Talking in the Library

Happy 40th, Sesame Street

To kick off the celebration, I give you the Sesame Street theme song, as it was meant to be sung (this is from Season 1 which, for the record, I do not remember because I was not alive, yet.):

And now counting with John-John.  I love John-John because that kid could count.  Couldn't ignore the puppeteer, but he could count.

Farmers Market outside of Hale Library

I love the farmers market. I've tried growing edible things in the past, but failed miserably. The earth hates me and I hate it. It's sad, but I'm over it. Now I rely on the farmers market for my fresh and local produce. If you too are interested in local produce and can't wait until the next Manhattan Farmers Market, I suggest hitting the Willow Lake Student Farm stand outside of Hale Library. They set up every Tuesday around 11 am and are open until 3 pm or when they run out of stuff.

Watch this to learn more about their operation.

2009 MacArthur Geniuses announced--I'm still not one

The other day, my phone didn't ring.  Not unusual, but this time it didn't ring because I am, once again, not a MacArthur Genius.  Well, the MacArthur Foundation refers to them as Fellows, but we all know these folks are geniuses.  Consider Dr. Mahadevan.  He uses math to answer questions like, " how cloth folds when draped, how skin wrinkles, how flags flutter, how Venus flytraps snap closed."

I think I might be developing a crush on math.

The author Edwidge Danticat joined the MacArthur Genius ranks this year, too. Her name may be more familiar to you as she wrote, Krik? Krak!,  The Farming of Bones, Brother, I am Dying, and Breath, Eyes, Memory.  

For me, the absolute coolest thing about the MacArthur Fellow program is that it rewards people who are just doing what comes naturally to them. The geniuses aren't contorting themselves to meet particular requirements. For the most part, they are going about their daily lives, making paper by hand, analyzing poverty and developing interventions, and investigating unsolved murders from the Civil Rights era. Then, one day, probably in September, the phone rings and someone says, "Guess what?  You're a genius and we're going to give you $500,000.  No strings, just keep doing what you're doing."

I wish my phone would ring.

Meet the Bloggers!

Hello. My name is Tara the Cool and I am a Talking in the Library blogger. We've had this blog up and running for about a hundred (or five) years now, and I feel that it is time for you to meet the family.

UnRandom-Why is blogging hard?

Arggggggggggggggggggg!

Why is blogging so hard? It takes me like a week to post something that may be 10 sentences long (I started writing this Sept 1st). I think the problem is that I have public writing anxiety. If only one person is going to read it, I can zip something out super fast. If it is going out to the whole wide internets, I choke up.

I know, I know, you're saying to yourself, “But Tara, you are so well spoken! So eloquent! So educated sounding!”. Alas, it is not so. I probably fooled you by the confident way I talked about fantabulous things. I'm going to let you in on a little secret, sometimes I just make stuff up. I know, you are totally surprised. "Arting" and "germernator"-not words (that I know). I'm not a liar, per say. Sometime there just isn't the right word out to describe what I want to say. So I create a new one. I'm like a word artist that way. Which is totally fine to say in person, but just look ridiculous in print...Ok, maybe it sounds ridiculous too. Whatever.

Anyway, I try to write stuff for this lovely blog, but my public writing anxiety fouls me up every time. What if someone from the English department reads my post and says “Whoa, we gave her a degree? Take it back!”. Then my graduate school would be yanking my degree too. Then I'd lose my job and have to sing on the streets to pay my bills. That would suck. Unless I was discovered while singing on the street and got a record deal. That would be cool. Good. Now I have a fall back plan in case this blog post ruins my career.

Bleh! Why is blogging so hard? Why are my posts so random? I'm not sure how to end this, so I'll just end it with the promise that I'll try to do better next time.

THE END

Mathematically modelling zombie outbreaks

Long time readers of Talking may be aware that zombies concern me.  The Libraries have people who can handle disasters like ice storms, a tornado or water pouring through the building, but someone around here needs to be prepared for the zombies. I'm happy to be the person to do the background research for that person.  (I'll give you a second to parse that sentence.)

So, imagine my delight to discover that researchers sharing my concerns decided to mathematically model a zombie outbreak.  That is, when the zombie-virus blooms, what scenarios will contain or obliterate the virus?  (I vote obliterate it, by the way.)  Now, hold your scoffing.  It turns out that modelling a zombie infection isn't just a News of the Weird headline. The authors of this paper are mathematicians, including at least one who works in epidemiology--trying to figure out how HIV and malaria spread.

