Self-Help Is Just Around the Corner

Read April Cushing's complete hilarious column in this week's Daily News Transcript.

Excerpt:

It all started with the car window that wouldn’t close. My kids make fun of my minivan, which I’ve defended to the last dent. Until, that is, I tried to raise the passenger window on a recent Monday morning and it wouldn’t budge.

I enjoy a gale-force breeze as much as the next passenger, but halfway home from a weekend on the Cape I’m burrowing into my hoodie ready to join my canine companion in the back seat when I glance over my shoulder and, uh oh, no Duffy. As I said, I blame it on the window. Since I’m due at the Morrill Memorial Library reference desk at 9 a.m. there’s no time to turn around.

But being the resourceful librarian I am, I immediately call my neighbor Story Fish—his real name, and yes, he’s a fisherman—who rescued the pup waiting patiently at my back door. Story was chuckling but I was horrified. I mean, I’ve left my kids behind before, sure, but never my dog. April Cushing, Adult Services Librarian

What I Read On My Summer Vacation

Read Kelly Unsworth's entire library column in the Daily News Transcript.

Excerpt:

Some 30 years later, my daughter experienced her own version of the “Giant Peach” vacation when we happened upon a small, stone building that houses the Shelburne Free Public Library in Shelburne, Mass. We were fortunate to be passing by while the library was open, as it is only open for three hours every other day. The building had seen no renovations, and consequently had the smell and feel of a cozy one-room schoolhouse. What it lacked in modernity, however, it made up for with charm and a surprisingly good selection of books overflowing the wooden shelves. Kelly Unsworth, Children's Librarian

For Reading Out Loud!

Read Charlotte Canelli's entire column in the Daily News Transcript this week.

Excerpt:

Reading aloud has become somewhat of a lost art in our culture and in the 21st Century. Before television and radio, and mercy me! computers, families spent valuable time reading to each other. And not just to children. Rhythms and language, descriptions and visions were shared with utmost attention to the written word by entire families of all ages. The Read Aloud America and United Through Reading groups are two of the non-profit organizations encouraging a rebirth of a read-aloud generation.

Most experts agree that reading to children is the single most important factor in later reading success.

As adults, we know the importance of reading to our children. We stop – or our children stop us – at some point in the chain. We rarely read to them after a certain age and certainly not to each other. While the electronic audio books serve its purpose well, listening to audio books in any format is a solitary activity. Too much of our present-day e-World is convenient but lonely as it lacks the connectness and comfort we find in the shared experience of listening and reading to each other. There is something lost in the translation – the attention we must pay to read and to listen. From the Daily News Transcript, From the Library, Charlotte Canelli, columnist

Tweet, Tweeting, Tweeted

Read my entire article this week in the Daily News Transcript.

Excerpt:

Twitter’s claim on its homepage is that you can “share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.” My problem with Twitter is that the world is a very big place. I can’t possibly keep up with all my email, my Google Reader aggregator and my online feeds, my Facebook family and friends. How can I possible discover and share with the rest of the world in constant 140-character Tweets? Why do I have to know these things?
Recent studies of this phenomenon called Twitter have found that millions of others haven’t caught on either. Recent studies (on the Internet and in print media) claim that Tweeters flock to the site and then never return. Around 60 percent of those who register are just not staying around to “get it.” Some predictions claim that only 10 percent of all Internet users are really using Twitter. From the Daily News Transcript, From the Library, Charlotte Canelli, columnist