-se a oportunidade de relacionar-se diretamente com alunos da língua nativa objeto de estudo, em sua faixa de idade e nível escolar e aprimorar condições culturais fundamentais na aplicação da comunicação escrita impositiva no caso de alunos bilíngues.
O grupo do English Course ELASE participante do projeto é composto de estudantes, os quais completarão neste ano de 2011, três anos de estudos do idioma English sob a supervisão do Professor-Escritor/Tradutor LLEAL, tendo nesse período já elaborado THE LARGEST BILINGUAL KIDS CROSSWORD, lançado sua primeira obra acadêmica intitulada SCRIBER’S THOUGHT, ambos em 2011 e neste projeto atuarão como grupo modelo para outras turmas, agregando alunos na faixa etária entre 06 e 11 anos.
A criteriosamente elaborada engenhosidade do projeto, permitirá atender de forma real os três universos fins:
APLICAÇÃO E PRÁTICA DO IDIOMA ENGLISH VOLTADA PARA ALUNOS BILÍNGUES
AÇÕES EDUCACIONAIS DIRECIONADAS PARA A PRESERVAÇÃO DO MEIO AMBIENTE
DISSEMINAÇÃO DE SEMENTES DO PENSAMENTO FILANTRÓPICO.

O projeto envolverá 57 alunos divididos em três grupos, intitulados:

BLUE TEAM – GROUP 8.30h – 9.15h

YELLOW TEAM – GROUP 9.15h – 10.00h

RED TEAM – GROUP 13.15h – 14.00h

Os grupos indicados executarão 04 (quatro) tarefas direcionadas à área linguística denominada CREATIVE WRITING, em datas apropriadas, tarefas essas as quais abordarão o tripé objeto do projeto EDUCAÇÃO BILÍNGUE / MEIO AMBIENTE / FILANTROPIA. As demais tarefas componentes do projeto serão desenvolvidas e finalizadas em sala de aula.

DA PREMIAÇÃO

AO GRUPO VENCEDOR
Medalhas representativas pela conquista
PRÊMIO GRUPO - (01) UMA BICILETA CALOI

PRÊMIO EXTRA
PRÊMIO INDIVIDUAL ESCRITA – (01) UMA BICICLETA CALOI

DOS CRITÉRIOS

O GRUPO (TEAM) que acumular maior número de pontos será apontado como vencedor, recebendo por direito (01) uma Bicicleta marca CALOI.
A critério único do patrocinador do projeto, ESCRITOR LLEAL, será ofertada uma segunda Bicicleta marca CALOI, sob o titulo de PRÊMIO INDIVIDUAL, ao grupo que elaborar o melhor trabalho de escrita, entre as 04 (quatro) tarefas de Creative Writing, propostas durante a campanha.
O prêmio Individual não será obrigatoriamente oferecido aos componentes do grupo vencedor.
Ambos os prêmios, perfazendo o sentido da intitulação do programa, SCAVENGER HUNT, estarão acondicionados em formas não informadas e em locais não revelados aos participantes, mas obrigatoriamente dentro do ambiente de entrega da premiação e deverão ser localizados pelos alunos dos grupos, VENCEDOR e PRÊMIO INDIVIDUAL, através da realização da “Caçada ao Tesouro”.
O aluno que primeiro encontrar o prêmio, recebera a titularidade.

DA DATA DE PREMIAÇÃO

O grupo (TEAM) vencedor, bem como o grupo (TEAM) premiado como INDIVIDUAL serão anunciados no dia 28/OUTUBRO/2011, 19:00H, em evento a ser realizado no SALÃO INGLESES, ELASE.
BOA CAÇADA A TODOS!!!!

LLEAL

PREMIAÇÃO - 5o LLEAL STUDENT OF THE MONTH

2011-06-05T05:01:00.000-07:00

Prezados Pais/Alunos

Dentre os objetivos traçados para o ano 2011, destaca-se a condição de escrever em English. Para tanto e visando estimular WRITE IN or REWRITE INTO English, nesse mês de junho, os grupos dos alunos do English Course Elase desenvolverão tarefas, através do “ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST”, voltadas para escrita criativa.
Também dentro do conceito de reconhecer talento, esforço, dedicação, assiduidade, ativa participação, comportamento e fomentar alicerces do aprendizado, Prof. LLEAL, no esforço de tornar firmemente consciente o sentido desses quesitos, oferecerá dentre os sete (07) indicados, no mês de JUNE/2011, além do HIGHLIGHT STUDENT OF THE SEMESTER, totalizando a entrega de oito (oito) prêmios, por meio do 5º LLEAL STUDENT OF THE MONTH, a seguinte premiação:

DENTRE TODOS OS ALUNOS DO ENGLISH COURSE
UM (01) ALUNO
HIGHLIGHT STUDENT OF THE SEMESTER
01 (UM) NETBOOK

DENTRE OS 06 (INDICADOS) DOS GRUPOS:
MATUTINO
8.30-9.15H / 9.15-10.00 / 10.00H-10.45H
VESPERTINO
13.15-14.00 / 14.00-14.45 / 14.45-15.30H

01 (UM) MP4

01 (UM) HEADPHONE

04 (QUATRO) PRÊMIOS SIMBOLICOS

DENTRE OS PARTICIPANTES DOS GRUPOS ADULTS / ADVANCED
HORÁRIOS – 10.45-11.30H / 15.30-17.00H
UM (01) ALUNO
01 (UM) – FORMATO PAPEL

EXEMPLAR DO LLEAL BILINGUAL DICTIONARY ENGLISH/PORTUGUÊS

“Your future is written
by how much
you are willing to learn”

Ressalta-se que é faculto ao mesmo aluno ser duplamente indicado, ou seja, indicado como STUDENT OF THE MONTH-JUNE em seu grupo/horário e simultaneamente como STUDENT OF THE SEMESTER, consequentemente gerando dupla premiação.
A entrega dos prêmios aos indicados será realizada no dia 05/JULHO/2011, em horário de aula correspondente ao do aluno premiado.
Para a entrega do NETBOOK, caso o aluno esteja na condição de idade inferior 18anos, será solicitada a presença de pais e/ou responsáveis para assinatura de recebimento do prêmio.
A autoria do concurso, indicação, bem como entrega das premiações é inteiramente promovida e financiada pelo Escritor LLEAL e portanto de seu único atributo e responsabilidade.

LLEALBLOGSPOT - http://www.llealenglishcourse.blogspot.com/

LLEAL
--

Bilingual Writer, Translator, English Professor
NCTA 3.652
SINTRA 1.146
http://lattes.cnpq.br/8167062493978372
http://www.librarything.com/profile/LLEAL

LLEAL WRITING CONTEST WINNERS

2011-05-22T10:46:00.001-07:00

Should we stop pursuing happiness?

2011-05-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

The “pursuit of happiness” has been something Americans have valued ever since the founding fathers inserted it into the Declaration of Independence. Yet some psychologists now question whether happiness is, indeed, a worthwhile goal, since new findings suggest the pursuit could actually make us more unhappy.
In a review paper published this week in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers define what they call the “dark side of happiness”: feeling happy all the time can destroy relationships and careers, while avidly pursuing happiness is bound to lead to disappointment.
While some of us may envy those manic folks at the extreme end of the cheerful spectrum, they often have the same level of dysfunction as a person who's too sad, some recent studies suggest. They may completely tune out sad events around them like, say, their spouse being laid off or a parent dying.
“It’s happiness turned inward,” says June Gruber, a professor of psychology at Yale University who is studying mania. "They're attuned only to their own happiness“ and completely oblivious to what loved ones are feeling around them. It's the flip side of depression, where individuals can only focus on their own suffering.
In fact, mania can sometimes go along with depression -- a condition known as bipolar disorder -- which affects some 1 percent of Americans.
Researchers have found that people with high emotional states are more likely to engage in riskier behaviors like drug and alcohol use, gambling, sexual promiscuity, and drag racing.
"They have persistent euphoria, may feel like they have special powers or instantly fall in love with strangers," says Gruber. They also may constantly feel inspired but don't use this creativity to produce very much.
Far more common than extreme happiness, though, is the overwhelming need to seek out happiness, evidenced by the current #1 advice book on the New York Times paperback bestseller list called The Happiness Project. The author, Gretchen Rubin, spent a year thinking about what makes her happy by making lists, keeping a journal, and engaging in activities centered around increasing her state of well-being.
While the approach makes sense in theory, the latest studies have shown that trying to increase happiness can actually be counterproductive. "People often fall short of their goals and that can make them feel unhappy," says Iris Mauss, a psychologist and researcher at the University of Denver. Perhaps they were expected to feel happy all the time or an activity designed to boost their mood didn't go as planned.
In her recent research, Mauss discovered that those who value happiness the most have a lower state of well-being, less satisfaction with life, and are more likely to be depressed. She also found that teaching people to adopt happiness as a value caused them to feel more lonely and socially disconnected.
"People may be happiest when they're not monitoring their own happiness," Mauss contends. That doesn't mean we should completely abandon the pursuit of happiness and resign ourselves to leading unhappy lives. But rather, we should pursue happiness the right way -- defining it as leading a meaningful life, rather than partaking in hedonic pleasures.
Engaging in activities that will provide novel, meaningful experiences where you learn something new or connect with other people will, in turn, likely make you feel more content and satisfied. “Rather than saying 'I want to be happier' and following that goal," Mauss says, "go about pursuing it in a more indirect and less deliberate way."

AUTO-ESTIMA

2011-05-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

“A auto-estima pode ser definida como a avaliação objetiva, honesta e favorável da própria pessoa que influencia todas as suas experiências e a sua qualidade de vida." Karim Khoury

A auto-estima é um item fundamental na vida de uma pessoa, ela influencia diretamente nossas ações. É necessário possuir uma boa auto-estima para possuir segurança em enfrentar desafios, formular objetivos, conquistar metas. Uma baixa auto-estima trará resultados negativos, pois ela gerará sentimentos como insegurança, timidez exagerada e em alguns casos até atitudes destrutivas. É importante nos preocuparmos em manter nossa auto-estima na medida certa. Uma auto-estima elevada demais também poderá trazer resultados negativos.

A auto-estima é o valor que a pessoa atribui para ela mesma. Possuímos em nossa vida vários aspectos que a compõem: profissional, pessoal, afetivo, familiar, intelectual, físico, etc. São inúmeros aspectos e para cada um deles damos um determinado peso. Para algumas pessoas o aspecto familiar possui o maior peso, para outras é o aspecto intelectual. O peso dado para cada aspecto varia de pessoa para pessoa. Todos nós avaliamos cada aspecto de nossa vida e essa avaliação nem sempre é feita conscientemente, na maioria das vezes, essa avaliação é feita inconscientemente. Cada aspecto possuirá, então um determinado peso, e cada aspecto possuirá também uma nota.

É de suma importância a consciência de que o convívio, professores/alunos, influencia diretamente no quesito auto-estima de ambos.

Ouvimos em vários momentos de nossas vidas comentários sobre nossa pessoa. Para alguns comentários que ouvimos, damos imensa importância. Para outros, mal damos ouvidos.

Quanto maior for o poder pessoal da pessoa que esta fazendo o comentário, maior será a importância que daremos a ele. Pais, professores, pessoas por quem temos admiração ou ainda construímos expectativas de sucesso. Essas são as pessoas que normalmente possuem um poder pessoal considerável.

Esses comentários podem ser elogios, comentários positivos, premiações ou ainda indicações de destaque, razão pela qual coloco tempo e recursos na tentativa da construção de auto-estima saudável.

Críticas podem ser construtivas em muitas situações, porém não em todas.

É importante sabermos com o que devemos nos preocupar. Essa é uma vantagem de quem tem uma auto-estima adequada.

Essa pessoa sabe filtrar o que deve levar para benefício próprio e descartar o que sabe que não será proveitoso para ela.

É comum a pessoa distorcer a auto-estima para mais, ou para menos. Importante atentar se para esse ponto. A auto-estima deve ser adequada e não distorcida.

Da mesma maneira com a qual as pessoas influenciam em nossa auto-estima, também influenciamos na auto-estima das pessoas. É preciso tomar cuidado com o que falamos para uma pessoa e com a maneira que falamos com ela. O ser humano necessita de reconhecimento. Por isso precisamos prestar reconhecimento da mesma maneira que necessitamos ser reconhecidos, razão pela qual destino investimentos na construção de auto-estima saudável via reconhecimento dos méritos de meus alunos e fomento a idéia de que professores devem ser parte ativa na formação de desse processo.

Auto-estima elevada demais faz com que o aluno imagine que é superior aos outros, o que comprovadamente não é uma realidade, visto que absolutamente todos são capacitados a aprender e tecnicamente estão em igualdade, apenas o método adotado deve adotar diferentes abordagens educacionais.

Todos nós possuímos os mesmo recursos sendo assim, não é possível haver uma pessoa superior à outra. Somos seres em evolução o que quer dizer que ainda não somos perfeitos e temos muito a aprender com o próximo.

Através das décadas tenho colocado esforços na tentativa de transmitir conhecimento e piamente acredito que aprendo com meus alunos, em absolutamente todos os momentos em que nos reunimos para um objetivo comum: estudar e tanto a nível profissional quanto pessoal construir um futuro melhor.

Críticas surgem em nossa vida frequentemente. É preciso estar com uma auto-estima adequada para saber o que será aproveitado para o seu desenvolvimento e o que será descartado. Muitas coisas serão descartadas, porém muitas serão aproveitadas e mais que isso, muitas serão necessárias para o desenvolvimento pessoal. Uma pessoa com auto-estima elevada demais descarta todas as possibilidades. Ela acha que não precisa ouvir nada porque já é melhor do que a pessoa que está falando, pior do que isso, ela costuma jogar a culpa em outras pessoas. Colocar a culpa nos outros não é nada mais do que uma ingênua tentativa de proteger a auto-estima.

Essa pessoa que se julga superior começa a ter comportamentos que a distanciarão de demais pessoas. Ela se torna arrogante, prepotente e fatalmente se coloca como forte candidato ao erro.

Chegará um determinado momento que essa pessoa vai se ver sozinha.

A auto-estima distorcida para menos faz com que o aluno se sinta inferior, incapaz e é papel, no meu pensar obrigatório, de todo professor impedir que tal fato venha a se tornar realidade ou se existente trabalhar para que seja revertido.

Esse sentimento pode causar autopiedade, o que é a pior coisa que você pode sentir por você mesmo. A pessoa perde o amor próprio. Esse tipo de situação levara o aluno a formar conceitos os quais o levarão a singrar os mares da vida e a enfrentar tormentas e tempestades extremamente difíceis e talvez naufragar.

Muito importante se faz manter a auto-estima de alunos e na medida certa tão alta quanto suas idades permitam entender e acredito que, em sala de aula e por vezes além dos muros que cercam o sistema educacional, ela faz parte da saúde do ser humano.

Um ser humano saudável é um ser humano feliz.

Um aluno com auto-estima adequada certamente será um profissional bem sucedido.

LLEAL

Librarians Are the Future, MLS or Otherwise

2011-05-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

The thorniest issue at Tuesday's "Future of the Academic Library" symposium—and the most personal to the more than 200 librarian attendees—was the role librarians should play in tomorrow's academic library. However, the large yellow pins sported by a sizable minority of the audience, pronouncing that "Academic Librarians ARE the Future," made it clear that some had already answered the question.

The tension was most palpable during a session on hiring postdoctoral candidates into traditional library positions, titled "Supporting New Modes of Research: New Staffing Patterns."
Three participants from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Postdoctoral Fellowship in Academic Libraries program spoke about their current positions and the idea of alternative education and experience paths.
Marta Brunner, Head of Collections, Research and Instructional Services at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), described two newly redesigned library positions she said call for "a new kind of librarian." During questions afterward, she clarified that an MLS is one of the desired qualifications for the positions, but that equivalent qualifications would also be considered. "To tell you the truth," she said, "the top qualification is 'Do you understand the position and why we need it.'"
John McClachlan and Noah Shenker, both postdoctoral fellows at McMaster, spoke of the hybrid nature of their studies and positions. Shenker's research background is in film and media studies as well as Holocaust studies, while McClachlan studied geography and earth sciences while performing pedagogical research.
"I don't think I even knew what metadata was ten years ago," Shenker said, but added that "librarians have been incredibly useful to me" during the course of his Ph.D. and in his position at McMaster.

Queries for postdocs

As one might expect, the audience response to the panel was lively.
One audience member wondered how transferable the training and expertise provided by a Ph.D. program was to a library environment. Does doctoral education provide training so narrow it isn't really relevant? Shenker pointed out that he's taught courses across three different departments, and has worked with a wide variety of archives and research collections.
Likewise, when asked about lacking tenure prospects and diminished guarantees of academic freedom, McClachlan said that working with a number of departments provides increased flexibility, while Shenker noted that the library is about as stable an environment as can be found in academia.
Asked whether the placement of non-MLS candidates into librarian positions created tension, especially in unionized environments, Brunner admitted that certainly could be the case. But she emphasized that the nature of the work should dictate the requirements, not the title, adding "there are better reasons to go to library school" than simply to get a degree, a union card, to qualify for a particular position.
She said that one-third of CLIR program postdocs went on to pursue library degrees, though moderator Elliott Shore, Bryn Mawr CIO and CLIR postdoctoral program dean, clarified that the number has decreased dramatically in recent years. Of the fellows' career trajectories, Shore said that one-third stay in libraries, a third go to related institutions like nonprofits and museums, and the last third go on to tenure-track faculty positions with other departments. "I once thought having postdocs become faculty members was a sign of failure," said Shore. "But I've realized that it increases the number of faculty members outside the library that understand its services and can advocate effectively on its behalf."

What Makes Us Professionals? | From the Bell Tower

2010-08-11T04:41:00.001-07:00

Thanks in part to Library Journal, librarians from all spheres of the field have engaged in some lively debate about whether librarianship is a profession. It all began when Ryan Deschamps authored a post titled "Ten Reasons Why 'Professional Librarian' is an Oxymoron" at his blog The Other Librarian. While the post received a fair amount of attention, and dozens of comments, Library Journal gave the post a larger audience by reprinting it and then providing Deschamps an opportunity to respond to his own assertions that librarianship had no claim to professionalism.