I like to keep the suspense going, so I won't tell you how to deal with the zombies.  But you can read all about it (except for the mathematical equations all over the paper, it's easy reading):
P. Munz, I. Hudea, J. Imad and R.J. Smith? When zombies attack!: Mathematical modelling of an outbreak of zombie infection (Infectious Disease Modelling Research Progress 2009, in: J.M. Tchuenche and C. Chiyaka, eds, pp133-150).

Note to self: mathematicians are very useful people to have around.  Must add some to my Rolodex.

Image credit:ZOMBIE_WALK_2008_039

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wvs/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

My dream summer job

Excuse me a minute while I geek out over the Library of Congress' Junior Fellows Summer Internship program. My favorite library school moments all involve behind-the-scenes access to the Library of Congress, National Archives, and other collections in the Washington, D.C. area.

I was lucky enough to take a preservation class that met at the LC (as we librarians like to call it) when I was in library school.  We went where the public never does.  That included the conservation lab where I stood this far away (imagine me spreading my arms about 4 feet) from the contents of Lincoln's pockets when he was shot.

There were also the days I spent in the National Archives (exploring papers relating to the World War II Japanese-American interment camps), and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (reading transcripts of interviews with Holocaust survivors), and the National Geographic television and video collection, where I spent an afternoon watching librarians catalog every aspect of every scene in the films (snow, caribou, sky, pine trees, aspen).  Oh, yes, and the summer taking a photographic collections class in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (fun fact: that big elephant really stinks up the place in the summertime when the air conditioning goes out.)

So you'll understand why, for the past four Augusts, I've gone a bit green-eyed with envy when I read about the Library of Congress Junior Fellows internship. Junior Fellows spend the summer chin-deep in "unprocessed" (re: not cataloged, or organized) copyright submissions and gift collections, processing them and making cool discoveries.  I like to think it's like Indiana Jones without the snakes, rats, and airplane propellers.  At the end of every summer, the fellows present their collections and cool findings.  Cool finds have included a patent medicine featured in a murder case, photos of the Romanoff family, and a first edition instrumental sheet music to Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag."

Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, our resource linking librarian, was one of those Junior Fellows before coming to K-State Libraries.  Some of her favorite items to process?  An Allman Brother's Band live performance cd and sheet music to the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban soundtrack.  What?  You thought the Library of Congress only had stodgy old stuff? Heck no. Although, honestly, the old stuff is wicked cool. 

Even as this summer winds down, it isn't too early to start thinking about internships that let you get elbow deep in cool collections for next summer. Here are a few sites to monitor for opportunities (heavily weighted towards where I would want to intern):

Library of Congress internships
National Archives internships
National Geographic internships
National Security Archive internships
Newberry Library internships
NPR internships
Smithsonian internships
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum internships

Image credit: Abraham Lincoln, Pres't U.S. by Alexander Gardner.  Made available on Flickr by the Library of Congress with no known copyright restrictions.

Yo grammer is wack

I got called out today for using incorrect grammar. I also got called out for abusing the office plants. Then threatened with the punishment of having to diagram a sentence until I learn to treat the plants better. Why am I sharing this story with you? A) in my head it is a funny story. B) it gives me a reason to share this YouTube video I recently discovered.

So what did I learn? Dumping too much tea into the plants makes the soil very acidic, which is apparently bad. If you are going to do it, don't leave the tea bag in the pot as evidence. And what's most importantly (yeah I wrote that on purpose), check your grammar. Or at least learn to spell.

Creating anti-gravity illusion

Michael Jackson was a patent filing man, yes, yes he was.  Turns out that freaky lean in his Smooth Criminal dance had a little crafty assistance via a Method and Means for Creating Anti-Gravity Illusion.

Have a brilliant idea or just curious how something works? You can search U.S. patents a couple of ways. The United States Patent and Trademark office permits you to search for patents filed in the U.S. back to 1790. Google (of course) has a pretty effective patent search, too.  As a big fan of our moving shelves, I found this patent for a Book Shelf Moving Apparatus filed in 1989 intriguing.  And here's a patent for an Article Transporting Robot (I think it's based on the Jetson's maid, Rosie.)

Searching for patents requires some patience and creativity.  I think there must be some law that requires a patent to be written in the most circular language possible.   I personally found the Google Patent search most useful, and really liked the "Referenced by" feature that links to later patents that cite the patent in question. 

Passing of Judith Krug

It just occurred to me that no one here posted about the passing of Judith Krug, who died of stomach cancer April 11th. Who is she, you ask? I'll be honest, I didn't who she was until she died, which is a shame. For those of you who, like me, are unfamiliar with her name, you may recognize the campaign she helped found, Banned Books Week. In memory of her work, I will share with you a random unrelated story tell you about one of my favorite banned books. Once upon a time, when I was in middle school…