Revisiting Sesame Street

Remember this little ditty?

D, D, D, D
Daddy dear, oh daddy dear
Do dogs have dreams, do ducks have ears?
Do dragons dance, why do gophers dig holes?
Do gophers dress up in their dirty clothes?

If so, you may also be picturing the animated song that debuted on Sesame Street in 1972, with letter Ds flying by between images of dreaming dogs, daisies, doughnuts, and dandelions. The past month or so, I’ve been revisiting my Sesame Street days.

It all started innocently enough with reading Michael Davis’ book, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street. Davis’ book gives an in depth view as to how the show’s initial conceptualization (an informal conversation at a dinner party circa 1966) made its way into production. Davis reveals from interviews with cast, crew, and peripheral parties how timing, talent, drive, and luck aligned, allowing creators to produce an innovative approach to educate, as well as entertain, young children. Along with chronicling the show’s road to success, Street Gang, also provides a surprising peek behind-the-scenes of the beloved children’s television show. (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t always fun and games.)

While in the middle of reading Street Gang, I learned that MCL owns the DVD collection, Sesame Street: Old School, 1969-1974, which features a selection of entire episodes, as well as individual segments from the first five seasons. To rewatch Sesame Street through adult eyes, as well as from the knowledge gleaned from Davis’ book, is truly an experience.

There’s a special treat for those of you who prefer audiobooks. The book on CD, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, has Caroll Spinney (voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch) narrating Davis’ look at the world’s longest running children’s show. Additionally, the edition on CD includes an interview with Davis and Spinney.

-- This post was brought to you by the letter “D” and the number “3”,
Anna, Hopewell Branch

Windows 7 Resources

The buzz in the tech world over the last few weeks has been all about Windows 7, the newest release of Microsoft’s operating system. After the confusing press about the reliability and features of the last Microsoft system, Windows Vista, there are a lot of questions about Windows 7 and whether it is a good idea to upgrade. While the choice is ultimately up to the user, there are a few resources that can help you make the decision. I’ll outline a few below, but first some thoughts and highlights about the new software.

The biggest advantage to Windows 7 is it is a more polished version of Vista, which in some areas seemed incomplete. Having said that, for those of you running Vista that may have qualified for the free upgrade or are frustrated with that system, moving to Windows 7 is a pretty safe bet. Some bloggers and reviewers are even calling a Vista to 7 move a no-brainer. The good thing about an upgrade from Vista is you can keep your old files and settings. XP users need to do a clean installation and have to back-up all data before making the move since the installation clears the hard drive. Of course, if you are comfortable with XP, you may have little need to move to Windows 7, especially if you have an older PC. In any case, you should run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor before even thinking about buying a copy – this handy program will tell you about any hardware or software problems you may encounter. Note to iTunes users - you should de-authorize your PC before upgrading, something that isn't mentioned up front.

Of course Microsoft has done a good bit of advertising the new Windows, including a website that lists all the new features. The site is a good starting point for exploring the software and includes videos that show some of the features in action. The biggest additions are the live taskbar previews, snap, shake, and new home networking features like HomeGroup and Play To. The first three features are nice time-savers for multi-taskers since they let you flip back and forth between Windows fairly easily with a mouse click instead of having to constantly resize or minimize open windows. The networking features are designed for multi-PC homes that want to share resources such as printers and photo files, but don’t have advanced gadgets like servers or media sharing devices. The Play To feature, for example, lets a user play music or video from their desktop to a laptop in another part of the house. One feature that is missing from Vista are the add-on programs such as Photo Gallery and Movie Maker. Those have been removed from Windows, but are still available as a free download as part of the Windows Live Essentials package.

If you want to see more balanced reviews of the software and take a look at the third-party add-ons that are available (such as new goodies for Firefox), I suggest taking a look at the Cnet, PC World and PC Magazine pages on Windows 7. The sites contain reviews, tips, screen shots and other information you won’t find on Microsoft’s website.

Of course, the library is also ready to help you with a variety of Windows 7 books:

Windows 7 for Dummies
Windows 7 All-in-One Desk Reference for Dummies
Windows 7 Plain & Simple
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Windows 7
Windows 7 Inside and Out
Windows Live Essentials and Services

- Laura N.

Think inside the box!

(click picture to enlarge)

Create a text box in MS Office; add text, or image, in the text box and viola! you have an attention-grabber. There are manifold advantages when you type text or insert images in a text box: not only do you draw attention to your text when you put it in a text box, but you can move and position the text box anywhere on your document (woo-hoo, not restricted by margins!) Pictures which are notoriously hard to move suddenly become extremely mobile when placed inside a text box. You can add a single text box or quickly add multiple text boxes to a publication. To add a text box in

Word or Excel:

• On the Insert tab, in the text group, click Text Box.


