I’m leaving today for Internet Librarian in Monterey. The weather has been great the past few years so I’m hoping for the same this year. IL is always packed with new people, new ideas and great takeaways.

I may stop on the way down at the Gilroy shops. I am in need of a jacket and maybe a pair of shoes. I prefer a leisurely drive and I can’t check in until 4 p.m. anyway. The family is going to my oldest son’s soccer game against Cal. We beat Stanford on Friday night at Stanford. Sweet!

This year’s Blog Action Day is about Climate Change. How can one person make a difference? Reading through many the posts today, I am impressed with the variety in the effort of bloggers. My efforts seems small in comparison. Here are my baby steps:

• Be an example to my children everyday.
• Talk about climate change and what we can do whenever the subject comes up
• Reuse, reduce, recycle as much as possible
• Use public transportation when possible
• Ride a bike
• Consume less
• Grow my own food or buy local

Nice article here from young adult, Robert Kingett, on teacher reading selection and the use of audiobooks for visually impaired students. As Robert rightly points out, there are many ways to learn including audio-learning. Why on earth would teachers restrict blind or nearly blind students from using audiobooks to “read” their assigned books?

I hope this isn’t a standard practice. Teachers?

It only took me twice to get it right. Both “tests” went through. Nice! Now if my (iPhone) battery will hold.

In other news, the New York Times had a nice mention of Alameda County Library. Will add the link when I get my computer to stop churning the “color wheel of death”.

Update: NYTimes link

I just sent a test post from my iPhone then logged in here. The new post hasn’t shown up yet. I’m not sure how long it is supposed to take. The process is easy enough that if it works well, I might do short posts with the iphone. Longer posts would be tedious to have to use the iPhone keyboard.

These prizes are funny and thought-provoking. If you have never heard about them, do take a moment to read some. Prizes were given out on October 1st. This is the 19th year! Here are samples from this year:

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over

More . . .

I have just finished Breath of God by Harry Turtledove. It is his second book in this series. I missed Beyond the Gap, which was the first. There wasn’t a problem with not having read the first although I usually don’t read out of order.  I liked the book enough to continue reading. In the meantime I have started (barely) another Turtledove series, this time from the beginning. It is The Imager, a 2009 title.

On a completely different thought, tomorrow is my sister’s surgery. I’m sending love and good thoughts her way.

I always wanted a daughter. With recent circumstances I am not so sure. Now, my sister has just been diagnosed with cancer. As my son would say…WTF? I’m not sure which is worse having cancer or hearing that your sister does. I was so hoping that she would be the one to not get any major health issues. All my nieces need to be diligent in checking on their health. sigh.

Totally off-topic.

The special topic for the New York Times Magazine this past Sunday (8-23-09)was “Saving the women of the World”. I read cover-to-cover.  The main article by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn was particularly stunning. Statistics on the number of women missing worldwide is between 60 and 107 million. Million.

Examples about women using $25 to start their own businesses and thereby educating their children and putting food on the table were just amazing. I was particularly taken by the microloan programs that are either loaning or gifting women very small amounts of money (to us anyway) in India. The women use the money for business, better/more food for the family and education. Their husbands typically use income for alcohol and prostitution.

The correlation between poverty and how women are treated in the country was striking. If women are treated badly, the area is more likely to not only be poor but will be a hotbed for rising terrorism. My summary in no way does the article justice. Read this issue.

The title is

“100 Best Blogs for Librarians of the Future“

but they are really for all librarians NOW.

via Learn-gasm