Personally, I thought some of the commenters to the original post, including myself, did a fine, and possibly even better job of refuting Deschamps' rationale for our lack of professional status, than he did on his own.

Who cares if we're professionals?
I understand the value of writing a post that raises some difficult questions, and which forces us to confront challenging issues we face in moving librarianship into the future. Playing devil's advocate is a sometimes necessary function that encourages us to think deeply about why we do what we do—and those for whom we do it.

I was inspired by the mostly positive responses to Deschamps' ten reasons why librarianship is not a profession. As I asked in my comment, does it really matter whether the world sees us librarians as professionals or not? What really matters, as I and others wrote, is the quality of our work and the difference that we make for our colleagues and our campuses. If I have earned the respect of those I serve and they treat me as a professional, then what else really matters?

Having second thoughts
It turns out, in retrospect, that I must care a little bit about this issue because now I'm wondering if I had it wrong. When you look at this issue from at least one particular angle you could very well claim that librarians are not professionals. At least one commenter to Deschamp's original post brought up the issue of regulation, asserting that the one thing that distinguishes professionals is that they are licensed to perform their duties, and that they are legally responsible for damages that might occur during the delivery of their services.

A physician or attorney is the common example; each must past rigorous exams to become certified to practice in their state and both are subject to damages when derelict in the performance of their duties. By that standard your plumber and your hair stylist are professionals, but not your librarian. Though I dare say that all of us are guilty of it at one time or another, no academic librarian was ever sued for professional negligence. Then again, how would anyone prove it?

A parallel discussion about professionalism
A debate similar to the one started by Deschamps is taking place in the world of business. It began with a Harvard Business Review (HBR) article about why management is not a profession. Richard Barker makes a case that because management lacks the qualities of a profession, such as licensing and regulatory oversight, MBA schools are technically not professional schools; the bulk of the article focuses on MBA education and changes that are needed to promote professionalism—and much of what is said could apply to LIS programs.

Barker says that, "Professions are made up of particular categories of people from whom we seek advice and services because they have knowledge and skills that we do not." That suggests that librarians are professionals. Surely we have knowledge and skills that laypersons do not. We are experts in conducting research. We know how to mine unique oceans of information and data to come up with the exact information needed. When faculty need a comprehensive citation count for their promotion and tenure dossier they often seek out an academic librarian who has the special skills to do the job thoroughly.

Then again you could make the point, as Deschamps did, that anyone can find or organize information on their own. A savvy faculty member could figure out how to use the appropriate databases to do their own citation counting; some libraries even offer faculty guides on how to count their own citations. They may do it less well or efficiently than a librarian, but what are the consequences? You could point to a few cases where a decision based on poor or misleading information led to disastrous results, but these events are so few and far between that there's no societal initiative to establish a network of certified librarians, regulated by the state, who are the only ones deemed qualified to dispense information.

What really matters is how we think
One response to Barker's HBR article suggests there is or could be something unique about the work librarians do that could establish the field more concretely as a profession. Roger Martin, dean of the Business School at the University of Toronto—and a leading proponent of design thinking—suggested that what makes managers unique is the type of integrative thinking they bring to their work.

By integrative thinking Martin means a particular thought process that enables individuals to develop solutions to complex problems. For example, the library faces a difficult problem with no clear solution. Option A and Option B are obvious solutions, but neither is quite right. An integrative thinker has the capacity to take the best of both options A and B and come with a new and better option C; it is a solution that integrates existing ideas and information into something new and different (for more on integrating thinking read this).

In a brief essay about Baker's article, Martin states that "if we can demonstrate to the world that the inability to integrate is the prime cause of managerial failure, then perhaps management could move toward being a profession in which people could be tested and certified on their ability to think integratively."

We have the knowledge and skills
When I read this I thought it could also apply to the academic library profession. So much of what we do is integrating many different types of knowledge—our disciplinary expertise, our insights into the creation of scholarship, our skill at promoting collaboration, our ability to educate—so that we can quickly assist those needing research assistance and develop solutions to enable them to succeed. Deschamps touched on this briefly in his response when he said "our expertise lies not in surface learning but in the synthesis of a variety of topics."

Embracing the concept of integrative thinking as our professional expertise moves us further in the direction of laying claim to a unique body of knowledge that defines professionals. As Barker states, "Professions are made up of particular categories of people from whom we seek advice and services because they have knowledge and skills that we do not."

Yes, everyone can find information. If we seek to claim professional status, whether or not it's regulated and even if there's no clear code of conduct with legal consequences for violations, then we must promote our unique expertise as integrative thinkers who do much more than just find information. We must differentiate ourselves as integrative thinkers who synthesize many different types of knowledge to help individuals find solutions to their complex information needs. We have the knowledge and skills. Do we have the motivation to create change?

School is Cool: Fabulous Books for Reading Aloud

2010-08-11T04:40:00.000-07:00

Burgeoning with optimism and unadulterated fun, these gold-star picture books are sure to alleviate students' first-day worries, generate enthusiasm for things to come, and set the tone for the best school year ever. It will be smiles all around as children enjoy stories that blend realistic back-to-school situations and emotions with a bit of whimsy here, a comfortingly upbeat touch there, and an always-satisfying resolution. In addition to solid storytelling, these titles also feature eye-catching illustration in an array of vivid hues and varied artistic styles. Share these tales to welcome your students, reel in their boisterous energy, and begin to build a classroom community.

A Fine Beginning

It's only the first day, but a curly haired girl and her classmates already feel confident that This School Year Will Be the Best! (Dutton, 2010; K-Gr 3). Humor and high hopes abound, as their teacher gathers them in a circle and asks each one to share a wish for the days to come. Varying from the feasible ("I won't lose things in my desk") to the far-fetched ("We'll have a chocolate fountain at lunch!"), each aspiration is presented along with a cheerful cartoon-style illustration that adds both detail and imaginary flair. Kay Winters and Renée Andriani create a sense of bright expectancy as the students express their desires and take ownership over the school year. The final spread shows the kids posed around their teacher, proudly displaying pictures illustrating their wishes. Use this buoyant book to launch a similar discussion and art project, and help your students to feel right at home.
Though your young learners may still be longing for summertime, you can grab their attention by sharing an amusing poem or two and irrefutably proving There's No Place Like School (Greenwillow, 2010; K-Gr 4). Selected by Jack Prelutsky, these 18 offerings cover the elementary experience with fresh childlike perspectives and lots of chuckle-inducing humor.
Topics include Lee Bennett Hopkins's image of a "wide-awake/freshly-painted-yellow/school bus" carrying sleepy-eyed boys and girls and "hundreds/upon/hundreds/of/school supplies"; Kalli Dakos's breathless "Countdown to Recess" on a sunny day ("Dash!/Gone in a flash!"); and Kenn Nesbitt's hilarious "Drinking Fountain" mishap ("The water squirted east and west./It squirted north and south./Upon my shirt, my pants, my hair-/but nothing in my mouth"). Aglow in kaleidoscope colors and featuring a cast of appealingly offbeat characters, Jane Manning's illustrations are filled with comical high jinks and dynamic motion. This is an enchanting book to dip into at the beginning of and throughout the school year.

Kindergarten Kick-Off

Antoinette Portis's Kindergarten Diary (HarperCollins, 2010; PreS-K) charmingly chronicles a youngster's September experiences. Though Annalina worries about going to "Big School," things quickly settle into happy routine in room 2K, where she becomes comfortable with her not-at-all-scary teacher, conquers show-and-tell fears, and makes new friends. Set against crisp backdrops of wide-ruled paper with dotted lines, the characters and their environs are depicted in fluid cartoon artwork. Photo collage images add a sense of realism that will have readers smelling the crayons and hearing the bounce of a playground ball. By September's end, a contented Annalina proudly proclaims, "We are room 2K. We are fine!"
Fielding familiar worries with a nimble touch, Audrey Vernick's silly but reassuring picture book asks that ever-important question: Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten? (Balzer + Bray, 2010; PreS-K). A large brown critter with a cheesy smile and teeny-tiny backpack follows a pigtailed girl into a classroom. At first, he feels a bit shy (after all, "it can be hard to start something new" and he's the "only one with horns. And a mane. Okay, and a hump"), but the children are soon waving hello ("who can resist that furry face?"). Though he can't master every skill or social situation—yet—the buffalo quickly realizes that "Everyone's special in his or her own way" and you can certainly "learn to get along without using your horns."

Daniel Jennewein's droll cartoons work in harmony with the tongue-in-cheek text to underscore the importance of cooperation, patience, and accepting people (or bison) for who they are. Kids will giggle out loud at the protagonist's expressions and antics, particularly on a wordless spread where he proudly poses with a hoof-painted masterpiece.

Lessons From 20 Years of Current Cites

2010-08-11T04:35:00.001-07:00

With the publication of the July issue of Current Cites we are celebrating 20 years of continuous monthly publication. Standing alone, that statement is not all that impressive in a world of publications that have much longer publishing histories. But I think there are two things that make that statement into something much bigger than it appears: 1) it is produced by an all volunteer team, and 2) the publication has been freely available on the Internet for nearly the entire 20 years (predating the Web). It was distributed on the PACS-L list by October 1991, and on the MELVYL online catalog before that. Here is an early message about it on PACS-L.

I’m the only one left of the original team, largely because I founded it and it has had my enduring personal commitment. But there have been many contributors who have stayed on for years, contributing citations of current literature that they believe are worthy of attention with insightful commentary written in their personal voice.

In thinking about how to celebrate this anniversary, I thought I would do a couple things. One was to create a web page that described how the publication came to be. Another was that I would write about what I’ve learned over the 20 years of doing this kind of thing. The former is now up on the Current Cites web site. The latter I am doing here. These are some of my lessons:

•Current awareness continues to be important. The changes that are battering our profession are many and substantial. It is more important than ever to keep up with what is going on not just in libraries, but also in the societies within which we work. What we should never do is stick our heads in the sand.
•Current awareness continues to be difficult. When I started Current Cites it was with the belief that it was difficult to keep up with rapid technological change in librarianship. If anything, with the advent of the Web it has sped up and diversified. We have a tremendous number of channels through which we can receive information, with precious few ways to filter them appropriately for our own purposes. Therefore, the need for a publication like Current Cites has only increased, although it must be acknowledged that it adds yet another channel to the diversity of information sources.
•The most important ingredient to keeping something going for 20 years is a responsible individual with the will to make it so. I’ve often thought that if the publication was managed by a committee, or even an organization, it long ago would have ended. I believe this to be true for a couple reasons. It is hard for a group of individuals to have enough personal buy-in to do what needs to be done to keep a publication like this alive. And organizations, in these trying economic times, would find it hard to justify keeping a free publication going. In the end, the personal commitment of a single individual who felt responsible for its continued existence was probably the single biggest factor in its longevity.
•Contributors come and go, but the publication remains. Over the years we’ve had 34 contributors, but probably no more than a dozen active ones at any one time — often only about half-a-dozen. Periodically, as enthusiasm wanes or the call of other responsibilities increases, I need to find new contributors. This not only renews the enthusiasm, it can provide different perspectives and/or a different set of publications that are watched.
•Editors come and go, but the publication remains. Current Cites has had three editors in its life: first David F.W. Robison, then Teri Rinne, then me. I doubt anyone would discern much difference in the publication during each of our tenures, but having someone in charge is important. When I decide to step down I’ll be looking for someone to take it over. I’m certain I will be able to find that person and that it will go on.
•Hosts come and go, but the publication remains. Although Current Cites started at UC Berkeley, when it was clear that support for the server where it was hosted was waning I moved it to WebJunction.org. This was long before I joined OCLC, or even thought to do so. I just needed a logical home for it that would be stable and long-term. My personal server doesn’t qualify.
The last 20 years have been interesting, engaging and challenging. The next 20 promises much more of the same, but faster. My sincere hope is that you will continue to have Current Cites help you find the gems in the information technology literature so that you can focus on not just getting libraries through the next 20 years, but enabling them to thrive.

I also hope that by sharing this story it might inspire some young librarian to take on a similar task, and to apply themselves to draw in other talented individuals to make their project successful and useful for a long time. I know they are out there; I’ve met them, I’ve talked to them, I am even privileged to mentor some of them. I really can’t wait to see what they come up with.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 11:29 am and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

E-Texts for All (Even Lucy) | Ebooks and Accessibility

2010-08-11T04:34:00.001-07:00

A colleague's perspective helps guest columnist Char Booth see the difficulties librarians face in building their ebook collections

If digital literacy is exploding, the visually disabled are taking the shrapnel. I would wager that most librarians consider ourselves committed to accessibility and make individual and organizational efforts to comply with (and often exceed) the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in our buildings and the Rehabilitation Act Section 508 standards on our websites. We may not, however, have had the sobering experience of trying to access an ebook or e-journal using screen-reading software or other assistive technology. Despite our best intentions, this limited insight can lead us unwittingly to collection development and web design decisions that make digital literacy far more difficult for the print disabled.

Over the past year, I've been working closely with Lucy Greco, a colleague and disability advocate at the University of California-Berkeley (UC-B). Lucy, who has been blind from birth, has transformed my understanding of the word access. Not only do librarians need to understand the accessibility front of the ebook wars, we have the responsibility to embrace our advocacy role in shaping its outcome. As one of the few public sector agencies charged with recognizing the access rights of all, libraries must collectively examine how we can steer the e-text trajectory-from ebooks to e-journals to any other format-in a more universally usable direction.

Ebooks and DRM
Lucy is partial to a few sayings that have helped me understand the e-text accessibility paradox. The first is that "ebooks were created by the blind, then made inaccessible by the sighted."

Online text formats like DAISY and EPUB were pioneered in part by the accessibility movement as an alternative to expensive and cumbersome Braille texts. As ebooks have gained popularity, however, digital text became inexorably less accessible as for-profit readers like the Kindle and Sony Reader muscled onto the scene. A patina of digital rights management (DRM) has been added in order to protect the intellectual property of vendors, contrary to the open and accessible orientation libraries have long held toward literacy and learning.

Device- and interface-specific ebooks are often "locked down" to other readers, meaning that by default they block attempts to be read by JAWS and other screen-reading software. The Kindle—still the dominant hardware ereader—has text-to-speech capability, but its speech menus remain inaccessible despite a 2009 promise from Amazon. [The Kindle 3, announced last week, has addressed this particular flaw.—Ed.] Hence the recent Department of Justice letter to college presidents warning against inaccessible emerging technology use and a suit brought by the National Federation for the Blind against Arizona State University's Kindle DX pilot.

Dollars = leverage
While we might only represent a portion of the ebook market, our organizations are the largest collective subscribers to e-journal and other e-text vendors, meaning we have the clout to acquire from publishers in a way that effects positive change. This advocacy can occur at both an individual and programmatic level. For instance, in addition to pursuing EPUB, validated HTML, and other screen-readable formats, why not specify in our consortial licensing agreements that e-text and search interfaces must strictly adhere to accessibility standards, or we will not renew/purchase them? Already 508 compliant are many major vendors, such as Safari Tech Books (Proquest), EBSCO, and Ebrary, but countless others do not focus as clearly on textual accessibility.

We hand over the funds that keep content providers afloat. And, as anyone who has ever met a hard sell with a bluff and won a discount from one of these companies can attest, suggesting you might walk elsewhere with your dollars unless an interface becomes more usable is productive leverage.

We must also be careful not to take accessibility statements at face value, as some "508 compliant" sites are so in name only. We can collaborate with our disabled users to evaluate true usability, hands-on. Lucy and I are working together to develop a usability evaluation rubric, for example.

Usability is accessibility
Our own websites are some of the worst offenders. Library sites as well as e-text platforms and interfaces suffer from an abject lack of standardization, spawning a dizzying array of learning curves, tricks, and workarounds. Lucy's second saying is that "accessible design is usable design." What is the good of providing accessible texts if they are impossible to navigate to and through?

Beyond buying usable e-texts, we have to make a strong commitment to usability standards in our own sites and services. The same principles that make a digital document "visible" to a screen reader are universal design best practices. Screen readers rely on behind-the-scenes coding to narrate a page's structure to a visually impaired user. If that "invisible" underlying architecture is shoddy, the information access process breaks down-and in almost the exact same way it would for, say, a mobile device user.

Lucy's third saying is that when it comes to e-texts, "separate is not equal." Users with visual impairments should not have to request a separate file from a vendor, but that is often exactly what they are forced to do. More ebook and e-journal platforms than you might believe have deep accessibility flaws: Adobe Digital Editions and Flash texts have significant accessibility barriers as evinced by problems with OverDrive books; non-OCR PDF files have proven quite problematic; and CourseSmart, the largest online marketplace for e-textbooks, produces by admission what can only be characterized as dismally inaccessible e-texts (although, according to Lucy, it is working toward improvement).

Educating ourselves
There is a dearth of end user studies that evaluate the universal usability of research databases and ebook platforms. While not every librarian has the time or design expertise to evaluate individual resources, we can ensure that the tools our institutions provide and create follow core best practices: consistency, flexibility, accessibility, and simplicity. In this vein, resources like ASCLA's Think Accessible site and the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) are invaluable. For our own discovery interfaces, the WAVE Web Accessibilty Evaluation Tool and other WebAIM and WC3 products help validate websites for sound design.

There are already accessible e-text initiatives among open access content providers: the Internet Archive recently announced it is making one million books available in DAISY talking book format, while more vended ebook platforms are coming around to their responsibilities in this area. Open access texts in general are created accessibly-the open textbook movement led by Flat World Knowledge operates on an universal access model. The (hopefully) soon-to-be-released Blio is a promising cross-platform reader that could give the proprietary device paradigm a run for its money.

By making access-positive decisions and partnering with the Lucys of the world, we can resist ereading inaccessibility and promote universal usability.

