The Value of Books in a Tough Economy

"Let them eat cake... well, brioche, then..." (Rousseau)

From "Shelf Awareness", current events for booksellers, Sept. 29:

The Cape Cod Times unearthed some bookselling wisdom for our times to highlight its report on NEIBA's fall trade show: "Apparently, there's an old saying that in a tough economy, booze and books continue to sell. The former, because people don't stop drinking no matter what,and the latter because books represent a purchase of lasting value, plus you can find anything in the world within the covers of a book..
."

And today, Sept 30:

"Calling the Old Book Shop, Morristown, N.J., "a time capsule," the Daily Record noted that owners Chris Wolff and Virginia Faulkner "trace the beginning of their shop to 1915. They purchased it in 1974 . . . The shop is more than shelves of books and collections of postcards, maps and journals. It is a place where the value of people's stories is expressed in a variety of ways."

"People hang on to books more than nearly any other thing," Wolff said. "This is time travel. This is a time capsule. Every book is a time capsule.""

From LearningTimes.net

Dear Colleague,

I thought you would be interested in hearing a recent conversation on
developing critical thinking skills. In this podcast, Stephen D.
Brookfield joins fellow authors Rena Palloff, Keith Pratt and Jonathan
Finkelstein to discuss fostering critical thinking in the online
classroom.

The conversation will interest anyone looking for ways to help online
learners improve their depth of understanding, their ability to
challenge or confirm assumptions, and their openness to thinking
critically. (And as a special bonus, music lovers will appreciate
hearing how being in a band can teach us to model critical thinking.)

http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com/blog/

This podcast is a pre-cursor to the second annual Jossey-Bass Online
Teaching and Learning Conference to be held completely online October
7-8, 2008, during which Brookfield will address this topic further as
part of his online keynote address. A special pre-conference workshop,
hosted by Fielding Graduate University, will be held on October 6, 2008.

For more information visit: http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com

Enter discount code sqd2 when prompted, to get a $10 savings.

Gain an instant library:

Registrants receive their choice of ANY three books from the
Jossey-Bass Online Teaching & Learning series upon registration, for no
additional fee.

http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com/register

Many group pricing and sponsorship opportunities are available. To find
out more click this link to contact us:

http://www.onlineteachingandlearning.com/contact

We hope to see you online in October!

Warm regards,

John Walber

Book for a Month

Bless their hearts, HarperCollins is promoting Neil Gaiman's new book "The Graveyard Book" due out on Sept. 30 by providing access to his "Neverwhere" for 30 days.

"Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but shrewish fiancee. Then one night he stumbles upon a girl lying on the sidewalk, bleeding. He stops to help her, and his life is changed forever.
Soon he finds himself living in a London most people would never have dreamed of — a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels."

For those of us who like fiction "with bite" this is just the thing.

Or try an Audio story: "A Study in Emerald" by the same author. Enjoy!

Micaela

Librarians on the Loose...in Andover

New service in Andover, at the 5000 building! Butler librarians Judy Bastin (shown) and Teresa Mayguines are in the building from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. each Tuesday and Thursday. Look for their expert help and build a case for another library facility in the 5000 building. There's not a single college library from the east side of Sedgwick County until you get to El Dorado. These gals are bringing the library to you!

The Case for the Book

"Just published by FMR in Bologna is an, as it were, ground-breaking volume on Michelangelo. Its cover is real marble and shows in miniature the Madonna della Scala, a bas-relief from the Casa Buonarotti.

With original photographs by Aurelio Amendola, Michelangelo: La dotta mano (Michelangelo: The learned hand) is guaranteed for 500 years, weighs 21kg and costs $155,000 (£87,000)."

And that's just one of many interesting tidbits from "Beautiful, Perfect, Supreme Chunk of Paper" as Peter Crawshaw from Lovereading.co.uk writes, reported in BBC World News America Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2008

I especially like his note that new media do not replace but merely come alongside longstanding media. TV hasn't replaced radio, e-books don't replace books. Here's his elegant expression of this concept:

"No new communications technology has ever wholly replaced its predecessor. Handwriting did not replace speech, wood-block print did not replace handwriting. Radio did not succeed print. Television lives side-by-side with radio. And so on.

What happens is that any new medium changes our perceptions of existing media and we adjust our behaviour and taste to fit."

I suspect the same is true in other areas beside communications technology - teaching? transportation?

Micaela

Student Engagement....

Are students getting dumber or are the academics working with them just getting more out of touch with those they teach? That debate has been hanging around for a while and now the noise level is increasing by more than a few decibles.

--Dumber Students Or Out Of Touch Academics

By StevenB on thomas_benton

"For example, I have continued to lecture in many of my courses, but I have gradually learned to make lectures more stimulating and interactive by weaving together multiple threads of analysis using images, video, audio, artifacts, and readings — and asking the students to perform those readings. The lectures are designed to make a sustained argument, but they also have multiple points of entry, so that students are not lost after a momentary lapse of attention. Added to that are intervals of rest — in which concentration can slacken for a few minutes, as concepts are considered and discussed — before the harder analysis is resumed.

Such lectures have to be carefully prepared, but they are also spontaneous, and always open to interaction, because that's what enables students to make connections on their own." (Benton)

This is a thoughful response to the issue, and bears reading. In view of Butler's new grant to look at student engagement, we could start the research here.

--Micaela

The ART of Teaching

Opinion
Lesson Plans: Teaching Without a Script
By By Matthew Kay
Published: September 14, 2008
Matthew Kay explains why young, enthusiastic teachers like himself are drawn to his school: classrooms where art, performance and learning are allowed to meet.

This link will ensure access to the article, even after it becomes part of the NYT archive. Thank you, NY Times!

By the way, I have always wondered why my degree from the University of Kentucky is in Library Science, granted from the School of Library and Information Science. I strongly feel a case could be made for another degree in Library Arts... which is more my inclination and practice, anyway.

Micaela