Black History Month
 This
year the library highlights Black History Month with “From Slavery to
Freedom: The Story of Africans in the Americas.” In both America and the
Caribbean, former slaves struggled to achieve equal footing when freed.
This struggle touched everything from artistic expression to music, from
military service to the fight for equal rights at home.
Library family programs
detail African traditions passed on through storytelling, crafts and
music. Lift your voice and explore call and response, spirituals,
gospel and jazz, the music of inspiration. Your feet will
follow as you learn Mwendo drum rhythms and Capoeira martial arts.
Adult programs explore
different historical contributions and struggles: learn more about the
contributions of black Texas settlers, Buffalo Soldiers, Tuskegee Airmen
and others. Camp Logan, a play based on the true story of a
court-martial and execution of nineteen WWI black soldiers, is not to be
missed. This program will be held at the Carver Cultural Center on
February 16 at 7:00 p.m. Tickets will be available at Central and select branches on
February 5, so be sure to get a seat.
View the struggle in a
different light through our Get in the Groove Film Fest. Held at Central
on February 18 and 25, these classic films were among the first to feature
soundtracks of funk and soul music and portray life in the ghetto.
Please take one of our free
Black History Month posters, which detail these programs and others.
Glenn Franklin illustrated the beautiful African art poster. Franklin
seeks to inspire young people to “make a statement of who we are, what
we've accomplished and where we're going.” So get inspired!
Don’t forget, the
Black History
Month events calendar is also available on the website.
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I, Shelver
 To
Isaac Asimov’s classic Three Laws of Robotics, one can now
add a fourth: A robot must not misshelve a book or, through
inaction, cause a book to be misshelved.
Chicago State
University unveiled its
automated
storage and retrieval system on October 12, 2006.
Nicknamed ROVER (Retrieval Online Via Electronic Robot), the
system consists of a multistory storage area and a robot
shelver. Instead of shelving individual items, the robot is
responsible for shelving and retrieving storage bins
containing RFID-tagged items. The robot manages roughly 80%
of the library’s collection, which is composed of pre-1991
materials. Patrons can still browse the newer parts of the
collection.
Laura
Villanueva, manager of Central’s shelving department,
doesn’t foresee any John Henry-style showdown anytime soon:
“The cost of their facility is 38 million dollars and we’ll
wait until the library gets...that in their budget to even
start worrying.”
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Central
Library Shelving Facts |
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7,624 |
: |
Number
of trucks shelved by library aides annually (with an
average of 101 items per truck) |
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770,009 |
: |
Items
shelved by library aides annually |
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2,110 |
: |
Items
shelved every day |
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173,514 |
: |
Items
cleaned-up from the floor (let's see a robot do
that!) that come down for re-shelving annually |
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0 |
: |
Number
of times an out-of-order sign was put on a shelver |
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| Source:
Laura Villanueva |
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Train Your
Brain
 Use
it or lose it. That’s the watchword when it comes to the
brain’s health. Nerve cells that are infrequently used are
pruned through a process called apoptosis. Conversely, nerve
cells that are used often will strengthen and grow more
connections. This dynamic pruning and growth process
continues throughout the brain’s lifespan - so it’s never
too late to save the brain. Learning new skills or knowledge
will help fire up areas that may have been getting a little
rusty and marked for pruning.
So, how do you
pump up your brain from a 3-pound weakling to a Charles
Atlas-sized reasoning machine? While physical exercise, diet
and getting plenty of sleep are crucial to brain health, the
videogame industry has developed a number of tools that
leverage the brain’s natural growth mechanisms.
Initially a
vocal critic of the videogame industry, Ryuta Kawashima of
Japan’s Tohoku University discovered that the typical
videogame exercised mostly those parts of the brain devoted
to sight and movement. In other words, hours of
entertainment would have no benefit besides enhancing
hand-eye coordination. Kawashima was convinced that a
different type of game was needed, one that exercised the
parts of the brain devoted to reasoning and language. The
result of his advocacy, Brain Age, was a best-selling
videogame in Japan and has quickly become just as popular in
the United States. Kawashima’s ulterior motive, though, was
patriotic. Japan has an aging population and a low
birthrate. He sees
his work as a way to keep the Japanese population
mentally nimble and less reliant on social welfare.
Supporting
this notion is the work of Dr. Gary J. Kennedy, director of
geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New
York City. A
five-year study of seniors across the country showed
that a one-time session of reasoning training had measurable
effects 5 years later. Seniors who received reasoning
training were the only group who reported more confidence in taking care of themselves versus groups
that received other kinds of training.
So whether
it’s with a crossword, sudoku or the online games available
at such sites as MyBrainTrainer.com or Happy-Neuron.com,
take some time to train your brain.
Puzzle these books out.
303 Tricky Chess
Puzzles by Fred Wilson & Bruce Albertson
Right-Brain Teasers:
A Photo Quiz for the Mind's Eye by Allen D. Bragdon and Marcia
J. Monbleau
The Mammoth Book of
Astounding Word Games by Peter Newby
Ancient Puzzles:
Classic Brainteasers and Other Timeless Mathematical Games of the Last
10 Centuries by Dominic Olivastro
Puzzles, Paradoxes,
and Brain Teasers by Stan Gibilisco
To Mock a Mocking
Bird and Other Logic Puzzles: Including an Amazing Adventure in
Combinatory Logic by Raymond Smullyan
The Oxford Guide to
Word Games by Tony Augarde
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FEATURED
Database |
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If “roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you” isn’t
going to cut it with your honey this Valentine’s Day, get inspired with
any of the thousands of poems in our Twentieth-Century Poetry
databases.
Containing love poems and more, the Twentieth-Century American Poetry
database is a collection of 50,000 poems by over 300 poets, including
Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, E.E. Cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston
Hughes and Adrienne Rich. Even though the database ranges from Beat
poets to Whitmanesque prophetic verse and everything in between, the
Yank poetry might not be enough. In that case consider the Twentieth-Century English Poetry database,
featuring over 280 British poets from
1900 to the present day, including the likes of W.B. Yeats, Rudyard
Kipling, Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Siegfried Sassoon. Both
databases incorporate not only the complete text of each poem but also any
integral textual images and illustrations. Additional information
relating directly to the poetry, such as prefaces or introductions, is
also included.
Check out all
of our databases.
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We urge you to call your library before heading out for a special
program. Although we verify all information, cancellations do
occasionally occur. |
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