Join us Online! October's Middletown Book for Discussion: 44 Scotland Street

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, October 27.  Our title is Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of Scottish life and an art mystery:

"When Pat rents a room in Edinburgh, she acquires some interesting neighbors--including a pushy Stockbridge mother and her talented, sax-playing, five-year-old son. Her job at an art gallery hardly keeps her busy until she suspects one painting in the collection may be an undiscovered work by a Scottish master."  

Here is where you can find the book:

• There are several copies available through OhioLINK and SearchOhio.  We are back in the library and have both OhioLINK deliveries and statewide delivery from Search Ohio's public libraries running.   We do have our curbside pickup operating as well as in-house pickup.
  
• Amazon has the paperback, Kindle, and audiobook available.

Just to let you know a bit early, we have also picked our next book as well.  Our November date will move into December due to Thanksgiving, so on Tuesday, December 1, we will discuss Erik Larson's The Splendid and the Vile.  It is available from Miami, OhioLINK, and SearchOhio. 

 

Our group is always finding interesting titles to share, and we look forward to the new things you'll bring to the table.  On September 29th, the members of the group also shared these titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• Vesper Flights, Helen Macdonald
  
• How the Wild Effect Turned Me into a Hiker at 69, Jane Congdon
  
• Wild, Cheryl Strayed
  
• Redhead by the Side of the Road, Anne Tyler 
  
• Before We Were Yours, Lisa Wingate
  
• The Daughters of Erietown, Connie Schultz
• Ask Again, Yes, Mary Beth Keane
• The Wallander series, Henning Mankell
•  Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker
  
• The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead

We will meet at 12 pm on the 27th in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

ID: 82403605650
Password: 364786



You can also join in by calling   ‪(US) +1 301-715-8592‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling information)

Please come along to our discussion to share what you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing!

If you're looking for something interesting to read, check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

"Edinburgh" by barnyz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 

TEC Tuesday Online! Phone Holograms

Did you know that you could make a video that looks like a hologram.  Did you know that you could project this video (and lots of other holograms from YouTube) from your phone?

The TEC Lab is moving online this semester to bring exciting making projects to you on the first Tuesday of each month.

On Tuesday October 6, 2020, we will post a video and instructions on easily creating hologram videos and also creating a viewer that brings your hologram into the world to amaze everyone.  In addition, if you need any supplies for the project, we'll make them available for you to pick up from the library.

See the TEC Lab Makerspace: Workshops page for more details (posted on the 6th)!

"Hologram" by m_hweldon is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Dr. Tammie Gerke's National Park Talks: Big Bend National Park

Join us as Dr. Gerke talks about Big Bend National Park. She will discuss the geology and other interesting information about the park.

This session will run Wednesday, October 28th from 4:45pm to 6:15pm with time for questions and discussion. The event will be held as a free online meeting.  Add this event to your Google calendar!  

When it is time for the event, use the link below to join the presentation:

Join Zoom Meeting https://miamioh.zoom.us/j/84788872323?

All are welcome to attend.

"Santa Elena Canyon - Rio Grande River" by lns1122 is licensed under CC BY 2.0  

Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Walkman and Cassette Tapes

 

 

Next in our Throwback Technology series:  the Walkman and Cassette Tapes!  Same ground rules apply:  I'll share some older "technologies" that I've gathered from the library and from my personal items. I will use a broad definition of technology to include anything people invent to help them accomplish a task or purpose.  And, I invite you to share your questions and/or memories about these items.

Now, imagine if you could take music with you anywhere you go.  Well, we don't have to imagine that, because music (and lots of other audio and video content) is readily available to us on our phones, both in files we download to the device and through streaming services.  But back in the day, this was not so easy.  

In the 1970s and early 1980s, recorded music was just transitioning from the round record album (not really very portable) onto cassette tapes (like the one below - from my personal collection).  The cassette contains magnetic tape, looped around two spools, to store audio.  You would play the cassette all the way through on one side, and then reverse the cassette to play the second side.  

OK, so getting your music into a much smaller format was a great thing.  But the actual device to play them on remained fairly large through most of the 70s.  Then, in 1979, Sony developed the Walkman as a way to easily play music wherever you went.  And, since the Walkman did not have an external speaker and required a set of headphones, this became a personal experience.

Now, to be fair, there were portable radios you could use before this, but the Walkman made it possible to carry the music you wanted and not have to be dependent on getting a good radio signal, or having to be patient and wait for your desired song to come around on the station's playlist.  In the knock-off walkman pictured above (I received this in 1986 and used it though the end of high school and into my college years), you can also see that they've highlighted the option to listen to the radio (if you grew tired of listening to your single cassette).

So, personalized listening to audio content, all in an easy to carry mobile device.  You can see how this was a step on the way to the phones of today and our digital experience with audio (and video).  If you'd like to give the Lenoxx Sound walkman a try, stop by the library.

Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Franklin Spelling Ace

And we're back with a new Throwback Technology!  The Franklin Spelling Ace.  Same ground rules apply:  I'll share some older "technologies" that I've gathered from the library and from my personal items. I will use a broad definition of technology to include anything people invent to help them accomplish a task or purpose.  And, I invite you to share your questions and/or memories about these items.

So what is this thing?  This is a completely portable dictionary, without all the weight of a hardcover book to carry around with you.  It's about the size and weight of a calculator or cell phone.  This particular model is a PS-99, and it originally came out in 1986 (I am guessing this one is about that old).  There are several variations on this device from Franklin and other vendors, with several still for sale on Amazon.

