League bowling: No opponent but ourselves

Shawn Garrison, Nathan DeHart, Jonathan Donihue and I bowled Tuesday for the Lake County Record-Bee "Killer Bees." We bowled unopposed but had to come within 40 pins of our average. We met the goal and had an enjoyable time. I beat my average of 78 pins during the first and third games.

T-shirt repurposing: ‘I am a librarian’

“I guard your right to privacy. I protect your freedom to read. I support intellectual freedom. I am a librarian.” To create this garment, I took the logo from a T-shirt, and highlighted it with a “frame” of floral fabric. The layered logo-within-frame was then applied to another shirt. Hand-painted leaves were done by the vendor who sold me the shirt.

DSM-5 absorbs autism mileposts into ‘autism spectrum disorder’

“Autism Awareness” puzzle-piece ribbon magnet on a car

The American Psychiatry Association Board of Trustees voted Dec. 1 to approve the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fifth edition (DSM-5).

Study guide available for The New Jim Crow

The Unitarian Universalist Association has released a study guide for its 2012 2013 UUA Common Read selection, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, 2012):

“In this remarkable book, civil rights advocate and litigator Michelle Alexander asserts that crime-fighting policies and systems in the U.S., such as the ‘war on drugs’ and the incarceration system disproportionately and intentionally affect Americans of color. She describes multifaceted, lifelong discrimination and disenfranchisement that affect people who are branded ‘felon.’”

The UUA Common Read invites participants to read and discuss the same book in a given period of time. Its previous selections, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel and The Death of Josseline by Margaret Regan, are both available in our UUCLC Lending Library. As stated by the UUA:

“A Common Read can build community in our congregations and our movement by giving diverse people a shared experience, shared language, and a basis for deep, meaningful conversations.”

The UUA Bookstore offers group discounts on The New Jim Crow. Study guides for UUA Common Read selections can be accessed from http://www.uua.org/re/multigenerational/read/index.shtml.

Cross-posted from the UUCLC Lending Library Wordpress blog

Hands-on exploration with ‘makerspace’

Image source: Lake County Library on Facebook

As reported on American Libraries magazine’s AL Focus, a Brighton, Colo. library is gearing up for its “makerspace” grand opening on Dec. 5:

“Makerspaces are creative community workspaces where patrons have the option to build and experiment with art, craft, and technology projects while sharing tools and ideas with other community members. The makerspace at Anythink Brighton will be geared toward teens, offering a space where they can get free access to state-of-the-art tools and materials for crafts, robotics, textile design, digital photography, and 3D printing. Also included is a ‘computer guts’ area where teens can take apart a computer to learn how its various parts work together.”

With my background of crafting and do-it-yourself, the “makerspace” strongly appeals to me in the field of library service.