Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 16

Hello all...

The Kansas Government Information blog celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr Day and Black (African American) History Month this issue with a wealth of resources on African Americans in Kansas and the U.S. Take a look at:

http://ksdocs.blogspot.com/2012/01/black-history-month-2012.html

The Kansas Government Information blog is a service of the State Library of Kansas.


Bill Sowers
Kansas Documents and Cataloging Librarian
State Library of Kansas
ksdocs@library.ks.gov

VAST TRial underway - I need to hear from you!

Trial on! Look in Pipeline>{Library}tab> for the VAST trial and send me your opinion!
___________________________________________________
Hi Micaela.

This works well on an Ipad browser, and all videos can be sent to a mobile device. I’m told we’re working on a mobile app for later 2012.

Hope this helps.

Thanks so much!

Best,

Susan
____________________________________________________
From: Micaela C Ayers [mailto:mayers@butlercc.edu]
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 1:10 PM
To: Susan Buczkowski
Subject: Re: The new VAST package - 21 discipline collections, 11,000 videos - a fantastic value!

Do you have a mobile application designed for this?

Thanks,

Micaela

Dear Kansas Legislator...

http://www.kslib.info/skyways-root/KSL/pdf/January%2010.pdf

2010 Census tools

As the data from the 2010 Census is released, these are timely changes.

http://blogs.census.gov/censusblog/2011/12/censusgov-transformation-pardon-our-dust.html

From the website:

“Some of the new features and tools users will experience are:

A prominent dashboard featuring our economic indicators
A top dropdown menu for quick navigation to key topics
A new interactive map showing a mash up of economic and demographic statistics
A “Stat of the Day” highlighting Census Bureau statistics across all the data we collect
A “mega footer” with links categorized under familiar topics and highly trafficked pages
A feature for users to provide feedback
More prominent placement of our latest releases”

Jeff Imparato, Public Services Librarian, and Chair of RIAT

Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

1515 W. 10th

Topeka, KS 66604-1374

"Crap Detection 101" for Students

Clive Thompson on Why Kids Can’t Search
By Clive Thompson November 1, 2011 | 12:30 pm | Wired November 2011

...Consider the efforts of Frances Harris, librarian at the magnet University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois. (Librarians are our national leaders in this fight; they’re the main ones trying to teach search skills to kids today.) Harris educates eighth and ninth graders in how to format nuanced queries using Boolean logic and advanced settings. She steers them away from raw Google searches and has them use academic and news databases, too.

But, crucially, she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online...

...Mind you, mastering “crap detection 101,” as digital guru Howard Rheingold dubs it, isn’t easy.

Librarian Spawned

Photo by Julie Clements

That's my kid! There's a good story in the El Dorado Times; here's a bit:

El Dorado, Kan. —

Rachel Ayers has always had a love of books and libraries. That passion led her to a new job as the librarian at the Towanda Public Library.

Ayers, of El Dorado, took over as the new librarian Dec. 5.

“I love books and libraries so it seemed like a good fit for me,” she said.

In the past she has worked at Bradford Memorial Library and libraries at Pittsburg State University, Kansas State University and Butler Community College.

Her mother had told her about this opening and she decided to apply.
...She wants to instill that love of books and reading to the youth.

“I’ve been a book lover from knee high,” Ayers said. “My mom read to us every night growing up.”

In addition, her mother has been a librarian for 16 years.

Ayers, who graduated from PSU with a creative writing English degree, said she always thought of libraries as a place to go for books, resources and things to do.

http://www.eldoradotimes.com/news/x645109392/New-Towanda-librarian-hopes-to-share-love-of-books

Kansas Collection Photographs

http://luna.ku.edu:8180/luna/servlet/kuvc1kcp~1~1

The Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas has a vast cornucopia of materials related to Kansas history. Some of their collections deal with the state's native wildflowers, maps, and aerial photographs of Kansas City. On this site, visitors will find over 250 images that document the history and peoples of the Sunflower State. The offerings here are part of a much larger collection, and over time the collection will grow to include several thousand digitized images.

Visitors can click on the Category Pages to look for items by "what", "where", or "when". The offerings here include images of harvesting machinery, home life, urban streetscapes, and political figures from the 19th century. [KMG]

>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2011. http://scout.wisc.edu/