Now, you might say, why would you need this?  Today, you probably wouldn't (though some of the specialized versions will help you solve crossword puzzles).  Now, we'd probably just Google words to find their definitions (maybe checking the results on the Merriam-Webster site).  Or maybe you'd have a dictionary app on your phone. Or you could ask Alexa or your Google Home.

But, back in the day, this was revolutionary because those options didn't exist yet.  And for me it shows an interesting idea of how information sources might evolve in an age that was starting to feel a greater impact of computers and electronics in everyday life.  The idea that you could computerize each individual book or source in an easy to carry around device has not held up in our current age (or even a few years after the Spelling Ace was built).  Now, we have devices to access the information, but they are not limited to one chunk of information (but a whole series of clouds of stuff).  So, an interesting example of containing information in an electronic device with one main use (looking up words).

Now, don't forget that libraries still buy access to some dictionaries (in addition to ones that are freely available online).  If you'd like to see the Spelling Ace up close, come by the library. 

Throwback Technology Thursdays: the Card Sorter

We've been using our Thursday social media posts to share some items from the Middletown Campus archives and their stories.    

For a time, though, I thought it would be fun to share some older "technologies" that I've gathered from the library and from my personal items. I invite you to share your questions and/or memories about these items.

Now, I use the term technology fairly loosely, and in that term I include anything people invent to help them accomplish a task or purpose.  So, you'll see some non-electronic items in the posts to come, starting with: the card sorter.

This amazing device was extremely helpful in libraries for sorting catalog cards (one is shown in the image above, nestled under "P").  In the olden days (I last did this in 1990), we did not have an online catalog of the books and other items we owned (like our current Books & More).  Instead, we had a card catalog, composed of many cabinets with drawers of these little 3" x 5" cards.  When shelving the cards, it was handy to sort them by call number first so that you could move in an orderly fashion among the catalog drawers.  This card sorter allows for sorting by Dewey Decimal call numbers (the 000 through 900 numbers) or Library of Congress call numbers (the A to Z, though we tend to not use the letters I, O, W, or Y.  Why not?  Well, that's a story for another time).  

The card sorter is of course useful for sorting other items as well (alphabetically or numerically).  We have two in the library, but no need to sort cards.  If you'd like to see a demonstration or borrow one, please stop on by.

New books (and more) added to the Gardner-Harvey Library Between March 1 and August 31!

Well, after completing our first month back in the library, it was time for a new book list!  Since no one could get into the library between March 16 and August 17, 2020, it didn't make much sense to let you know which books we added.  However, we were hard at work tracking down and cataloging books and other items while we were working from home.  

If you've been thinking about reading a book, we have hundreds of new ones (plus a lot of older ones) ready to go!

Take a look at our New Books shelves or skim down our new materials list of items we added to the collection between March 1 and August 31! We added 713 books, e-books, DVDs, and other items during that time, thanks to your selections and suggestions. The list can be sorted by call number, area of our collection, or by title.  There is definitely something here for everyone!

Here are eight titles from the list, to give you an idea of what we've been buying: 

• Makerspaces for adults : best practices and great projects / edited by Jennifer Hicks, Jessica Long
• Make America healthy again : how bad behavior and big government caused a trillion-dollar crisis / Nicole Saphier
• The ballad of songbirds and snakes / Suzanne Collins
• The voter file / David Pepper
• Memorial Drive : a daughter's memoir / Natasha Trethewey
• Am I overthinking this? : over-answering life's questions in 101 charts / by Michelle Rial
• No BS (bad stats) : black people need people who believe in black people enough not to believe every bad thing they hear about black people / by Ivory A. Toldson
• The hardest job in the world : the American presidency / John Dickerson

This tag will show you all of the prior lists of new materials, in reverse chronological order. We are eager to hear from you about individual items you would like us to buy, or types of items we should be on the look out for, or general subject areas we should build up in the collection.

Thank you for all of your suggestions and requests!  If you have a suggestion of something to order, please use our "Tell GHL to Buy It" form, email Amy Carmichael (carmicae@miamioh.edu), or drop by the library with your request. And pass your general suggestions or comments about the collection to us in those same ways.

Thanks again for keeping our collection vibrant and your information needs met!

Join us Online! September's Middletown Book for Discussion: H is for Hawk

The MUM Book Discussion group will next meet on Tuesday, September 29.  We're moving back to discussing a single book this month (though we always welcome recommendations of other books you're reading, too). Our title is Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk.  Here is a brief summary of this tale of hawks and healing:

"Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator.  "  

Here is where you can find the book:

• The Miami University Libraries have three copies available (including one at the Gardner-Harvey Library).  We are back in the library and have both OhioLINK deliveries and statewide delivery from Search Ohio's public libraries running.   We do have our curbside pickup operating as well as in-house pickup.
• There are several copies available through OhioLINK and SearchOhio.  
• Amazon has the paperback, Kindle, and audiobook available.

Our group is always finding interesting titles to share, and we look forward to the new things you'll bring to the table.  On August 25th, we mainly covered Will and Testament, but members of the group also shared these titles to add to your reading/viewing lists:

• Three Floors Up, Eshkol Nevo
  
• The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson
  
• The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle
  
• How Money Works: Stop Being a Sucker, Tom Mathews 
  
• Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson
  
• Why They Can't Write, John Warner
• Evicted, Matthew Desmond
• The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry  
  

We will meet at 12 pm on the 29th in Zoom at 

Join Zoom Meeting

ID: 82403605650



You can also join in by calling   ‪(US) +1 301-715-8592‬

Add this event to your Google Calendar!  (which includes the Zoom and calling information)

Please come along to our discussion to share what you've been reading/watching/listening to/experiencing!

If you're looking for something interesting to read, check out our page of past and future reads at http://www.mid.miamioh.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

"Goshawk (Explored)" by hehaden is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0