The YikeBike-an Electric Penny-farthing..What next!

Do you want urban freedom and urban mobility? If so, then check out the YikeBike. For all you cyclists out there just an FYI to let you know that there is now an electric 2 wheeler bike that is being tested in the UK. It is designed and assembled by a couple of inventive Kiwis. It is hoped that the first orders will be appearing in mid-2010. This new form of transportation called the Yike Bike– it travels up to 13 mph, weights 22 lbs, has a 20 inch front wheel and 8 inch back wheel which are pneumatic, frame is carbon fiber,  operated by a lithium phosphate battery that has a charging time of 30 minutes and can range up to 6 miles, has electronic, anti-skid brakes, built-in front, rear, indicator and brake lights. Now, what more could you want? You can fold it into a bag and carry the 22 pound package to your office and store it under your desk, and no parking problems! the YikeBike

Japanese Children’s Stories

I grew up with Japanese fairy tales because my dad grew up with Japanese fairy tales. It had nothing to do with being Japanese (we aren’t) and everything to do with the stories being magical (they are). My dad told me that when he had kids, he hunted through the bookstore for books from a specific publishing company – Tuttle Press – because the pink fabric cover and stylized illustrations were so familiar to him. I recently found a 2003 copy of one of these Tuttle books in the Favat Children’s Section! This collection includes classics like Momotaro (Peach Boy) and the Grateful Jizo statues, as well as lesser known ones like the Bobtail Monkey and the Magic Teakettle.  I even remember watching cartoons of stories like Urashimotaro in elementary school. What is always so interesting to me is how similar a lot of the fairy tales are to western fairy tales, as if they all came from the same place, fragmenting somewhere along the way, and adding a glass slipper here, a red rose there; a rice cake here, a persimmon there.

Code for America! Donate your web skills to local government

How can tech improve the accountability and responsiveness of local government?  Code for America is on it’s way to becoming a new non-profit allowing geeks of all stripes to donate their expertise:
Cities are under greater pressure than ever, struggling with budget cuts and outdated technology. What if, instead of cutting services or raising taxes, cities could leverage the power of the web to become more efficient and effective? What if interacting with your local government was more like using Facebook or Yelp? What if, instead of reinventing the wheel every time, cities shared technology resources?
The website’s pretty minimal right now, since the project’s only in its infancy.  Sign up for email alerts, or check the Code for America twitter feed for more info.

Access Latino Literature Free Online for Hispanic Heritage Month

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, September 15 through October 15, Alexander Street Press is offering free access to select full-text, online collections for libraries. Explore poetry, short stories, folk tales, novels, memoirs, non-fiction, and plays in both Spanish and English from Latino writers around the world. Use the links below to browse titles; when prompted, enter username: eviews and password: hispanicheritage . Enjoy, until mid-October!

Making The Library Work For You

(This may Develop into a series depending on how daring I am.)

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

I’m just your friendly neighborhood Journalism major who works in one of the Library’s many offices. So, I find myself sitting here, clicking through the Library looking for something to write about; like many students I have the typical Generation-Y aversion to libraries. But, then I stumbled on something that made me realize I was wrong.

While there is a wealth of information available to us on the internet (I mean it’s even destroying my job prospects as I write this) there is some stuff you just can’t get. My first thought goes to older newspaper articles or back issues of magazines. And, while it is necessary to learn by doing, it is also pertinent to see what some of the greats have done to earn their stripes. Sadly, that is becoming more difficult.

The Library can actually be of tremendous help in that regard. The Library here at Northeastern maintains subscriptions to various databases that have newspapers dating back to 1690 and they have all the Papers of Record dating back until at least 1991(NYTimes, Boston Globe).  Added Bonus: It’s free for students!

So, not only can I meld my love of a good newspaper article with my love of the versatility of the internet, but I can also rid myself of a previously held, and somewhat misguided, notion that libraries are outdated.

As an added bonus, I’m going to read Distinguished Professor Walter V. Robinson’s article which brought the Catholic Church scandal into the limelight in 2002….See if you can find THAT on Boston.com.