#23 - Final Thoughts About 23 Things

The most rewarding aspects of 23 Things was creating and maintaining a blog using Blogger, setting up a Bloglines newsreader account to receive RSS feeds (I'm a major news junkie), learning about the many wonders of YouTube (terribly addictive and fun), podcasting (ditto), and test driving the Maryland Overdrive audio book and video program.


RSS feeds and podcasting signals a change in how news, information, and entertainment is produced, distributed, and accessed. In light of what we've learned, all of our library's programs and events should be preserved as podcasts for members of the public who are unable to attend them live. Downloads of our podcasts should be included in a library's usage statistics.

The 23 Things format encourages you to learn at your own pace and develop your blogging skills. Based on the amount of time spent on each activity, I would have expected more CEUs being awarded. If that's not possible, then every participant who completes the program wins an iPod!

I would be interested in participating in future Web 2.0 or 3.0 classes.



One important web communications tool that could be part of a future Web 2.0 class is the EZBoard and Jelsoft vBulletin community forums. Both EZBoard (http://ezboard.com/) and vBulletin enable you to participate in or create your own community discussion board.


EZBoard describes themselves as the "largest online community network site." EZBoard's platform is easy to use and you can get set up in only a few minutes. Ezboard's members are described as "young and economically strong. Forty percent of ezboard household heads are between 18 and 35, and half between 35 and 54. More than 50% of our members are women and over 90% of our users are on ezboard sites for more than an hour a week."


Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd is a UK based new media company and their flagship product is vBulletin. Detailed information about vBulletin is available at http://www.internetworld.co.uk/jelsoft-enterprises-limited.html

As someone who owns and plays several Martin guitars, I make it a habit of visiting the Unofficial Martin Guitar Forum (http://www.umgf.com/) on a daily basis. The UMGF is one of the largest guitar owners forums on the web with over 10,000 members and is a prime example of an active and dynamic EZboard hosted forum. The next largest guitar owners forum in membership and number of threads is the vBulletin hosted Acoustic Guitar Forum (http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/) .


At their best, these forums are incomparable sources of insider's knowledge, especially when several forum members have insider's knowledge about Martin, a 175-year old company that's been run by four generations of Martins, a rarity in American business. At their worst, long-time members can be terribly rude to new members asking a question or posing a topic that's been discussed in earlier threads but cannot be found using the forum's crude and ineffective search engine.


Like a library blog that invites reader participation, a community forum must appoint an administrator to monitor the site. Examples of an administrator's responsibilities include alerting members to periods of downtime due to technical upgrades, banning members from the forum for bad etiquette, and closing down or moving inappropriate threads.

#22 - Overdrive Downloadable Audio Books & Videos

I prefer reading print books over listening to audio books, but out of curiosity I searched the available audiobooks through the Maryland Digitial Library Consortium at http://maryland.lib.overdrive.com/, which uses the OverDrive Media Console™, version 2.1. The audio book titles for the most part are two or three years old two and I remember reading many of them when they were issued in print. If you want to listen to newly published titles like FDR by Jean Edward Smith and Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog by John Grogan, be prepared for a long wait on the hold list. Evidently, the MDLC is very popular with our library's users. Hopefully, more new titles published during the past year will hopefully appear on future lists.


Videos can be downloaded in either enhanced or mobile quality formats. Even in enhanced mode, the audio and picture was not as clear as on a DVD, but it wasn't bad. Even with the library's high speed Internet connect, it took over a half-hour to download a 1 hour video.


Unfortunately, you cannot test drive the MDLC Overdrive program in your library, but if you have high-speed Internet through your local cable provider at home, check out these two videos:

Home Movie by Chris Smith (2006)


From the publisher: Home Movie is Chris Smith's loving look at five extraordinary homes and the charming, bizarre people who inhabit them. Smith (American Movie) interweaves their stories in a way that makes the audience think about the meaning of home and the place of the individual in society. Smith delights in the eccentricities of these unique characters in much the same way that he did in American Movie and connects their stories into a mosaic of American ingenuity and architectural possibility.






Glenn Tilbrook: One For The Road by Glenn Tilbrook (2006)


From the publisher: Ever wondered what it would be like to go on a cross-country tour with a rock star? Filmmaker Amy Pickard did and made a movie about it. Expecting 18-wheelers and five star hotels, she found Glenn Tilbrook, the former lead singer of Squeeze, touring in a mobile home and bedding down in roadside campgrounds. This charming documentary follows Tilbrook on every step of his first solo tour of America in his beloved - but not so reliable - home on wheels. From the search for his missing RV; adventures with engine repair and exploding generators, to a musical house call that one fan will never forget: All access, all of the time. It's the story of how an established artist adjusts to his independent surroundings. It's a commentary on the current state of the music industry. But, most importantly, it's a human-interest story that transcends its musical base. Songs: Another Nail in My Heart, Take Me I'm Yours, Goodbye Girl, Is That Love, Third Rail, By the Light of the Cash Machine, Is That Love, Pulling Mussels (From the Shell), Up the Junction, Tempted, Slightly Drunk, When the Hangover Strikes, Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Hourglass, This is Where You Ain't, Parallel World, Some Fantastic Place, GSDH Essential

#21 - Search Tools for Locating Podcasts

After searching the podcast directory Podcast Alley, I discovered that some podcasts won't play on your computer until you download a Podcast Aggregator like the highly rated and easy-to-use Juice Cross-Platform Podcast Receiver 2.2 which you can download at http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/


Once you have installed Juice 2.2, all you need to do is simply cut and paste your favorite podcast's URL from Podcast Alley into Juice's subscription folder. Click download updates and it automatically updates to the most recent program. This is especially helpful if you are interested in programs that broadcast on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis.


