Monday, May 30, 2011

Memorial Day

They went to fight
Shoulder to shoulder
One-by-one.
Sons, husbands, and brothers,
Somebodies loved once,
For all the best time to come,
For other people, and for us.
Some would come home with honors,
Others with purple hearts.
Unluckiest would give away their hearts
In fights.

Today, the silent flame of fire
On the memorials remind us
Of the good and bad times.
There are two words
Bigger then life,
"Freedom" and "Life" itself.
Freedom and good life -
For them, for us, and for future lives!

Ida Tomshinsky, 2006-2011

Monday, May 23, 2011

Library Instructions

The current librarianship for academic librarians includes instructional design skills, information literacy skills, presentation skills, and teaching skills. Where these proficiencies could be learn?
Some people will say "on the job" by self-teaching and understanding the information structure of information within various disciplines of knowledge.

Planning tools and instructional design tool-kits are very important for information literacy integration in presentations and subject expertise. Constructive librarian-faculty collaboration encourage students to ask adequate questions in adequate time, interpreted and rephrasing questions in seeking the information.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Lady Gaga Thinks She is a Fashion Librarian

Lady Gaga thinks she is a Fashion Librarian. She declared that she studied a lot the fashion terminology to be a Fashion Librarian. According to Lady Gaga, the green shoes from her aunt, posters from her dad's collection, and attending a second-hand bookstore in New York city make her a Fashion Librarian. There is a zero understanding that Fashion Librarian is a profession that requires to have a Master's degree in Library Sciences (MLS) or Master's degree in Library Information Sciences (MLIS.) Library sciences and librarianship allow to own a title of the Librarian with capital "L." There are librarians in public sector, academic librarians, school and special libraries' librarians. Some librarians specialized as children literature librarians, other are law librarians. Some are specialists to provide valuable library resources, library services, and library programs to library users who seek information in these flattering fields of fashion and librarianship. Knowledge of fashion terminology does not make you a Fashion Librarian as knowledge of Medical Terminology does not make you a doctor. For example, for French women fashion is almost a religion. French women know that they can go far with a great haircut, shoes, and a divine perfume, and do all of these things make them Fashion Librarians? What is takes to be a Fashion Librarian? The fact that this area of research continues to be undervalued as an academic pursuit is itself meaningful. Fashion Librarianship science studies include socio-economic issues, historical approach, and wide aspect of business management. There are those information brokers, catalog, fashion arbiters, and John Bartlett all in whole that are very close to definition of what is the "Fashion Librarian." Technically speaking, I will try to put it in Library of Congress (LC) classification system - GT - Custom of Anthropology, H - Social Studies, HD - Economic Conditions, HF - Commerce, HG - Finance, N - Fashion in Fine Arts, NC - Drawing, Design, and Illustration Techniques, TT - Hand Craft for Technology, TS - Manufacturers. Saint Exupery's Le Petit, "The Prince," is a book that all French people know well. It can be read in an hour, but it is packed with timeless wisdom. In the book, the fox explains to the little prince the need of rituals. There are rituals in real life applications. We spend most of our working hours performing our daily rituals, the routine. It happens because we are role models of our profession. Career-motivated professionals pay special attention to appearance for success. Appearance, the way people look from cleanliness, hairstyle, fingernails, cosmetics, jewelry to style of dress as important as other nonverbal communication. Going back to Lady Gaga's attempt to be one of us, Fashion Librarians. The first choice to catalog selected library resources about Lady Gaga would be under music and pop culture, not in the fashion design or fashion merchandising section. Let say, it will be written a book (I am sure, somebody will!) about Lady' Gaga's fashion costumes that she uses in her performances and appearances. A book of this content could be on the bookshelves in 391 section of the Dewey Decimal classification system.

Monday, May 16, 2011

La Boheme

The summer is on the corner, and the bohemian side of summer fabulous designer looks caught my attention. The nostalgic to the sixtieth explored the absolutely adorable colorful prints that are showing up on maxi dresses and skirts. Tiered palm tree or floral prints and fashion accessories are the essential part of summer style. Idealizing the past, escaping from the reality, and simply reaching out to for the "good old days," - have both the tenderness of the new circle of the spiral step forward, and the melancholic sadness of the fun and easy past times. New wave of political and social interest of new generation crossed with colorful or drab textiles with leather and beading accents, pair of flats, and wild and free hair are here again, and reminding me of the 60s and 70s.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Decisions

As each individual grows and develops, many important decisions are made. Among those decisions is the process of choosing the means by which one earns a living. Involved in this process is the integration of a wide variety of factors, which influence those decisions.

Those factors include aptitudes, interests, abilities, achievements, experiences, goals, values, motivation, worth ethics, and morality.

Everybody has dreams, everybody has opportunities, everybody has talents and potentialities. Next step - decisions to make!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Why Poetry or Any Other Creative Writing?

Poetry combines two very important elements that were joined together in one powerful statement made by Ezra Pound, -"...an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time." The language of the poetic writings exercise origins of observation and images. Literary images that describe a story, a fact or a blurb discuss some related images and are the heart of successful creative writing.
Where the images come from? The short answer is, "from observation." It could be just one person's opinion, believe, or state-of-mind. Attention to details are making the poems concrete, real, perhaps, tangible. Objects in words give the rare opportunity to "dream" the images threw as experiences.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Autograph Tree (Clusia rosea)

This beautiful decorative tree could be seen everywhere in Miami. [We have a young Autograph tree at the school building's entrance.]

This evergreen tree has high salt tolerance and is a good candidate for a beachfront plantings. The strong large size branches provide good shade. The fruit is attractive to birds and other native wildlife. Green leaves are hard in texture and can be scratched and written on with a finger-nail, leaving the signature on the tree for a long time...hence the name Autograph tree! It is a 100% eco-friendly native plant.

Many native plants are hurricane resistant. Native plants preserve the local heritage and make South Florida unique. Local trees in general, provide us with a sense of place and history that can be passed onto future generations.