• Simply click on a design from the gallery of text boxes and the text box you clicked on will be inserted on your document/worksheet.

PowerPoint:

• On the Insert tab, in the text group, click Text Box.


• Click in the slide where you want the text box, your cursor will look like an upside down sword.


• Drag to draw the text box the size that you want or simply click on your slide of choice to insert a small text box, then using the handles enlarge the text box to the size you want.

Publisher:

• In the Objects toolbar, click on the icon for Text Box. The Objects toolbar extends vertically along the left side of your publication.


• Click, where you want the text to appear, hold and drag diagonally until you have the box size that you want. Repeat this action for each of the text box you want to insert in your publication.

Outlook:

• Click New in order to send a new mail message.


• On the Insert tab, in the Text group, click Text Box. Click Draw Text Box.


• Your cursor will change into a plus sign.


• Click hold and drag until you have the text box size that you want.

To add text to a text box, click inside the text box and then type. You can also paste text or pictures inside a text box.

To delete a text box:
Click the border of the text box that you want to delete. Your cursor will change into a four-way arrow. Press the DELETE key on your keyboard. Make sure that the pointer is not inside the text box, but on the border of the text box. If the pointer is not on the border, pressing DELETE will delete the text inside the text box and not the text box itself.
You can delete multiple text boxes at the same time. Hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard, and then after you select all the text boxes you want to delete, by clicking the border of each text box in turn, press the DELETE key on your keyboard.

- Rina B.

Happy Birthday William Steig!

William Steig was born on November 14, 1907 in Brooklyn, NY. He came from an creative family and often drew and painted as a child including creating cartoons for his high school newpaper. His career as a cartoonist began out of the need to support his parents and younger siblings during the Depression. The only thing he claimed he knew how to do well was draw. He sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker in 1930 and went on to do more than 1,600 drawings for the magazine as well more than 120 of their covers. This is more than any other cartoonist associated with the magazine.

Steig did not start his work as a children’s author and illustrator until 1968 when, at the age of 60, he wrote and illustrated is first book, CDB! He then went on to have a very successful, award-winning career. His third book, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, won him the prestigious Caldecott Medal and The Amazing Bone won him a Caldecott Honor. When he began to write books for older readers, he won the Newberry Honor Award for both Able’s Island and Doctor DeSoto. He also won the Christopher Award for Dominic. In 1990, he wrote the picture book, Shrek!, which inspired the wildly successful movie franchise by the same name.

Throughout his career, he wrote and illustrated more than 40 children’s books and continued to write up through the last year of his life when he released a picture book biography entitled, When Everybody Wore a Hat. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 95. To learn more about William Steig and to view some of his artwork please visit the online exhibit dedicated to him at The Jewish Museum.

Mercer Country Library has many of Steig’s books available in our catalog. Here are just a few that are mentioned above. Check one out today!

CDB!
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble
The Amazing Bone
Dominic
Able’s Island
Doctor DeSoto
Shrek!

- Andrea L.

Databases @ MCL.org

The Mercer County Library System subscribes to more than 60 databases, the majority of which can be accessed from your home or office using your library card. These databases contain the full text of articles from journals, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and other reference works, and are excellent places to turn to for research help and personal fact finding missions. Here are just a few worth checking out:

Academic Search Premier: Contains indexing and abstracts for over 8,450 journals, with full text for more than 4,600 of those titles. Subjects covered include biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion, and theology.

MasterFile Premier: Contains full text for nearly 1,700 periodicals covering general reference, business, health, education, general science, multicultural issues and much more. This database also contains full text for nearly 500 reference books, over 164,400 primary source documents, and an Image Collection of over 460,000 photos, maps & flags.

History Reference Center: Offers full text from more than 2,000 reference books, encyclopedias and non-fiction books, cover-to-cover full text for more than 120 history periodicals, more than 59,600 historical documents, 49,600 biographies of historical figures, more than 110,200 historical photos and maps, and more than 80 hours of historical video.

Literature Resource Center: Provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every age and literary discipline. It covers more than 120,000 novelists, poets, essayists, journalists, and other writers.

Science Reference Center: A comprehensive research database that provides easy access to a multitude of full-text science-oriented content. This database contains full text for nearly 640 science encyclopedias, reference books, and periodicals.