Recharging Our Ideals | Peer to Peer Review

2010-08-11T04:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I read an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education by David Hiscoe, an academic who left a tenure-track faculty position long ago for the corporate world and has recently returned. Looking around the campus, he likens himself to Rip Van Winkle and marvels at the changes. While he was away, the university became bloated with staff and too many competing agendas, students began to take on crippling debt, and the whole house of cards is trembling, on the verge of collapse. He takes temporary solace when he goes to the library, because he sees students taking delight in their learning. He writes:

A big part of my day is spent in the university library. Coming in one morning recently, I paused to watch a young man walk up and join three students who had pulled chairs together around a table. As the new arrival settled in, he let out the archetypal "That's awesome!" cry, loud enough so that I leaned in to see what he was admiring. He was looking at what appeared to be an animated differential equation making itself visual in stages embedded in a PowerPoint chart. As I walked by, he was practically chewing his lower lip off in his enthusiasm and was asking the laptop driver, "How did you do that?"

It was a moment that could have awakened Rip Van Winkle's long-dead dog. A moment that crystallized all the reasons that most of us went into teaching to begin with. And I see a half a dozen of these a week. It's easy, since this place-the library-is crowded, packing in the equivalent of a fourth of the student population on a good day. I generally walk around for 10 minutes or so each afternoon to recharge.

Some of the students are on Facebook; some are watching cats do funny things on YouTube. But most are heads down in their studies, or working out physics problems together on whiteboards they've drawn into impromptu circles. When we started lending out iPods, they would sometimes come back loaded up with an app that some student had developed herself to make the device more useful. I interview lots of students, and they tell me they love the library, love the university. They are not kidding. They are idealistic and hardworking.

And they're lucky enough to attend North Carolina State University, which has a fine library and the combination of insight and wherewithal to hire Hiscoe as its communications director. (His PhD is in medieval poetry; his corporate work was for a large telecommunications firm that was big, but not too big to fail—it went bankrupt soon after he returned to academe.)

The best place on campus?
But a lot of us who work in academic libraries recognize those moments of joy when walking through the library. We see the potential, we see moments when students have made the shift from transcription clerk (gotta get that paper written, gotta find sources to quote) to becoming engaged and curious co-creators of knowledge. Those members of the faculty and administration who don't take a few minutes every now and then to reclaim their sanity and sense of mission by strolling through the library when it's busy are missing out. Sadly, that category includes the vast majority of faculty and administrators.

As one of the commenters noted, the library is not just student-centered, it's knowledge-centered, and that meeting of students and raw knowledge can catalyze learning and spark a whole new relationship between students and the world. He (or she; the comment was anonymous) writes, "The library should be the best place on campus; the challenge is to figure out a way to channel the 'awesomeness' of students clustered in the library out to the classroom and further, into the world of adults who are hungry for the chance to reflect and learn."

Or corporate mill?
So how do we do that? We can't all hire gifted scholars to tell our stories, and even if we did, those stories still wouldn't pry people away from their constant stream of email and meetings to visit the library.

And as Hiscoe himself points out, those stories aren't necessarily going to change anything. The solace he takes in the moment is matched by the heartbreaking knowledge that what these students are experiencing will likely be extinguished in a few years. The house of cards is toppling. One symptom of that collapse, though Hiscoe doesn't mention it, is the fact that those students will be expelled from that library and the knowledge it holds; the minute they stop paying tuition, we slam the door and turn the key. No more knowledge for you! Our instructional programs don't do much to help them find ways to continue those energizing conversations with ideas after they graduate, whatever platitudes we utter about information literacy for lifelong learning. We're mainly helping them survive as students, using tools available only for as long as they're students.

Hiscoe acknowledges he is not awakening from a golden age; the trend to corporatized higher education was already entrenched when he had his apprenticeship toiling as an underpaid adjunct before finally landing a coveted tenure-track job. But the problems he witnessed in the academy are even worse now. And I can't help but notice that this situation has exactly the same timeline as the so-called "serials crisis," which we all know is not just about serials; it's about the commodification of knowledge that in the good old days was created to be shared. We no longer create knowledge for the common good and to advance our understanding of the world. We create it as grist for the corporate mill, and it's getting pretty dark and Satanic, that mill.

Toward unfettered sharing of knowledge
So I'm left pondering the question of how we get out of this situation, and how to sustain that excitement and energy we see in students and pass that light along to our exhausted, discouraged colleagues. As my mind does its hopscotch act, I remember Thomas Jefferson's argument against treating knowledge as just so much property:

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

However we solve the twin crises of scholarly communication and the damaging effects on all of higher learning caused by the corporatization of the university, libraries can be a source of light, a light we need to share. We need to rekindle in our faculty and administrators—and in our taxpayers and legislators—a faith that knowledge can do more good when it's freely available than when it's hoarded as property.

Around the same time that Hiscoe's essay was published, a representative of the Association of American Publishers appeared before Congress, reassuring legislators once again that there is no crisis in scholarly communication, that by adopting rules that would make federally funded research free to the public that funds it would be the ruination of peer review and accuracy in research, and could even endanger national security because American research could fall into the hands of foreign nations. (I am not making this up; read it for yourself.)

If anyone needs the skills of critical information literacy, it's decision makers like those in Congress listening to that kind of testimony, packed with misinformation and baseless scare tactics. I'm not sure we can do much about politicians, given the corrupting influence of money in the campaign system, but we need to ensure that more people in a metaphorical sense, if not in reality, visit the library to see in action the value of the unfettered sharing of knowledge. It's too important to let that fire go out.

Free Higher Education Is What the People Want | From the Bell Tower

2010-03-20T05:03:00.001-07:00

But can it actually work?
Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA -- Library Journal, 3/18/2010

Free, according to Chris Anderson, is the new model for how business will work in the future.

Could free, as in absolutely no cost to the student, ever work for higher education? No one knows for sure, but at least one innovator is a believer. Shai Reshef, an Israeli entrepreneur, is the founder of the University of the People (UotP), the world's first global, tuition-free online university.

There are countries where higher education is free to the students and their families, but not really. Taxes far higher than our own, such as those added to gasoline (as in the Scandinavian countries) or other essentials are what really fund the salaries and materials required to support colleges and universities. Reshef’s institution really is free because, in essence, all the resources are provided free by their creators. The courses, the technology infrastructure, the registration process, virtually everything it takes to deliver higher education, is free. But will it work?

A year later
When I first learned about the UotP I had to admit being skeptical. Those of us who work in higher education know how expensive it is to produce learning and scholarship. If the academic world is profoundly challenged to create a sustainable free, open access scholarly publishing system—which everyone acknowledges must be financially supported by someone or some organization somewhere along the knowledge production chain—then how can we possibly devise a working system of free higher education?

Talk about a wicked problem. It is an overwhelming and perhaps impossible task to be sure, but perhaps that is what drives Reshef to conquer it. Why bother? To bring higher education to the people of the world whose own countries either have no higher education system or one that is in utter shambles.

Now that the first year of operation for the University of the People is coming to a close, what are the future prospects for this incredible venture?

Gaining traction
To date the UotP has admitted 380 from 50 countries out of nearly 3000 that applied. How does it work? According to an article from Inside Higher Ed, “The University of the People relies on free syllabuses and learning materials from open courseware projects from institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It currently offers only two programs, business administration and computer science, and employs only five paid instructors. Those instructors administer courses designed by a corps of faculty volunteers numbering about 800, by Reshef’s count. Those professors put together courses using open courseware.”

A small amount of revenue is earned in the form of nominal student fees for exams and admissions. According to Reshef it will take nearly 15,000 students to make UotP viable.

One other small thing would help to make UotP a viable institution of higher education: actual degrees. As described in this article from BusinessWeek, while it does have students on track to earn two and four-year degrees in the two existing programs, “no degrees will be granted until the university obtains proper authorization from relevant authorities…. Obtaining accreditation is a top priority for the school, says Reshef, noting that the school is incorporated in Pasadena, Calif., making it easier for the school to work with American accreditation agencies.”

Where are academic libraries in the free equation?
For-profit, online higher education firms have already proven that a brick & mortar library is no longer a necessity, even to achieve accreditation. As long as the institution can demonstrate it offers students access to some sort of commercial information resources, possibly with toll-free help from a virtual librarian, it’s sufficient for the accreditors. It’s widely accepted that online learners just tap the Internet or local libraries when they need to complete a research paper. That’s exactly what the creators of the UotP must be counting on when it comes to library services.

It’s hard to imagine any institution calling itself a school—especially one of higher learning—when it has not even one physical book to offer its students. But we find ourselves in a boldly different world of learning, where books and libraries no longer carry the symbolic weight they once did. The absence of traditional libraries and learning materials from free universities will hardly slow down the growth of the UotP and other experiments in free higher education.

Supporting a worthy cause
Given that UotP promotes and delivers higher education to those who have no other options, there are distinct parallels with the open access and open education movements—both efforts to provide educational materials to those who otherwise have little chance to access them. This is an institution that will never have a budget for expensive books and journals and profession librarians to manage them. Perhaps those of us who already have these resources should examine ways in which we can use them to support the students at UotP. For example, we could allow students from UotP to receive a higher level of support through our virtual reference services. Our interlibrary loan networks could award the UotP’s of the world via some sort of “partner” status allowing its students to receive free article delivery.

Its impact on the market of traditional providers of higher education is infinitesimally minute, so UotP presents no threat—today. But free higher education is a powerful idea, and would be irresistible to many. The question is whether free higher education is an idea that actually works. With just one year at this scale, it is too soon to tell.

Digital Natives Politically Active? Not So Fast

2010-03-20T05:02:00.001-07:00

Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 3/15/2010 8:52:00 AM

Are so-called digital natives more engaged in cultural and political causes? Experts are questioning whether the innate facility young people have with technology has truly translated into more thoughtful participation in the political arena—or whether the idea of what being politically involved means is actually changing.

“Traditionally, we’ve defined political engagement in terms of citizen engagement with their government through, for example, voting behavior,” says Henry Jenkins, Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, by email. “We certainly saw a significant surge in youth participation in the last presidential election, but this may have also set up expectations about change, which have not been borne out by the partisan rancor and the stalemate in Washington, DC, over the past year or so. Young people are as likely to turn to other mechanisms for bringing about social change.”

Data bears out Jenkins’s point that traditional modes of political activism are not what younger people favor. Those who fall between the ages of 18 and 24 are the least likely to use email to contact government officials and least likely to be active online for a civic or political activity, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

But that doesn’t mean young people aren't involved with political causes or those issues that tap into their concerns, such as attempts to restrict their freedom of expression.

Jenkins cites "buycotts"—basically, boycotts conducted through purchasing decisions—as one example of a tactic young people use to express political or social concerns. He also notes that organizations like Invisible Children and the Harry Potter (HP) Alliance have captured young people’s attention online—and harnessed their enthusiasm toward certain goals, such as gathering 2,893 signatures for the Dream for Darfur’s “Switch Over Campaign.”

So digital natives are politically and socially active, but in ways far different from the activism of previous generations.

“These groups tap skills that have developed through their fan or sub-cultural practices and deploy them toward civic causes,” says Jenkins. “We want to better understand what makes groups like the Harry Potter Alliance or Invisible Children so effective at reaching young people who are left cold by more conventional forms of political organizing.”

Governors, state school superintendents propose common academic standards

2010-03-20T05:00:00.001-07:00

By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2010

Maryland and several other states are pushing rapidly toward adoption of new academic standards proposed Wednesday for English and math, adding momentum to the campaign to establish common expectations for public school students across the country.

The District also is on track to adopt the common standards drafted by experts in a project led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. However, it is possible that Virginia will not join the apparent surge toward approval.

Widespread adoption of common standards would mark a watershed for schools, triggering consequences for curricula, textbooks, testing and teaching. Some critics say common standards amount to a thinly disguised ruse to establish national standards under federal control -- an allegation that state and federal officials deny.

In most places, power to adopt standards rests with state boards of education.

Ohio officials said their board plans to vote June 8. Maryland officials are pondering a possible spring vote. Florida's board is pushing toward action in the summer.

"I think you'll get half of the states by the end of the year [to adopt the proposal], based on what they've said to us," said Brenda Welburn, executive director of the National Association of State Boards of Education.

Kentucky last month became the first to adopt the proposal, acting on a late-stage draft before the public release.

In Maine, the legislature holds power of approval. Maine Commissioner of Education Susan A. Gendron said she expects a vote next week that would allow the state to adopt the standards when they are finalized in the spring.

"What is different about mathematics in Maine from California?" Gendron said. "I don't believe there is a difference. You will see far more states adopt the standards than not."

Alaska and Texas are the only two states that declined to join the common standards project when it began last year.

Virginia is part of the project, but state officials have been cautious about changing standards. Asked whether Virginia would consider approving the proposed standards, state Education Department spokesman Charles Pyle said the Board of Education has not discussed doing so.

"Virginia has a successful standards-based reform program -- the Standards of Learning," Pyle said. "Abandoning those standards would be very disruptive to our school divisions, our teachers and our students. We've made all of this progress in the last 15 years under the SOL program. It's not something we're just going to walk away from."

Under the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, states are free to set standards and testing systems to rate schools. As a result, benchmarks vary widely in rigor and quality. Experts say many states eased academic requirements to enable schools to meet the law's accountability targets.

To address that issue, and enable academic performance to be judged consistently across the country, the governors and school chiefs are seeking common standards that would have all students ready for college or career after high school. President Obama has encouraged the initiative, but his administration played no role in drafting the blueprint.

Local Authors Can Be Friends

2010-03-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

By Susan Froetschel -- Library Journal, 2/15/2010

Public libraries can make a local author feel like a hometown celebrity or a major public nuisance. With total book output up and the rise of self- publishing, local authors are no longer rare in many communities.

These days, authors actively court libraries, and I detected a new hesitancy about local authors this year after publishing my third mystery novel. For each of the three novels, I resided in a different community: Henrico County PL System, Richmond, ordered my first novel, Alaska Gray, and invited me to speak at its 1995 annual meeting. New Haven Free PL, CT, ordered the next book, Interruptions, and asked me to run a mystery workshop.

The latest book, Royal Escape, received the best reviews of the three, and yet Takoma Park Maryland Library and nearby Montgomery County PLs expressed no interest to offers of a free program, nor did they purchase a copy. It's puzzling that 26 miles away in Fairfax, VA, eight branches ordered copies of Royal Escape, steadily checked out throughout the summer, according to WorldCat, and I was invited to speak twice at libraries in Frederick County, MD, about 30 miles away.

The need for policies

Local authorship is a common criterion for library selection, along with demand. To handle the onslaught, more institutions enact local-author policies. For example, the policy of Alamance County PLs, NC,begins on a hopeful note: “The Library wishes to recognize the literary efforts of local authors by including their works in the collection when possible.” But it also discourages debate: “Due to limitations on staff time, we cannot discuss individual titles with authors” and warns, “The Library bears no responsibility for the marketing of the author's work. The Library will not act on the author's behalf as a literary agent, reviewer, proofreader, publisher, editor, publicist or bookseller.”

One can only imagine the demands prompting this list.

Other libraries must fend off author donations. Some, like Prince George's County Memorial Library System, MD, ask that authors submit reviews with potential donations. University City PL, MO, has guidelines for print-on-demand or self-published books: “the library is not under any obligation to add to its collections everything about Missouri,” and “In most cases, the library will not purchase self-published materials that are not reviewed in established review journals.”

Specific rules can limit options. Self-published books, often amateurish, can also be the best available on a local topic, and so Tom Cooper, director of Webster Groves PL, MO, recommends making decisions on a case-by-case basis.

Tapping local potential

Innovative libraries find ways to use the growing ranks of local authors as a valuable promotional tool for programming and fundraising, inspiring local readers and writers, or creating new connections. For example:

•Local authors judge writing and bookmark contests sponsored by Catawba County Library System, NC; Friends of the Hull PL, MA, and Hull Garden Club teamed up to present flower arrangements inspired by favorite books, including those by local authors, and sell raffle tickets; and fundraisers in Burlington, VT, and Anaheim, CA, have featured signed books and character names as auction items.
•Libraries co-opt local authors into Big Read programs: Tompkins County PL in Ithaca, NY, relied on author Philipp Meyer for John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath; I led a workshop on Carson McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC.
•Recognizing that local authors are taxpayers, and vocal ones at that, some libraries design programs to kill a lot of birds with one stone. Juneau PLs, AK, hosted the state writer laureate and more than 20 local authors in March. Branches of Cuyahoga County PL, OH, hosted a local-author fair in October, asking that ten percent of any sales go toward a Friends program. In December, Nampa PL Foundation, ID, sponsored a holiday reception for the state author in residence and its annual crop of writers.
An opportunity to connect

In the end, 15 libraries in neighboring counties and beyond tapped me for programs on Royal Escape, though my own did not. A local librarian urged persistence, but, as I suspect most authors would do in similar situations, I simply turned to other locales.

With tight budgets, libraries can set limits and still remain lively, welcoming centers for local readings, workshops, discussions, or Q&A sessions about getting published. All this can be accomplished with some public space, initiative, and not much more publicity than quick mention on a community web site.

Books Beat Kindles

2010-03-20T04:53:00.000-07:00

Josie Leavitt - March 15, 2010
Publishers Weekly

Yesterday, I spent seven long hours waiting at JFK Airport, trying to get back home from a quick weekend away in Florida. When faced with so many hours in an airport, I don’t read. I people watch.

I saw more Kindles than I ever have in my life: three. I was curious about these Kindle readers, so I tried to speak with each of them. Only one was interested in talking to me.

I was curious what he was reading and was very surprised to hear he was reading a Louis L’Amour novel. He actually whispered it, telling me, “I would never go to a store to buy this.” He loves his Kindle.I asked if he still went to bookstores and he said somewhat sheepishly, no. This echoes what my family in Florida said, too. I was worried about this, then I looked around the gate area.

The three Kindle readers had stopped reading and were just looking around, as if they needed a break from the screen. All the other book readers, and there must have been about thirty readers at my gate, had their heads down, happily turning pages, fairly oblivious to the chaos around them.

One other thing I didn’t see was anyone recharging their book. Not beholden to the proximity of outlets, the book readers were literally strewn about. (Before folks get mad at me, I understand the battery life of the Kindle is long, but at some point they do need to be recharged.)

Are books dead? Hardly. But it’s clear to me at least, who lives in a very bookstore-friendly state, that the e-reader is creeping into the larger book reading world. The Borders here at the airport even sells preloaded Sony e-readers.

