What’s happening in the library?

Last spring I publicized the National Library (NLB) as a general resource and, in particular, the wide selection of online subscription databases available through the NLB for anyone living in Singapore — whether they had paid to join the National Library or not. We subsequently signed up a lot of our Grade 11 students — in anticipation of them doing Extended Essay research this year in Grade 12.

Unfortunately... over the summer the NLB changed their membership policy. Now foreigners have no option but to pay for Premium Membership (which costs S$ 52.50 to sign up for — and then S$42.50 per subsequent year) to get any book borrowing or digital library privileges.

The good news is that everyone who signed up for FREE digital library membership before the summer is still signed up.

The other good news is that the NLB has improved their search interface. There is a nifty beta release of a one-stop-shopping-search interface. From the eResources tab on the top of their screen, select eSearch & Browse beta (or just click on the words here). Then select eDatabases.You now have the option of entering one phrase and having ALL databases (or all databases in one field) searched.

Give it a try. Go to eSearch & Browse beta — and use this login: max1989 — with the password the very same.

(No, I do not feel guilty telling you to do this — the NLB digital library manager came to the last Singapore international school librarian networking meeting and we complained about the change in policy over the summer — and he professed surprise that it was ever possible to become a Digital Library Member without having paid for any foreign membership. So I sent him this login name/password as proof. Max is my son who is one of those who has never paid for library membership and signed up for the digital library resources last spring. He’s no longer living in Singapore — yet his account is still valid even, after I told the NLB about it, so I see no reason why you shouldn’t use it to check out the NLB Digital Library holdings…)

For example, try entering a search string, e.g., “united world college” (in quotes) — and tick ALL databases to be searched AND select Keyword searches to be used. You can then watch as it collects results in various databases. Wait for the complete list of results to be displayed — then note how it clusters results by sub-topics on the left. (Sorry for the slightly truncated image below… but you get the idea…)

(Did you know Montezuma Castle, the main building of the UWC in New Mexico, hosts a ghost — an opera diva who was a guest at the then-hotel in the 1880s?)

NB: If you try accessing the Digital Resources, but keep getting bumped back to the NLB home page, it probably means they’re doing maintenance. This sometimes happens. Try again later…. And don’t hesitate to come ask me for help if you’re having trouble getting this all to work.

Just wanted to let you know where to go to get the info that you would have gotten IF you had made it to my workshop on November 17th at TeachIT.

There’s an overall wiki for the day:  TeachIT 2007

and within that, in Sessions 2 & 3, you can click on “Social Software in School and Life” to see what Barb Philip (the Tanglin junior librarian) and I presented.  Basically, we said it was not a “how-to” session — though we provided some links to define the software tools and get people started.  Instead it was a sampler of what we’ve used — and tools we can’t live without now — to help us collect, organize, and share information — both professionally and personally.  We thought more people in the audience would have already been fooling around with social software.  No matter.  The space is still there for participants to add their own experiments.   I still have hope….

The activities of the United Nations are necessarily of interest to us at UWC — so I thought you might like to know two ways to keep up-to-date with their news.

1) Subscribe to the daily e-mail update from UN Wire

2) Read their blog — UN Dispatch: Posts on the UN – which you can subscribe to — either sign-up to receive updates via e-mail or use their RSS feed to receive updates via an RSS reader (e.g., GoogleReader or Bloglines).

This is one of the news items that landed in my in-box last week, thanks to UN Wire:

UNAIDS to adjust worldwide HIV/AIDS numbers

The United Nations’ AIDS agency released a report Tuesday stating it has systematically overestimated the number of HIV/AIDS cases worldwide since the 1990s. Methodology used to conduct surveys and compile data caused the discrepancy, which will see UNAIDS drop its estimate of the number of cases worldwide from 39.5 million to 33.2 million. Read UNAIDS’ press release and view the report. The New York Times (11/20)

There’s a TED talk (see my previous posting on some of my favorites) which deals with this very issue — which might be of interest to anyone teaching economics or working with AIDS as a global concern. It’s a wonderful example of how research (information plus critical thinking) can help us decide — as a society, as activists, as policy makers — how best to address problems such as AIDS.

TED Talk: Emily Oster — What do we really know about the spread of AIDS?

Here’s her biographical blurb off the TED website (it’s pretty impressive for someone 26 years old):

Her Harvard doctoral thesis took on famed economist Amartya Sen and his claim that 100 million women were statistically missing from the developing world. He blamed misogynist medical care and outright sex-selective abortion for the gap, but Oster pointed to data indicating that in countries where Hepetitis B infections were higher, more boys were born. Through her unorthodox analysis of medical data, she accounted for 50% of the missing girls.

She’s also investigated the role of bad weather in the rise in witchcraft trials in Medieval Europe and what drives people to play the Powerball lottery. Her latest target: busting assumptions on HIV in Africa.