Points of View: A full text database designed to provide students and schools with a series of controversial essays that present multiple sides of a current issue. Essays provide questions and materials for further thought and study and are accompanied by thousands of supporting articles.

- Lisa S.

Fun with Fall Leaves

Whether hiking or playing in the park, it can be hard for kids to resist collecting the bright leaves as mementos. What should you do with all these leaves?
Read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert for inspiration. In it, she rearranges leaves and other common autumn objects to form people, animals, and landscapes. Glue or tape leaves, dry beans, twigs, nuts, or pebbles onto paper to form your own fanciful fall scene.
Other Easy Leaf projects:

1. Leaf rubbings: Use fresh, flat leaves with large veins. Place the leaves face down under regular printer paper, take the paper off a crayon, and rub. You can also take the paper and crayons on your next walk to collect rubbings of tree bark, car tires, and other textured objects.

2. Pressed leaves are great for decorating windows, homemade greeting cards, tables, or Christmas trees. On the gloomiest, grayest day of winter they are bright reminders of warmer times. The following website has four easy methods of preserving leaves, depending on the kind of leaf and what you want to do with them afterwards:
http://gardening.about.com/od/craftsanddecor/ss/Preserve_Leaves.htm

3. Leaf Placemats: even the littlest leaf lovers will be able to do this. You will need 2 placemat-sized pieces of contact paper, flat leaves, and glitter. Lay one piece of contact paper sticky side up and add your fall treasures. Sprinkle with glitter and put the other piece of contact paper on top.

- Miss Emily

Books to Get You Thinking

Technology has transformed the dynamics of business operations everywhere, and has led to the rise of a new world order where corporations and the workforce are no longer confined to the boundaries of a specific country. Last month’s book selections highlighted some aspects of globalization. This month’s picks continue this exploration. The books I selected for you this month discuss, analyze and focus on the social and cultural aspects of globalization and the implications for the world’s poorest nations.

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty - First Century Further Updated and Expanded by Thomas Friedman. This revised edition of Friedman’s original bestseller published in 2005, provides a lucid exposition of how digital technology advances in the past fifteen years, most notably the spread of the Internet to remote areas of the world, have transformed the way global business is conducted. By providing tools of communication it has broken down all barriers and empowered the people allowing them to connect, collaborate and compete. The result has been economic turnarounds in many emerging economies through the flow of jobs to these countries. At the same time the author also analyzes the negative aspects of the economic surge in many parts of the world on the environment and on society as a whole. Throughout the book Friedman intersperses his theoretical treatise with interesting examples drawn from well known corporations such as Wal-Mart and Dell. Two new chapters have been added in the revised edition that includes a discussion on the emerging role of the social entrepreneur in the new global environment.
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Nobel Prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz follows up on his earlier book, Globalization and its Discontents with a sequel, Making Globalization Work. The author who worked as senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank from 1997-2000 discusses why globalization has failed so far in facilitating sustainable economic growth in several developing countries and what steps developed countries can take to ensure that global trade and international foreign aid actually succeed in bolstering the economic structure of some of the world’s poorest countries. The author provides a unique perspective on how the economic liberalization process in developing countries often leads to income disparities, social tensions and the undermining of underlying democratic processes in these countries. The sudden accelerated development that has followed the flow of capital and jobs from outside have also resulted in a surge in the demand for energy and natural resources with serious implications for global warming. To counteract such negative aspects of globalization Joseph Stiglitz emphasizes the importance of setting up a global governance system that would also ensure that globalization actually leads to the structural transformation of developing economies and to the eradication of poverty.
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The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey D. Sachs
Jeffrey Sachs, a leading development economist takes up the problem of global poverty in this important book. Having travelled extensively to some of the world’s poorest countries, the author uses his extensive knowledge and understanding to develop a compelling blueprint for eradicating poverty. The premise of the book is that poverty is a global problem which the industrialized nations can address effectively through policies that direct technology and capital towards developing infrastructure in the present day economically isolated countries. This would help connect the economies of countries such as Africa to the outside world and open them up to global trade. The author highlights the importance of transforming aid from developed countries into a tool that empowers poorer nations, equipping them with the resources needed to develop and sustain economic growth. The author gives an interesting analogy of providing aid in the form of a fishing rod that enables people to fish for themselves instead of aid comprised of donations of fish. Transfer of agriculture technology from developed countries could take the form of simple irrigation systems and fertilizers to help strengthen the vital agriculture sector in developing countries and counter the challenge of global poverty.
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There are many more exciting titles on our shelves so be sure to check back for more books to get you thinking!

- Nita Mathur