Tag: internet

Daily Digital & Print Suggested Reads: Monday, July 25, 2016

Linda Reimer

Here are our suggested daily recommended reads in both print and digital formats!

Our suggested daily Digital Catalog item for today is the e-book:

Smoke

Smoke: A Novel by Dan Vyleta:

“Readers of the Harry Potter series and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are sure to be mesmerized by Dan Vyleta’s thrilling blend of historical fiction and fantasy, as three young friends scratch the surface of the grown-up world to discover startling wonders—and dangerous secrets.

“”Dan Vyleta writes with intricacy and imagination and skillful pacing; never once would I have considered putting his book down. In the manner of both a Dickens novel and the best young adult adventure stories (the Harry Potter series among them). . .his ending, which I wouldn’t dare reveal here, is a real firecracker.””—Jennifer Senior, The New York Times

Welcome to a Victorian England unlike any other you have experienced before. Here, wicked thoughts (both harmless and hate-filled) appear in the air as telltale wisps of Smoke.

Young Thomas Argyle, a son of aristocracy, has been sent to an elite boarding school. Here he will be purged of Wickedness, for the wealthy do not Smoke. When he resists a sadistic headboy’s temptations to Smoke, a much larger struggle beyond the school walls is revealed. Shortly thereafter, on a trip to London, Thomas and his best friend witness events that make them begin to question everything they have been taught about Smoke.

And thus the adventure begins… You will travel by coach to a grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories; where young love blossoms; and where a tumultuous relationship between a mother and her children is the crucible in which powerful passions are kindled, and dangerous deeds must be snuffed out in a desperate race against time.”

Here’s a link to the description page in the Digital Catalog:

https://stls.overdrive.com/media/2507032

And our print book suggested read for today is:

Free Speech

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World by Timothy Ash Garton:

One of the great political writers of our time offers a manifesto for global free speech in the digital age.

Never in human history was there such a chance for freedom of expression. If we have Internet access, any one of us can publish almost anything we like and potentially reach an audience of millions. Never was there a time when the evils of unlimited speech flowed so easily across frontiers: violent intimidation, gross violations of privacy, tidal waves of abuse. A pastor burns a Koran in Florida and UN officials die in Afghanistan.

Drawing on a lifetime of writing about dictatorships and dissidents, Timothy Garton Ash argues that in this connected world that he calls cosmopolis, the way to combine freedom and diversity is to have more but also better free speech. Across all cultural divides we must strive to agree on how we disagree. He draws on a thirteen-language global online project—freespeechdebate.com—conducted out of Oxford University and devoted to doing just that. With vivid examples, from his personal experience of China’s Orwellian censorship apparatus to the controversy around Charlie Hebdo to a very English court case involving food writer Nigella Lawson, he proposes a framework for civilized conflict in a world where we are all becoming neighbors.

You can request the book by clicking on the following link to StarCat:

http://goo.gl/CyaaQM

Or by calling the library at: 607-936-3713 x 502.

Have a great day!

Linda, SSCL

Online Catalog Links:

StarCat: the catalog of physical materials, i.e. print books, DVDs, audiobooks on CD etc.  http://starcat.stls.org/

The Digital Catalog: the catalog of e-books, downloadable audiobooks and a handful of streaming videos: https://stls.overdrive.com/

Freegal Music Service: This music service is free to library card holders and offers the option to download, and keep, three free songs per week and to stream three hours of commercial free music each day: http://stlsny.freegalmusic.com/

Zinio: Digital magazines on demand and for free! Back issues are available and you can even choose to be notified by email when the new issue of your favorite magazine is available: https://www.rbdigital.com/stlschemungcony

About Library Mobile Apps:

You can access digital library content on PCs, Macs and mobile devices. For mobile devices simply download the OverDrive, Freegal or Zinio app from your app store to get started. If you have questions call the library at: 607-936-3713 and one of our Digital Literacy Specialists will be happy to assist you.

Shoppers Being Tracked By Their Cell Phones, Cool Desk Fans & How Social Media Is Changing Mentorship

Linda Reimer

Shoppers Being Tracked By Their Cell Phones: I came across a New York Times article today that is a bit disturbing. It seems that some brick and mortar stores that are very envious of the way Amazon and other online retailers can see, via the viewing customers do of webpages on their websites and the online purchases of those customers, what items their customers are interested in and then tailor the search results those shoppers see to fit their tastes – the idea of course being that if you show customers things that their purchase and viewing history indicates they like – they’ll be more inclined to buy them. And all of that of course gives online retailers an edge over brick and mortar stores; so some brick and mortar chains have been looking for more high tech ways to compile information about their customers and one of those companies – Nordstrom – instituted a way to track which customers when those customers entered their stores by tracking the Wi-Fi signals of their cell phones.

Granted the Nordstrom posted signs to alert patrons they were doing this – and not surprisingly they had so many complaints from customers that didn’t want their cell phones tracked every time they visited a Nordstrom store that the company ended the experiment after only a few months. However, both the fact that online retailers can gather so much information about customers without their consent and the fact that brick and mortar stores are looking for similar ways to track customers via our Wi-Fi connecting technology does give me pause.

I’m sure most online retailers have some little bits of info at the bottom of their 100 page user agreements (insert little bit of sarcasm here!); but honestly how many people read those multiple page user agreements in their entirety? Most of us simply want to purchase the item we want to buy and get back to our lives not sit in front of a screen for an hour reading through a user agreement.

And that is the long way around the barn of saying that we all need to be aware our rights to privacy are at risk in our increasingly interconnected high tech world.

Here’s a link to the Times article on Nordstrom titled “Attention, Shoppers: Store Is Tracking Your Cell;”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/15/business/attention-shopper-stores-are-tracking-your-cell.html?hp&_r=0

Cool Desk Fans: The tech site Mashable offers a fun article today – and a timely one for most of us in the U.S. where it does seem to be an exceptionally hot summer. The article is titled “7 Chic Desk Fans to Keep You Cool” and it offers a slideshow of cool desk fans for all of us who’d like to say cool this summer. They have everything from a solid traditional looking metal fan – the “Charly Little” and the “Hunter Retro Fan” to fancy high tech sci-fi looking fans like Dyson “Air Multiplier” and the “USB Windmill Fan” that latter fan can indeed powered by connecting it to a USB port on your computer.

Here’s the link to the fan a article:

http://mashable.com/2013/07/15/best-table-desk-fans/

How Social Media Is Changing Mentorship: While I was looking at the tech news on the Mashable website I came across an article tilted “How Social Media is Changing Mentorship” which discusses just that subject! How social media is offering more options than ever before for people to be mentored by experts – via – and you guessed it – internet connecting technology. The article isn’t a long one but discusses how can find a mentor on social networking website among other options and how you can connect with your mentor from home while wearing your pjs if you wish!

Here’s the link to the article:  

http://mashable.com/2013/07/14/social-media-mentorship/

Have a great day!

Linda R.

References

Clifford, Stephanie. & Hardy, Quentin. (2013, July 14). Attention, Shoppers: Store Is Tracking Your Cell. New York Times. Online. Accessed July 15, 2013.

Pittman, Aaron. (2013, July 14). How Social Media is Changing Mentorship. Mashable. Online. Accessed July 15, 2013.