Let the Great World Spin

A great author has the ability to create multiple characters who aren't just archetypes, stereotypes, or one-sided, boring creatures. Colum McCann not only has the ability to rise above the common character but to create people who are so lifelike that you feel like you have met them before and have known them, off and on, for years.

This book is great fiction because it seems so real. I can't put a book down when the writing not only puts you into a specific time and place, but puts you into a quasi-memory. The settings and dialogue of the characters creates a new reality that you find it hard to pull yourself away from.

Each character exhibits a certain amount of sadness and curiosity that I think most people probably feel on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis, but is incredibly hard to write about. This is where I think great fiction helps us as individuals, to take solace in the fact that we are not alone, and to help us understand how other people feel. Even though we interact with people every day, we know very little about how their minds and emotions work. Fiction gives us small glimpses into how humans operate.

Plus, I liked how McCann connected the characters together without going overboard. I highly recommend this book to folks looking for a good fiction.

Advocate for Iowa Libraries!

It's fun to juggle many different subjects and projects as a librarian, but one of my favorite activities is coming up in the next couple of months. It's time to advocate for libraries statewide.

Now of course we as librarians want to be advocating for our institutions year-round, but this is an especially important time in Iowa because the legislature is in session. For the past few years, our state organization, the Iowa Library Association, has had to fight tooth and nail to make sure that the State Library of Iowa and public libraries across the state got the funding that they needed. What does this funding pay for? Well, here's a partial list of some of the most important things that libraries do for citizens:

• Summer reading programs
• Interlibrary loan programs (borrowing materials across the state)
• Funding for electronic databases (research, statistics, K-12 homework projects, etc.)
• Learning Express, a database that helps people learn about computers, study for placement tests, prepare for college, prepare for entering the workforce, and many other tasks
• Fund teacher librarians for every school in the state
• The Open Access Program, which allows residents of Iowa to obtain a library card from any library in the state and return materials at other libraries
• The State Data Center, which provides Iowans with all kinds of data related to the Census, economic development, and grants
• Websites for small public libraries, which sometimes cannot afford their own
• Audio books and ebooks
• The Library Service Areas, which help keep communication between libraries strong and provide smaller libraries in the state with access to new technology, training, and resources

The list goes on and on, but you start to get the idea. Iowa library use is at an all-time high. The statistics show that more people are coming to libraries than ever before, are getting library cards at a rate higher than ever before, are using computers more than ever before, and are checking out materials more than ever before. Libraries are essential parts of our communities and they need your help.

If you want to advocate for your local library, tell a story to your legislator. Explain to them how vital your local library is. Think of all the ways you use your local library on a weekly basis. You can also check out some of the Iowa Library Association's priorities for 2013 here.

Also, here are a couple of dates on which members of ILA will be active this year. Feel free to join in, especially during Lobby from Home Day. We can use all the help we can get.

2013 ILA Lobby from Home Day - Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Contact your legislators via phone or email and tell them your story. Legislators like to hear from their constituents, especially when they have a unique tale to tell. The more people they hear from, the more the legislators realize just how important libraries are to the citizens of Iowa.

2013 ILA Legislative Day - Wednesday, March 6, 2013
This event is so much fun because you get to visit the Capitol building, meet with legislators, receive a legislative update on what's happening on the floors of the House and Senate, and get to mingle with librarians all while eating some delicious food. If you're a librarian, board member, or trustee, come on down to the Capitol that day. If you're a citizen, join us. Legislators love it when their constituents show up.

The Future of Science

I love reading about young people getting involved in science and not just because of an assignment or an obligation. They really love it and they show deep passion for it.

One recent example that I came across was a young woman named Deepika Kurup. She's 14 years old and on a trip to India, saw children drinking polluted water right out of a stream. What did she do? Write a letter? Donate money? Start an organization to shed light on this issue?

Nope. She developed a new way to treat water so it's drinkable. Just watch her presentation and wait for your jaw to drop. This young woman is 14 and she's talking like a professional scientist.

We need more programs like this in our country. Children should grow up celebrating science, devouring books about their world, and asking deep questions about how it works. Many children already do this, but let's make it possible so every child gets an opportunity to see how incredible science is.

This Blog is About...

When I decided that I wanted to start blogging again, I had a problem: I didn't know what to blog about. Most blogs have a theme, a specific subject, or a topic that they focus on. In fact, the best blogs do this really well. There are many blogs that I read on a daily basis that cover interesting material on a single subject.

So what would this blog be about? 

Libraries?

Baseball?

Science?

History?

My "problem" is that I'm not the kind of person who finds one subject so interesting that I can devote an entire project to it. I'm the kind of person who is all over the map. That's part of the reason I'm in the career field that I'm in. I can't dwell too long on one subject because I find so many other subjects interesting. Also, so many great ideas and topics in our world are inextricably linked together, so by studying one you are studying many.

This will be a blog of variety. It will contain posts on seemingly unrelated things. There will be short pieces, experiences, long articles with links, photos, videos and other tidbits. 

It will not focus on one particular subject, so if that's not really your cup of tea, so be it, but that's how I'm going to blog. So if you want to follow me, be my guest. I hope you find some of these posts interesting, because that's one of the many reasons I like to blog: to remind people about some of the great things in our world. 

Now if I can just keep a steady schedule of posts.

Frozen River

Running at the park the other day, I noticed that the icy water in the river looked like frozen milk or giant hunks of diamonds, sitting in a reflection of the sky. It was a crisp day and I didn't think much of it until I was on my way home and stopped at the gas station. While fueling, a guy in a '68 Chevy Impala pulled up next to me. This thing was in mint condition and the driver, a young guy, got out. I started talking to him about it, he gave me a tour of the engine, and gave me the history of it. The paint was old white so I asked him what he was going to change it to.

"I'd really like to do a whitish-blue, something cold looking."

I said, "Like a frozen river?"

"Exactly, man, exactly! That's what I should call the color! Thanks!"

I like little things like that. They just happen. It's nothing really, but it makes me smile.

Running in the Snow

I've been running outside for years but this is the first time I've tried it in the heart of winter. My concern over the years has always been the cold but after talking to some experienced folks, I realized you can stay quite warm while running with the proper gear. It's really the terrain you have to be careful with.

For most of November and December I was running outside, no problem. The crisp air was refreshing and as long as I had the right gear on (especially a hat) then my run was great. Then I tried running about a week after the first big snow, thinking enough of it had melted off. It worked, but it was a bit treacherous. Some of the trail had been cleared and some had just melted clean, but there were large portions of it where the snow was still there but had a thin crust of ice on top. I gave it a go.

It was a fun run, but not as relaxing as usual, mainly because I had to focus on where each of my steps was going to fall. I didn't want to bring my foot down on a giant branch, a deep snow hole, or a glassy patch of ice. I made it through the whole 3 mile trail without slipping or falling. I actually smiled when I saw a few spots where I could see the gravel underneath the snow, knowing that one day soon the whole trail would be gravel again.

So running in the winter isn't too hard but you do have to be pretty careful when you have snow and ice under your feet rather than limestone gravel. I'm eager to check out the trail again soon to see if any more of it has melted. I'm starting to get antsy again. Below you will see a photo of my favorite park to run at, Raccoon River Park, after our first big snowfall. I went out there at sunrise one morning and caught some great shots.

Comet Ison: A Welcome Sight in 2013

2013 is already off to an exciting start because of the news of Comet Ison visiting Earth's orbit sometime later this ear. Comet Ison was detected by amateur astronomers in 2012 and based on the early observations, it looks like Ison will be quite bright by the time it reaches naked eye visibility from Earth. Right now, Ison is somewhere near Jupiter and won't make it to Earth until late November of 2013. The only problem Ison might run into in the near future is our Sun.

If a comet gets near our sun, often the ice and other frozen matter that comprise the comet start to melt or off-gas into space. If Ison gets too close to our Sun, it could be destroyed or have its path altered by gravity. However, the closer it gets to our Sun, the more breathtaking it could become as a visible object in the sky. Some scientists have even speculated that Ison could end up being brighter than a full moon.

There is an historical connection here as well. In 1680, people on Earth glimpsed a great heavenly object that was almost certainly a comet. It was described by many cultures in historical texts across the globe. It's possible that Comet Ison could well be the Great Comet of 1680. Comets do return from time to time as they behave like they have been in a slingshot around our solar system (think Halley's Comet).

Humans have long had a problem with comets. For most of our history as a species, history records that many civilizations saw comets as signs of impending doom. Comets were sent by the gods as a warning, or in some cases to bring terrible events on Earth. Although sometimes comets were seen as bringers of good news or the birth of a great person. The fact of the matter is that comets scared the heck out people because they messed up the normally predictable sky that humans had mapped for centuries. In other words, people looked up, saw something that wasn't supposed to be there, and then blamed all their woes on it. Correlation, right? That crazy thing is in the sky at the same time there was a plague. They must be related, right?

Modern science helps us see that lines of thought such as this are outdated and incorrect. A comet in the sky has as much to do with natural events on the planet as a raccoon has to the construction of a Ferris wheel. We can learn so much about our solar system and the beginnings of the universe from a comet, as they are leftover chunks of rock and ice from way back when. Plus, they are a reminder that nature can be a gorgeous thing to behold as long as we approach it with curiosity and a desire to learn rather than fear of the unknown. Comets, like so many other things around us, provide us with information that help us understand and process our world.

Comet McNaught, 01.08.07

Picture of the Week: Curiosity on Mars

Have you been following the Curiosity Rover on Mars? If not, you should!

For picture of the week, I chose this stunning shot of a rock that Curiosity cleaned up. Why do the dusting? NASA wants to get to the bottom layers of the rock with a drill or laser to take samples. If the Martian dust sits on top of the drilled or lased part, then it will contaminate the sample. So Curiosity cleaned up a little before it went to work.

To learn more about Curiosity, visit it here and here. Also, if you're into Twitter, she also has been tweeting fairly frequently with lots of fun images and data.

The information we are receiving from Curiosity will help us to understand the evolution of the solar system and give us plenty of new ways to think about our own planet. Did life ever exist on Mars? If so, why did it die out? Could we lose our atmosphere like Mars did? The great exploration continues.

Spillover by David Quammen

It feels good to get the reading year started with a science book. David Quammen has written some excellent science and nature essays in the past and I thought this book, his newest, would be a fun try at his longer work.

It did not disappoint.

The subject of the book is zoonosis, which is the transfer of a disease from animals to humans. Some of our most famous and deadliest diseases are zoonotic. Quammen travels the globe interviewing doctors, scientists, and patients who have either been infected with or worked with countless bacteria, viruses, or parasites. He chronicles malaria, hendra, hanta, ebola, SARS, flu, HIV, and others. It will definitely open your eyes to how susceptible we are to nature's cruelest bugs.

Quammen's writing style can be deep but also contains quick jabs that will spook you like a scene out of a horror film. You'll be reading fascinating pages about different forms of a virus, how it was isolated, the processes used to identify it, etc. and then all of a sudden he tells you a story about someone who got it and how it spread. The hair on the back of your neck stands up as the science gives way to the gruesome reality of these diseases.

The only part of the book I did not care for was a section he included in the HIV chapter. In it, he creates a sort of historical fiction of how the virus may have traveled from southeast Cameroon over a century ago into the Congo. It's pretty good fiction writing but I didn't feel like it meshed at all with the rest of the science writing in the book. It was kind of an outlier section that made you feel like the book was going in the wrong direction.

I learned a ton from this book. It helped dispel certain urban legends and pieces of misinformation about quite a few viruses. The chapter on SARS will keep you riveted and the chapter on HIV will make you proud of the hard-working scientists who traced HIV back over 100 years into Africa's past.

If you're into science and want something that will both pull back the curtain and scare you at the same time, I recommend this heartily.

The Info World as Forest

Why an Info Forest? Since the web was born 20 years ago, information has become more accessible than ever before. However, not everything is on the web, there are still large gaps in what is there, there is quite a bit of misinformation, and it's not always the easiest place to navigate.

However, the web is like an ecosystem. It contains different varieties of information, areas of growth, symbiotic relationships, lit clearings, dark and dense pockets, and lots of life.

I'm not entirely sure what shape this blog might take, but I'm going to put it on a path and see what happens.