What happened in the year you were born?

A Boy Scout troop was assigned questions on what happened the year they were born, the moon landing, and their family history. Aside from showing them the history room and providing them with genealogical forms and showing them how to access ancestry.com (which is what we subscribed to at the time), I also used the almanacs and the following very interesting resources:

American Facts and Dates - R 973 CAR - a large, chronologically-arranged list of event in American history from 986 to 1992. Includes annual summaries and four separate chronologies for each year for political, cultural, economic and intellectual, and social events.

Chronology of World History - R 902.02 MEL - This one is my favorite. Four large volumes of events listed by date from 3000 BC to the 1990s. Events prior to 1492 are listed according to era, subsequent events by year. Mountains of information like lists of important books, music, and films of each year are included. Addictive!

Chronicle of America - R 973.0202 CHR - A colorful, easy-to-browse summary of headlines from year to year. Entertaining, especially for a younger crowd.

There are, of course, many similar sources, but those always work particularly well, and they did so in this case. The Boy Scouts were thrilled with the easy availability of the information, and it served them well.

A New Purpose

One of the first things my freshman English professor told us was "Write to be read." Well, sure, sometimes writing things intended for no one can be therapeutic, but blogging things intended for no one is just a total waste of time. So I've decided to put this blog to some use. Whenever I get a real interesting reference question that causes me to be creative and use some interesting resources, I will record the process here for my colleagues. It will enable them to be aware of resources they may not have used before. This should be fun and educational for all five or six of us, don't you think? What better way to spend the few free moments we have while on duty than to log in to fadeproofjazz.blogspot.com and explore the fountain of goodies flowing before us? Have a wonderful day, keep your feet on the ground, reach for the stars, and stay tuned!

Why the Name 'Renaissance Man/?

The 'Renaissance Man' of old was an expert in every field. It's been a couple of hundred years since the human brain was large enough to store all of the knowledge necessary to have any real competence in more than one or two fields at most. That's why they invented library science. The closest thing to a renaissance person of today is, of course, a reference librarian. Contrary to popular belief, you cannot get your hands on any old piece of information you want just by googling for it. A disproportionately large percentage of information remains hidden in vaults, databases requiring paid subscriptions, etc. Reference librarians to the rescue. If you need to find it, we can help. We are trained to. We don't know everything, but we can find almost everything the government hasn't classified. Sure, we come closer than most people to knowing everything. We're the best at cocktail parties. Trying to make us feel stupid by engaging us in discussions about economic theory, French cinema, architectural fads, and cutting edge research in mathematics is difficult. Sure, we slip and have to plead ignorance once in awhile, but that's only because we're human. I think $148,000 a year is a fair and adequate compensation for our knowledge and abilities.

Posting Time Is Here Again

Well, before I move ahead to the next lesson on Flickr, I thought I would give myself a review of the intricacies of blog posting. I did go through Flickr and look at some pictures, but after you've seen a few pictures, you know it's time to move on to the next step, which I am afraid will entail bumping into an instruction that will not be fully explained, which will mean I will have to try and fail at one thing and then another and then ask someone else if they think they can figure it out, and then finally getting it figured out and congratulating myself on plowing through a challenge which could have been avoided with better instructions. I guess it's like thinking of being in a war as a teaching experience while at the same time knowing we would all just be better off without it. Well, today is post day. Tomorrow I look again at the Flickr instructions and see if they make much sense. Later.

If it isn't one thing, it's another.

Every day I am learning something new in this excursion into the wonderful world of Web 2.0. (Can't wait for Web 3.0.) This morning I played with Flickr for the first time. Then I added a few features to this blog. It took several tries just to get in, and I had to get my password changed and fail to log in several times under several user names until succeeding by typing in exactly the same thing I had typed in before and failed. Or so I think. This is going to take some getting used to. Being used to things is easy. Stumbling and falling is not. I am going to stop this now.

Hello again!

Well, you didn't expect me to say much more than that, did you? I may be old fashioned, but bloggers are awfully public about their personal lives. I suppose if they were older they would know better. I mean, I might want to be President some day. So I'm not going to pile on any dirt anyone can dig up later. That's just foolhardy.

But this blog is an assignment in learning about Web 2.0. (I can hardly wait for Web. 3.0.) And I'm supposed to write my reactions to yesterday's lesson on the 71/2 habits of highly effective lifelong learners. Specifically, which habit is easiest and which is the most difficult. Well, that pretty much speaks for itself, I think. I mean, the easiest, of course is the first, Begin with the end in mind. Only breathing is easier than putting a thought into one's mind. I might decide, for example, that the end goal is to be a billionaire. That's easy. The other habits, which are steps toward reaching that goal, are more difficult to a greater or lesser degree. The most difficult of the habits is Teach/mentor others. First, I need to have completely learned for myself what I plan to teach. And second, I have to understand the learner's learning style and the ways to communicate to that learning style compared and contrased to my own learning style and know how to communicate to the learner the various dynamics of the subject matter as it relates to the learner's prior knowledge and life experience and the learner's interpretation of that knowledge and life experience based on the learner's world view and receptivity to my style of communicating that subject matter based on the learner's learning style through the filter of a contrasting learning style and possible clash of world views based on varying interpretations of different life experiences and interpretations of events. That in itself would seem to require more preparation than any of the other habits listed. At least that's the way it seems to me. Anyone beg to differ?

Hello world!

Hello world!