Rhodarian

Library Journal’s 4th Design Institute “Going Green” will be held next door in Connecticut on Thursday, December 4. The full day session is presented by LJ in partnership with the Connecticut State Library and Connecticut Library Consortium.  A think tank on green design, the session  brings together leading architects, designers, librarians, and vendors to hone in on the challenges and solutions faced in making libraries sustainable.

Afternoon breakout sessions led by sponsoring architects will focus on pre-selected, real-life challenges submitted in advance by attendees and chosen by LJ.  In December 2007, the Essex Public Library in Tiverton was one of the design challenges for the LJ Design Institute in Chicago.

Each librarian attendee will have a chance to have their design challenge be the focus of one of the six architect-led breakout sessions. The design challenges do not have to focus solely on going green, but the breakout sessions will incorporate green solutions into the design. Potential design challenges must be submitted no later than October 28.

Registration to the Design Institute is free and open to librarians who are in the bond, pre-bond or early planning stage of a library construction or renovation project.  Attendance is limited to 100. This is a great way to learn more about green design!

L-TV 122 Science Fiction and Fantasy
Fran Farrell-Bergeron hosts East Providences’s Rumford Branch librarian Denise Inman and Westerly Public Library director Kathryn Taylor in a discussion on what makes good science ficiton and how science ficiton differs from fantasy.

Sunday, October 5        - 12:30 pm
Monday, October 6        -   2:00pm
Wednesday, October 7    - 9:00 pm

COLA, the Rhode Island Coalition of Library Advocates, is sponsoring a Friends Group Workshop.  Boosting Libraries: A Conversation about Advocacy, facilitated by Carol Grant, will take place on Saturday October 18 from 10 am to noon at the William Hall Library in Cranston.

Carol Grant, Chief of Operations for the City of Providence from 2003-07, was the first chairwoman of the Rhode Island Airport Corporation and a former executive at Textron and at NYNEX in Rhode Island.  She has received numerous awards for leadership and volunteerism.

To register, contact cola.rhodeisland.chair@gmail.com by October 11.  Be sure to include the friends group you represent, your name, address, phone number and email.  You will receive an email confirmation.

Visit the COLA website for more information.

L-TV 123 Travel Books
Fran Farrell Bergeron interviews L-TV co-host Kathryn Taylor about Kathryn’s worldwide travels and adventures and the books that provide good insights before and after each journey.

Sunday, September  28     -  12:30 pm
Monday,  September 29     -    2:00 pm
Wednesday, October 1       -   9:00 pm

Barrington Public Library (RI) is one of 50 public and academic libraries to receive grants of $500 plus supporting program materials for the FRONTLINE/World Social Entrepreneurs Series.

The grant funds will promote the screening and discussion of one the series’ short documentary films on innovative social entrepreneurs around the world. The selected libraries will use the funds to host a screening and discussion of a FRONTLINE/World Series film and, in partnership with a local or regional organization engaged in issues of social entrepreneurship, host at least one related program (panel, lecture, forum or other format). Read more about the FRONTLINE program. Frontline developed the program in cooperation with the American Library Association Public Programs Office.

Donna DiM

New versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox and the new Google Chrome make the browser war interesting again.

Earlier this month Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 beta, promoted as Microsoft’s new standards compliant browser.  Seems the previous iterations of IE weren’t quite as standards compliant as they should be.  To help out all the poor souls who designed web pages to look good in previous versions of IE, Microsoft has been kind enough to provide code to make IE8 emulate IE7.  Thus pages specifically designed to look a certain way in IE can still look that way.  As I prefer to see pages render the same way regardless of the browser, it’s great to hear Microsoft is finally releasing a standards compliant browser.  The browser is still in beta, so if you really must use IE, I’d wait for them to work a few more kinks out.  Word on the street is that IE8 consumes more RAM than Windows XP (between 350-400 Mb, which is a lot of RAM if your computer only has a gig or two . . . )

