A good way to make searching our catalog easier

I feel like I'm overdosing on nonfiction a little bit -- I don't ordinarily read as much as I have in the past few weeks -- so I'm going to throw off the shackles of fact and history.

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon has precisely none of either. Pynchon's one of those authors that I've always kind of felt I should read at least once. His Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49 come up fairly often in my conversations with fellow bibliomaniacs, so I figured that this was a good opportunity to give him a test drive with Vineland.

Vineland is the story of a woman named Frenesi Gates (no relation to our Diana) and her evolution from gorgeous radical to gorgeous filmmaker to gorgeous narc to gorgeous mother. You get the idea. The book is also about quite the handful of auxiliary characters: her hippie ex-husband, Valley Girl daughter, straight-arrow DEA lover, former ninja girlfriend, and her former ninja girlfriend's current ninja boyfriend. The smaller stories of Billy Barf and the Vomitones (a surfer-rock band), the Wayvone Mob family, a roving cult of ghosts suffering from severe karmic imbalances, a few visits from aliens and Godzilla, a television-addicted DEA agent with marvelous hair, and the Emerald Triangle's pot-growing underpinnings are interwoven throughout the larger plot, which takes the form of a series of reminiscences that hop all over the country and make it as far as Japan.

It's pretty outlandish, but the basic plot outline is this: Frenesi, having worked undercover for the DEA for 20 years, setting up drug stings, has vanished. Her lover, a high-ranking DEA agent under Reagan, has a slight insanity problem, and immediately reacts by invading the small town of Vineland, California, where Frenesi's ex-husband and daughter reside. This forces Frenesi's ex-husband, who hasn't seen her since their daughter Prairie (I told you he was a hippie) was a baby, to send Prairie away with the Vomitones until, quite by accident, she runs into her mother's former ninja girlfriend at a Wayvone Mob wedding. This sets off much of the story, as both women disappear into a commune of fighting Buddhist nuns somewhere in the Sierras and Prairie learns more and more about her mother's history and gets to know her through the stories her old friends tell about her. The book culminates in Frenesi's reappearance at a family reunion and the DEA agent's abduction by a deeply weird tribe of local Indians.

Could you follow any of that? I barely could. It's a super-entertaining read, though, which reminds me of a number of other writers I've enjoyed, like Tom Robbins, Neal Stephenson, Michael Chabon, David Foster Wallace ... well, the list goes on. Pick it up sometime and enjoy the ride!

Now that I'm off that ride, let's talk a little bit about ALADIN Discovery, our new online catalog system.

I've had a few weeks to get used to it -- even librarians have to adjust to new things -- and I've developed a habit that seems to make things much, much easier to find.

Since we set up the new catalog, people have asked how they're supposed to make their search more specific. There's only one box to enter their keywords, and this leaves them with two choices:

1. Figure out how to get the one box to include all the information they need to narrow the search down to the exact book they want, OR;
2. Just throw what they can think of in there and then sit back, slightly stunned at the sheer number of books they'll have to search through.

As it turns out, there's a third choice, and it's one that I'm making increasingly often. Check out the example to the right.

You'll see it on the far right-hand side of the results page. It's swiftly becoming the first place I go when I encounter a long list of search results even after selecting 'Gallaudet' from the Select Library drop-down menu. The number of results I got from the search I performed here, for instance, was about 70. Not bad, but who has time at this stage in the Fall semester to go looking through 70 items? However, if I were looking for a movie, clicking on the "Movie" link in the above list under Format cuts it right down to 6 items.

If I were looking for a book, it'd be time to check out the other possibilities. One of my favorites is by author. This has turned out to be one of the most useful options when someone comes up and knows only the title (which is usually something very generic, like "Land" -- there is a book called Land, which is all sorts of fun to find) and author; I just find the list of authors that appears in the right-hand column and click on "more," then scan the list until I find the author I'm looking for, click on that, and there it is.

