Using a bookmobile to capture the spirit of reading

Jessamyn West made a blog entry on the following subject, and I thought I'd spotlight it here as well:

Tom Corwin celebrates reading with bookmobile

[Musician, author and documentarian]Corwin bought this decommissioned bookmobile in October, for $7,500, from a library in a suburb of Chicago after Marin County author Peter Laufer told him over dinner that he'd seen it on Craigslist and wished he could buy it.

"By the end of dinner, I had come up with this whole concept of buying the bookmobile myself," Corwin recalls, "and having authors join me, taking turns behind the wheel, and driving across the country interviewing people about the books that have touched their lives and creating a documentary film and a Web-based literacy outreach component. Peter Coyote was my first call, and he said, 'I love it. I'm in.' "

The piece has Daniel Handler (author of the Lemony Snicket 'Series of Unfortunate Events' books) driving along with Corwin.

Corwin explains that his project is really "an opportunity for the authors and readers to connect on their common love of books."

He will also weave into the documentary the history of bookmobiles, which started in Maryland in the early 1900s and are still thriving all over the country. He stopped at the ALA Conference in Chicago before he rushed back to San Francisco for Litquake (festival co-director and author Jane Ganahl is a big supporter of Corwin's project), and interviewed the librarians who drove his bookmobile for 18 years. They described the magical relationship they had with their patrons as they exposed them to new things through literature

For more on the project and fundraising for it, check out the website. The project also has a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks, Jessamyn, for the links.

It's not you, it's your germs

Could germs be making you fat?

Gut Bacteria Cause Overeating in Mice

That's not saying diet and exercise have no bearing on weight, but scientists have observed that transplanting gut bacteria from obese mice to those of normal weight results in the thinner mice gaining weight. So it may be one of the factors in obesity.

On the topic of diet and obesity, here's another scientific finding from today's news:

DNA test 'could predict most effective diet'

A simple DNA test may predict whether someone is more likely to lose weight on a low fat or a low carbohydrate diet, say US researchers.

The results from the small preliminary study of 101 women showed those on the best diet for their genes lost two to three times more weight than the rest.

Gee, guys

I've noticed that if I miss one day of blogging, my subscription numbers fall by about 6-10 people. I try to post every day, but sometimes I'm tired or otherwise occupied. Last night, for example, I had a lot of news feeds to catch up on but didn't find anything earth-shattering to write about, and by the time I made my way through hundreds of news stories, I was tired and went on to bed. Anyway, just hang on, and if there's a lull I'll post soon, or at least tell you if I'm having Internet issues, etc. (I am set up to blog from my phone, for example. Of course, those posts have to be very short due to limits of text messaging.)

My favourite medical disorder

Medical librarians have to have a familiarity with various medical terms and syndromes. Quite a few of us have a fascination with the myriad types of illnesses to be found in medical science. Here's a link to my own personal favourite, a serious disorder where a parent (usually the mother) will fake or induce illnesses in her child to gain attention for herself. She is usually a model parent, the last person one might expect to harm a child. For more, follow this link:

Munchhausen syndrome by proxy

A danger in being a medical librarian is hypochondria. So many syndromes have fairly common symptoms that it is easy, once you read about it, to feel that it might explain your own problems. I tend to both somatatise my emotions and mildly experience hypochondria (although most of the time I've been right, rather than wrong, on what ails me). Fortunately, Munchhausen by proxy isn't something that is subject to that, really. :)

This is such an absolutely cool and wonderful use of technology...and helpful, too

Roger Ebert gets ‘voice’ grandkids recognize: Programmers used movie commentary tracks to capture critic’s voice

Roger Ebert, the film critic, lost his voice when he had cancer surgery. He communicates through typing into a program that turns his text to speech. But a Scottish company went and sampled commentaries he made for DVDs and managed to program the voice to sound enough like Ebert to be recognisable.

Related: With no voice, Roger Ebert still communicates: Famed film critic lost ability to speak after numerous cancer surgeries

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Witch Hunt

Child Sorcery in DR Congo

"This is a country where is no social cohesion any longer, there is no sense of community, no sense of family," she says.

"So, whenever anything happens at family or community level it is very easy for them to blame someone who is powerless and seems to have no rights."

Ms Dentice went on tell me how serious sorcery allegations can be for the children concerned.

"A lot of these children are beaten up or burnt. Unfortunately it is very common," she says.

"I have just received this morning a report about a girl of 12-years-old who has been burnt because she was accused of witchcraft."

Hundreds of children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been accused of sorcery. Some are thrown out of their homes, some tortured or abused, while others die.

Fortunately making witchcraft accusations against children is now illegal there, but there is great difficulty getting people to change. Various agencies are trying to educate the populace that the accusations are untrue and harmful. But some authorities and even priests go along with them, although the government and the archbishop of the area oppose child witchcraft allegations.

You could help solve a mediaeval mystery

This is 15th Century English, but what does it say?


Do you like puzzles? Challenges? Then you may want to try your hand at this inscription. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Salisbury Cathedral is asking medievalists for help in deciphering a mysterious inscription hidden behind a monument for hundreds of years.

The inscription, painted in black gothic letters, is thought to be one of the earliest written in English in any church in Britain, but it is so faded that it is unreadable.

The letters were painted on a thin layer of limewash that was partially scraped off before the monument to Sir Henry Hyde, a Royalist martyr executed during the Civil War, was erected in the early 1660s. In places, all that is left is a dark stain on the stonework where the paint leached through.

Cool, says the book geek

By Japanese art director and copywriter Masashi Kawamura, the Rainbow In Your Hand flip book has an image of the color spectrum against a black background on each page. As you flip through the pages, it creates an illusion of a rainbow that seems to be suspended in the air above the book.

Here's another view:


Thanks to Bibliofuture of LISNews for the link to the first video and the information behind it.

How very...odd

NASA: Chile quake shortened earth's days, bumped planet off axis

No, it's not crackpot science--it's from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA. Give a bunch of engineers a 'what-if' scenario and they calculate things. In this case, we're talking microseconds and milliarcseconds, but it should be measurable over time. Anyway, I did learn what the Earth's figure axis was in all that. :)

These guys have no business mucking with education

although if the South Dakota representatives are also representative of their state's education system, then it needs help, indeed--but not from them.

Astrological? Really?

One of my friends firmly believes that your ability to vote should be based on how high a degree you have. I don't go that far, but I would suggest a standard literacy, science, and geography test be given to all political candidates at the state or federal level. Hint: 'I can see Russia from my house!' is not a valid answer.