Thursday, February 26, 2009

Slacker librarians slacking off on the job.

Stuff like this makes me wince. Nebraska apparently has no use for young people in their library. And no room for anything resembling fun in the workplace.

http://kotaku.com/5160610/librarians-investigated-for-playing-rock-band

Good luck Nebraska librarians! Don't get fired.

And look into next gen systems, seriously.

Are you an inventor?

Ashoka GenV and the Lemelson Foundation are having a cool contest: the Invent Your World Challenge. Fifty young inventors will use their creations to address a local or global challenge and create positive change.

Do you have an idea for a new technology or the adaptation of an existing technology that will help make life easier, the planet greener, or the world better?

Put together a team, submit a proposal, and you might qualify for a grant to make your dream a reality! And your team could also win a $20,000 in scholarship money!

Teens 12-20 can apply before March 15, 2009 here.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Top Albums of 2008?

YALSA (the Young Adult Library Services Association) came up with a list of their Top Albums of 2008 for libraries to buy for teens...and we did! You can get on the request list for any of these albums by clicking on their title below:

Tha Carter III - Lil Wayne
19 - Adele
Santogold - Santogold
Folie A Deux - Fall Out Boy
Shine - Estelle
I Am… Sasha Fierce - Beyonce
Circus - Britney Spears
New Amerykah: Part One (4th World War) - Erykah Badu
One of the Boys - Katy Perry
Juno: Music from the Motion Picture
Twilight Soundtrack
A Little Bit Longer - The Jonas Brothers
Breakout - Miley Cyrus
A Pocketful of Sunshine - Natasha Bedingfield
Indestructible - Disturbed
Paper Trail - T.I.
Year of the Gentleman - Ne-Yo
Mail on Sunday - Flo Rida
Here I Stand - Usher
Fight with Tools - Flobots
The Recession - Young Jeezy
Funhouse - P!nk
Rotation - Cute Is What We Aim For
Fast Times at Barrington High - The Academy Is…
Lost in the Sound of Separation - Underoath
Skip School, Start Fights - Hit the Lights

What were your top albums of 2008?

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Sparky Awards & video contest announcement

Ever thought you might be able to make the world a better place by making a YouTube video? The Sparky Award celebrates young filmmakers who "creatively illustrate a short video on the value of sharing ideas".

This year’s winners are:

GRAND PRIZE WINNER:
To Infinity and Beyond
By Danaya Panya, Sebastian Rivera, Hemanth Sirandas, Uriel Rotstein, and Jaymeni Patel, University of Illinois at Chicago Honors College
http://urliek.blogspot.com/2009/01/sparky-awards-entry.html

FIRST RUNNER UP:
How to Make Things Easier
By Taejin Kim, Savannah College of Art and Design
http://blip.tv/file/1493053

SECOND RUNNER UP:
Brighter
By Christopher Wetzel, Ohio Northern University
http://www.vimeo.com/2373573

SPECIAL MERIT AWARD:
GrowUp
By Cécile Iran, Laurie Glassmann, Christophe Zidler, Aldric de Villartay, University of Versailles-Saint Quentin, France
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7kaif_growup_creation

While that contest is over for now, you can start working on your entry for Sno-Isle's Teen Tech Month Book Trailer Contest! Winner gets a cool, personalized Flip Mino video camera. Entries are due by April 15, 2009 so start working on yours today!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Fund Your Dream

Lisa McMann, author of Wake and the upcoming sequel Fade, along with her publisher, Simon & Schuster, is offering an essay contest worth $1,000 dollars to the winner. All you have to do is answer one question:

What is the Greatest Obstacle You’ve Overcome?


Find out more and submit your entry.

Contest ends on 3/6/09 at 11:59 p.m. EST.

via Justina Chen Headley

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Find Beauty Challenge

Justina Chen Headley, local author of three excellent works of YA Fiction (Nothing But the Truth [and a few white lies]; Girl, Overboard; North of Beautiful) has announced a contest in honor of her newest title, North of Beautiful!



From Justina's blog:

Tell the world what you find to be Truly Beautiful! Just upload a 90-second video describing what real beauty means to you...and you could win yourself an iTouch! PLUS, for every uploaded video, I'll donate $10 (up to $1,000) to Global Surgical Outreach, an amazing group that helps kids with cleft lips and palates in the third world.

Here's what to do:
  1. Record a 90-second video essay about what's truly beautiful to you!
  2. Upload the video onto YouTube.
  3. Then...send a link to north@marthabee.com. (Martha Brockenbrough--tech guru and my friend of much wonderosity--will link your video to the North of Beautiful YouTube channel.)
  4. Tell all your friends to RATE your video.


The Official Rules for the NORTH OF BEAUTIFUL: FIND BEAUTY CHALLENGE:
  1. The Top 5 videos will be chosen by YOU based on the most views and highest ratings. So be sure to tell all your friends to vote for you! Any ties will be broken by the North of Beautiful team.
  2. The North of Beautiful team will score the five finalists on A) 40 percent emotional appeal (humor, pull-on-the-heartstrings, incites activism, etc.); B) 40 percent content (clean, widespread appeal across audiences, plot – if applicable, scriptwriting – if applicable); and C) 20 percent professionalism (smooth transitions, stable video, non-jarring editing cuts, constant audio levels).
  3. All videos must contain original content. Your entry indicates you understand this and have the legal rights to distribute your video.
  4. Any videos deemed inappropriate by the North of Beautiful team will be removed. Please don't upload anything that wouldn't, say, be shown on television during prime-time hours, or anything you wouldn't want to watch with your first-grade teacher. So no nudity, profanity, or racial slurs.
  5. The contest will run from 12:01 a.m. Feb. 1, 2009 until 11:59 p.m. Mar. 30, 200. Anything submitted before or after the deadline can't be considered.
  6. Justina will donate $10 for every uploaded video (for a maximum of $1,000) to Global Surgical Outreach to help fund facial surgeries for kids in the third world.
  7. The Find Beauty Challenge is open to people over 14.
  8. The Grand Prize winner will receive one iPod Touch. 3 runners up will receive fabulous gifts, such as an autographed collection of Justina's novels, other free books, etc."