I’m sure some of our students will end up as TED speakers some day.

Did you know the latest Man Booker Prize winner is a UWC graduate? (Pearson College)  And one of Anne Enright’s former Pearson classmates wrote an article in The Telegraph (Calcutta, India) about how one English teacher from those long ago days might be responsible in part for Enright’s success…

Thanks to Angela Turner for her presentation on education and creativity during our inset on Friday. I was pleased to see her using Sir Ken Robinson’s talk — as I had heard it before on one of my favorite websites, TED Talks.

TED stands for Technology, Education, Design – and since 1984 the annual conference has been bringing together “the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes)”. Over 150 talks are now available online. Yes, you’ll find famous names like Al Gore and Jane Goodall, but also talks by people famous only in their own field.

Try some of these TED talks:

• Toys that Make World – Will Wright, the creator of video games such as The Sims and SimCity, demonstrates his latest evolutionary game, Spore, and “shares his thoughts on Montessori schools, Darwinian theory and long-term thinking, emphasizing, throughout, that Spore is not so much a game as an opportunity for discovery — an imagination amplifier.”
• Cultures at the Far Edge of the World — ” With stunning photos and stories, National Geographic Explorer Wade Davis celebrates the diversity of the world’s indigenous cultures, now disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.”
• How does Technology Evolve? Like We Did — “Kevin Kelly uses evolutionary theory to discuss the purpose and value of technology. By asking, “What does technology want?” he shows that its movement toward ubiquity and complexity is much like the evolution of life.”
• Debunking Third-World Myths with the Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen – by Swedish Professor of International health, Hans Rosling. In his hands, “global trends — life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates — become clear, intuitive and even playful.” (I just love the man’s passion for the data and what it reveals…)
• New Insights on Poverty and Life Around the World - a follow-up talk by Hans Rosling, speaking about global poverty, HIV, and carbon dioxide emissions in a developing world — utilizing amazing graphical analysis.

Going back to the subject of creativity… if you haven’t come across the book “A Whole New Mind: why right-brainers will rule the future” by Daniel Pink, you might want to get your hands on it. (Yes, it will be in the library shortly!)

Daniel Pink argues that because of 3 As

• Asia (or the outsourcing of ‘good jobs’ overseas)
• Abundance (or rising affluence)
• Automation (the computerization of our lives)

we are shifting from the 20th century “information age” to the 21st century “conceptual age”. He claims the winners in the future will be those who use both sides of their brains and recommends attention to six senses:

• Not just function, but also DESIGN
• Not just argument, but also STORY
• Not just focus, but also SYMPHONY
• Not just logic, but also EMPATHY
• Not just seriousness, but also PLAY
• Not just accumulation, but also MEANING

It fits right in with the need to encourage creativity, identified by Ken Robinson.

p.s. By searching the Internet to see if Robinson has published that book he mentioned he was writing (no, he hasn’t — we need to wait until early 2009 for “Element”), I came across an interview in which he mentions some work he did for the Singapore government:

My relationship with Singapore was that they had determined a few years before to develop themselves as the creative hub of Southeast Asia. Their deputy prime minister put this forward as a plan; and they had created a strategy called Creative Singapore. So, as you said, I and three other people were brought out a couple of times to meet the key players there to look at the strategy. To look at the institutions there and to advice them on how they might move forward with it.

Susan Bratton: Did they act on it?

Sir Ken Robinson: Well, I wouldn’t like to say that people always do as I tell them to do, though I would like to think they do. I think they did, I thought they found the advice helpful and the strategies that we provided were useful. Of course, it’s a complex process.

Want some books related to Green Week? See the display in the library. If you’re looking for a picture book to read, I recommend:

• The Wump World / by Bill Peet
• Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish / by Michael Foreman
• The Last Nut / by Gavin Coates
• One World / by Michael Foreman
• Dear Greenpeace / by Simon James
• The Lorax / by Dr. Seuss

Want some images to help explain the need to be green? See:

• Award-winning posters about environmental damage — from Good 50×70
• Theme blog of videos on the Environment and Conservation — compliments of the Shambles website
• The photographs of Chris Jordan — which visually represent the statistics of our consumption and the waste we produce. Take a look at American Numbers and scroll down through the photos to Cans Seurat, 2007, which depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds, as well as Plastic Bags, 2007, which depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds. The set Intolerable Beauty is also stunning. Every photograph is shown magnified — so you can understand what object is making up the image.
• For extra fun, watch Chris Jordan being interviewed by the comedian Stephen Colbert

Want some good websites to expand your own “green” knowledge? Try these:

• World Changing: change your thinking / “WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us.”
• Treehugger / “TreeHugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information.”