Other ways you can use this listing of options (called "facets" in Librarianese):

• A general subject in a specific part of the world (say, child prostitution in Southeast Asia)
• A topic relating to a specific time period (telecommunication devices before 1934)
• Specific applications of words that are used in a number of contexts ("play" as a therapeutic methodology)
• Common forms that can cross genres (Detective fiction instead of histories of criminology or the biography of a detective)
• Recent works with the latest theories or best practices (Reviews of pharmaceutical intervention in the treatment of schizophrenia published within the last 3 years)

You get the idea. Those facets are incredibly useful and save a lot of time from going down the drain of repeated search attempts or slow scrutiny of pages and pages of search results. They make the search process feel more like a process, proceeding from the initial search to the first facet you see that will be useful, to the second (although usually you get what you need with the first facet), and so on until you find what you're looking for -- or don't, in which case you need to start over, but with a better idea of what keywords to enter next time. Things also tend to go a lot faster with this method, which comes in handy when you've got a slightly wild-eyed student standing on the other side of the counter with five minutes left before class.

That wraps it up for this week. Enjoy your weekend!

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Question of the Week
I was looking for a book on the catalog earlier this week, and I noticed that some of the results that came up for that book said "electronic resource." What does that mean?
Basically, that means the book is available as an e-book. In other words, it's totally online and can be accessed from anywhere.

However, there are a couple of catches. The first catch is that those books usually can't be downloaded. You can't save them to your computer. You can, however, set up a personal account that will enable you to save your favorite books so you can find them again, and even set bookmarks to keep your place. It's pretty neat ... but it does lead us to the second catch: Even if you have a personal account, you still need to go through ALADIN in order to access your books.

For example, one of our biggest e-book providers is eBrary, Inc. They have a website where you can go and log in and check out their library outside of Gallaudet. Unfortunately, they'll charge you for the privilege, which trips up a lot of people who head home somewhere off campus, log in to ebrary.com, and try to start reading the same book they've been reading here on campus; they won't be able to get in. The reason for this is simple: there are no free accounts on ebrary.com. You have to either pay for access yourself or be a member of an institution (like the Library) that does.

In order to take advantage of the Library's access (and we have quite a lot of it), you will need to go through ALADIN. You'll have to log in, find the e-book in our catalog, and then access the book from there. This is because when you log in to ALADIN and then access the e-book, our network will tell eBrary that you're part of Gallaudet and they'll let you in without a problem. Then you can log in to your personal account and you'll find everything just like you left it.

Meet Credo, your new best friend

Back in July, I was riding the Metro home from a game at Nationals Park (thanks to my boss, Sarah Hamrick, who is a true baseball fanatic; she doesn't care about winning or losing, if you can imagine that). I wound up sitting behind a mother-son pair, both of whom were reading books.

Now, I happen to be one of the worst kinds of Metro riders: I have no problem with looking over the shoulders of people in front of me to see what they're reading. In this case, the son was reading Rules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky, which looked interesting, so I mentally filed away the title. A couple of weeks later, I remembered that night and checked our catalog. Imagine my surprise when I found out we had it! So I checked it out and began to read it.

Rules for Radicals is sort of a primer for people looking to get involved in community organization, which also happens to be part of our Social Work program's curriculum (SWK 482: Social Work Practice III: Organizations and Communities). It's an interesting historical text in one way: It was published in 1972, a time of particular upheaval in American history. It's right around the time, in fact, that the word "radical" came to be associated not simply with union organizers and peaceful community protesters, but with more violent methods of social protest, such as those undertaken by the Symbionese Liberation Army (the folks who kidnapped Patty Hearst) and other organizations.

In Rules for Radicals, it's definitely the older association -- Alinsky is an old-school radical who was active from the 1930s all the way up the early '70s, and talks about the importance of communication, understanding your community's needs, and various tactics to, for example, get large corporations to accede to workers' demands or to persuade city governments to meet the needs of underserved minority groups. It's a thoughtful, funny book that also offers a new perspective on American history and how radicalism has had its part to play in the world we live in today; it sort of makes you reexamine things like the recent Obamacare town hall meetings that erupted in shouting and recriminations.