After searching Podcast Alley, I discovered MVY Radio's weekly Blues@8 program out of Martha's Vineyard, MA. Each program program features a different style of the blues from the 1920s to the present.


LibVibe (http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibVibe) - is an eight minute newscast of serious and quirky library news from around the world. Updated every 3 or 4 days.


Recent stories:

• Young librarian pens book about humor in the profession, says he likes the quirky patrons


• Director describes flood damage at Lexington MA Public Library's historic East Branch built in 1883.


• A strike by library workers at Vancouver Public Library (Canada)

Podcasting and blogging is posing a serious challenge to the mainstream media by offering listeners an alternative source for music and news. Blogging and podcasting is slowly maturing into serious journalism that stimulates informed discussion of issues that matter to us. For example, bloggers are leading the charge in the consumer backlash against harmful Chinese toys and providing links to American- and European-made alternatives. Blogging and podcasting is a natural extension of the core mission of journalism: helping foster a vigorous public dialogue.

#20 - The YouTube Experience

YouTube has lost a great deal of content after TimeWarner and other major media publishers threatened Google with lawsuits unless they removed unauthorized copyright material. If you didn't find out about YouTube until now, you won't be able to see the entire Eric Claption MTV Unplugged concert. The only clip remaining on YouTube is the "Lonely Stranger" video which I've posted earlier on this blog.

YouTube is still a great source for music videos (when supplied by the record companies) and the sound and video quality is much improved. Dig deep enough into YouTube and you will find live (not lip synched) TV performances of pop and country music legends like Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, and Johnny Cash - all playing my favorite instrument - the Martin guitar.

Classical music is well-represented on YouTube if you can find pieces shown in their entirety.

Examples include cellist Yo Yo Ma's complete Bach Suites video and guitarist John Williams in a live performance of Joaquin Rodrigo's popular Concierto de Aranjuez.

Among the interesting classical music artists from the present and past on YouTube:

Bryn Terfel, bass - Arias: Se vuol ballare and Non piu andrai from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in a classic Metropolian Opera broadcast from 1998 under the direction of James Levine. To my knowledge the Met never released this on video. A shame for it's a stellar cast with Cecilia Bartolli (Susanna), Rene Fleming (Countess), and Dwayne Croft (Count).

Murray Perahia, piano - Excerpt from Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27, K. 595. His set of the complete Mozart piano concertos from the 1970s and 80s (Sony Classical) is notable for Nos. 15-19, 23, 24, 26, and 27.

Dennis Brain, horn (1921 – 1957) - Beethoven: Horn Sonata Op. 17 (Complete). A great artist who died tragically young in a car accident on a London motorway. Brain was born into a family already well known for producing fine horn players. He's famous for his 1954 EMI recording of the Mozart horn concertos with Karajan, which has never been out of print. Purity of tone and effortless phrasing marks Brain as the greatest horn player of modern times. Only Alan Civil (played horn on Paul McCartney's song "For No One" on the Beatles' Revolver album in 1966) and Barry Tuckwell are his nearest rivals. I own a copy on CD of Brain's first recording of Mozart's Divertimento in D Major K. 334 in February, 1939 with the Lener Quartet (EMI Classics, out of print).

Zino Francescatti, violin (actually, René-Charles), eminent French violinist; b. Marseilles, Aug. 9, 1902; d. La Ciotat, Sept. 17, 1991. Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, K. 218 (Complete) An assertive, secure and lyrical performance from the mid-1950s.

Fracescatti studied with his father René, a violinist and cellist, and with his mother Erneste, a violinist. When he was only 5, he made his public debut in a recital. At age 10, he appeared as soloist in the Beethoven Violin Concerto. After making his Paris debut in 1925, he toured England in duo recitals with Ravel in 1926. He soon established himself as a virtuoso via tours of Europe and South America. On Nov. 18, 1939, he made his U.S. debut as soloist in Paganini's 1st Violin Concerto with Barbirolli and the N.Y. Philharmonic After the close of World War II in 1945, he pursued an outstanding international career until his retirement in 1976. He then sold his celebrated "Hart" Stradivarius of 1727 and established the Zino Francescatti Foundation in La Ciotat to assist young violinists. In 1987 an international violin competition was organized in his honor in Aix-en-Provence. Francescatti's playing was marked by a seemingly effortless technique, warmth of expression, and tonal elegance. Source: "Zino Francescatti." BAKER'S BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MUSICIANS®, Centennial Edition. Nicolas Slonimsky, Editor Emeritus. Schirmer, 2001. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group.Photo by Studio France-Presse, courtesy of Oberlin College Library Special Collections.

