Monday, July 30, 2012

Considerable gap between transit and auto costs

Microsoft Excel spreadsheet: Percent of income spent on transportation
Cost of travel for transit-proximate and car-dependant households
Source of data: Taras Grescoe, citing Brookings Institute study
From Taras Grescoe, author of Straphanger (Times Books, 2012), comes this amazing statistic about the cost of travel in households that are near public transit versus those that rely upon cars.

Mixed review for Sonoma County Fair

We went to the Sonoma County Fair this Sunday and I offer a mixed review. First, here are the positive aspects of my experience.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

What do we still do in public libraries?

Cynthia Parkhill shelving books at Middletown Library
Still plenty for me (and Michelle McLean) to do at our public libraries

 What is information and what is it we still do in public libraries? Quite a lot according to Michelle McLean, blogging at Connecting Librarian:

“Some of the ways my library provides information as well as access to it include:
  • Non-fiction lending collections including DVDs and audio-books
  • Magazines
  • Daily newspapers
  • Internet connectivity, both via PC and WiFi to access the wider world of information (amongst other things)
  • Electronic resources
  • Short seminars on a wide range of topics
  • Library staff, who help people find the information they need, either in our collections or on the Internet
  • Library staff who share local knowledge to help people find what they need in the local community
  • Local history collection
  • Outreach visits, to not only promote the library, but to help those being visited fulfill their needs – with that resource the library has
  • School visits to again showcase what they library can do, but to also help with information literacy skills
  • Teaching our users information literacy skills
  • Teaching our users computer skills
  • And much, much more ...”
My thanks to ALA Techsource for sharing this essay on Twitter.

Temple Grandin: ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder, through my eyes’

Temple Grandin meme: Autism Spectrum Disorder, through my eyes
Temple Grandin: Autism Spectrum Disorder, through my eyes
I couldn’t resist re-posting this image, shared by Dr. Temple Grandin on Facebook:
“What would happen if the Autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.”
Thank you, Temple, for your inspiring and tireless advocacy for our dignity and value.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Public relations officers: Take time to learn your job

Elizabeth the cat sleeping on Toastmasters portfolio
The dear, departed, Miss Elizabeth pillowed against my Toastmasters portfolio
 With the beginning of July, in Toastmasters clubs (and in other clubs and groups), new vice presidents of public relations have started serving their terms.

Monday, July 23, 2012

Blanket condemnation of people with autism

List of people with disabilities who were killed by parents or caregivers
Photo from Twitter user @AspieSide during March 30 #vigilforgeorge
List of people with disabilities who were killed by parents or caregivers
 In a Monday morning broadcast, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC grossly stereotyped people (like me) who are on the autism spectrum.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Completed presentation: Yarn Bombing @ Your Library





And with that, the completed PowerPoint presentation, “Yarn Bombing @ Your Library,” is uploaded to SlideShare. The chapter closes upon my summer course through Cuesta College in Microsoft Office Professional.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Value of ‘buy local’ journalism in action

Kevin N. Hume reads to elementary school students
Lake County Record-Bee Staff reporter Kevin N. Hume reads during a
children’s summer program at Kelseyville Elementary School.
Photo by Denise Crawford

 Record-Bee staff reporter Kevin N. Hume made a guest appearance yesterday at a children’s summer reading program. I think it illustrates the value of  “reading local” that journalist Mandy Jenkins recently blogged about.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Digital media workshop with Steve Buttry

My education this year has been on two fronts: the formal course of study in Library and Information Science through Cuesta College online and independent training in social media tools for journalism.

Walmart building is now library

Mosaic depicting sunflowers
McAllen Public Library: Photographic tour of new main library
While shelving at the Middletown library today, library director Gehlen Palmer showed me an amazing slide show produced by the McAllen Public Library in Texas. The slide show presents a photographic tour of its new main library.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Kate Wolf Festival has ‘green’ emphasis

Jonathan spent this past weekend at the Kate Wolf Festival, where he worked in our friend Evan’s clothing booth. The festival takes place each year at Black Oak Ranch in Laytonville, home to the Hog Farm and Camp Winnarainbow circus camp.

Journalism Accelerator: social media post worth bookmarking

Journalism Accelerator logo: "JA" white on green background
The “four-step guerilla guide to social listening” on the Journalism Accelerator blog is an entry worth bookmarking. The author, Jacob Caggiano, presents an overview of social “listening” tools.

From the moment I set up Google Alerts for online mentions of my name, I was engaged in social “listening.” And as detailed in the overview, there are many more tools at a social media manager’s disposal.

Caggiano divides social media monitoring into a four-step process, with tools reviewed at each step of the way: Discover, Analyze, Manage and Integrate.

Among those mentioned, I use Tweetdeck when managing Twitter activity for two Northern California newspapers. It helps me track staff reporters’ tweets and designated hashtag activity, alerts me to mentions and allows me to post updates as one or both of the newspapers.

I look forward to experimenting with some of the other tools that are detailed in the blog. I think the JA overview will be of value to people in a variety of industries who wish to monitor social media more effectively.