One last quick scan of the gate revealed book readers outnumbering Kindle owners by ten to one. That’s a number I can live with, I think.

Libraries reach out

2010-02-28T14:36:00.000-08:00

By William Hageman, Tribune Newspapers
3:57 p.m. CST, March 11, 2010

A child is never too young to visit the library.

To hear Thom Barthelmess and Marisa Conner tell it, you should stop off on the way home from the maternity ward.

"I believe that library visits can begin right away. And by right away I mean as soon as the child has arrived in the world," said Barthelmess, president of the Association for Library Service to Children, a 4,000-member division of the American Library Association. "One of the biggest areas of public library development is programming for babies."

Conner, youth services coordinator for the Baltimore County Public Library, is all over that. She's organizing a conference called "Active Learning Environments for Children" at the Public Library Association's annual meeting this month in Portland, Ore. She also has launched Storyville (bcplstoryville.org/storyville_home), an interactive early-literacy learning center for kids 5 and younger.

"Reading is a bonding experience between parent and child and early literacy behaviors (such as vocabulary, comprehension, etc.) are developed from a very early age," Conner wrote in an e-mail.

A study in School Library Journal in 2008 suggested the promotion of early literacy resulted in higher reading scores in elementary school. The study (schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6590044.html) found that of states in the top half of reading scores, 82 percent also ranked in the top half on circulation of children's library materials.

Conner pointed out other ways libraries are targeting young visitors: children's arts and cultural programs, enhanced children's spaces, children's computers with age-appropriate games "and, of course, lots and lots of books."

These programs aim to be a baby's introduction not only to the library but to books and literacy, Barthelmess said, helping kids "with what we call early literacy, which is everything a child needs to know about reading before she learns to read, things like understanding that letters exist, and that words exist, and that words are built up on the page with letters.

"We know that for kids to take the next step and become avid and fluid readers they need to know all this stuff," he said. "And a library is a great place for all that knowledge to happen."

Because most kids don't start school until age 5, there are few free resources for them and their parents, Conner says.

Today's public libraries see serving young children and their caregivers as one of our primary goals," she said, "promoting early literacy and a lifelong love of reading and learning, providing parents with the resources they need."

Is children's book writing for me?

2010-02-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Everyone has the potential to be a children’s writer. We’ve all been children. A lot of us are still kids at heart. Furthermore, you probably know (or are) a parent figure and have some insight into parental concerns. This gives you the knowledge to make an interesting children’s book.

Be Original

In a genre with such a rich history, it is easy to get wrapped up in clichés. Talking animals and fairy princesses are great, but strive for originality in your story. Make your tale different from the many other children’s books available. Ideas could come from researching hot topics in publishing for your age group. For example, multicultural books are very popular right now.
Foster originality by thinking back to when you were a child. Try to remember your thoughts and feelings when your imagination ran free. What type of book would you have liked to read? What type of book would you have written? It may also be helpful to look up some information on child psychology. Researching children’s thinking may help you find some interesting topics that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Avoid Talking Down

You probably remember very simplistic children’s books from when you were younger. Today’s children’s books aren’t the same. The stories told now are sophisticated and creative, encouraging readers to imagine a world or situation they’d never thought about before. Today’s youths have access to so much information and entertainment that it takes more to hold their attention.
Don’t assume that your audience can’t follow a somewhat complex story. The purpose of a children’s book is not only to entertain, but also to bridge the gap between childhood and the adult world. Use rich language that will initiate learning and curiosity. A story will be more entertaining and worthwhile if it challenges your reader to think and ask questions. Remember, children want to learn.

Get Input

Share your work with children you know, as well as parents, teachers, and childcare professionals. Listen to their ideas, and use their constructive criticism. Chances are, they have good ideas that you haven’t thought of yet. Be open to advice and welcome new perspectives. Your willingness to learn and grow will make your children’s book the best it can be.
Also, don’t overlook editing. Many children’s writers make the mistake of assuming that children’s books don’t need editing, because of the simplified writing style. There’s always room for improvement, so the more sets of eyes that see your writing, the better.

Contests

2010-02-28T14:32:00.000-08:00

Deadline: 5th of every month - Writers' Forum Ongoing Short Story Competition
Prizes range from a minimum 1st prize £300, 2nd prize £150 and 3rd prize £100 with an annual trophy and a cheque for £1,000 for the best story of the year. The competition is open to all nationalities but entries must be in English.

Deadline: 15th of every month - Writers' Forum Ongoing Poetry Competition
Poets are invited to enter their unpublished poems for a competition to be held in each issue of Writers' Forum. There will be a first prize of £100 and three runner-up prizes all published in the magazine.'

Deadline: March 1, 2010 - The Tawani Foundation Pritzker Military Library Literature Award
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award honors authors that have made a significant contribution to the understanding of American military history. Entries can by academic, non-fiction, fiction or any combination of the three. The submitted work must be written in English. Winners recieve $100,000 as a cash prize.

Deadline: March 10, 2010 - Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Self-published authors can enter in one or more of the sixty categories in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Entries must be written in English and have a 2009 or 2010 copyright. Winners recieve a cash prize, national exposure and possible representation by a leading literary agent.

Deadline: March 20, 2010 - IPPY Book Awards
The 2010 IPPU Book Awards are accepting entries for books with 2009 and 2010 copyrights or release dates. Categories include 67 subject national awards and regional awards for 8 U.S. and 2 Canadian regions.

Deadline: March 31, 2010 - National Indie Excellence Awards
The Indie Excellence Book Awards have issued a call for entries for the 2010 award competition. Entry is open to self-published books with publication dates from 2007 to 2010. Entrants must pay a fee of $65 and submit one copy of the book per category.

CHildren's Book: Apocalypse Now

2010-02-28T14:30:00.001-08:00

Teens turn to dystopian novels
By Karen Springen -- Publishers Weekly, 2/15/2010 12:00:00 AM
Sure, teens are still reading about vampires, but end-of-the-world scenarios are bigger than ever.

Happily ever after? Not so much. Ruth Leopold, 15, of Wilton, Maine, loves dystopian books like The Hunger Games (teens fighting to the death in a televised, government-sponsored game), Gone (kids trying to survive in an adult-free world) and Life As We Knew It (an asteroid hits the moon and wreaks havoc on the Earth's weather). “I like the fantasy in it—and thinking about how it would be if I were in the future in those places,” she says. She imagines hanging out with Katniss, the 16-year-old heroine of The Hunger Games. “Sometimes I even have dreams that I'm in that world,” she says. But in the end, she is glad she's not: the gloomy tales make her feel lucky she lives “a good life with my family and everything I need.”

Like Leopold, hundreds of thousands of today's teens are reading future-as-a-nightmare novels—and not just the 1984 and Brave New World classics required by their teachers. Publishers will be releasing dozens of new dystopian titles over the next few years. Among the scenarios: no more gas, no more water, viruses run amok, genetic manipulation gone awry, totalitarian leaders, reality TV gone too far, and so on.

Why now? Newspaper headlines about swine flu, terrorism, global warming, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are inspiring authors—and making kids feel uneasy. Some publishers also point to publicity surrounding December 21, 2012, the end of the 5,126-year Mayan calendar—supposedly an apocalyptic sign.

Still, most editors and authors credit lingering unease from the World Trade Center attacks. “After 9/11, it seemed people started thinking about the destruction of the world,” says Karen Grove, who edited Susan Beth Pfeffer's This World We Live In, the April 2010 release that will end the trilogy that started in 2006 with Life As We Knew It. “Then we got hit with New Orleans and earthquakes.”

Uncertainty plays a role, too. “There's so much mystery about what the future will hold,” says Lauri Hornik, president and publisher of Dial Books for Young Readers and Dutton Children's Books, publisher ofthis season's Incarceron and the upcoming book Matched.

Mom, Could You Please Stop Tweeting?

2010-02-28T08:03:00.000-08:00

Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 2/22/2010

Parents and teachers may be hard-pressed to get teens off social networking sites. Problem is, Mom, Dad, and the school librarian and teacher are nearly twice as likely to be using Facebook or Twitter than any K–12 student.

So says a new study from Pingdom, a Swedish-based Web-monitoring firm, which examined Google’s Ad Planner data from 19 of the nation’s most popular social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, and even Ning. Their findings? It might be Dad who can’t refrain from updating his friends, rather than Junior.
Adults between the ages of 35 and 44 made up 25 percent of all users of these sites—nearly double the 15 percent of all children up to 17 years old who chat away online. But don’t assume that number increases as teens hit college, as only nine percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 spend any time on social networking sites. And the age group that connects with friends online the least? Those 65 years old and up, just three percent of the user base. At least for now.
"Although we can’t say how this will change over time, at the moment the older generations are for one reason or another (tech savvy, interest, etc.) not using social networking sites to a large extent," say the authors of the study. "It is also noteworthy that social media isn’t dominated by the youngest, often most tech-savvy generations, but rather by what has to be referred to as middle-aged people (although at the youngest end of the spectrum.)"
However, that’s not to say that Mom and Dad are frequenting the same sites as their children—or that a high school junior is likely to bump up against their school librarian on Ning. In fact, 64 percent of Twitter users and 61 percent of Facebook users clock in at 35 years old and up.
So where do teens crop up the most? On Bebo, a relative newcomer to the social networking group, founded in 2005, with 44 percent of its users aged 17 and younger.
Yet, with Pingdom’s study putting Bebo’s average user at 28 years old, it’s likely the days of Bebo being a teen favorite are quickly coming to an end. Where they will congregate online next, Pingdom can’t predict.

Bibliotecas virtuais - Navegando em mares ágeis e eficientes ou Naufragando em um mar de informações?

2010-02-28T07:53:00.001-08:00

LLEAL

A abordagem sobre a evolução da natureza das bibliotecas, observando que o impulso para mover menos recursos utilizados para armazenamento no formato livro papel, começa a tornar-se uma realidade mundial, demonstra ser uma transição tão importante quanto da passagem do texto manuscrito para o texto impresso.
Dados apurados junto á universidades apontam para um custo de R$8,00 reais a cada ano para manter um livro em uma prateleira enquanto livros armazenados de forma eletrônica geram um custo de R$1,60 ano.
A teconologia coloca-se como um catalisador importante para as bibliotecas, uma vez que faz emergir novas necessidades e altera paradigmas solidificados através dos séculos. O fator maior dessa transição é a condição de que a informação apresenta-se cada vez mais desprendida do objeto fisico que a contem; fato expresso com sabedoria quando Browning definiu o fenômeno como “Biblioteca sem paredes para livros sem páginas”.
O fato é vivenciado diariamente através da explosão no uso de E-books e Kindles e redefinem o que virá a ser no Terceiro Milênio, a informação e a comunicação.
Um relatório divulgado pela Kaiser Family Foundation sobre o uso de midias pela Geração M,
(Uso de meios de comunicaçõ total), mostrou que alunos na faixa etária entre 8-para-18 anos,
estão consumindo midia digital mais do que nunca e naturalmente forçam a utilização dos mesmos meios por professores.
Em 2004, o tempo gasto na utilização de meios eletrônicos por alunos para acessar informações e completar suas tarefas escolares, era de 6 horas e 21 minutos e ao final de 2009, o numero registrado foi de 7 horas e 38 minutos por dia, enquanto a média impressa caiu de 43 minutos por dia em 2004, para 38 minutos em 2009.
Outro fator prepoderante é a mudança de interpretação dos conceitos de “TEMPO E LUGAR”, visto que com a Biblioteca Virtual, o “LOCAL” onde o documento se encontra deixa de ser importante e a virtualização permite que o acesso ao objeto de necessidade seja de imediato.
As condições citadas alteram e permanecerão alterando através dos anos, o comportamento de alunos e professores, a cada momento, irresistivelmente, mais e mais inseridos no contexto do universo acadêmico informatizado.
Por outro lado, como todo processo de transição entre o sepultamento de uma prática secular e a adaptação completa de um novo paradigma, levantam-se questões como:
A – O acesso á informação On-line não significa que seja de forma gratuita
B – A criação de depósitos digitais, requer uma estrutura que garanta que os registros estarão sempre disponíveis e atualizados
C – A eliminação gradual de livrarias em detrimento ao uso de catálogos disponibilizados na forma de E-books
D – A adaptação conceitual do desaparecimento da palavra “emprestado”, visto que os livros estarão disponiveis á todos, todo o tempo
E – Confiabilidade das informações a serem acessadas, visto que eletrônicamente as informações podem ser alteradas ou manipuladas com relativa facilidade
Em resumo, a transição do paradigma de propriedade da informação para o de acesso irrestrito implica em uma mudança institucional inevitável, no qual professores, que são os maiores direcionadores do uso dessas informações devem ser parte ativa, sob pena de que esses podem vir a tornar-se simples navegantes á assistir á morte do livro, antes que tenham á disposição processos de acesso á informação do qual mantiveram-se á margem de opinar ou efetivamente participar.

We Don't Need No Education

2010-02-28T07:52:00.000-08:00

Library Journal

It's not a good time to be in the education business, which to some extent most librarians are. The subjects librarians teach may vary, from "information literacy" to "Hulu," but being in the information business also means being in the education business.
The education business is floundering. Public libraries are closing or cutting back hours and services. Public schools are getting rid of their school librarians and whatever remains of art, music, or languages they once had. Outside of rich suburbs, public schools themselves seem in decline. Rich private universities are firing people left and right. Public universities seem doomed, with the best of them, the Michigans and the Berkeleys, becoming more like privates than publics.
The immediate reason is obvious: funding cuts. Because of the recession and the decline in tax revenue, states and communities have less money to spend, and they're cutting back on inessentials like education. For those who follow these things, the latest recessionary cuts are just a harsher example of a long trend.
A lot of librarians like to keep up with trends, but not the painful ones. States have been cutting or freezing education budgets for a long time, and state financing of public education has declined as a percentage of public university budgets almost everywhere. Thus, they have to raise tuition to keep going.
This creates a vicious circle of its own. Universities raise tuition, which means the lower classes are excluded as only middle or upper-middle and above can afford a college education. When universities start getting expensive, parents and students want more for their money than books, classrooms, and computers. Thus we get expensive athletic centers and fancier cafeterias and dormitories. Offering undergraduates a spa experience drives up costs even further.
All this means it's also a bad time to need an education, especially if you can't afford an an extra $20-50,000 a year for college and your community won't fund a decent library.
It's especially ironic because we hear from politicians - sometimes the same politicians who cut education budgets - that America needs a highly educated workforce to compete globally in the next century. I'm not exactly sure what it would mean to "compete globally," but that's the sort of verbiage they use. Right now we're competing globally by enticing engineers and scientists from other countries to settle in the United States and enjoy our rich cultural heritage of reality TV and Wal-Mart.
One can only come to the conclusion that Americans really don't want education, at least not for the majority. Education isn't considered a public good. I guess if roads and bridges aren't public goods, then education isn't likely to be. Infrastructure, apparently, is a dirty word, whether physical or intellectual. The last bridge and the last public library might collapse at the same moment.
Come now, you might say! Of course we consider education a public good. We have public schools and public universities and public libraries! But slapping the name "public" on something without funding it adequately doesn't really count. According to the Supreme Court, money is speech, and states and communities have spoken very clearly about their commitment to education as a public good.
And what can librarians do about it? Probably nothing at all, because those of us in education are the least American of all. We don't sacrifice everything for profits. We help people without expecting tips. We don't hustle people, or at least most of us don't. We don't scourge the poor. We believe there are values beyond the bottom line and actually live by those values. What could be more unAmerican than that?
It seems unlikely that Americans in general will listen to the concerns of people so obviously out of tune with American society, especially when the concerns expressed my so many are so trivial.
The twopointopians and oneohonions who dominate the librarian public sphere rarely address serious issues or branch out beyond the world of shiny new toys to consider the fundamental issue. They want to get people into libraries, but that's not the problem; they just think it's the problem.
People are coming to libraries. More than ever, if you believe the ALA. (I know, I know.) They're coming to look for jobs and get Internet access and books and DVDs and newspapers they can no longer afford. Those services might turn out to be more relevant than shiny toys.
People might also come to the library to use shiny tools as well as the books and DVDs, but shiny tools won't save a library without funding. I'm hoping ALA lobbying will have more success if it looks like they're trying to bolster public libraries rather support Internet porn for children.
The commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty. That's all the people, or at least all of them who can meet the challange. Libraries are a part of the public education system, and their future is tied to the success of that system, not Twitter.
On the bright side, if the public education system collapses, it's not like everyone in America will be worse off. To paraphrase Jesus, the rich we will always have with us. Or maybe none of us will be worse off, and it's just that the meds aren't working or I had too much chocolate on Valentine's Day and I'm feeling gloomy, so I'll end on an American note.

Have a nice day!

Create Your Children’s Book Marketing Plan

2010-02-28T07:32:00.000-08:00

AuthorHouse

Children rarely enjoy listening to smooth jazz, reading the newspaper, and going out for coffee with friends. They aren’t overwhelmed with bill payments, frustrated with politics, or eager to expand their career. Children are different from adults, and marketing children’s books is quite different from marketing any other book genre.

Picture book or young adult?
There are many subgenres in the children’s genre. Generally, these subgenres are split up by age or reading level. Understanding how your book fits within these subgenres will make it easier to reach the children who will enjoy your book most.

•Children ages four to eight are beginning readers or early readers. These books are short and contain only easy-to-read words.
•If your book features many illustrations and pictures, it would be classified as a picture book. Picture books are read by children ages three to eight. These are the books parents read to children at bedtime, until the children learn to read and begin reading the books themselves.
•First chapter books, generally read by children ages six to nine, feature fewer pictures and longer stories than picture books. These chapter books may feature many very short chapters rather than fewer very long chapters.
•Children ages eight to twelve read middle-grade books, which have difficult words, complex structure, and some mature content.
•Young adult novels, with the most mature content and the hardest reading-difficulty in the children’s book genre, are read by teenagers.
What are other authors doing?
The children’s book industry isn’t as gentle as it seems. It takes ambition and dedication to compete with other children’s authors. Spend time online, in a bookstore, or at the library to see what your competitors are doing right. How do other authors interact with children? Do other young adult authors use social media? How do authors of first chapter books use their Web site? In the marketing world, knowledge can give you the power to surpass competition.

