Banned Books Week

Welcome to Banned Books Week!

This annual nation wide event celebrates the first amendment and highlights the attempts at censorship on certain books. So to help celebrate the freedom to read, our library has pulled out 16 books which have been banned somewhere, but not here! These include the following:

1984 by George Orwell
As I Lay Dying
Candide by Voltaire
Brave New World
Catcher in the Rye
East of Eden
Fahrenheit 451
Gulliver’s Travels
In Cold Blood
Leaves of Grass
Lolita
Madame Bovary
Native Son
To Kill a Mockingbird
Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week.

Words Have Concequences

This title is in reference to a recent Newsweek article by Jon Meacham. In it he points out that "politics is about a civilized combat, a competition of ideas conducted in a climate of respect." Over the last year, and even over the last 10 years, too much political rhetoric has become a polarizing, name calling playground. But it is not productive. Name calling of our politicians demeans the name caller and confuses the real issues. We need to have real conversations about the issues our elected representatives are voting on. We need to listen to their opinions before we yell things at them. I hope you can read Meacham's article and work with more towards more dialogue and less name calling.

Newsweek Sept 28 p. 8

Study for the SAT on facebook

If you are a part of Facebook, then you know that many applications on the social networking site are really awesome and a lot of them are just garbage.

I have found one that is educational and helps you increase your vocabulary: essential if you need to take the SAT or GRE. Check it out here.

World Digital Library

Sometimes, you need more information or images than our library has ready access too. Luckily, the Library of Congress is on our side. They have brought together digital images and historical and geographic information from around the world. You can find out all about it at http://www.wdl.org/en/

Hints for Avoiding the Flu

There is a lot of flu going around town right now. Although a flu or a cold can hit anyone, many people are especially worried about H1N1 (swine flu) because it is different enough that few people have any immunity to it. This means that it is striking younger people more than any other group. To protect yourself, be extra careful around sick people and wash your hands really well.

If you get sick, expect the typical stuff: fever, body aches, runny nose, fatigue sore throat. The virus will be contagious for a week, so hunker down at home and wear a medical mask if you have to go somewhere. Drink a lot of fluids and get lots of rest. You will feel better in no time (we hope).

Beautiful new book for the library

Thanks to the generosity of our Trustee Rick Bennett, our library now owns the beautifully illustrated local treasure: A Rare Botanical Legacy: The Contributions of Rudy and Arthur Van Deventer. Rick also served as co-Editor on the book, along with Susan Calla.

This Coffee-table style book showcases the local plant and flower illustrations and descriptions by early twentieth century couple living in Crescent City. It also gives a biography of them, and Ruby's descriptions of the flowers and plants showcased by her husband's drawings.

The originals are in the Del Norte County Historical Museum, safely preserved, but out of the reach of the curious. The book, however, is at your college library ready to be checked out.

Dogs and Humans

Scientists often choose to run cognitive and behavioral tests on animals before or instead of testing human subjects due to legal and ethical restrictions on the whole experimenting on humans thing. Although primates are often used because of their genetic proximity to humans, some researchers in Budapest are favoring canines instead for some interesting reasons.
Primarily, canines participate in human social interactions more readily than other animals. Many think that modern dogs are a good demonstration of co-evolution, however, at least one scientist does not believe they have evolved past the gray wolf, since they are still the same species and can interbreed. However, wolves do not know how to make a guilty face like this one used to elicit a human response, not a canine one. The article in its entirety can be found here.

Animal Cams

Thought some of you animal lovers out there might enjoy seeing these animal cams.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/museumofanimalperspectives/

They are short videos of what an armadillo, scorpion , wolf, cow and other animals actually see as they are running around being themselves. Very fun.