Bob Sullivan writes a great article titled:

That famous space shuttle photo: When is sharing stealing?

on photo rights when amatuer photos go viral.  He examines the case of Stephanie Gordon who tweeted her cell phone photo of the spaceship endeavor that she captured from the air through her passenger cabin window aboard a Delta flight to Palm Beach.

Sullivan writes that Stephanie’s photo has now been viewed an estimated “1 million times, and shown by media TV, Web and print news outlets around the world. She was paid by precisely five news organizations. ”

And that’s the issue discussed in this article how “Gordon’s now-famous photo of the space shuttle Endeavour soaring through the clouds got her an overwhelming amount of attention — her 15 minutes of fame, Internet style. It also landed her smack in the middle of an ethical and legal debate that may be as important as the future of the Internet itself.”

Here’ a neat article about Book Recommendation/Review sites . . .  Reviewed succinctly in this article by Paula J. Hane.

She Lists some of my favorite sites :

Like Goodreads & LibraryThing ,  some that I have never warmed to like Shelfari & BookBrowse, plus NoveList (which you usually have to get through your library), and  some I haven’t tried, like  WhatShouldIReadNext , and how to use GetGlue and LivingSocial if you’re a booklover.

Announced this week is bookish.com -an effort by publishers promoted as a way to help readers find books, but perhaps a way for them to also compete directly for online sales with booksellers.

You can read all about it here.

Periodic Table of Storytelling ©ComputerSherpa

The Periodic Table of Storytelling is a masterpiece worthy of more than than just one glance!

Better World Books is offering 75K in grants to library communities.

What’re you waiting for? Libraries have up until March 25th to submit their “Game Changing” ideas. Winners will be announced on May 16th and the winning projects implemented between 5/16/11 and 12/31/11.

Don’t be frightened away by the close deadline and short time frame, these grants are for compelling projects that will make a dramatic impact literacy in your community.

Successful applicants will use the funds to advance a compelling literacy project that Better World Books will follow and share with you.

If you work at a library, know of anyone that works at a library, love your library or have ever been touched by the power of a book, check out www.betterworldbooks.com/librarygrants. There you’ll find out more about the Better World Books library grant program and how to participate.

Ask about their weeding solutions too -betterworldbooks.com can take your weeded books and find them a new home. You’ll share a percent of the income from the sale of those books, and so will Better World Books’ literacy partners. Your library or Library Friends’ group can use this no cost program to help manage your discarded and donated books. Betterworld Books will help you make the most of your weeded books by selling them on 23 online-marketplaces and sharing the proceeds with you and one of their nonprofit literacy programs.

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It’s no secret that I am a goodreads addict. I can’t get enough of the site.

But, the goodreads iphone app is becoming so useful that it rivals the typical desktop pc experience of the gr web app.

With the release of a barcode scanning feature, the gr app allows the user to stand in a bookstore, scan a book’s barcode and see the gr ratings, reviews, and even put the title on their own “to-read” shelf.

On the flip side of the coin users in their own personal libraries can scan in their own books, making it really easy to list the books you’ve read for other goodreads users to see and ask you about.

The app follows a book full circle from retail, to home library, and back out into a community of fellow readers who are all interested in what people have to say about books!

In Beyond the flat world Alan McCluskey – writes about how:

Goodreads has an App for the iPhone that enables you to read the barcode of a book with your iPhone without any additional equipment and in so doing, immediately provides the information available about the book. No more need to even type in the name of the book to find it in the extensive database and add it to your reading list. The first time I tried it, it was like magic. In that moment my iPhone created a tangible link between the mass of books on the shelf in front of me and the reading community of which I am a part. In comparison, the Internet as a web seemed flat and exterior, like the screen it is displayed on. Somewhere in there, behind the joy of my gut reaction to the Goodread’s App, is the explanation why there is so much excitement about using apps to go beyond a flat online world to one that interacts more fully with the offline world. And in that relationship between the online and offline worlds mediated by simple-to-use technologies and our skill at combining and using them lies an exciting future.

Tonight my daughter read A Sick Day for Amos McGee aloud to me before she went to sleep and it was a treat for both of us.

I love stories for children where older characters retain a child-like quality of bonhomie and easy camaraderie. Amos has both which makes him irresistible to me. The structure of this book is really comforting too, a there and back again plot where the protagonist goes on a journey wherein the reader is introduced to everyone worth knowing and then they are separated but not for long because as one person can bring joy to others throughout their day, so too can a group of friends unite to bring one special person comfort and pleasure together! This is that sort of book.

The way award winning illustrator Erin Stead makes her pictures is the icing on the cake: a labor intensive process of block printing backdrops & major features before completing detailed illustrations on top of them. She describes and illustrates her process really wonderfully in her blog.

I still think The Today Show is SICK breaking with tradition and having Snooki on instead of this year’s Caldecott and newbery award winners.

But, what the Steads have made in their book A Sick Day for Amos McGee is enough to make anyone feel better about a lot of things! So now I am going to relax and follow Amos’ lead . . . I just need my own foot-warming penguin!

See the publisher’s site for more interiors like this one below!

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

I bought Moon Over Manifest simply because for the first time in like 11 years Today Show blew off the year’s Caldeccott and Newbery Award winners and interviewed Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi instead? What is up with that?!



So, I am making good on my aim to buy and read those award winners who got short shrift this year -may their # of sales rival Snooki’s! The race is on. May the best horse(s) win!



I have no doubt that Moon Over Manifest will be an award worthy read, but stay tuned for my final review!

View all my reviews

How Music Works by John Powell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Every so often I come across a book that I can imagine giving as a gift to at least half the people I know. The last one was Yellowrocket, the one before that was Earth. My 2010/2011 choice is: How Music Works



Not just for music geeks:



Is How Music Works about music or physics?

Is it for readers who want to better understand music as they are listening?

Is this book for percussionists? for those who play wind instruments? For those who play guitar? Piano?

For those who play their car stereos as loud as they can?

For those who have left a concert crying? or with their eyes crossed? or their hearts beating madly?

Is it for dancers? choreographers? band teachers? parents? People who cry when they hear the NPR theme song?

Movie lovers who know the sound track is crazy important to how much they like a film, but don’t know why?



Guess what? The answer is yes to every question above!



Why? Because John Powell uses easy to understand, well illustrated language, lots of descriptive textual and audio examples(on the accompanying CD), plenty of anecdotes and self deprecating humor to help the reader through a huge range of knowledge about the physics and techniques of music which can help anyone become a better musician, listener, teacher, student or just plain music lover!



<img src "http://media.npr.org/chrome/news/nprlogo_138x46.gif">Still reading? then you might enjoy From Bach To Beer Bottles, The Physics of Music an Ira Flatow Science Friday interview with John Powell.



I received this book for free as part of goodreads’ first-reads program.



View all my reviews

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