Are you award worthy?
Not every book can call itself “award-winning,” which is what makes the title so alluring. Parents are especially attracted to award-winning books, as it ensures that their child will read something of quality. But you won’t have to win the Newbery Award to receive such an honor. In truth, there are many book awards and competitions that self-published authors can enter. Some awards allow entries only from authors who are self-published or independently-published. In most competitions, winners receive stickers that they can put on their book and are allowed to feature the title of the award on their cover or in the book description.

Who can help?
Local contacts can be allies to any author. For children’s book authors, they are especially important. Network with bookstores, libraries, and schools. As many children are excited to meet authors, book readings and signings are an excellent way to have direct contact with your target audience. A local bookstore may host a reading and signing for you and local children. You can also have such an event, along with a workshop or discussion, at a library. Talk with a local school about delivering a speech or seminar. At a school, you can talk with kids about being a writer. Consult with local groups and clubs for children and parents—either church-based, school-based, or otherwise—about giving a talk or signing books. AuthorHouse recently launched new children’s marketing opportunities. Who makes the purchase?

In most cases, it is the parent who ultimately buys the book. Especially for books targeted to younger children, it is important to remember their parents in your marketing plan. Create a strong press release and send it to local media. Coverage by the radio, newspaper, and broadcast news will give you and your book more attention as well as make you more credible. Another good way to market to parents is to create an author Web site. On your site, talk to parents about the benefits of your book, why children love it, and what makes it stand out from other books. Use your site to announce media appearances, book signings, and other events. This will also increase your credibility as a writer.

As a children’s author, you know what makes children such an enjoyable audience. Prove to children and parents alike that your book is something they should be excited to read.

O TRADUTOR

2010-02-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

O quarto, envolto em trevas e irrealidades que pareciam carregar um horrível propósito, tendo como única e eventual fonte de luz os reflexos prateados dos relâmpagos, cortando a noite como se fossem espadas flamejantes junto com a chuva, que se tornara tão intensa que pareciam as lágrimas de mil anjos, começou a girar e girou, velozmente, uma, duas, três vezes, dando a entender que estava se desprendendo da estrutura do hotel, quase me fazendo perder o equilíbrio e cair pela enorme abertura onde momentos antes existira uma janela.

Senti-me erguido no ar, girando no mesmo ritmo que o quarto, até que nuvens escuras começaram a ocupar o lugar de meu raciocínio, apagando todos os pensamentos, anestesiando minha mente e alma até que um único grito, como se fosse uma estrela solitária em busca do brilho perdido, cintilou entre meus dentes:

“O QUE ESTÁ ACONTECENDO?”

A pergunta, tão solitária quanto eu, mais parecendo ser um grito de dor do que um questionamento teve a mesma duração do que um engolir de uma fração de pavor e voltando a tapar a boca para não vomitar, impregnado de pânico irracional, olhando sem acreditar, para as paredes que estampavam horrendas rachaduras, como se estivessem sendo rasgadas em lenta agonia, deixando escorrer a água da chuva respingadas das asas douradas de seres alados que voavam em meio as crenças e misticismos, corri de volta para a cama, tentando escapar da noite que sorrindo malevolamente ameaçava tragar-me.

Contudo a meio caminho de meu ilusório refugio escorreguei e caí no chão encharcado e o vento soprou em meu rosto, cegando-me com páginas de técnicas de tradução para iniciantes. Sem respirar, em agonia extrema, afastei-as com um gesto de mão e tentei levantar, mas minhas pernas tremiam demais, recusando-se a sustentar o peso do corpo.

O novo estrondo, prolongando meus pensamentos de inquietação, como se estivesse revelando a verdadeira natureza da interpretação, soou com tamanha intensidade que me pareceu que o barulho estrondoso estava acontecendo dentro de mim e não lá fora.

Senti o chão começar a rachar aos meus pés e ouvi os azulejos do banheiro se descolando, então o ar se encheu, repentinamente, como se fossem setas incendiárias cintilando em meio á batalha e o som das palavras, soltas, perdidas, forçaram-me a reunir cada partícula ainda restante de esperança e cambalear para cima da cama, mas quando me virei e olhei, com o coração cheio de temor, dentro das sombras negras da noite até então escondidas sob a luz do luar, antes que minha mente pudesse entender o que meus olhos estavam mostrando, deparei-me com dedos imensos e acinzentados, flutuando ao meu redor, ‘coreografando palavras no ar’, corajosamente arriscando formar um contexto ‘lógico com significado coerente’, como se fosse o próprio Beo Wulf digladiando contra a última página, desbotada e ressecada de um antigo livro, tantas e tantas vezes, lido e relido, mas nunca inteiramente traduzido.

Por momentos, que meu cérebro se recusou a dimensionar, o conteúdo do ‘livro’, envolto no mais profundo secretismo, foi ‘narrado’ em minha mente e o conto de que no inicio dos tempos professores, linguistas e estudantes viviam sob a mesma árvore acadêmica e partilhavam o mesmo vazio em seus corações.

Um vazio que nenhuma posse, estudo ou conhecimento podia preencher, criou imagens com tal intensidade que me foi impossível não acompanhá-las.

Sentindo a força de cada palavra, eu ‘escutei’ a lenda de que um dia, o homem sonhou em comunicar-se com todos os seres do planeta com perfeição e entendimento e para que tal vontade se tornasse realidade, da dolorosa neblina que encobria o mundo das letras, numa era negra, povoada de equívocas interpretações, emergiu um ser mágico industrável, capaz de preencher o coração do conflito e igualar a paixão com a tarefa.

Além das montanhas sombrias do desconhecimento, nas calamidades das trevas das traduções contraditórias, sob o mesmo céu, onde as letras achavam-se a superfície do abismo, sem envolver-se em sentimentos de dúvidas ou erros de interpretação, independente de espaço e tempo, acima do destino e acaso, ele fez única as diferentes linguagens existentes até mesmo nos cantos mais remotos do mundo onde os dialetos imperavam.

Por incontáveis gerações...

Justice Department Says It Still Has Problems with Revised Google Settlement

2010-02-05T14:14:00.001-08:00

By Jim Miliot -- Publishers Weekly, 2/4/2010 6:33:00 PM

The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this month when it found that the revised agreement still raises class certification, copyright and antitrust issues. The DOJ said that despite “good faith” efforts to modify the agreement, “the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: it is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation."
The DOJ said it remains committed to working with all stakeholders to fashion a settlement it could support, but there is no chance that the parties--the AAP, Authors Guild, and Google--have the time or inclination to make changes before the final fairness hearing set for February 18, and there is no expectation that a delay to the hearing date will be asked for. A prepared statement from the AAP, Authors Guild, and Google tried to make the most of the opinion, saying that the filing “recognizes the progress made with the revised settlement, and it once again reinforces the value the agreement can provide in unlocking access to millions of books in the U.S. We look forward to Judge Chin’s review of the statement of interest from the Department and the comments from the many supporters who have filed submissions with the court in the last months.”
While the DOJ said the revised agreement did limit the scope of the settlement, the changes “do not fully resolve the United States’ concerns.” Among those concerns is the DOJ’s belief that the amended agreement “still confers significant and possibly anticompetitive advantages on Google as a single entity, thereby enabling the company to be the only competitor in the digital marketplace with the rights to distribute and otherwise exploit a vast array of works in multiple formats.”

Gêneros didáticos

2010-02-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

Existem várias formas de lecionar. Não é a mesma coisa, por exemplo, dar aulas ao longo de um semestre, ao longo de um ano, e proferir palestras de duas horas. Uma aula particular é diferente da entrevista concedida diante de um público de 100, 200 pessoas, ou mais. Ministrar uma oficina requer atitudes específicas, que se mostrarão inadequadas em outras circunstâncias; uma aula a distância possui suas próprias características.
Tais gêneros didáticos vão entrar (ou não) em sintonia com o estilo de cada professor. Um professor expansivo terá mais facilidade na palestra multitudinária, e terá de ser mais intimista quando for contratado para dar aulas particulares. Aquele que, mais introspectivo, se sente como peixe fora d’água num estúdio de TV (e precisa aprender a respirar fora d’água), poderá nadar de braçadas na criação de um livro didático.
Palestra de duas horas, para número superior a 400 pessoas, com direito a telão e PowerPoint, progride bem e conclui-se bem se o palestrante mantém o ritmo, passeia “dentro” do tema, combinando conceitos e exemplos, informações e metáforas, pequenas histórias e rápidas indicações de leitura, chistes e recomendações, ironias e “broncas”, perguntas retóricas e apresentação de músicas. Palestrante é um professor no palco.
Já uma aula particular permite o diálogo, a busca ombro a ombro de enfoques novos, quase em clima de confidência. Neste caso, há também subgêneros, dependendo da faixa etária do aluno. O aluno adolescente terá melhor desempenho se a aula trouxer variedade temática. O aluno mais velho provavelmente espera (e cobra) focalização concentrada no assunto previsto, informação madura, objetividade máxima.
O professor no ambiente da internet, em chats, por e-mails, usando a webcam e outros recursos, terá de sintonizar-se com a linguagem da Idade Mídia, teclar com rapidez, plugar-se a qualquer hora do dia ou da noite.
Mesa-redonda também ensina. Mas tem de haver divergências, bate-papo animado e bate-boca. O público necessita ver um certo atrito entre os participantes, ou então o debate se transforma em reunião de comadres, muitas sedas rasgadas, perda de tempo. É redonda essa mesa porque “rolam” opiniões provocadoras.
Oficina, etimologicamente, é opus facere, ou seja, ocasião para fazer uma obra, fazer algo em grupo. O professor trabalha menos para que o trabalho seja melhor. Aprende-se à medida que todos se empenham.
Aulas convencionais não podem ser convencionais. Queixam-se muitos professores da falta de disciplina de suas turmas, da falta de respeito, da baixa motivação, da ínfima participação. Acreditam que o desinteresse dos alunos nada tenha a ver com aulas desinteressantes, entediantes. Não acredito em aulas sem condimento artístico. O argumento de autoridade perdeu autoridade. A velha aula era nova em outras eras. Novos tempos, novas aulas.
Aperfeiçoamento docente implica exercitar-se didaticamente. Que nós, professores, descubramos as possibilidades e limitações que cada um desses gêneros oferece.
Texto de Gabriel Perissé (www.perisse.com.br) publicado originalmente na revista Profissão Mestre de novembro de 2008.

ABC-ABA Merger Update

2010-02-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

This article originally appeared in PW's Children's Bookshelf.

By Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 2/4/2010 1:20:00 PM

At the Association of Booksellers for Children's board meetings held earlier this week, the organization took one more step closer to a possible merger with the American Booksellers Association, which was first raised close to a year ago.
Although ABC president Elizabeth Bluemle, co-owner of the Flying Pig Book Store in Shelburne, Vt., cautioned that “the task forces still have a significant amount of work to do before bringing any final proposal to the membership,” ABC approached the ABA on Wednesday with specifics toward creating a proposal to bring to the membership. In making ABC a division of the ABA, the proposal takes into account changes in the publishing and bookselling climate, as well as programmatic, staffing, and oversight details as they would exist under the ABA structure.
Since March, task forces for both organizations have met together and individually with their own boards to explore the feasibility of a merger. At the upcoming BEA in New York City, the ABC annual meeting will include a discussion of the proposal. A detailed plan will be presented for a vote in late summer or early fall prior to the 2011 fiscal year.

Book Cheer: A New Column by the AAP Trade Libraries Committee

2010-02-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

Michael Rockliff roots for Tom Nolan's Three Chords for Beauty's Sake
By Michael Rockliff -- Library Journal, 2/4/2010

Welcome to the second installment of our new Book Cheer column, the true story of 12 library marketing directors reviewing one another’s titles. “This,” in the words of creator and inaugural contributor Talia Sherer, “is what happens when marketers stop being polite and start getting real.” AAP committee members submit books to a colleague based on his or her tastes, and that colleague here offers up an unbiased take of a favorite read once a month. It’s prepub notice coupled with readers' advisory, but most of all, it's a book cheer, rah-rahs for deserving printed words.—Heather McCormack
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Michael Rockliff. To view a sample of Michael’s monthly e-letter featuring news about upcoming books from the Workman family of imprints, stories about the publishing world, libraries internationally, and whatever happens to stick in his fevered brain at that particular moment, contact him at mrockliff@workman.com. He won’t sign you up unless you ask.

Title: Director of Library Sales and Marketing, Workman Publishing Company

Favorite Genres: Fiction that’s rich in language, music, theater, and early 20th-century humor
All-Time Favorites: Jorge Amado's Gabriella, Clove & Cinnamon; all the Don Camillo books by Giovanni Guareschi; Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels (the best novel ever on bookselling); absolutely anything that Robert Benchley, Beverley Nichols, John Cheever, and Oscar Levant ever wrote; Erskine Caldwell's God’s Little Acre. The rest of the list would take up the entire column (and more), so we’ll leave it there.
The Winner: When I was growing up, my father and I argued about everything, absolutely everything, including who had the better jazz chops, Benny Goodman or Artie Shaw. Silly, in retrospect, but we felt the issue passionately. Needless to say, I was primed and ready when my copy of Tom Nolan's Three Chords for Beauty's Sake arrived. Putting on Shaw’s exquisite 1954 chamber jazz recordings, I poured a chardonnay and settled in for the evening.

Particularly with Shaw—who is known almost as much for his multiple marriages to some of the most glamorous women of our time as for his musical accomplishments—it would be all too easy to become distracted by the headlines and his notoriously bad behavior and forget that Shaw was ultimately defined by his art. His art, in turn, was defined by his quest for absolute perfection. This, in fact, could well be considered the theme of Three Chords, as Nolan repeatedly returns to this trope both in interviews with those who knew him (for better or for worse; often both) and in his own assessment of the man and the musician.
Readers learn that Shaw could be immensely charming or extremely cruel, with the shift being shockingly abrupt. Friends of long standing, and even family, would find themselves forever shut out, for having said something at which Shaw took umbrage. "Artie was probably the most egocentric person I’ve ever known…. he didn’t have the ability to sort of shift gears, and get out of himself," said his son, Jonathan…,"and that made him a deeply unhappy man."
As Nolan reveals, the same quality that made Shaw impossible to live with also made for some of the most daring and innovative sounds of the swing era. He wasn’t the only bandleader to experiment with strings or classical influences. His friend Claude Thornhill did so to great effect. Paul Whiteman had done it even earlier. The music that Shaw made was immensely more subtle than Whiteman’s, however, and Thornhill made no pretensions to swinging. Shaw's reputation as the Hamlet of jazz was well earned. Nolan has successfully captured this most elusive of swing-era figures: an immensely complicated, contradictory, and, ultimately, confounding individual.

Making a Big Splash with Craig Hatkoff

2010-02-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping.
By Shanti Menon -- School Library Journal, 2/3/2010 2:10:00 PM

Craig Hatkoff’s Winter’s Tail (Scholastic, 2009), the story of a young dolphin with a prosthetic tail, has sparked a Nintendo game, a documentary, and a movie deal with Warner Bros. SLJ caught up with Hatkoff to talk about what it’s like to collaborate with daughters Isabella, 15, and Juliana, 11, and why they create books about animals that overcome tremendous difficulties.
You’re a businessman and a cofounder of the Tribeca Film Festival, as well as a best-selling author. How’d you start writing for kids?

I never intended a career as a children’s book writer, but I’ve always been fascinated by children’s books. I wasn’t a terrific reader; I read slowly. I had a librarian in the fifth grade who really opened my world to books.
My writing career started as a project with my older daughter Juliana when she was getting her tonsils out. We started keeping a notebook to help her through the process, and that became Goodbye, Tonsils (Viking, 2001). And then Isabella, when she was about five, asked me, “Daddy, when are we going to do our book?”
What’s it like working with your daughters?

They’re in charge. They have day jobs, as do I. We have an informal process. Some days they’re wildly interested, other days they have homework, or they want to go out. This is a thing that we do, no more, no less. It’s a family thing. It’s daddy and the girls.
How do you choose your topics?

It has to pass the goosebump test. There has to be a passion about it that they embrace. If they don’t like the story, or the character, then on to the next. There also has to be a job to get done.
What kind of a job?

We started thinking of the series like a toolkit. It provides a way to deal with a difficult subject using a compelling character. They deal with major issues and major traumas, but using animals makes it more accessible to kids. They’re full of teachable moments. The resilience of animals is very inspiring to kids. They can relate to it. And we try not to force a particular point of view, so you can own the story and use it to whatever purpose.
Hatkoff with daughters Isabella (left), 15, and Juliana, 11.

I hear that Winter, who lives at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Florida, has inspired a lot of people.

Oh, it’s unbelievable. People of all ages and facing all kinds of different challenges. There was a girl who just happened to be at the aquarium. She had hearing aids and was so self-conscious she didn’t want to wear them. But after she saw Winter she said, “If Winter can wear her tail, then I can wear my hearing aids.” So now she’s just blossomed, she wears these bright turquoise hearing aids, they’re almost like jewelry!
There’s even a webcam of Winter.

Not everyone can get to the aquarium, so we’ve got a webcam and we share a lot of these stories on our Web site. We have video clips of people meeting Winter for the first time. This is fundamental to how we think of these books now. These are things you don’t read just once, but over and over and interact with them and get involved. We really try to extend the experience.
How are your books used in the classroom?

We have classroom guides for all our books. There are so many ways to engage. The kids at one school who read Looking for Miza (Scholastic, 2008) held a bake sale and raised $118 to help the mountain gorillas. That’s a lot of cookies. And they decided that they wanted the money to go to the mountain rangers.They were very specific about how it should be used. So another thing that’s come out of these books is kids’ philanthropy, and we’re really trying to encourage that. It’s not just about giving money, but doing good. They can make a drawing, write a poem, turn off the lights when they leave a room.
Tell me about how the Nintendo DS version came about.

