Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay



By Tatiana de Rosnay



November 30, 2011                                                                                     

A few months ago, a friend of mine recommended "Sarah's Key" to me. I remember her saying at the time that she never knew about this event in France concerning Jews. I certainly knew that there were Jews transported out of France to the concentration camps. However, the event called Velodrome d'Hiver or Vel d'Hiv as it was known took place in Paris on July 16, 1942. This is not known or taught by most historians here and the French are ashamed of what happened and choose not to discuss or make much of it. This is a book of historical fiction surrounding this event which did occur. Two stories are meshed together-one Jewish girl who lived through the horror and the woman in modern times investigating it. It will touch your heart and soul that you will not forget. Give this book a read and I promise you that you will not be able to put it down.


Quote of the day

" A word is worth a thousand pictures."

                                   -Elie Wiesel

My Favourite Book of all time!

A timeless classic that anyone can enjoy!

Sunday, November 27, 2011                                                               

Today's post will feature my favourite book of all time. It is "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. I was first exposed to this book in high school in the 1970's and it is still part of the curriculum now. When we used to read aloud a chapter a class, I always read ahead as it was so interesting to me. When I first watched the movie with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, it was like he was born for the part. I have always looked up to the morals of Atticus and his family as they seemed to be ahead of their time in regards to their attitudes about people in general. I sincerely hope they never take it out of schools as I feel it is necessary for children and adults to be exposed to these kind of stories and how they relate to life.

Quote for the day:

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11, spoken by the character Atticus

Libya Now Able to Read Anything it Wants!

Tuesday, November 22,2011

When Moammar Gadhafi was in power for 42 years, he held a tight rein on reading material especially books with homosexuality and religious books. Even detailed maps of the capital were banned because of the dictator's paranoia. The young people did not learn about the history of Libya as Moammar Gadhafi wanted the people to worship him and not know the famous Libyans.

Libyans are thirsty for a Gadhafi free education and culture. These books are now on display at an exhibition in Tripoli. By the way, they burned Moammar's green book-one they won't have to see again!

Quote of the day 

"Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library.  The only entrance requirement is interest."  ~Lady Bird Johnson

Let's Ban Print Books in Academic Institutions!!!!!!!

Friday November 18, 2011

Well, according to an article in "The Chronicle of Higher Education", South Korea plans to digitize all of its elementary and secondary school curriculum by the year 2015. This is occurring because the price of e-readers is doing down and the fact that Amazon has announced that it sells more e-books than print books.

Most items that an undergraduate needs to read is available in electronic form. According to Marc Prensky, he feels that nonelectronic books on campus should be banned or put in a museum. The advantages of a total electronic library would be:

1) Weaning students and scholars off the physical books of the past, colleges can find ways to ensure that they can achieve all results they want with integrated tools of the future.

2) Book and commentaries on books would start to be connected in ways they are not now.

3) Ideas would be freed from the printed page.

Print books in higher learning need to be in a museum and academics need to move to the tools of the future.

Not sure how I feel about all this but maybe I know how people felt when we moved away from clay tablets and scrolls. I mean I like learning new techniques but the comfort of a physical book would be hard to give up !

"The World Digital Library is an attempt to go beyond Eurpoe and the Americas... into cultures where the majority of the world is"

-James Billington

Bed Bugs in a Library Book!!!!!!!

Well it seems bed bugs are not only in in hotels and homes anymore! One patron of the Mount Pleasant branch of the Vancouver library system, in October 2011, found that out one day when he was reading his book from the library and a bed bug crawled out of the book and onto his hand. He asked his wife what it was and then he googled bugs and found out it was a bed bug. He then opened the book again and found more bed bugs in it.He and his wife frantically tore the house apart vacuuming, laundering and found no bedbugs.

The library system has no plans to close the library at this time as the system has over 10 million items. It will continue to monitor the situation. The patron claims his house is bug free!

Quote for the day-

"There may be "bugs" in technology but finding them in your print book just ain't cool!"
                                                                                   -Carla Lamontagne

See you next time!

Gaming @ the Library

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Video games and gamers have found a new haven-academic, public and even school libraries! Libraries by providing gaming programs have gained users in  previously difficult target ages- tweens and teens. Gaming programs is one of the most popular service libraries are providing. The do so by having video game clubs and hosting tournaments.They also have areas for game usage in the library as well as being take games home for 1 week.
Libraries are safe places for kids and young adults giving them a place to gather and talk with friends. As a result, many libraries have noticed an increase in children's and Young Adult books being checked out as well.

Well that is all for today and I'll leave you with a relevant quote to today's topic:

"Libraries enable the past to talk to the future!"
                                           -Edward Cornish

Saturday, November 5, 2011

     A few weeks ago, I subscribed to "Library Link of the Day"and today's excerpt came from the "Washington Post and Business Technology". It stated that Amazon.com on Thursday, November 3, 2011, is starting a lending library for Kindle owners that will allow them to borrow one electronic book per month. Here's the catch-borrowers have to subscribe to Amazon's Prime service which supplies free two-day shipping and streaming movies for $79.00 per year. This library, according to Amazon, has more than 5000 books, that includes bestsellers.
     The six biggest publishers-Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, MacMillan, Simon & Schuster and Hachette are not participating as they have battled with Amazon over whether the publisher or Amazon gets to set the retail price of the books.
     According to Amazon, it is paying the participating publishers for the right to lend the books for a fixed price.It is paying the wholesale price every time a book is lent out in some cases.
     However, the books cannot be read on phones, PCs or tablet computers, despite the fact that there are Kindle apps for the mentioned devices.
     Oh, and I almost forgot-Kindle users got access to electronic books from public libraries. Those CAN be read in the Kindle apps.

     I am not sure what to think of this as it seems like Amazon is going out its original role as a bookseller.
     Bye for now!

Knowledge is free at the library. Just bring your own container.- Unknown