This is a test of the ability of the ccmlnet email discussion list to keep you informed of Council happenings. If it works, you should already know all about the program for the December 6 meeting at Rose Medical Center. The meeting will start at 9 a.m.
You have two alternatives if you don't receive a message from our new discussion list about the December meeting. First, check the new CCML website, http://www.ccmlnet.org/, for information and directions to the meeting. Second, contact Jerry Carlson at 970-495-7323 or gmc@libra.pvh.org for information and directions.
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The CCML website and discussion list have undergone their first major change since their creation. CCML's new website URL is: http://www.ccmlnet.org/. Our new list is ccmlnet@ccmlnet.org. We hope it will be fully operational by the time you receive this issue of Council Quotes, and the transition will inconvenience as few members as possible.
What do CCML members need to do to adapt to these changes? First, change your bookmark to http://www.ccmlnet.org/. Second, everyone with a valid email address in our CCML membership database has been automatically subscribed to the new list. If you did not receive an email confirmation of your subscription there may be a couple of reasons. You may have a new email address that CCML doesn't have on file, or you may need to check that CCML has your correct address. Please contact Mary Walsh (Mary.Walsh@uchsc.edu) if you have questions or need to check whether you've been automatically subscribed to the new list.
Our service provider, Supernet, was recently absorbed by Qwest, who has ceased to support lists. Due to the urgency of transferring our list and website, the CCML Executive Committee authorized Lynne Fox, chair of the Internet Committee, and Jeff Kuntzman, Treasurer, to investigate CCML's options for a new service provider.
Lynne and Jeff recommended Indra's Net after consideration of several options. Lynne and Jeff also recommended identifying and registering for a domain name. The advantages of having our own domain name included simplifying our URL, and creating an opportunity for a transparent transition to a new service provider in the future.
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The CCML Nominations Committee is pleased to announce the slate of candidates for 2000-2001 officers. Jenny Garcia has been nominated to run for President, Suzanne Kaller for Treasurer, and Lynne Fox for Secretary. CCML members will vote on this slate of officers at the December 6th business meeting. Please do your best to attend this business meeting, one of the most important of the year.
Thanks to Pat Nelson, Mary Walsh, and Robin Waters for putting together this excellent slate of candidates.
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The Prez Group met on Nov. 9, 2000 at the CCLS Offices. Seven representatives from the five Colorado library organizations attended with at least one person representing each group. After the minutes from the August meeting were approved, the following items were discussed.
The joint directory is being integrated by Julie Wells at the CLA office. She will have it completed before she leaves in two weeks. She thinks it will be printed around the first of the year, and she is looking into printing costs. There are 1,700 members of CLA and CEMA. Julie needs to know how many extra need to be printed for COALL, SLA and CCML members. Glenn posted a note on the CCML list serve to find out how many copies we need to print for CCML members. The deadline to get the number to Julie is 11/17/00.
There was not much news on the Colorado Library Political Action Committee. Since the library legislation was recently passed, there was no other report, or plans for new initiatives.
The federation of library organizations is progressing. The by-laws have been written and approved by both CLA and CEMA. A steering committee is meeting to determine the financial aspect and possible staffing. They will hold their first conference as one group in 2002.
Discussion on the Colleague Connection was brief. Nothing has been done as of yet for next year. The Association of College and Research Libraries will hold a conference here in March of 2001. Tom Fry of CLA will see who is speaking that we might be able to use for the Colleague Connection event. SLA will look into what nights are available at DU.
CLA reported the Julie Wells is leaving the office at CLA and will be replaced by Kathleen Sagee. Their conference in September attracted 450 attendees, and was quite successful. The CLA Legislative Committee is putting together packets of information to give to the newly elected state representatives.
CEMA reported that Donna Jones Morris will be their new president, and they have approved merging with CLA. Their annual conference is scheduled for mid February.
COALL reported that they had a great joint meeting with SLA in September. In October they had a guest speaker who is an attorney and mystery writer. In November they will have Richard Jost speak. Their holiday party will be held in newly opened law offices.
SLA reported that Kathleen Rainwater is the new President Elect. Their next meeting is at the Bureau of Reclamation Nov. 29, 2000. Liz Bishoff will present on the Digitization Project. The mid-January meeting has not been set.
CCML reported that their new slate of officers had been selected, and that the MCMLA regional conference in September was very successful with about 125 attendees.
An additional concern that was mentioned was the issue of who is, or will be, replacing a graying librarian population. The COALL rep said that there is at least one law firm that has been looking for 2 people for several months. The reps from CLA and CEMA also mentioned that there are some positions that are not being filled for lack of qualified applicants.
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Please see the print version of Council Quotes for this Profile.