We’re interested to see if this can become an educational platform, not just gaming. This is something that’s personally very important to me. Not all kids have an easy time reading. Isabella, my youngest, has trouble decoding. She’s so articulate in every way, you spend five minutes with her and you can’t believe she has any kind of learning disability. She has an amazing memory, she’s incredibly creative. Her right brain dominates, but sequential, linear things are a challenge. But she read part of the audio version for the DS and she just banged it out. And she likes the Winter game.
So the game provides another way for kids to experience the book?

It’ll never replace the book, but we want to encourage kids to experience these characters, these emotions, these stories, in as many ways as we can. It’s an interactive story book with activities and microgames, but it’s really visual and less linear. You listen to the story, you can paint with Winter, assemble her tail. I mean, if a kid is struggling, give them every opportunity to learn in a different way. I did a presentation to a school about Winter and for a brief moment we put up the slide of the DS and the whole gym just started to vibrate. That’s why I get excited about the educational tools that come out of this. I have a child that’s challenged, and I’m personally invested in trying to help in whatever way we can.

What’s the next Hatkoff family project?

We’re coming out with a readers’ series for second graders in 2010, and also our latest big book that will bring us to a new continent—our fourth. I’ll tell you this much—it will be about international cooperation, with a very compelling character and story. We just finished the first draft, and I think it’s going to be great.

Mitch Stewart, BarackObama.com

2010-02-05T13:54:00.001-08:00

PROF LLEAL --
Today, at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Time, Organizing for America is hosting a "Conversation with the President" -- and you won't want to miss it.
President Obama will talk about fighting for change in 2010, and then answer questions from grassroots supporters like you.
You can watch a webcast of the event starting at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Time:
http://my.barackobama.com/Conversation
President Obama will review our many accomplishments this past year and address the tough fights ahead of us -- including the 2010 elections, fighting to strengthen the middle class, and finishing the job on health reform.
Then, I'll ask the President some of the questions that OFA supporters like you submitted online.
I hope you can tune in at 5:45 Eastern:
http://my.barackobama.com/Conversation

Thanks,

Mitch

Mitch Stewart

Director

STUDENTS OF THE MONTH

2010-01-23T04:03:00.000-08:00

Terra Sonhada

2010-01-23T04:01:00.000-08:00

O diário de uma açoriana, a qual, de maneira realista e emociante narra a verdadeira aventura da travessia através do que ficou conhecido como o mar do inferno.

STUDENT'S GALLERY

2010-01-23T03:55:00.000-08:00

Programa de 23.11.2010 - 2º Bloco from Charlie Olsen on Vimeo.

Female

2010-01-23T03:52:00.000-08:00

American History Literature

English History

English Grammar

Linguistic conceptions

Word’s use as well as interpretation

Writing Techniques

and

A forasking romance in favor of quest...

A charming woman professor, exercising critical questioning into an enigmatic journey throughout past, present and future engaged in clearness of challenging questions, posed by students as well writers that are responded with careful details onto a process where all characteres are thrown into action rather than leaving them as mere spectators of a romance.

A unique perspective of a concise, logical narrative with overhelming influence on English grammar that includes as much information as it can within a minimum amount of space.

Much subtler and more artistic, and told with singular skill through the juxtaposed narratives of the several characters, FEMALE, was either made realistically intense by dose consistently fidelity to English history except in the one supernatural direction which the characteres cast altogether in the realm of phantasy, teaching and amusing for itself.

Knowledge and Dare are the writer’s forewords on every page.

Learning and Awareness are the reader’s constructive assumption onto the pages, inviting for considerantions about own’s idiom knowledge.

STS-130 Crew Complete TCDT at Kennedy, Mission Training Continues

2010-01-22T12:35:00.000-08:00

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:41:39 AM UTC-0200

Space shuttle Endeavour's crew of six returns to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston after completing the rigorous prelaunch training for their STS-130 mission to the International Space Station.
The astronauts will continue training for the flight by conducting contingency abort scenarios in the motion base simulator today at Johnson.
During the weekend, ground teams on Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida will close Endeavour's payload bay doors for flight.
On Jan. 27, an executive-level Flight Readiness Review meeting will be held at Kennedy to assess the readiness of the shuttle, flight crew and payloads to proceed with the countdown.
The official launch date will be set at the review and announced during a press briefing following the meeting.

Image above: The crew members of space shuttle Endeavour's STS-130 mission take time out from their emergency exit training at Launch Pad 39A to pose for a group portrait in the White Room. Standing, from left, are Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kathryn Hire and Robert Behnken. Kneeling, from left, are Mission Specialist Stephen Robinson, Commander George Zamka and Mission Specialist Nicholas Patrick. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Endeavour's STS-130 Mission

Commander George Zamka will lead the STS-130 mission to the International Space Station aboard space shuttle Endeavour. Terry Virts will serve as the pilot. Mission Specialists are Nicholas Patrick, Robert Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire. Virts will be making his first trip to space.
Shuttle Endeavour and its crew will deliver to the space station a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will feature three spacewalks.
Liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is targeted for February 7, 2010, at 4:39 a.m. EST

Pasadena Proposes Eliminating School Libraries

2010-01-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping.
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 1/20/2010 2:05:00 PM

Students in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) may be facing school days without a library under a proposal to balance the district’s $20 million deficit.
Calls to Superintendent Edwin Diaz’s office and Jeff Leming, acting president of Unified Teachers of Pasadena, which represents the school district’s teachers, librarians, and other staff, were not returned.
PUSD faces an $18.8 million deficit for the 2010–2011 school year, along with an additional $1.2 million in cuts. Closing school libraries would save the district a reported $1.4 million. The Pasadena Board of Education is considering a $120 parcel tax to make up some of the difference, an idea discussed at its January 12 meeting.
However, the $32 million the parcel tax could bring in over the next five years is expected to only stave off cuts to some programs, including advancement placement courses and college counselors. The elimination of school libraries and summer school, along with mandated furloughs, teacher layoffs, and other staff reductions are still on the table.
“There have been discussions, but a decision has not been made,” says Hilda Ramirez, PUSD’s communication coordinator. “We are not prepared to comment.”

PUSD is comprised of 30 schools, which include elementary, K–8, middle, high school, and two alternative programs in a city that’s famous for being home to the NASA field center Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which manages JPL, and of course, the annual Tournament of Roses Parade every New Year’s Day.

Parcel taxes, a fee on private property owners that’s paid to school districts, have been passed in other cash-strapped California communities including San Marino, South Pasadena, and La Canada-Flintridge—neighborhoods that are geographically close to Pasadena. However, California as a whole is in financial distress and school districts are being forced to consider draconian cuts across the state.

PUSD is holding a special session on January 26 to allow the public to comment further on the parcel tax proposal, which residents could vote on by mail in May. The final budget for the school district, and a decision on the fate of its school libraries, is not due for approval until June.

Pledging $10,000 in Savings, Librarian Raises More Than $20,000 for Haiti Relief

2010-01-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

Valdosta State librarian Cliff Landis reaches deep in his pockets--and is touched by the quick response

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 1/20/2010

Cliff Landis, Technology Librarian at Valdosta State University’s (GA) Odum Library, was so upset by the devastation in Haiti that, on January 14, he decided he would raise $20,000 in earthquake relief, contributing $10,000 in matching funds through the end of February.
“I spent a hefty chunk of my savings on presents this last Christmas, and I don’t regret a minute of it,” he wrote. “I was planning on building my savings back up this year, but I think the folks in Haiti (and other poverty-stricken areas in the world) can use that money a lot more.”
“I’m not [a] millionaire–in fact, $10,000 is almost all of my savings,” he wrote in response to a comment. “But I figure that it will do Partners in Health a lot more good than it does me sitting in my bank account. I’m a healthy and happy person with a good job as a librarian, and I trust that with hard work, I will always have enough money. This is my way of giving back for all the blessings that I get every day!”

Just three days

It took just three days for the total to rise on his Partners in Health donation page, a process he also chronicled on Twitter.
“The generosity that I’ve seen is astounding,” he wrote. “People have donated in lieu of going out for dinner. Folks who have been jobless for months have scraped together a donation.”
As of now, he’s raised $11,075 from 169 people, or an average of nearly $70/person, an effort that gained notice via DailyKos.
A thank-you video

On January 17, Landis posted a silent video with his message on storyboards.

“I can’t really talk right now…because every time I try, I cry,” he stated, citing the devastation in Haiti and the generosity he’d seen, a response that has provided faith and hope and love and inspiration. And yes, he says, there's still an opportunity to give to Partners in Health or other charities.

When the ALA Calls: Stead and Pinkney on Winning the Big Prize

2010-01-22T05:48:00.000-08:00

This article originally appeared in PW's Children's Bookshelf. Sign up now!

By Diane Roback -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2010 1:35:00 PM

When you win a Newbery or a Caldecott Medal, you find out in a phone call—usually very early in the morning—and then your life is instantly changed. Both Rebecca Stead and Jerry Pinkney got that phone call this past Monday morning; we spoke with both of them to find out where they were when the phone rang, what their reactions were, and what came next.
Rebecca Stead was awake in her family’s apartment on New York City’s Upper West Side. She’d woken up a few times during the night, but when she heard her eight-year-old son get up around 6:15 a.m., she decided it was now “a legitimate time to get out of bed.” With the amount of pre-ALA buzz that had surrounded her novel, When You Reach Me (Random House/Wendy Lamb), she was aware of what day it was, and though she thought the phone “probably won’t ring,” she did notice it was off its base and wandered around the apartment looking for it.

It did ring, shortly after that. “My husband came running out of the bedroom like a rocket holding the phone,” Stead recalled. “When Kate O’Dell [chair of the Newbery committee] started talking, I had this incredible ‘this is it’ moment. She said, ‘I’m about to tell you something that will change your life.’ There was such a rush of emotion, it made it hard to speak. A wonderful cheer went up in the room [the committee members were all on speakerphone]. I remember standing in my kitchen thinking, I can’t move either of my legs. I was definitely shaking. It was just unbelievable.”
After the call, she immediately told her family (“we went in and woke up my 11-year-old; he sat bold upright and gave me a big hug”), and then Stead’s editor Wendy Lamb, who had also received the good news, arrived at the apartment so they could watch the live webcast from Boston together.
“It was wonderful, so moving to see everybody’s books honored,” she said. “There were books I loved, books by friends. Wendy and I were huddled in front of the desk watching the computer, drinking coffee, holding hands, and screeching. It was a complete, complete thrill. Then the phone started ringing.”
Stead said she did several interviews that day, and her mother “swung into action,” planning an open house for that evening so that family and friends could come by and celebrate. Tuesday morning, she said, “I made my kids lunch and put my eight-year-old on the school bus and got in a car that took me to the Today Show.”
The experience of walking into the NBC studios was “unreal,” she said. “It was fun to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff.” She met Jerry Pinkney, her fellow medalist, in the green room, and they exchanged books. And then it was time to go on the air. “We were told we would each be asked one question, and that the segment would be two minutes. I was thinking ‘talk short,’ and trying not to look scared. They said it will feel really fast, but it was just right from my point of view.” [Watch their video clip here.]
Stead said she’s gotten “a ton” of phone calls and e-mail and notes on Facebook. “It’s been this constant love shower. I haven’t even begun to figure out how to answer them.” She’s heard from college roommates, lawyers she worked with during her years as a public defender, friends from writers’ groups, and—out of the blue—her third-grade teacher. “She wrote to me and said she’d seen the announcement and recognized my name. ‘I know you were my student, I remember you!’ ”
Stead credits her editor for much of her success, saying she’d never have written a children’s book if it weren’t for Lamb. When You Reach Me is Stead’s second novel; she began the first one, First Light, while in between law jobs. “I was full of doubt,” she said. When she finished her first draft (“it was unwieldy and too complicated”), she contacted Lamb, whom she had met at a short story workshop several years before. “I told her I had this big mess of a draft, what do I do? She said, ‘Send it to me.’ She read it and really encouraged me. She told me, ‘This is not ready but there is a lot here. You need to find a writing community to help you.’
Through connections made on a listserv, she and others founded a critique group, where she reworked the draft for two years. Then she sent it back to Lamb, and they revised the book further, for another year. “If she hadn’t done all that,” Stead said, “I would have taken a different path.”
Stead is currently drafting another middle-grade novel—“I have a decent start”—the second in a two-book contract. She’ll go on an already-arranged short book tour at the end of the month, as a “thank you to some of the wonderful stores that have been supporting this book for a long time.”
And, understandably, the fact of being a newly minted Newbery Medalist still feels hard to process. “I’m really at the very beginning stage of taking this all in,” Stead said. “You can never be prepared for something like this, because it’s sort of magical.”
“I Kept Waiting for the Word ‘Honor…’ ”

Jerry Pinkney was asleep at his home in Croton-on-Hudson, a river village about 35 miles north of New York City, when the call came—at about 6:20 a.m. As with Stead’s novel, there had been so much chatter about the possibility of a medal for his picture book, The Lion & the Mouse, that when the phone rang Pinkney knew it had to be from the ALA. “When I got the call that announced that the ALA had awarded me the Caldecott,” he said, “I kept waiting for the word ‘Honor.’ [Pinkney has been awarded the Caldecott Honor five times, in his 46-year career.] I wondered if maybe there was a blank space on the phone line.” Then he realized there was no blank space, and that he’d won the top prize. “When you hear the applause and cheers from the committee, it’s very gratifying.”
When he hung up the phone, Pinkney said, “I got back into bed with my wife [children’s book author Gloria Pinkney], and we talked about the award and what it would mean. I called my family [sons Brian and Myles and daughter-in-law Andrea are all involved in children’s books as well]. Then I decided I was going to do what I do every day—exercise, eat breakfast, and then go to work. Well, at 2:00 I was still sitting at the table and hadn’t had anything to eat, I was still answering the phone!”
Is it a different feeling, winning the medal this time, as opposed to the five Honors? “There’s the sense that yours was a choice of all the books,” he said. “There’s something about getting the recognition from the ALA. And the medal itself is just right for the time, just right for the place I’m in. I just turned 70. I’m settled now, I’ve always just worked for the work. When you get a medal like this, there are no expectations except to do the work. I don’t have to yearn for it. It’s very confirming, very satisfying.”
Tuesday was a whirlwind day, with a car arriving early in the morning, for his 9:50 a.m. appearance on the Today Show. “In the green room,” he said, “there was an excitement and warmth that really made me feel good about being there.” And in hair and makeup he ran into Today Show real estate contributor Barbara Corcoran. “I saw her and said, “I know her!” So it turned into a fun experience.
When he got home from the studio, Pinkney finally had the chance to sit and read the many congratulatory e-mails that had arrived. And then he got back to work. “I’m in my studio now,” he said when reached late on Tuesday afternoon. “I’m here, I’ll work this evening. It grounds me. And I’m behind schedule.”
On his drawing table is the art he’s creating for the nursery rhyme Three Little Kittens, which Dial will publish this coming fall (see Bookshelf’s recent Q&A with Pinkney here). “I’ve done over 100 books, and only two or three have been for the age group 3–6,” he said. “I have a great-granddaughter, and I’ve been responding to her and her interests. It’s fascinating to see how their minds work. She needs to interact. They’re learning process in the form of play.”
And in reflecting on this week's experience, Pinkney said he was more than a bit surprised to discover how calm he had been feeling since receiving the news. “I feel grounded,” he said. “It’s not only the medal, it’s what led up to the medal”—the reception the book had been getting since its publication last September. “It’s very, very fulfilling.”

Concerns over Borders Grow

2010-01-22T05:46:00.000-08:00

-- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2010 8:08:00 AM

As speculation about the digital future of book publishing grab headlines, publishers are becoming more concerned about a company that could have an immediate impact on their business—Borders. In an article appearing on Debtwire, the financial news service reported that frustrated with the slow-paying practices of the retailer, a group of smaller publishers has hired the bankruptcy group of Lowenstein Sandler as legal counsel. A representative of Lowenstein, however, told PW that it has not been retained by any group. Debtwire quoted one publisher as saying some small publishers were having a hard time getting paid “in a timely fashion” and were contemplating taking some legal action.
In response, a Borders spokesperson said, “Borders Group has continued to pay its vendors and is not aware of any material disputes related to its December 2009 payments.” Interviews with a number of publishers, both large and small, by PW found Borders to be current with its payments, though one small publisher stopped doing business with the chain at the end of 2008 because of its fragile financial condition. And while one of the large publishers interviewed by PW said Borders was current “on our terms,” he nonetheless said the poor holiday performance and the continuing financial struggles of the chain were “very worrying.”

At NWU Event, Confusion, Strong Opposition to Google Settlement

2010-01-22T05:45:00.000-08:00

By Andrew Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 1/21/2010 8:03:00 AM

Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken has been one of the most unflappable proponents of the Google Book Search settlement, but yesterday, January 20, at an antisettlement event at the National Writers Union New York headquarters, Aiken grew increasingly exasperated as he addressed an audience hostile to the settlement, and occasionally hostile to him. Aiken drew a polite laugh at the outset when he quipped that he was happy to address “the axis of opposition,” but soon after finishing his by now well-rehearsed informational talk regarding the deal, sparks flew.
The NWU, vocal opponents of the settlement, co-sponsored the “workshop” with two other organizations opposed to the settlement, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association. The panel also featured literary agent and attorney Lynn Chu and New York Law School’s James Grimmelmann.
In his balanced talk, Grimmelmann, the only neutral voice on the panel, outlined three major points for audience members to consider when evaluating the deal: the settlement as a new publishing model; the deal’s alignment of authors’ and readers’ interests; and its implications for copyright policy. He soberly evaluated the benefits and potential risks of the deal, telling members that in his opinion Google probably would have won on its fair use defense had the issue been litigated, but expressed some reservations about such a major player in the book world being created through a class action lawsuit, rather than through the market.
Then the fun began. Chu wasted no time blasting the deal. She called it a travesty, illegal, and characterized it as a bad business arrangement that eliminates the market process and turns the opt-in system of copyright on its ear. She veered out of control, however, when it came to the details of the agreement, twice insisting there was no orphan works issue, and suggested the Book Rights Registry was designed to foment rights disputes, not solve them. An exasperated Aiken scolded Chu for her “vivid imagination,” as well as NWU’s Edward Hasbrouck for his interpretation of the agreement, and the workshop descended into moments of chaos.
The event was certainly a lively conversation. Rather than clarifying the issues at hand, however, the talk left audience members PW spoke to even more confused about what to do, with just one week to go before the January 28 opt-out deadline. It also hinted at perhaps the major obstacle, besides the Department of Justice, facing the deal as it makes its way toward the February 18 fairness hearing: its scope and sheer complexity. With just weeks to go before the hearing, it seems many rank-and-file authors are just now beginning to wrestle with the deal's implications, and despite months of events to explain the agreement, confusion and misunderstanding are still common.