My browser of choice is Firefox, standards compliant from the beginning.  The newest version, version 3, was released in July.  It’s a sleeker ‘fox - pages seem to load quicker, bookmark organization is easier and the new “Smart Location Toolbar” saves the titles of websites, not just the URLs, making it possible to search your browsing history by term.  For example, I can type in OLIS on the toolbar and the name and url of the OLIS website will pop up.  (This is much cooler than it sounds, particularly if you have a less than helpful address for your website which might contain, at best, your delivery code.)  Security is also improved (though Firefox has always had a well-deserved reputation for being more secure than IE.)  On the downside, some features look a little more like IE, like the now hard to see pop-up blocker or security warnings that slink along under the toolbars.  But that should make it easier for IE holdouts to convert to Firefox.  Plus, there’s a universe of fun and functional plug-ins for the browser that allows you to configure your Fox anyway that works for you. If you haven’t checked out Firefox, Version 3 provides more reasons than ever.

But wait, there’s more.  Google has just entered the fray with its new Chrome browser, and it’s all the buzz on web.  While I haven’t tried it yet, it sounds like Google is taking browsing to a new level.  Frustrated by the slow development of other browsers, Google has put a lot of thought and energy into a browser that will run multiple processes simultaneously, a Web 2.0 browser.  If this is the type of thing that excites you, read more about it in the easy to understand comic book intro to Chrome (or is it a graphic novel?).

If you just want to know why Google is entering the browser war, it’s to makes access to the world of Google information, and by default, web information, that much easier and faster.  Pages load quicker, especially pages that use javascript.  As many of the Google apps (eg, Google Docs, Gmail, Google calendar) use javascript, that means these applications run much faster on Chrome.  So, if you’re using Chrome and Google applications, you might not need to bother with those Microsoft products anymore . . .

Google Chrome has just been released, so you might want to wait a little on this too.  And if you use a Mac, you’ll have to wait because there isn’t a Mac version yet.

And that’s not all.  Opera, now on Version 9.5, is a great browser that lead the way in accessible browsing and has some great web developer features, not to mention several flavors of mobile browser.  And Apple’s Safari browser, available for both Macs and PCs is a viable alternative and provides a fast way to access the web.

So brace yourself, a new salvo has been fired in the browser wars.  While you can keep on using your old faithful browser, you’ll get a whole lot more out of the web if you upgrade to one of the new browsers.  Right now, I’m still recommending Firefox for it’s flexibility, security and useful plug-ins, and I use it on both my PC and my Mac.  But stay tuned . . .

(You can learn more about web searching and browser add ons at two upcoming OLIS CEs: The Evolving Web: Search Engines, Browser Alternatives, and Accessing the Deep Web on October 22 and A Gaggle of Google Tools on December 11.)

The National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association announce the opportunity to apply for a We the People “Picturing America” Bookshelf.

The We the People Bookshelf, a collection of classic books for young readers, is a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ (NEH) We the People program, conducted in cooperation with the American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office.

Each year, NEH identifies a theme important to the nation’s heritage and selects books that embody that theme to build the We the People Bookshelf. The theme for the 2008-2009 Bookshelf is “Picturing America.” Online applications will be accepted September 2, 2008 – January 30, 2009.

Learn more

With questions, please contact the ALA Public Programs Office 

L-TV 129 Cornerstone of the Community: Burrillville’s New Library
Debbie Barchi interviews Sandra Mundy, director of Burrillville’s new Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library, and G. Wayne Miller, chairperson of the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library Board of Trustees and member of the building committee, about how and why the new library building came to be.

Sunday, September 21       -      12:30 pm
Monday, September 22       -        2:00pm
Wednesday, September 24  -       9:00 pm

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is presenting a webinar on September 25, 2008, at 1 pm ET, on the New Naturalization Test. The free webinar, hosted by WebJunction, will provide an overview of the newly redesigned naturalization test.  The program will cover the necessary skills and instructional methods required by instructors who assist students to take the test.  The new test will replace the current set on October 1, 2008.

Registration required: http://tinyurl.com/6gpjvw.