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Please see the print version of Council Quotes for this Profile.
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Check Your Bandwidth -- If your Internet connection seems slow, or if you wonder how close to 56K your pipe actually is, or if you've paid for a cable modem or DSL and you wonder if you're getting your money's worth, then Microsoft has the site for you. MSN Computing Central's Bandwidth Speed Results (http://computingcentral.msn. com/topics/bandwidth/speedtest.asp) will test your connection to the Internet and tell you exactly how fast you're surfing. It sends packets of data to and from your computer, but no personal information is involved. It displays your bandwidth speed in Kbps (Kilo bytes per second) and on a speed test barometer that compares the various types of Internet services. You can tell at a glance how fast you're connecting and whether it's what it should be. It's great for finding out if you've got a slow pipe or merely a slow site.
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A teleconference on UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, will be shown on December 13, 2000 from 11 am - 3 pm at the Front Range Com-munity College, College Hill Library in Westminster. The teleconference is being sponsored by the Central Colorado Library System, CoALL and Front Range Commu-nity College. After the conference members of CoALL will facilitate a discussion. National library associations are concerned that this proposed law will restrict uses of digital information by library. The teleconference will offer information about the proposed act and suggest ways that local organizations can lobby against it. The teleconference is free and participants may bring their own brown bag lunch. For more information, call CCLS at 303-422-1150 or email ccls@qadas.com
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Please see the print version of Council Quotes for this Profile.
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JANUARY 2000 FEBRUARY 2000
CEMA Conference - Libraries: Unlimited Links APRIL 2000 Check the Library Continuing Education Calendar at
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"I want to live in America. I don't feel patriotic for Italy at all; I don't want to live here. I'm going to America to live when I get big." The Italian ten-year-old boy proudly declared these intentions to my daughters.
During our European family vacation last summer, we stayed in Pompeii for a week, and my two daughters lived with the Vitiello family, Angelo, his wife Giodannia, and the two daughters, Rosella and Valentina. My wife met this Italian family over the Internet. We were the Americans, and Rosella and Valentina, the same ages as my own daughters, proudly displayed us to their friends. Mario, a young neighbor boy, boasted to us of his plans to move to America when he grew up.
I've thought of that little boy, so enthralled with the United States, and I've wondered what this country's attraction was to him. The United States is a wealthy nation, but certainly there are other countries as wealthy, or at least with as high a standard of living such as Switzerland, Sweden, and Japan. We are a democratic nation, and we have rule by law. These attributes are attractive, but they are shared by Italy and many other nations of the world and cannot be the only appeal of this country.
I believe what sets the United States apart is our diversity, we are a melting pot consisting of many religions, races, and ethnic backgrounds. Furthermore, by nature of this diversity we are a land of opportunity. For this little boy, coming to America meant coming to a country where he could succeed through hard work without regard to who he was or where he came from. In America, the most successful small business owners are immigrants - and this ability to pull one's self up by the bootstraps is our tradition.
By nature, we all affiliate with people like ourselves - and whether it is for race, religion, education, or gender, we tend to be comfortable with those similar to ourselves. Fortunately, our laws do not sanction this behavior-we are free to live, work and go to school where we please. We do not have the problems of the mideast, of Bosnia, or of Northern Ireland. We do not regularly kill our Catholics, Muslims, Jews or Protestants. When Mario stated he wanted to come to America, it was not for our wealth, our democracy or our rule by law, but I think it was for our diversity and the opportunities this diversity engenders.
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I received this on a recent literature search request. The library may be itsy-bitsy, the budget just as small, but with patrons like this, I love coming to work every day.
(To be sung to the tune of the theme song from "Felix the Cat.")
I have a request, a humbly submitted request Don't remember Felix's theme song? Refresh your memory at: http://www2.wi.net/~rkurer/ttra50.htm, at the ToonTracker Real Audio Cartoon Themes web page.
Return to Table of Contents According to an item in Nature, scientists in Japan are beginning to unwrap the (banana-shaped?) genome of the chimpanzee to see how it compares to that of your average human. This may not be necessary. Spend some time watching the chimps at the zoo, and then tune in to a shoving match on Jerry or Jenny or Sally's TV program dealing with "Men who drink synthetic motor oil and the women who find them intriguing" and you'll get a feel for the connection...and it may not end with the chimps.
It turns out, for example, that many insect species engage in the quaint, very human custom, of offering what the literature refers to as "nuptial gifts." These are offerings of food from the male to the female at the time of mating, and have been studied in such works as "Sensory exploitation as an evolutionary origin to nuptial food gifts in insects," by S.K. Sakaluk in the tediously named Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences. Because dating as we know it (i.e. dinner and a movie) is seldom used in the insect world, these gifts are given right before the action begins, whereas the typical human, Western male will allow the female to choose from the menu at Denny's before expecting some sort of "thanks," which he generally has a snowball's chance of actually receiving.