The book actually showed up kind of coincidentally: I found out last week from one of my good friends that the Free Library of Philadelphia -- where she works -- was to be shut down indefinitely as of October 2nd, because of a budget crisis. It's a pretty un-American thing, mostly because the first lending library in the US was established there by Benjamin Franklin himself in 1731 (The Library Company of Philadelphia). This news caused ripples as far away as Spokane, Washington. It was covered by the Huffington Post and BoingBoing (written by one of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow -- he wrote Little Brother, which I reviewed a few weeks ago).

The whole thing was pretty awful, but Rules for Radicals made me very curious about how the community would behave as October 2 drew nearer. Last night, though, the state legislature finally passed a bill that'll infuse more money into Philadelphia so the city can survive another year without massive service cuts. So that's okay.

Now that the giant sigh of relief has come and gone, I'm gonna introduce you to Credo Reference. We're all excited about this! We just got it set up a few days ago and had a guy from there come in and tell us all about it. Here's the basic concept: It's like Wikipedia, only better.

Let's clarify this claim a little bit. What Credo Reference does, basically, is work as a research database for hundreds of specialized reference books. Here's one book from each subject area covered by Credo:

• An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930
• The Cambridge Dictionary of Scientists
• Encyclopedia of the History of American Management
  
• Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition
• Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
• Cambridge World History of Food
• The CIA World Factbook (including customizable data tables)
• Encyclopedia of African History
• Who's Who in Gay & Lesbian History
• Concise Encyclopedia of Sociolinguistics
• Great American Court Cases
• A Dictionary of Literary Symbols
• Collins Dictionary of Medicine
• The Harvard Dictionary of Music
• Chambers Dictionary of the Unexplained
• Handbook of Forensic Psychology: Resource for Mental Health and Legal Professionals
• Chambers Classic Speeches
• Critical Terms for Religious Studies
• Atlas of the Universe
• Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs
• Encyclopedia of Computer Science
• McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms

That's the merest taste of the pages and pages of listed resources we now have access to. I say Credo is much, much better than Wikipedia, because Wikipedia relies on basically anyone who knows how to use a computer for its information, which makes it A) academically suspect (you have no idea what sort of unqualified laymen have had their fingers all over that article about coffee) and B) unverifiable in most cases (sources aren't always listed, which makes it difficult for you to go to that source and make sure that the information in the Wikipedia article accurately reflects it -- plus the whole process of verifying sources kind of defeats the purpose of Wikipedia to begin with!). Credo Reference is super-trustworthy and amazingly comprehensive.

Seriously. Try it. Go to library.gallaudet.edu, look for the link to ALADIN in the green header bar of the box labeled "Shortcuts to ALADIN," then when ALADIN comes up, click on "Databases by Title" in the top row, and search for "Credo." You're good to go!

Now that we've gotten the basic introduction out of the way ("Gallaudetian, meet Credo. Credo, meet Gallaudetian."), let's get into the nuts and bolts of exactly what Credo is good for.

First, it needs to be said that Credo is not a source of articles from academic journals! It's for reference only, like a dictionary or encyclopedia; the stuff you find therein (whether text, images, or videos) can be cited in an academic paper, though. For example, let's say you want to do some research on widely-used foodstuffs that have been found to have medical benefits and decide you want to look at caffeine. It's a chemical that has a lot of associated meanings, a ton of history, and some fairly complex chemistry.

One good way to use Credo in your paper about caffeine is by establishing what caffeine actually is right at the beginning -- whether a drug that's been instrumental in the rise of leisure fiction, a chemical that slows heart rate, or a medicine that can protect against most types of cancer; Credo can be cited in order to back you up. This also applies to basic biographical facts, summaries of important scientific theories, and descriptions of known mental illnesses, among other things. Still, you'll come across a lot of jargon -- highly-specialized vocabulary that may mean something different in different fields, or only actually be a word in a single field -- which can get in the way of actually learning something.

This is where you come across the second part of Credo's real utility: conceptual linking. By 'conceptual linking,' I mean something really simple: finding other words for what you're looking for that will enable you to both understand your topic better and find more information about it. In a lot of cases, a single word for a topic will only take you so far in your research; the best word to use is one that's part of the jargon in your field, but it's not always easy to figure out. Credo will help you with that, especially the dictionaries for terms used in various disciplines. It's a fantastic starting point for your research.

Credo also provides a feature called the Conceptual Map to help with this process. If you've ever used ALADIN Discovery and noticed the little web of words on the left-hand side of the screen that starts swirling around when you search for something, you'll recognize the Conceptual Map. Clicking on a word in the map centers it, and adds and removes linkages accordingly. Also, when you hover the mouse arrow over a given word -- but don't click on it -- a little box pops up that gives you the first few sentences of that word's entry in a given book. Caffeine actually yields a surprisingly large map that spans various psychological disorders, aspects of neurochemistry, the history of Honore de Balzac and European coffeehouses, and the "methylxanthine" family. So you click on "methylxanthine" to figure out exactly what it is. The entry you get to -- the one from Taber's Cyclopedia Medical Dictionary, of all things -- tells you some basic stuff: methylxanthines are stimulants that occur naturally in certain plants, and they have specific medical effects on the human body.

So far, so good. Now you can get started on finding helpful books and articles about methylxanthines, their recreational uses in the forms of coffee, chocolate, and tea, and their medical effects. Credo's gone ahead and made the process of searching for books and articles much easier: take a look at the sidebar on the left. The first thing that should pop out at you is the list of "Related resources." You see stuff like "Library Catalog" and "Academic Search Premier" (Ebsco).

Yes, clicking on one of those links will automatically take you to a search for "methylxanthine" in the linked resource. This means you get to a library book or academic journal article that much more quickly and saves you quite a bit of time and effort (although you will still have to do some actual legwork after this point).

Seriously. Try it. Learn it. Love it. Live it.

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Question of the Week
What happened to the stapler you used to keep by Printer 2?
It's broken, and we don't have a spare. This was an easy question!

New movies!

I'm feeling a little bit jittery today. Just a little bit.

Why? Coffee. Before you scoff, you should know that caffeine is probably one of the most interesting psychoactive drugs in the world, if not the most interesting. To find out more, you'll just have to check out The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug. Honestly, it's kind of mind-blowing, covering all the major sources of caffeine in modern society, including tea and chocolate as well as coffee. You'll learn about how mysterious coffee really is, why tea seems to have easily lent itself to an elaborate ceremonial structure, and just what it is about chocolate that makes it so irresistible (at least to me; I have an incorrigible sweet tooth). The only downside is that it's such a large read -- almost letter-size pages (same size that comes out of your printer) and fairly dense text that seeks to cover virtually everything it's possible to discuss about caffeine, up to and including the specifics of its molecular structure and interactions with human neurochemistry. Nevertheless, it's a wonderful ride through art, science, and the good times of 18th-century poets.

Pick it up sometime soon, once you're willing to commit to such a weighty tome; it's worth it!

So, this week, we're going to take a little detour from the usual academic stuff and take a look at some of the new-ish popular movies that have recently arrived.

You should bear in mind: Most of those movies aren't exactly new releases. They've all been pre-loved, which is a cutesy way of saying "donated" -- we've gotten quite the wave of donations in the past few months, and are super happy to have them here! Don't be shy about cleaning out your DVD collections and bringing them by if you think we don't have them. In fact, if you want to maybe save yourself a trip, check ALADIN Discovery before schlepping your load of movies over here.

Anyway, here's a sampling of what we've gotten recently:

Jawbreaker
One of those classically silly '90s movies where all the high-school students look 30 (even the 15-year-olds), Jawbreaker is the story of one girl and her guilt after the accidental murder of the most popular member of her clique (a jawbreaker is, of course, involved). No Lawrence of Arabia but still a fun way to kill a couple hours!

Night Watch
A crazy sort of Russian fantasy flick with awesome special effects. It's about these two opposing armies of supernatural beings (including witches, vampires, werewolves, psychics, and pretty much anything else you can think of) who suddenly clash over a young boy who may wind up being the savior of either side. Beautiful and stylishly-done, it's one of the best supernatural movies you'll see all year.

Animal House
C'mon, who doesn't love this movie? John Belushi made a name for himself as gently-psychotic Bluto, Tim Matheson got a whole generation of girls to fall in love with him, and an entire genre of college movies was birthed. It all culminates in a hilarious raid on a town parade that can't be missed. I was hoping this movie would turn up in our collection eventually, and all my hopes were confirmed.

Nine 1/2 Weeks
Quite possibly one of the most erotic popular films to make it into theatres, Mickey Rourke (before his face fell off) and Kim Basinger embark on an increasingly sinister odyssey of sexual exploration set against the backdrop of a gritty 1980s-vintage Manhattan. Controversial in its time, it seems quite tame now (very little actual nudity), but is still a tense, absorbing watch.

Marley & Me
Okay, this one is pretty new. Still, if you're a dog-lover, this film is sort of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it's a funny dog movie about a puppy with an unusual talent for wreaking extraordinary havoc. On the other hand, the ending is pretty sad. Think Old Yeller. If you've never read it or seen the movie, go with God.

Adventures in Babysitting
One of my fellow librarians donated this one and got me all excited! It's a terrific '80s classic that's one of the more obscure films in Chris Columbus' oeuvre (he did two Harry Potter movies, plus Rent, which is also awesome; we have all three). A senior in high school has her heart broken on the same night she gets called to babysit a particularly rambunctious pair of siblings -- and on the same night her best friend decides to run away, only to end up stranded at a bus station in downtown Chicago. This leads our intrepid babysitter, her charges, and an extra teenager on a wild adventure through a 1980s Chicago whose grittiness rivals that of Nine 1/2 Weeks' New York. It's also hilarious and nostalgic! In a weird way, it also makes me think about how different our big cities are now compared to the 1980s ... but mostly it's just funny.

A League of their Own
The story of the All-American Girl's Professional Baseball League of the 1940s, based on a true story. When all the men were off fighting the Nazis and Nipponese in World War II, national baseball was in danger of collapse -- until the club owners stepped in and started a women's league. This movie follows the Rockford Peaches through their first season, told through the eyes of a pair of young women from Oregon, and how they -- and all the women they played with -- saved baseball and changed the role of women in society. It's both funny and poignant, and both qualities are especially encapsulated in Tom Hanks' character, a famous ballplayer in the mold of Babe Ruth who is pulled out of a spiral into alcoholism by the demands of managing a professional women's sports team. His reaction when one of his players bursts into tears after she messes up a play is a classic.

Contact
Based on Carl Sagan's novel, this is the story of a brilliant astronomer who suddenly discovers a signal from an alien civilization and must persuade her country to explore the message it brings, with knock-on impacts on every part of society, including politics and religion. This movie offers a realistic look at how we currently search for extraterrestrials, although the hard science breaks down once the alien message is decoded. Still, it's a good and thought-provoking watch with some beautiful special-effects.

Monster-In-Law
Definitely a chick flick. I felt the estrogen surging while watching this one. Still, it's pretty funny to watch Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez go to ridiculous extremes to one-up each other in the race to get Jennifer married to Jane's son. From fake nervous breakdowns to poisoning, things get pretty far-out, but a last-minute deus ex machina in the form of Jane's former mother-in-law resolves everything in an eruption of tears and hugs.

As you can see, we're cultivating quite the wide variety of films in our collection, and as more donations come in, that will continue. Drop by our DVD shelves sometime soon and check it out!

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You've talked about donating books and movies to the Library in the past. How do you deal with donations? What if the Library already has a copy of what I bring in?
Here's our process for checking over donated books and movies:

1. The librarian that's responsible for the part of the collection where the donated item would belong has to check the item over with the following questions in mind:
1. Do we already have a copy?
1. If so, is the donated item in better or worse condition?
2. Is our copy checked out often enough that an extra copy would be a good idea?
2. If we don't have a copy, will the donated item contribute to the collection?
1. How old is it?
2. Does it cover a specific topic that doesn't have much coverage yet?
   
3. Does it present a different argument on the same topic?
4. (In my case, for popular stuff) Is it a fun read?
5. (In my case) Is there a demand for it?
   
2. The librarian then decides whether or not to add it to the collection.
1. If the item is added, it goes to Technical Services so they can work their magic.
2. If the item isn't added, we move on to the next step.
3. Put the item on the Book Sale shelf by the women's restroom.
   

We put donated items that don't make it into the collection on the Book Sale shelf mostly because even though we may not have a pressing need for it, someone else might. We also hate to let go of perfectly good books or movies without ensuring that they have a chance at going to a good home. Payment is mostly by the honor code: We have a little collection box with suggested prices posted above it, and we do appreciate any money that appears in the box, but we don't police it. As long as it all goes home with someone, we're happy.

Myron Uhlberg and Gallaudet's Common Reading

*cracks open one eye*

Is it Friday yet?

Needless to say, it's been a tremendously busy week; I thought last week was hectic enough, but this one's been nuts. I started working here right at the tail end of Fall 2008, and things seemed manageable. Still, the other librarians did a good job of warning me -- I thought Spring semester was wild enough, but Fall has turned out to be everything my colleagues have said and more. I'm ready for my three-day weekend now!

Now, let's prioritize -- first things first! I finished Everything Bad is Good for You this week. This was mostly thanks to Patrick Oberholtzer's recommendation after he found out I'd read The Dumbest Generation (reviewed here) and that I wasn't too crazy about the overwhelmingly negative things it said about my age group. Patrick's studied a lot of history, and he said The Dumbest Generation seems fairly typical of an older generation struggling to come to terms with a world that usually changes a lot in the interval between childhood and middle age, and suggested Everything Bad as an antidote.

It worked, big time. Everything Bad takes a look at the newer media that have emerged in the past 50 years or so (mostly so the author can include television) and concludes that it isn't making us dumber -- in fact, it's been making us smarter. For instance, take an episode of, say, Hill Street Blues (considered one of the most cerebral shows of its time) and compare it to an episode of Lost or The Sopranos. You'll see pretty quickly that the newer show is much, much more narratively complex (5-10 separate plotlines in a single episode) than the older one (one main plot and one throwaway subplot), and he says this sort of thing has become typical of most entertainment media today. Same with video games from Tetris (which has recently been shown to improve certain types of cognition) to Grand Theft Auto, which requires complex problem-solving skills for success. He calls all of this the "Sleeper Curve" -- a steady upward trend in human intelligence that's been hidden from statistical analysis for some time, mostly because of the annual renormalization of most intelligence assessments, like the IQ test, which periodically resets the "average" at 100 and thus shows no improvement. The truth is, several analyses (including a famous one by a fellow named James Flynn) have indicated that the actual level of intelligence generally considered to be "average" has actually risen by about three points per decade. The interesting part is that most of this increase has come from the lower end of the scale, suggesting that as a society, we're catching up to the smart kids.

The author admits that this doesn't apply to all forms of intelligence; in terms of, for example, knowing historical dates or understanding the process of catalysis, we aren't much better off than before. Still, we are a problem-solving species, and that's exactly the fundamental type of cognition we're showing a great deal of improvement in. It's a great feel-good read, both well-argued and deeply satisfying on a personal level.

Now, let's talk about another book.

Most of the folks reading this blog may know that Gallaudet has a Common Reading program that's part of the First Year Experience -- all new students get to read the same book and discuss it in their FYS classes. There are also events and visits from the author of the book; the idea is to engender discussion about various topics and provide some commonality among all first-year students. This year, the Common Reading is Hands of my Father: A Hearing Boy, his Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love by Myron Uhlberg.

This is a great choice! The book itself is a good read -- not only is it the story of a CODA, which has a special flavor all its own, but it also relates the story of a kid growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and 1940s, a very different time and place. The usual deaf-parents-hearing-kid story is strongly colored by the atmosphere of the time, and a lot of the best anecdotes couldn't have happened today.

For example, Myron came to visit for a talk last Spring and related a hilarious story about the Fight of the Century: Joe Louis versus Max Schmeling. This was actually a rematch -- Louis and Schmeling had fought before, but Louis had lost, a sore disappointment to his American fans. He was -- and still is -- considered one of the greatest boxers in history and a representative of the American fighting spirit, while Schmeling was an imposing German. Bearing in mind that this fight took place in the mid-1930s, right when Hitler was getting very aggressive in Central Europe and catching the attention of the United States, this fight was heavily freighted with meaning and promised to be a terrific spectacle besides. Now, Myron's father also happened to be a huge boxing fan and tried to get tickets, but the fight was sold out, with over 70,000 people filling the stands. He had to be one of the millions of people listening to the fight on the radio, which was being broadcast all over the world in four different languages. Unfortunately, he was deaf. Fortunately, he had an interpreter: his five-year-old son!

This confronted Myron with a quandary. How does a five-year-old interpret one of the greatest fights of all time, based on the excited spluttering of an announcer over an ancient radio? He came up with a terrific solution: Listen to the announcer and act out the fight himself! So the fight began, and Myron immediately began pantomiming punches being thrown, bodies falling to the floor, running and jumping and jabbing and dropping while his father watched, laughing and absorbed in what was happening. The bout lasted only two minutes; Schmeling threw two punches and hit the ground three times; so did Myron. The apartment suddenly erupted in shouting and pounding -- the neighbors could hear him banging around through the thin walls and were yelling at him to be quiet!

Still, the fight was done. Joe Louis, and through him, the United States, was victorious. Schmeling was on the ground for the third and final time. And his father had seen it all.

Hands of my Father is full of memories like this. Deaf club meetings at Coney Island, old friends from long ago (including Robert Davila's parents!), and life as a child of deaf adults. There is much that seems familiar regardless of the era. There is also much that is very different, offering a peek into what is, for many younger people, an alien world.

Myron's also written several terrific children's books:

• Dad, Jackie, and Me - How a deaf man and his son encountered and overcame discrimination in the time of the first African-American baseball player.
• The Printer - The story of a deaf man working at a printer and what happens when a fire breaks out and he's the only one who can warn the others. Loosely based on Myron's father, who worked at a newspaper printing plant, this book includes some fun instructions on how to make your own printer's hat!
  
• Mad Dog McGraw - A sweet little tale of a mean dog, a scared kid, and how kindness can overcome even the most intimidating barriers.
• Lemuel, the Fool - The hilarious story of a foolish fisherman who tries to sail to a magical city over the horizon, but encounters a village that looks mighty similar to his own.
• Flying over Brooklyn - A young boy in the midst of the Great Blizzard of 1947 dreams of flying through the falling snow and seeing the city laid out below him. Wonderful art, and an enjoyable tale.

All of his books (except Hands of my Father, which is understandably in high demand right now) are on display on the table by the West entrance (facing Peet). We've also thrown in other books by and about CODAs, most of which are autobiographical, as well as some films. They're all worth taking home to read or watch!

I'm short on blog posts this week because I'm long on work, so we're done for the week. In honor of Labor Day and its message of rest and recreation for all the nation's workers (including me!), no Question of the Week. Instead, enjoy your three days of freedom and (hopefully) beautiful weather!