Areva reconhece denuncias de radiação em ruas da Nigéria

2010-01-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

São Paulo, Brasil — Estatal francesa prometeu descontaminar os 11 pontos indicados pelo Greenpeace
A Areva, parceira do Brasil na construção da usina nuclear Angra 3, finalmente reconheceu as denúncias do Greenpeace sobre o uso de pedras que sobram da mineração de urânio no calçamento de ruas da cidade nigeriana Akokan.
Em novembro do ano passado, 11 pontos de alta radiação foram detectados por uma equipe do Greenpeace. Em alguns deles, os níveis de radiação eram mais de 500 vezes acima do aceitável. Diante da pressão da sociedade civil, a estatal francesa se comprometeu a descontaminação todos os locais indicados.
O trabalho da Areva já começou. “Ficamos felizes que as ruas de Akokan já estejam sido parcialmente descontaminadas, mas continuamos muito preocupados com outros problemas que não podem ser resolvidos sem pesquisas mais detalhadas”, diz Rianne Teule, do Greenpeace internacional.
Areva no Brasil - É nas mãos dessa empresa que o governo brasileiro planeja colocar parte do programa nuclear. Representantes da Areva estiveram

na mina de urânio de Caetité (BA) em dezembro para avaliar o potencial de exploração do minério no Brasil. “Por trás das negociações do governo brasileiro com a Areva estão os interesses franceses de criar uma dependência tecnológica e comercial, já que o país será provedor de assistência técnica para o programa nuclear brasileiro”, diz André Amaral, coordenador da campanha de nuclear do Greenpeace, “Essa é parte da estratégia daquele país para superar a crise que sua indústria nuclear vem sofrendo, criando dependência e assim garantindo mercado”
Em março do ano passado, o Greenpeace lançou o relatório “Fracassos Nucleares Franceses”, que resume as principais conclusões de pesquisa realizada pela Global Chance - organização francesa sem fins lucrativos que reúne cientistas em energia inclusive os problemas que levaram a estatal Areva, braço industrial da política nuclear francesa, a fechar o ano de 2008 com uma queda de 20% em seu lucro líquido.
Exemplos concretos dessa decadência são as dificuldades enfrentadas nos projetos de construção de European Pressurized Reactores (EPRs), reatores de quarta geração desenvolvidos e promovidos pela Areva ao redor do mundo, inclusive no Brasil.

Greenpeace's Electronics Guide cuts through the greenwash at CES

2010-01-22T05:34:00.000-08:00

Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia products free of worst hazardous substances - Samsung, Dell, Lenovo and LGE disappoint

International — As technology companies jostle for attention at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Greenpeace's newest edition of the Guide to Greener Electronics cuts through the greenwash. Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia lead the way for product ranges free of the worst hazardous substances with HP following their lead. Yesterday, HP added to its portfolio of products completely free of PVC vinyl plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFRs), releasing a desktop PC and a notebook series.
Samsung, Dell, Lenovo and LGE pick up penalty points in the Guide for failing to follow through on a promised phase-out of toxics in their products. The majority of the companies in the Guide had pledged to remove toxic PVC and BFRs(1) from their product range by the end of 2009, which would have meant a greater show of greener, toxic-free products for visitors to preview at the CES. But, for now, it's a no show for these companies, who have delayed their phase-out to 2011 or beyond.
"It's time for a little less conversation and a lot more action on removing toxic chemicals," said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International Electronics campaigner. "Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia are winning this game and HP is catching up, but lack of action from other companies is ensuring that customers and the environment are still losing out."
Several companies see their scores reduced in this edition of the Guide with the bar being raised on hazardous substances. Having endorsed the precautionary principle, companies now need to actively support bans on PVC, BFRs and chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs) during the revision of the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances in electronics Directive.
"Companies need to support legislative bans to ensure a consistent phase out of PVC and BFRs across all electronic products," said Iza Kruszewska Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "Sony Ericsson and Apple are already calling on EU institutions to support such a ban. Other big players like HP, Dell, who have remained silent so far, and Acer need to ensure the ban is passed in the European Union parliament. "
Nokia leads the ranking, with a score of 7.3. Sony Ericsson follows closely, and is the only company to score full marks on all the toxic chemicals criteria. In third place is Toshiba, but it risks losing points if it fails to meet its commitment to market new models of all its consumer electronics products that are free of PVC and BFRs by 1 April 2010. Philips comes in fourth place, while Apple rises from ninth place to fifth.

Samsung drops dramatically from second place to a tied seventh place for failing to eliminate BFRs in all its products by January 2010. With only its latest models of mobile phones free of toxic substances, it has set January 2011 as the deadline for eliminating them from new models of its notebooks and still has no definitive timeline for removing them from its TVs and household appliances. Nintendo continues to languish at the bottom of the ranking.
Sony is rewarded for its reported 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the period 2000-2008, with renewable energy now accounting for 8% of the total energy purchased globally each year by the company, up from 2.5% a year ago. It also gains for the reported use of 17,000 tons of recycled plastics annually in various products, representing 10% of all plastics used in the 2008 financial year. Almost 90% of this recycled plastic was post-consumer.
In 2010, we should see significant developments, with products free of PVC and BFRs in the PC and TV markets," continued Kruszewska. "Any company failing to achieve this goal is taking a big gamble with its green reputation. On a positive note, it's good to see non-ranked companies beyond the PC and TV sectors, like Cisco, committing to eliminate these harmful substances."
Notes to Editor

Fof further information, please see Greenpeace's coverage of the CES.

1. PVC contaminates humans and the environment throughout its lifecycle; during its production, use, and disposal it is the single most environmentally damaging of all plastics, and can form dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. Some BFRs are highly resistant to degradation in the environment and are able to bio-accumulate (build up in animals and humans). With the growth of electronic waste, workers who deal with e-waste and the wider community are at significant health risks. Burning of e-waste to recover valuable resources, as routinely takes place in the backyards of China, India and much of the South, can form dioxins. Eliminating the substances will decrease exposure and increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.

What's in Electronic Devices?

Some companies really do make greener electronics

2010-01-22T05:31:00.000-08:00

Las Vegas, United States — Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia do well in our updated Guide to Greener Electronics, while Samsung, Dell, Lenovo and LGE disappoint.

Our electronics campaigners are blogging from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2010) in Las Vegas January 7-10. Their mission: To cut through the greenwash, and highlight product ranges on the market which really are free of hazardous chemicals like PVC (vinyl) plastic and brominated flame retardants (BFR).
CES is a major trade show where electronics companies come to demonstrate new products and jostle for industry media attention (which these days includes many technology blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo). Though it is not open to the public, CES say they expect over 140,000 attendees -- that's a lot of consumer electronics industry people in one place.

"In 2010, we should see significant developments, with products free of PVC and BFRs in the PC and TV markets.

Any company failing to achieve this goal is taking a big gamble with its green reputation. On a positive note, it's good to see non-ranked companies beyond the PC and TV sectors, like Cisco, committing to eliminate these harmful substances."

-- Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner Guide to Greener Electronics 14th Edition

Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia lead the way for product ranges free of the worst hazardous substances with HP following their lead. HP just released the Compaq 8000f Elite business desktop, its first completely PVC and BFR free product, at CES 2010.
Meanwhile Samsung, Dell, Lenovo and LG Electronics (LGE) pick up penalty points in the Guide for failing to follow through on a promised phase-out of toxics in their products.
Most of the companies in our ranking guide had pledged to remove toxic PVC (vinyl) plastic and BFRs from their product range by the end of 2009, which would have meant a greater show of greener, toxic-free products for visitors to see at the CES. But, for now, it's a no show for these companies, who have delayed their phase-out to 2011 or beyond. No doubt they won't mention their backtracking to journalists and bloggers they meet at CES.
What's all the concern about toxic chemicals and e-waste

PVC contaminates humans and the environment throughout its lifecycle; during its production, use, and disposal it is the single most environmentally damaging of all plastics, and can form dioxin, a known carcinogen, when burned. Some BFRs are highly resistant to degradation in the environment and are able to build up in animals and humans.
With the growth of electronic waste, workers who deal with e-waste and the wider community are exposed to significant health risks. Burning of e-waste to recover valuable resources, as routinely takes place in the backyards of China, India and much of the global South, can form dioxins. Eliminating the substances will decrease exposure and increase the recyclability and reusability of electronic products.
Consumers want green, not greenwash

Electronics companies have been moving their "environmental information" links higher and higher on product information webpages in the four years since our first Guide to Green Electronics. Some of it is only greenwash though, and informed consumers can tell the difference.
Last year Apple cleared the final hurdle in eliminating toxic PVC (vinyl) plastic, making it the first company to completely eliminate hazardous BFRs and PVC in its computer systems. Pressure from thousands of Apple lovers and advocates turned the company green in the time it took to go from iMac G5 (2006) to iMac Aluminum (2009).
"It's time for a little less conversation and a lot more action on removing toxic chemicals." That's what our electronics campaigner, Casey Harrell, is saying at CES. Apple, Sony Ericsson and Nokia are winning this game and HP is catching up, but the lack of action from other companies is ensuring that customers and the environment are still losing out.
Ban the toxic stuff for good

Several companies see their scores reduced in this edition of the Guide with the bar being raised on hazardous substances. Having endorsed the precautionary principle, companies now need to actively support bans on PVC, BFRs and chlorinated flame retardants (CFRs) during the revision of the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances in Electronics Directive.
"Companies need to support legislative bans to ensure a consistent phase out of PVC and BFRs across all electronic products," said Iza Kruszewska Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "Sony Ericsson and Apple are already calling on EU institutions to support such a ban. Other big players like HP and Dell, who have remained silent so far, and Acer need to ensure the ban is passed in the European Union parliament."
Nokia leads the ranking, with a score of 7.3 out of 10. Sony Ericsson follows closely, and is the only company to score full marks on all the toxic chemicals criteria. In third place is Toshiba, but it risks losing points if it fails to meet its commitment to market new models of all its consumer electronics products that are free of PVC and BFRs by 1 April 2010. Philips comes in fourth place, while Apple rises from ninth place to fifth.
Nintendo continues to languish at the bottom of the ranking. Sony is rewarded for its reported 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the period 2000-2008, with renewable energy now accounting for 8 percent of the total energy purchased globally each year by the company, up from 2.5 percent a year ago. It also gains for the reported use of 17,000 tons of recycled plastics annually in various products, representing 10 percent of all plastics used in the 2008 financial year. Almost 90 percent of this recycled plastic was post-consumer.
Samsung twitter petition

Samsung drops dramatically from second place to a tied seventh place for failing to eliminate BFRs in all its products by January 2010. With only its latest models of mobile phones free of toxic substances, it has set January 2011 as the deadline for eliminating them from new models of its notebooks and still has no definitive timeline for removing them from its TVs and household appliances.
While Samsung's marketing people are touting their wares at CES, we'll be calling them out on twitter with this petition: petition @Samsungtweets to follow Apple SonyEricsson and HP, and eliminate harmful chemicals like PVC http://act.ly/1l1 RT to sign #actly

Como posso ser feliz sendo professor?

2010-01-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

O título deste artigo não é meu. É de inúmeros colegas professores que frequentemente manifestam através de suas angústias uma falta de entendimento do conceito de felicidade. Assim, refletindo e pesquisando sobre o tema, proponho algumas reflexões sobre o conceito – e também a prática.
É possível aprender a ser bem-sucedido e feliz. Fortemente embasado no pensamento humanista, estipulo uma trajetória pelo presente, mas também pelo passado e pelas possibilidades do futuro, visto que as questões aqui abordadas são antigas e intrigantes:
O que é ter uma vida de sucesso?
Como aprender a viver?
Qual o sentido da vida?

Grandes pensadores de diferentes escolas filosóficas ao longo dos tempos indicam caminhos aos que se aventurarem a afrontar as mesmas interrogações. Mas cabe uma observação em relação ao modo de vida grego antigo. O que parece interessante nos gregos é a ideia que define o que é a “vida boa” em oposição ao sucesso social, em que o objetivo da filosofia é o de ajudar os humanos a superar os medos. Onde: “filo” mais “sofia” é “amar a sabedoria”, a procura da serenidade está no sentido de ser livre na sua mente e também aberto aos outros, ser capaz de amar e superar os medos que nos impedem de viver.
Pensemos sobre o homem contemporâneo e suas escolhas e novamente sobre o conceito de vida bem-sucedida que, parece, resume-se à satisfação material, ao sucesso social e à preocupação narcísea e ilimitada de poder.
Os humanos contemporâneos precisam aprender a superar seus medos, aperfeiçoar sua busca e desenvolvimento espiritual, uma nova sabedoria fundada no amor como um dos elementos capaz de reconciliar o presente e ampliar o horizonte e seu pensamento.

Então pulamos para o futuro e imaginamos que trocando de carro, casa, profissão, escola, parceiro (a), tudo vai ficar melhor. Em verdade, transportamos nossas preocupações e infelicidades conosco, e as coisas não se tornam melhores porque se trocou um Audi por um Mercedes.
À força de viver no passado ou no futuro, perde-se de viver o único momento real, ou seja o presente, quando e onde podemos nos realizar através da paixão, da qualidade, do comprometimento com o que fazemos.
Os medos se enraizam no passado e no futuro. Sábio é quem consegue, num mesmo movimento, viver no presente e viver com serenidade. No presente ele se desvencilha dos medos que habitam essas duas dimensões irreais do tempo, que são o passado e o futuro.
Para viver bem, é preciso superar os medos e isso se chama sabedoria. “A coisa mais fácil do mundo é encontrar diferenças. Difícil é harmonizá-las.” Palavras do Dalai Lama, de quem também acrescento mais duas assertivas para concluir: “É indispensável fazer com que cada dia de nossa vida tenha um sentido.” E que nosso trabalho tenha um propósito dignificante para cada um de nós. “É sempre possível mudar. Mas vencer emoções e pensamentos negativos requer disciplina e tempo. Comece agora.”
Texto de Luiz Carlos Moreno originalmente publicado na revista Profissão Mestre de março de 2009.

Cologne Conference on Specialised Translation

2010-01-20T14:11:00.000-08:00

Dear colleague,

The Institute of Translation and Multilingual Communication (Cologne University of Applied Sciences) will be hosting a conference on specialized translation in October this year. Below please find the conference announcement and the link to the conference website. Could we ask you to spread the news of our conference via your email mailing list? We would be very grateful to you for this support.

With our very best wishes for the New Year!

Best regards

Monika Krein-Kuehle, Ralph Krueger

Cologne Conference on Specialised Translation

(October 21 and 22, 2010, Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Germany)
The growing relevance of specialised translation in the applied branches of translation studies, i.e. professional translation, translation quality assessment and translation teaching, has also brought about a more in-depth consideration of specialised translation in the theoretical/descriptive branches of the discipline. Though this has led to some new and valuable insights, specialised translation still remains a largely under-researched field. This two-day international conference focuses on new approaches to specialised translation covering, but not limited to, the following areas of interest:
- Theoretical and methodological approaches to specialised translation

- Contrastive and corpus-based studies related to specific aspects of specialised translation in the area of expert-to-expert communication from various domains (such as science and technology, medicine, law, economics, architecture, etc.)

- Linguistic aspects of specialised translation

- Extra-linguistic aspects of specialised translation

- Ideological aspects of specialised translation

- Didactics of specialised translation
Organising committee:
Prof. Monika Krein-Kühle, Ralph Krüger, MA, Prof. Ursula Wienen

(Cologne University of Applied Sciences)
Plenary speakers:

Prof. Myriam Salama-Carr (University of Salford)
Prof. Wolfgang Pöckl (University of Innsbruck)
Important dates:
March 15, 2010: Submission of abstracts (max. 500 words)

April 15, 2010: Notification of acceptance

October 21 and 22, 2010: Conference
Conference Languages: English, German, French and Spanish
Conference fees: 100 € (30 € for students)
All abstracts submitted will be peer-reviewed. Please submit your abstract (max. 500 words) to: Ralph Krüger (ralph.krueger@fh-koeln.de) by 15 March 2010.

The Egyptian Translators and Linguists' Association (ETLA)

2010-01-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

Our mission
The mission of the Egyptian Translators and Linguists' Association( ETLA) is to achieve a revival in the field of translation and language in Egypt and create an elite of qualified translators who appreciate the value of translation, cope with scientific developments, and are aware of the changes that take place in the world, in order to achieve such revival

Our Vision
ETLA's vision is that the reasons for the regression that we currently undergo are social, economic and cultural isolation, and the decline
of the translation profession. But all these negative factors do not acquit the translator who has lost his identity and status and, as a result, societal respect; hence, the translation profession has become one of the careers that are difficult to assess. Therefore, the Association's vision is based on the need to restore the translator's prestige within the intellectual and cultural arena. This can only happen through competent translators qualified under international professional standards. Hence, the translator will be able to create a new reality for himself and his profession in a society that recognize his high-level role.

Plans and Strategies
ETLA has laid down plans based on the fundamentals of strategic planning, through phased plans which achieve its objectives on both short and long runs.
The main feature which distinguishes these plans is the application of scientific methods in planning, through the realistic assessment of resources and challenges. ETLA also takes the expected changes into consideration, and draws up its plans on the basis of flexible and well-studied application. The current plans are not inflexible, but they can be modified and developed according to changing circumstances. ETLA's members are those who determine the goals and methods of implementing the plans, through their experience and positions...

ETLA's Structure:
An elected board of directors manages the Association through its members who work on implementing the ETLA's objectives, doing their best to achieve the interest of the members and the society.
The decision makers, planners and those implementing plans are the ETLA members. This means that thought, strategic planning, and application are not exclusive to a certain member, as the Association belongs to all its members, and its management is mainly based on collective consultation and assessment.

