Keeping up with the Library

Have you ever wondered who the first Vatican Librarian was? Or why he was chosen? You (or someone you know) may have had a conversation with Fiona or myself on how to find books, either for purchase or to borrow from the library. There are many places you can look to find this information. Or lastly, if you aren't already using a feed reader to keep up with the news you like to follow, you can go to one place to find out how to do this. This month's library newsletter, Scriptoria, has the answer to those questions as well as many others.

Passing of an era

Somehow, all of February escaped us! I also noticed that it's been a while since I've last posted here. Well, the Rocky Mountain News has left us, just a few months shy of turning 150 years old. The library still subscribes to the Denver Post, but you may be left wondering where else you might turn for daily news.

Well, if you're reading this blog, you might be reading others as well. You may also have been referring to the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News online. There are many of these websites that use RSS feeds to publish their pages. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is really just a tool that allows the creators of these pages to make available their frequently updated information. If a website, blog, or YouTube page updates frequently, they probably use an RSS feed to publish their information.

So what, you might be asking? How does this affect me? If you are already looking in various locations for news, you have the ability to condense all that into one location. A feed aggregator brings all this published information into one conveniently packaged place. The aggregator that I use (and Fiona too) is Bloglines. No more remembering to look at 20, 30, even 40 news sources daily, a service like Bloglines brings it all together for you.

Stop by the library anytime, and Fiona or I can show you how this technology works. This is a way of having information come to you, rather than remembering to go out and find it. For example, you could subscribe to "Saint of the Day" via Catholic.org, the Vatican's YouTube feed, the Catholic News Agency news reports, the Zenit News Agency, and even this blog. This is one stop shopping at its finest!

CPSIA and books

In case you haven't been following the news lately, there is a new law going into effect on February 10th that was passed in reaction to the lead in children's toys scare. Basically this law requires anyone selling or distributing items intending for children under 12 to have them certified to be lead free. Sounds good on the surface until those of us in the book and library world found out that this legislation has been determined to include books. The testing must be done by only select laboratories and even though books do not have lead in them, the publishers have been unable to get an exemption from this law. The American Library Association has also been unable to get a determination if libraries are exempt from the law either and if it goes into effect as written, will instruct libraries to either remove all childrens books or make libraries off-limits to children.

To read more about how this might affect you I recommend reading the blog, Musings from a Catholic Bookstore.

The law goes into effect on February 10th and if you have any kid’s products that haven’t been certified, you are required to destroy them. We have created this site to keep track of Catholic and other Christian vendor certifications so that you don’t have to contact everyone yourselves. If you do contact a vendor, please send us the information so we can update this site and save the vendors from having to answer the same question hundreds of times.

I could go on and on (and I do on my personal blog) but I thought it might be a good idea to give our faithful readers a heads up here too

End of the Semester Blues

I know everyone around here is anxious to get final exams over with and go home for the holidays but this is just a reminder than all library items need to be returned this week. If you need materials for next semester please be sure and renew them starting on Tuesday.

If you need to listen to something inspirational, try one of my favorite radio shows, Speaking of Faith. This week Krista Tippett has a conversation with Parker Palmer in which they explore human and spiritual aspects of economic downturn.

You might want to check out Krista's book from the library also.

Cheers and Merry Christmas to all of our wonderful patrons

fiona

Free Online Courses

Sometimes I just can't get enough of the WEB 2.0 stuff that goes on around here. I've been twittering lately and today I got a twitter feed from another librarian providing a link to free open-source non-credit classes at Yale University - I'm ready to take Game Theory but followers of this blog might be interested in Introduction to the Old Testament or the Philosophy Department class on Death - for more free open source courses from the best US universities try Dan Colman's list at Openculture

Avast me hearties!

Thar be pirates everywhere today - some just be looking for the pillaged treats and others be looking fer treasure

if ye be hunting using our treasure map, be sure it be back here by 6 bells (3o'clock) as fine booty awaits!

Labor Day Weekend

Just as you were getting settled in, it is time to close the library for the Labor Day weekend. We will close at 6pm on Friday and re-open at 8am on Tuesday. Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather.