An Author Reading, (almost) in Second Life

I'm enjoying Facebook much more these days. I was all set to attend a live "reading" of Michael Stackpole's new novel At the Queen's Command in his stylish office in Second Life. Would have been fun, but a sound guy popped in briefly, then another fan, but no author. Maybe we had the time wrong? (Yes, thwarted again by my inability to do the time zone math, oops.

I really never appreciated the controls in Second Life, because I'm so used to WASD, but I was able to transport over from the Starter Island (where some little oddball kept jumping up and down on me) thanks to a link from Facebook and voila. Nice place, as you can see.



And my character still has her boxy little form and that torch sticking out of her back. Very science fictional, I think.

The Shadow Project by Herbie Brennan.

Danny, a wild child of the streets, makes his way into an abandoned mansion. Through a bit of odd timing, he discovers an elevator down to a secret government facility just as security for the system is offline.

He knows he will be in trouble if caught but he can't resist exploring. When he comes upon a room with a girl hooked into what looks like a torture device, he is shocked enough that he doesn't notice he is now surrounded by security, and he's captured.

Welcome to the Shadow Project, a secret British operation that uses "remote viewing", a form of astral projection, to spy unseen upon enemies in faraway lands. Teens are the most adept as subjects, and they can gather intelligence without risk to their corporeal forms, so it seems.



The girl in the chair is Opal, daughter of project head Sir Roland. While on a mission to track down the almost legendary figure The Skull, she not only finds the Skull, but she is seen and trapped in a cage by a mystical old man named Farrakhan.

It is up to Danny, a reluctant recruit, and Michael, a prince among his people who is utterly loyal to the Project, to try to find Opal and solve the mystery of Farrakhan and the beasts he soon unleashes upon the Project.

Part spy adventure, part supernatural mystery, The Shadow Project is a fast moving tale that would be enjoyed by readers of The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz, The Pendragon Adventures by D. J. MacHale and the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer.

In a fascinating Author Note at the end of the book, Herbie Brennan talks about the real life "remote viewing" program run at one time by the CIA.



This is just the first adventure for Danny, Opal and Michael, so keep a sharp eye out for the next volume.

Herbie Brennan is the author of the Fairie Wars Series:

Faerie Wars

The Purple Emperor

Ruler of the Realm

Faerie Lord


For more on Herbie Brennan, Out of Body Experiences, and other aspects of Herbie's work, visit his site.

Star Tribune stunned STUNNED! by Librarian who amassed books and wealth

In a front page article today, the Star Tribune reveals the seedy underbelly of librarianship and the possibility that these "quiet living" folks might amass books and money.

The article is written in the very tone that would be used if a bag lady was found to have had and given away monies after their demise.

Inherent in this is the OMG! thought that maybe there are MORE LIBRARIANS OUT THERE SAVING MONEY, COLLECTING BOOKS!!!!!! AND AAAAGGGHHH THE HORROR, "LEADING QUIET LIVES".

Sooooo scary.

From the Daydreamers Public Library: the Library Little Theater

Pretend public libraries were not crushed budgetarily like everyone else, and we're in a world where you can think of cool things libraries could do if they just imagined it.

Libraries should build on small auditoriums, with a nice stage. The main use for these will be Reader's Theater presentations for all ages. These productions can be done by library staff and/or community volunteers, including groups from local schools. See the Author's Reader's Theater site for an idea of what Reader's Theater can be.




The library can also work cooperatively with local schools to host student monologues, skits and one act plays.

When not in use for theatrical productions, these small auditoriums will be a nice place for storytimes and puppet shows.

I would also suggest that these can be rented out to local community organizations and businesses to provide a steady ongoing income for the library.

Dreamily Yours, Librarian D.O.A.

Winter Jackets Reading Program for Adults January 11-February 28 2010

Tomorrow the fun begins at your local Twin Cities area library. Why should kids and teens have all the reading club fun, we ask?

Winter Jackets, which was renamed last year from the infinitely more fun Hot Reads for Cold Nights gives adults a chance to sign up for a low key reading program wherein they track their reading by recommending books to others, and they're also entered in a weekly prize drawing (in many locations).

At my location, we have donated books and prize baskets on reading themes which are also filled mostly with donated books as our prizes. I learned how to arrange my items in the baskets just so by watching my predecessor so that they look really appealing, mostly freebie materials or not.

Don't resist, go to your library tomorrow and sign up. We love readers and this is just another way for us to say so.

Free Tax E-Filing--Yoikes! Another Taxing Post

Because we stock tax forms, many people see us as a sort of All Your Tax Needs Here Outlet. In truth, we just offer the most commonly used Federal and State forms.

We have no tax expertise, and even if we did, it would be against the Librarian Code of Honor to give you such advice.



We can help you find the forms you need on our shelves or on the web sites for the feds and state, but only if you know the forms numbers or can help us look through the available form names and pick out the one that suits you. You really do need to know what you're looking for, and if you don't, you'll want to call the feds or state folks directly and get some help.

Once you're all knowledgeable and are ready to file, you'll be wondering if the library has Turbo-Tax or some other tax filing software. Since these are expensive and very person specific, we can't provide this service.




For Federal Tax filing there is Free File This page directs you to a site where you can fill in your forms and file them online or just fill in the form, print it and send it off by regular mail.

Free File for this year will be available beginning January 15, 2010.

More Taxing Info From Your Library

Click to Enlarge!


If you are a poor unfortunate and don't live in brutally cold, icy, snowy Minnesota, check the TaxSites page for your own local department of taxation.

Death and Taxes @ the Library

Tax Season has arrived! Customers have been clamoring for 2009 Tax Year forms since at least October, even though you can't file until January. They must have money coming back or something, because otherwise they'd be part of that humongous group that comes in desperately on April 15th looking for forms and tax help (yipes).

Here's the skinny for the uninitiated:

Libraries could order Tax Forms from the Feds in August 2009. The forms did not begin arriving until November, and they did not all arrive at once, they are trickling in. Most federal forms, including those we don't have because they're not available for library distribution are available online at:

www.irs.gov




For the wildly excited State of Minnesota tax form fans (and they are legion this year) we were not allowed to order forms until December 21st. The state said the forms would be available the "first week of January 2010" but its Thursday and I've seen nada.

Long time State Form fans will know that the state is notoriously late trickling out forms (they don't send them in a single shipment, noooo).

While the Federal government makes a wide variety of forms available to libraries for distribution, the State of Minnesota seems to offer fewer forms this way every year. I think there are only ten or so that they let us request. If you're waiting to do your state taxes, you're far better off going directly to their site, where all forms are available to download:

www.taxes.state.mn.us

Libraries can't offer tax assistance, we just stock the forms. In many cases the AARP has tax aide volunteers out in the community. Their site will list tax aide locations in late January.

AARP Taxe Aide Page

For low income Minnesota residents there is a program of volunteer tax aides called VITA from AccountAbility Minnesota:

AccountAbility Minnesota Taxpayer Services

Happy Filing!

The Librarian Newswire's 10 Librarian Blogs to Read in 2009

Hot on the trail of live public librarians who write about their librarian-like lives, I came across this list. The blogs from public librarians are:

Closed Stacks "Ruling the world through information" This is a joint blog with two of the librarians working in public libraries.




In the Library With the Lead Pipe This is my favorite library blog name ever, since I'm a huge fan of Clue, and libraries. These folks are also a mix of library types, but they are doing what I hoped to see, thinking in a practical way about public libraries, where they are, and what they can be.

The Alternative Teen Services blog has gone under as of this writing.

A listed blog that falls into the entertaining but not really helpful category of "burnout blogs" on the list is The Society for Librarians who say Mother*&#*@!

They also mention David Lee King's blog but since he isn't working the Big Desk, he's not the droid we're looking for.

Pondering Public Libraries

Since I'm all retrospective here at the beginning of the new year and decade, I thought I would do my homework and read more about what other public librarians think about their posts out there in libraryland.

I am looking to find writers about the public library life, and so far, I'm seeing that most bloggers and writers who write about public libraries either write anonymous "burn out blogs" which complain about customers and anything else that bugs them about their jobs, or, the writers are doing book blogs, recommending good reading.

After over three decades working in public libraries, I know we do everything imaginable in the course of our work. We are asked questions and are assumed to be experts on every conceivable topic. People either fear us as intellectual snobs or love us for the kind patient work we do everyday. There is more variety, constant change, endless variation, and the opportunity to do Real Good, both one on one as we help people, and as disseminators of information and advice in the complex world we live in, as institutions.




Onward.