Further study along these lines, by scientists who have certainly found an interesting niche, seems to indicate that, in some ways, size really does matter. Again we see a parallel with humans, who often can be heard to say about gifts (in advance, at least) that "it's the thought that counts." Well the insects are a little more upfront about this issue. Again from the Proceedings... we learn that larger gifts might lead to the evolution of larger males, since the little guys can't carry the really large boxes of candy, and the big ones convince the lady to dally long enough with that individual to give him a better chance of passing his handsome antennae on to a number of baby bugs.
Correspondingly, when the "large nuptial gifts" become a matter of routine, there's less need for large females who do their own shopping, so the trend is to the petite, and "sexual size dimorphism" results. On the other hand, since it's also fairly common for female insects to kill the males immediately after mating, and the males apparently accept this as God's will, the larger males simply become another gift of food, after which the ladies probably can't even look at another bite for a week. While humans would like to think we can do better, a good $100 meal featuring a bottle of fine wine would make most of us at least think a few positive thoughts about the person wielding the credit card, if not actually offer the hoped-for gift in return at the end of the evening.
This food connection seems to be a fairly strong link between us and the insects. While we might pretend to be appalled at how they scarf each other down at the drop of a very small hat, the fact is that some of us have a long history of eating them, too. For confirmation, take a look at "Fried grasshoppers: for campouts or at home," in the March 1998 issue of "The Food Insects Newsletter," or try the recipe (from the kind chefs in the Entomology Department at Iowa State University) for Banana Worm Bread...standard except for the 1/4 cup of dry-roasted army worms. Dry roasting your own probably adds to the pleasure, if you can get past the blood-curdling little screams. For balance, remember that insects feel no compunction in turning us into a main course, dead or alive. A scarring memory from childhood is of Charlton Heston in the movie "The Naked Jungle," disarmed and tied to the ground under a blistering South American sun, serving as a picnic appetizer to some of the members of a two-mile wide, twenty-mile long column of army ants.
Some animals, based on human testimony, are very much like us, only better. Take the ferret...according to the producers of a web site called "Ferrets: You Can't Live Without Them!" ferrets are "intelligent, curious, playful, persistent, inventive, fun to be around and they take good care of you!" Try to find a human who fits that description in real life. Another point of view is that all ferrets and a large percentage of human beings are, in fact, rats. The rats aren't thrilled with this.
Dogs have evolved to a point that many of us would love to reach. The ones who have linked up with humans spend their days eating, sleeping, using the outdoors as a unisex rest room, chasing the occasional ball, and barking at whatever enters their field of view. Throw in golf, bowling, and beer, and you'll find an ecstatically happy male human. They also are familiar with "human" games, as shown in the classic work of art, possibly housed in the Louvre, "Dogs Playing Poker."
Dolphins were once thought to be at least as intelligent as humans. This is known as damning with faint praise. Current thinking puts them at around the monkey level. Anyone who saw "Flipper" would have to argue for at least that particular dolphin coming out on top, although he/she was severely limited in the manual dexterity required, for example, to operate a cell phone and a Ford simultaneously, not to mention dealing a hand of five card stud.
Submitted By Lynne Fox And Jeff Kuntzman
Submitted By Glenn Pflum
Submitted by Jenny Garcia
Submitted by Suzanne Kaller
From http://emazing.com
Submitted By Jenny Garcia
Technical Terminology: How to Speak Geek
January 4, 2001 - 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM
BCR, Aurora, CO
Contact: http://www.bcr.org/; (303) 751-6277; (800) 397-1552
February 15 - 17, 2001
Colorado Educational Media Association
Colorado Springs, CO
Contact: http://cemacolorado.org/2001_main.htm; (303) 292 - 5434 or (303) 454 - 8965
15th Annual Institute - Arkansas Valley Regional Library Service System
April 5 - April 7, 2001
Pueblo, CO
Contact: http://www.uscolo.edu/arkvally/; (719) 542 - 2156
Submitted By Paul Blomquist
Submitted By Jenny Garcia
Whenever I get in a fix, I ask you to open your bag of tricks
I have a request, a humbly submitted request
Your eyes may cross, your brow may frown,
your heart may go pitter-pat
When you hear my latest request.
Submitted By Dick Maxwell
| Council Quotes is a bimonthly publication of the Colorado Council of Medical Librarians (CCML). CCML / P.O. Box 101058 / Denver, CO 80210-1058. Subscription is a benefit of membership. Editor, Lynne Fox; Assistant Editor, Jeff Kuntzman; Contributors, CCML members. |
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