#54 Social Networking Through Books

I once belonged to a book club that was with several of my friends. Our book club was simply called Friends. We would meet twice a month and for each meeting would rotate to one anothers homes. We all looked forward to it as a chance to stay in touch and share something that we all loved, reading. Unfortunatly, after about a year the group began to get smaller and smaller as friends married, had children, or moved away. I miss those days, but find my schedule not able to start another book club or join a new one. I think that the online book club might be something that I can try to look into and would accommodate my schedule.

After viewing the resources and seeing all the different book clubs available I was unable to find one on the Holocaust. That has always been something of great interest to me because I believe that it is something that generations to come should never forget. After reviewing some of the sources available I was able to find a book from Reading Group Guides. The book is intitled "A Chosen Few" by Mark Kurlansky. It is an inspiring story of people who have rebuilt their lives in the face of incomprehensible horror. It will be a must read for me.

I did search a few of the sites for the book I chose in the first post. It to is about the Holocaust, titled Echoes (only it is fiction). I checked the ratings on Library Thing and it had a three and a half star rating. I also checked on the same source for Member Reviews and it received a two to four star review. The other source checked was goodreads with an average rating of 3.90.

These past modules have been very helpful and enjoyable. I have past on many of the resources to family and friends.

#53 Finding Books Onlline

The three booksellers I found that are the closest to my branch did not have online presence. I checked out a few others and none of them had online presence that I could find. I did enjoy finding all the many different sellers that Houston.com has to offer.

After, searching some of the sites for my previos book from module #52, I was able to locate the book of interest on three different sites: Barnes & Noble, Brazos Bookstore, and Katy Budget Books. I found that all three sites price's where about the same. For a hard cover $27.00 to $29.95, a paper back $7.99, and a CD $29.95. I also, was able to find a ebook as well, on Harris County Public Library.

I did not download and ebook because I have done that before and found that I don't enjoy reading a book from my computer as much as I do the actually book in my hand. There is just something about having a good book in my hand, sitting in front of a fire in my family room or sitting under a shade tree at the park reading that I find to be relaxing. Although, I can see how it would have it's advantages burning it to a CD and have it on a long road trip to listen to in the car.

#52 What to Read

The author that I picked is Danielle Steel I have read many of her books, but one of my favorites was "Echoes". I searched NoveList Plus and found that it was very user friendly, once I found the author and title it gave me a brief description of the story and a read-alike spot to click onto. I was able to find similar read-allikes and found many that I have read in the past and many that I had not known about. After searching two of the other resources I found them to be much harder to navigate and found the results to be very different on both Fiction L Booklist and WhatShould I Read. I was able to find read-alike on Fiction L Booklist thru matchbook, but when I tried to find it a second time I was unable to locate it.

For the second part of the exercise I used NoveList Plus and found the following two books for a fourth grade girl: "Faces In The Forest" by Ron Hirsch and "Forest Bright, Forest Night" by Jennifer Ward. I also found two books for a 13 year old boy: "The William Ghost" by Wilma Alexander and "The Ghost In The Cellar" by Jacques Duquenny.

The sites I used for part three of the exercise are NoveList Plus and What Shall I Read Next. The similar authors I found from the first one are: John Saul, Dan Simmons, and Greg Bear. For the second one they are: Stephen White, Clive Cussler, and W.E.B. Griffin.

The resource used for exercise four, was once again, NoveList Plus. The other three remaining books in the series "Song Of The Lioness" are #2 "In The Hand Of The Goddess", #3 "The Woman Who Rides Like A Man", and #4 "Lioness Rampant.

I found this excercise to be very helpful for any one who works in a library and look forward to the remaining modules.

#38 Console Games

After playing Pacman for 15 minutes I found it to be just as annoying as it was many years ago. My son was in love with the game and would always want me to play with him. Of course, I would, but I can honestly say I never cared for the game and of course he always beat me. I would have to say I never did acheive many skills back then and have not gained any since that time. Oh, well???

As of today I have grandchildren and they now have the WII System and have a blast with it. It is unbeliveable how gaming has evolved since then. I do think that gaming can be helpful in a educational way by introducing some of it into the library systems. It can bring in young patrons who may never have been in a public library and hopefully attract them to books, but it can also bring them in just for the game. I have seen many young people spend hours and hours playing games in the library (good and not so good).

#37 Get Your Game On

The article that I read was the Shifted Librarrian and I found it to be quite interesting. After working in a library for the last 3 years I have observed how disruptive that teens can be to other patrons because their parents have dropped them off and they are bored being in a library. I would have to agree that I think gaming in the library would be a great interest to them, because it can be fun and educational at the same time. As it stated in the article, how parents would much rather have their teens doing something fun and of interest to them, then to have them out on the streets.

I did play one of the games on Carnegie Mellon and found it to be quite entertaining, but a bit confusing on the instructions. Once I figured it out I was on a roll helping patrons finding what they needed and quickly returning their books to book drop. I did manage to win in the end.

Yes, Yes, I am for gaming in the library!!!!! Especially after reading how many teens it would bring in on one night and how much more the teen books where being checked out as of a result of gaming night.

#36 Games and Gaming

Let me begin by saying that I love playing games on the inter-net, but I have only played puzzle games. This module has been a new experience. I did explore Runscape and did manage to complete the turorial. I found it to be a bit confusing and fun at the same time. I really enjoyed creating my character, but was unable (after several attempts) to post a screen shot to my blog. There didn't seem to be a place to view your character so that it could be viewed.

I also tried Chore Wars briefly and was able to create an avatar her name is Dustie.

They did not have a lot of options to create something new and different. I plan on playing that more to see how far I can get with the gardening and of course the dusting, which happens to me my least favorite chore.

#35 Games? In The Library?

Learning can be made fun with games and I think it is a fantastic way to learn for both children and adults. I played the free rice game and was able to donate 1700 grains of rice to the hunger. Now, how cool is that!!! I found the game easy to follow and found it to be something that I would go back to again and again and also, something that I will pass on to family and friends. I also checked out some of the childrens games and found them to be helpful for my grand-daughters. I think that they will really enjoy funbrain.com. It seems to have alot to offer.