Membership
According to the ETLA's mission and objectives, membership is accessible to those working in fields of translation, language, those involved in this career and students, as well as creators and intellectuals. The translator is in need to the linguist who maintains the rules of language amidst the new expressions and terms which the translator transmits. The translator conveys up-to-date terms to the linguist who, in turn, sets them in the language's structure. The translator conveys to his society new terms, expressions and ideas which come from other societies. What he conveys may find a fertile ground in his country. If the reader is a creator, the cultural movement will flourish and bear fruit.

ETLA's Political and Intellectual Trends
ETLA does not represent any political, partisan or sectarian category. It respects law and works under its umbrella. It takes its members away from disunity resulted from political, ideological or partisan classification. However, it respects their personal freedom and does not impose any kind of restrictions on them. It is noteworthy to restate that ETLA should not be exploited or inclined towards a certain attitude of any individual or entity

ETLA's Financial Resources
ETLA works under the Egyptian law regarding its resources of funding, and at the same time does not resort to any other resource of funding such as entities or individuals, that may enable them to have an upper hand, in order to avert their domination. Therefore, the most important resource of funding is the subscriptions of the Association's members, and the returns of its activities. Available financial resources as well as their sufficiency during growth stages of ELTA and its activities are carefully considered to ensure their continuity and growth.

What Distinguishes the ELTA from Other Comparable Entities?
ELTA is a non-profit institution, seeking to create a comprehensive language and translation revival. It aims to benefit the translator and linguist, as well as the translation industry and the whole society. ELTA is an entity through which efforts of translators, linguists, and creators are collectively combined, exchanging their experiences and skills.
Thus, ETLA practices direct communication between broader sectors of distinguished categories which can benefit each other regarding information, knowledge, skills and capabilities. ELTA realizes the significant role of the translator and linguist as parts of their society in achieving revival and their huge responsibilities toward their nation. Therefore, it tries to benefit the society through the capabilities, skills, and potentialities of the translator and the linguist.
ELTA is not an entity that is concerned with a particular category, but is concerned with all translators and others involved in the translation profession. Hence, it seeks to lead a total revival in translation. Therefore, it is equally concerned with the translator and the society so that the translator's rights may not become mere a scream in the society which does not appreciate the translator's prestige.

ETLA Activities and Service
ETLA activities include: training courses and for translators and linguists in the fields of translation and other sciences that serve the translation profession and its development. In addition, ETLA presents educational seminars to link the translator with the world changes and its events. It organizes conferences and workshops in various fields related to translation, language and creativity, and it offers professional promotion for the translator locally and internationally.
It also supports individual projects, particularly those related to the development of translation and publication of works. It also upholds the interests of the members and their profession, coordinates their efforts, and creates areas of cooperation between them and bodies or institutions concerned with their interests. In addition, it is establishing an information centre, translation services, and preparing for publishing a manual guide of translators in the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Moreover, it exchanges experience with prestigious academies and
institutions at home and abroad to promote the expertise of members, and put them in a distinguished position within the translation industry system.
Accreditation Policy
ETLA accredits those proved to have expertise in practicing translation as a profession and relevant linguistic activities according to the highest standards applied worldwide, which are recognized by academic bodies, international organizations and ancient prestigious entities... Therefore, the ELTA has strict conditions imposed on a translator to be accredited. The most important prerequisite is to pass the accreditation test. This test is designed according to academic assessment standards applied in this field, in collaboration with distinguished institutions, academic institutes, and international associations specialized in translation, language, and relevant sciences.
ELTA Commissions

• Supreme Advisory Commission.
• Membership and Registration Commission.
• Testing and Accreditation Commission.
• Training and Human Resource Development Commission.
• Language and Literature Commission.
• Information and Documentation Commission.
• Media and Publishing Commission.
• Creativity and Translation Commission.
• Community and Environment Services Commission.
• Legal Affairs Commission

• Social Services Commission
• Proposals and Complaints Commission.

ELTA Centre for Education and Development
Through the Centre for Education and Development CED, its leading project, ETLA aims to use techniques of modern science and simple communication methods in organizing education and training courses through broadcasted and published seminars, lectures and courses. It also contains an electronic reference library that benefits researchers and scholars in fields such as language and translation. This centre will abide by academic standards and international quality control systems.

Contact Us

• Headquarter: 1101, Cornice el-Nil Garden City, Cairo, Egypt
• Administrative office: Sheikh Yusuf square, third floor - flat No. 7.- Garden City, Cairo, Egypt
• Tel- Fax: - 00202 - 27927925 - Mobile: 00202- 010 303 6820

Os benefícios de gerenciar conhecimento

2010-01-20T13:56:00.000-08:00

Angelica Kernchen

Está mais que provado que o conhecimento, ou melhor, que a gestão do conhecimento (GC) é um valioso recurso estratégico no mundo corporativo. Porém, estamos diante de uma realidade de fenômenos econômicos de alcance global, da própria globalização, da velocidade da informação por conta da internet e da facilidade de trocar conhecimentos por conta dela, o que não facilita a organização dessas informações.

O conceito de gestão do conhecimento parte do princípio que todo o conhecimento e informação sobre uma empresa e seus processos, inclusive os que estão na cabeça das pessoas e em departamentos particulares, pertencem à organização. E ela, por sua vez, deve proporcionar a todo o seu corpo de trabalho o usufruto desses. “Gestão do conhecimento é um processo corporativo que afeta todas as áreas de uma empresa, bastante focado em sua estratégia. Seu principal objetivo é aproveitar recursos que já existem dentro da organização para facilitar o conhecimento geral, fazendo com que informações que são armazenadas de diversas maneira, sejam reunidas e utilizadas no processo do dia-a-dia de todos os colaboradores”, define Henrique Andrade, diretor de operações da iFactory, empresa focada em soluções empresariais.

Henrique conta que a GC é um recurso estratégico, pois conhecimento é fundamental para atingir objetivos, tanto no ponto de vista mercadológico quanto do competitivo. A informação é um bem intangível, que não está no balanço das empresas, mas todo mundo sabe o quão importante ela é, seja para atingir metas, seja para enfrentar a concorrência mais preparado, ter vantagens competitivas ou mesmo para planejamento. E é aí que está a chave de gerenciar o conhecimento.
Segundo Frederico S. M. Mesquita, especialista em gestão do conhecimento, pode-se aplicar GC para otimizar as formas de comunicação entre as pessoas, sejam elas pessoais ou impessoais, melhorando a criação, a retenção e a troca de conhecimento na organização. “Podemos aplicá-la em processos específicos, como no desenvolvimento de novos produtos com implicações sobre a capacidade de inovação da empresa, ou estrategicamente, entendendo os conhecimentos futuros demandados pelo mercado, comparando com o que existe na empresa e criando estratégias para alinhar ambos. Ela é válida, ainda, se a desdobrarmos em uma análise de nível individual e alinharmos os conhecimentos de cada colaborador com as competências requeridas para as funções; chegando até às competências que a análise estratégica identificou como essenciais no futuro e que ainda estão ausentes na empresa”, reflete ele.

Basicamente, todos os departamentos de uma empresa devem estar envolvidos no processo de gerenciar conhecimento, porém, é fundamental e necessário o apoio das áreas de tecnologia, gestão de pessoas e planejamento. Tecnologia para desenvolver sistemas que possibilitem unificar e disponibilizar essas informações; gestão de pessoas para avaliar como o processo de redescoberta das informações será feito e impactará em seus colaboradores; e planejamento para montar a estratégia do processo em si e mapear as necessidades atuais e futuras.

Benefícios da implantação de GC
Henrique nos conta que uma das coisas mais negligenciadas em GC é entender que, para uma iniciativa voltada à gestão do conhecimento funcionar, uma série de práticas organizacionais precisam estar alinhadas. “Por exemplo, é preciso apoio da liderança, tanto para aumentar a sensibilização como para reforçar a importância da mudança de atitude em geral. É preciso alinhar as formas de reconhecimento e recompensa, e valorizar ainda mais aspectos intangíveis. A noção de tempo tradicional, em geral, é um obstáculo, e formas de mensuração de resultado também precisam ser revistas. Normalmente, as pessoas em empresas são avaliadas pelo balanço ou avaliação anual (ou ainda pior, semestral, trimestral), mas iniciativas de GC, intangíveis em boa parte da sua natureza, têm muitas vezes implicações que transcendem o ano fiscal, e é importante criar mecanismos para mostrar ao final do ano que as cinco mil horas que seus funcionários tiveram disponíveis para pensar sobre qualquer coisa fora da sua função, retornaram ou irão retornar na forma de resultado econômico em algum momento. Ainda mais que os benefícios da GC têm retornos crescentes, ou seja, maiores ao longo do tempo. Confiança é um aspecto fundamental em GC, e para aumentar o nível de confiança entre as pessoas, sejam do mesmo nível ou em relação à empresa e aos seus superiores, é importante demonstrar isso no dia a dia, liderar pelo exemplo, e sobretudo focar muito no ambiente onde o conhecimento é gerado”.
E por falar em benefícios, são muitos os encontrados por empresas que se dispõem a trabalhar com gestão do conhecimento. Entre os preferidos de Henrique está descobrir que por meio de conteúdos e informações já existentes dentro da organização, ela poderá se diferenciar no mercado. Isso, segundo ele, traz redução de custos, pois a empresa poderá contar com treinamento mais fácil, aumento de receita (já que é possível atender clientes com mais facilidade, pois ela terá informações disponíveis sempre à mão), seus funcionários terão produtividade maior (que é exatamente proporcional ao aumento do conhecimento de sua área e processos) e, consequentemente, todos aprenderão mais sobre o negócio da empresa. “Muitas vezes, você aprende que o capital intelectual que tanto estava à procura já existe na sua empresa; ele só estava preso na cabeça de alguém”, finaliza.

Workaholic x Worklover – qual a diferença?

2010-01-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Angelica Kernchen

Uma pesquisa desenvolvida pelo Laboratório de Psicologia do Trabalho da Universidade de Brasília tratou de desmistificar a diferença entre workaholics (viciados em trabalhos) e worklovers (quem adora o trabalho). Segundo eles, a expressão e o conceito de worklover foram criados exatamente em contraposição ao workaholic. O worklover, para eles, se envolve no que faz, mas não trabalha excessivamente – só se for necessário, diferente do workaholic.

Segundo Silvia OSSO, palestrante e consultora de empresas, o worklover é um apaixonado pelo trabalho, pois vive satisfeito com suas realizações; ele é mais aberto ao lidar com as dificuldades que surgem. Se as condições do trabalho vão mal, ele busca ajuda em vez de criticar ou esmorecer. Este “amante” trabalha muitas horas por dia de forma produtiva, e nem percebe o tempo passar, sendo que esta satisfação se estende a sua vida pessoal. O workaholic já é um verdadeiro viciado no trabalho. Sua motivação pelo trabalho é muito alta, seu foco é o trabalho em si, mas sua insatisfação é permanente. Se a vida profissional vai mal, ele sofre, adoece e tem dificuldade de reconhecer que precisa de ajuda. Geralmente, trabalha muitas horas por dia, mas descuida-se da vida pessoal e da saúde. Foge dos problemas pessoais, familiares e se distancia do social. Sua vida resume-se em afundar-se no trabalho, imaginando que isto é ser produtivo e que será, ou está sendo, reconhecido por isso.

Nessa discussão, podemos começar a pensar se trabalho e prazer é realmente uma associação possível. “Você já deve ter conhecido profissionais que, mesmo em férias, usam parte do seu dia, por mera diversão e curiosidade, visitando concorrentes para conhecer seus pontos fortes e fracos. Não se estressam, curtem a família (que muitas vezes o acompanha) e ainda aprendem enquanto descansam. Isso é aproveitar e unir o profissional à satisfação pessoal. Conheço vários deste tipo! Eu, particularmente sou uma dessas! Curto o que faço e faço o que curto! O amante do trabalho descobre isso bem cedo, e cuida de suas aptidões. Veja um jovem que descobre sua vocação para criar, desenhar ou modelar jogos para a Internet. Passa horas do dia e às vezes da noite estudando e criando, sem parar, coisas que serão utilizadas e comercializadas para empresas. Não pense que é fácil! O mercado é competitivo, mas os que mais se dedicam curtem o prazer de trabalhar como um amante do trabalho e ainda acham tempo para ir à universidade, à academia e outros prazeres. Suas diversões podem ser fruto de inspiração para a criação de novos jogos. Os amantes do trabalho cuidam do corpo, da mente e do espírito; sentem menos estresse”, diz Silvia.

Apesar de tudo isso, existe muita confusão entre workaholics e worklovers. É bem normal um workaholic achar que apenas ama seu trabalho e, como consequência disso, trabalha muito. Para Layse Policarpo, psicóloga cognitivo-comportamental, os dois tipos trabalham demais e tendem a se envolver muito no que fazem, pois na superfície são idênticos. “Mas se você chega perto, as diferenças aparecem. No plano do significado, os sentidos que os sujeitos têm do trabalho são totalmente opostos. O workaholic trabalha porque não pode viver, não pode levar sua vida. O worklover trabalha porque gosta disso e pode, perfeitamente, gostar da mulher, de sexo, da vida dele fora do trabalho”, diz ela. Silvia complementa dizendo que os workaholics só se dão conta que não apenas amam o trabalho, e sim são viciados nele, quando são alertados por algum coaching, e apesar da sua motivação pelo trabalho ser muito alta, sua insatisfação é permanente. “Se a vida profissional vai mal, ele sofre, adoece e tem dificuldade de reconhecer que precisa de ajuda. Geralmente, trabalha muitas horas por dia, mas descuida-se da vida pessoal e da saúde. Foge dos problemas pessoais, familiares e se distancia do social. Sua vida resume-se em afundar-se no trabalho, imaginando que isso é ser produtivo e que será, ou está sendo, reconhecido por isso. Na maioria das vezes, eles são indisciplinados; trabalham à exaustão, têm mais chances de sofrer doenças cardiovasculares, gastrites, depressão e uso de drogas entre outras doenças físicas e psíquicas. Os ambulatórios de medicina do trabalho das grandes empresas estão cheios de casos desta natureza”.

Sendo assim, como saber se você apenas ama seu trabalho ou se está excedendo limites? Layse diz que, na psicologia, o trabalho é o conceito dado a uma dupla relação de transformação entre o homem e a natureza geradora de significado. Mas esse mesmo trabalho pode causar sofrimento, caso o circuito de geração de significado seja quebrado. Em outras palavras, ela diz que o que o indivíduo produz tem que ter alguma importância para que ele se sinta realizado, e nesse sentido, nos convida a sermos sinceros e nos fazermos as seguintes perguntas para resolver essa questão: ‘qual o significado do seu trabalho’? ‘Ele faz parte da sua vida ou faz você deixar de viver’?
“Tenho 34 anos de trabalho, sendo 13 como consultora empresarial e palestrante. Adoro o que faço e nunca me senti estressada, mesmo quando a carga de trabalho era grande. Não faço propaganda de meu trabalho na mídia ou através de folders; não tenho um site e mesmo assim minha agenda é cheia de compromissos. Meus clientes são meus fãs e eles é que me recomendam a outros. Minhas colunas em sites, matérias ou entrevistas em revistas são resultados da curtição com que executo meu trabalho. Pode acreditar nisso! Costumo dizer que ganho para me divertir: viajo pelo Brasil e fora dele fazendo palestras e ainda recebo... Uma benção!”, exemplifica Silvia.
Manter o trabalho em seu devido lugar, sem exceder limites e acabar prejudicando as demais áreas de nossas vidas é sempre um desafio. Porém, Layse ainda dá uma dica pra quem está insatisfeito com ele ou com a posição que ocupa profissionalmente: pense que isso é passageiro. A estratégia funciona principalmente para quem está no posto de estagiário ou de trainee. Tenha em mente que o que está fazendo é temporário e que está trabalhando para que, no futuro, possa realmente sentir prazer no que faz. Mas ainda dá um alerta: isso só funciona se o indivíduo em questão tiver objetivos traçados. Isso não adiantará de nada se você não souber o que quer.
Equilibrar o trabalho com os outros campos da vida (sexual, afetiva, física, mental, familiar) é fundamental. E não existem profissões específicas para ser um worklover. “Professores, cientistas, artistas, jornalistas, executivos ou encanadores podem encarnar o conceito igualmente. Também não é o salário que define um worklover, mas a relação que ele tem com o trabalho e o seu significado para o mundo. O worklover tem uma consciência mágica do seu trabalho, entende qual a transformação que o seu esforço gera na empresa, na sociedade ou no mundo. Apesar do nosso país ser economicamente pobre, as pessoas possuem um grande potencial criativo, gerando, como consequência, um grande número de apaixonados por seus trabalhos”, finaliza Silvia.

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 8.30

2010-01-20T13:46:00.001-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 9.15

2010-01-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 10.00

2010-01-20T07:06:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 10.45

2010-01-20T07:02:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 13.15

2010-01-20T06:58:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 14.00

2010-01-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 14.45

2010-01-20T02:03:00.000-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 15.30

2010-01-19T14:38:00.001-08:00

ENGLISH TASK-CONTEST 17.00

2010-01-18T14:10:00.000-08:00

2009-10-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

2009-10-03T16:50:00.000-07:00

2009-10-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

2009-10-03T03:54:00.000-07:00

2009-10-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Creative writing is not merely the practice of writing.
It is as well a mode of literary study where literature is defined as an activity of judgment, of deciding for oneself among possibilities, and study is defined as attending to something more than the evidence of one's approach.
As its best creative writing is an initiation into what the late Michael Oakeshott referred to as the conversation of mankind.
Young writers, that is, are urged to add their voice to an uninterrupted continuity of literary speech and make every sentence palpitate and thrill with the mere fascination of the syllabes and so give to readers a chance to join the writer in the solidarity of pain and love and the vision of the human possibility.
Unless literature is open to new voices it is a museum where everything is hushed and the lesson of creative writing's history is that if the writers do not attend to literature, no one will.