Herbert Von Karajan/Berlin Philharmonic - Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 (Complete)

Electric, intense and lyrical performances from the 1963 and 1968, for the most part equal to or better than Karajan's 1962 and 1977 studio recordings. Good video. Very good to excellent mono sound. Too bad TV didn't broadcast in stereo back then. The soloists in the 9th are Gundula Janowitz (soprano); Christa Ludwig (alto); Jess Thomas (tenor); Walter Berry (bass).

* * *

YouTube dislikes: User comments are laced with negativity, insults and profanity. Aside from the great archival material, most of the content is rather juvenile or amateurish. Too many blinking and pop ads. Ads are now inserted into the videos. After Google acquired YouTube, clips are limited to 5 minutes max. but earlier contributions run twice or three times as long.

Features or components of YouTube if they were applied to library websites: Ability to post and store videos of appearances by notable authors performing artists, book discussions, historical lectures, meetings with elected representatives, departmental staff meetings, and staff training videos, and grand opening ceremonies for the new Boonsboro branch library.

#19 - Web 2.0 Awards List: Zillow.com & HousingMaps

HousingMaps, a mashup of Google Maps and Gregslist, enables you to search for real properties for sale or rent for major U.S. metropolitan areas, plus a few foreign cities. Why London and not Paris, Rome, or Berlin? Canadians will be happy to see Toronto and Vancouver represented, but what about Calgary, Regina, Montreal or Ottawa? You can limit your search results by price range. I was surprised to see quite a few Baltimore area properties in the $50,000-150,000 range, an indication that housing bubble has indeed burst.

Zillow.com is excellent for property searches in outlying towns and cities. Checking Zillow.com, the prices for homes in Washington and Frederick counties are much lower than they were two years ago.

HousingMap's useful features:

* Google Maps: Click on an icon to select city. In each city, click on the icons and see listings. You can also click the icons next to the each listing
* Price Range Drop-Down Menu
* Yellow icons have pictures.

Zillow.com's useful features:

Zoom in to the state level or below to see homes in this area.
For Sale: Homes that are for sale on Zillow by owners, agents, and builders.
Make Me Move™: Homes in which the owner has set "a dream price" for their home.
Recently Sold: Homes that have sold in the past 12 months or within the time range selected below under "Sold within."
All other homes: Homes for which we have Zestimate™ home valuations. These results cannot be filtered by price, beds, baths, etc.
Lists homes recently sold

Search criteria limiters:
Price: Any
Beds: Any
Baths: 2 + ba.

Range:
-
Size: Any
Lot: Any
Type: Any
Sold within: Any
For Sale By: Any
Reset all selections

Estimate property's square footage.

Together with Zillow.com, two helpful reference tools when a customer is looking for home in a city, suburb and exurb and want to limits a list of properties to a particular price range.

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Librarians: Book Bandit Robbing Libraries

DENVER, Aug. 5, 2007

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(CBS) This story was reported by Brian Maass, investigative reporter at CBS4 in Denver.

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Librarians throughout Colorado suspect a prolific book bandit checked out and attempted to sell thousands of books, tapes and DVDs. Library losses are estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars.

"He stole from his neighbors. He stole from this community," said M. Celeste Jackson of the Denver Public Library.

Thomas Pilaar, 33, obtained seven library cards from the Denver Public Library by using different names, CBS4 investigator Brian Maass learned.

The library says Pilaar then checked out as many as 300 items on each card, selling many of them via the Web site Craigslist.com.

A woman who recently bought books from Pilaar through Craigslist noticed the library identification stamps and alerted authorities.

"It appears his intent was to sell 2,100 (items) from the Denver Library collection," said Jackson, who estimated the losses at about $35,000.

Denver is hardly alone. Librarians from Aurora, Arapahoe County and Douglas County say they too have been victimized in recent months by Pilaar. Arapahoe County library administrators said Pilaar obtained three different library cards and checked out between 250 and 300 items.

James Larue, Douglas County's head librarian, said Pilaar checked out more than 300 items from two Douglas County libraries, mostly DVDs and pricey coffee table books. He says the library system's losses stand at $11,000.

"At one point $11,000 worth of material was about to go overdue, did go overdue, and it turned out that all of us very quickly shared that information and decided, 'Oh, it looks like we have a problem with this patron, let's be careful about that,'" Larue said. "Just like any other system, it's possible to abuse it. And this guy, if he is who he claims to be, shows up at some of the libraries and developed very quickly a pattern of just not acting like an ordinary patron and checking out way too many DVDs."

The Denver District Attorney's Office is investigating the library thefts and is considering filing criminal charges against Pilaar. Prosecutors are asking anyone else who may have inadvertently bought library books via the Internet, or anyone who knows where these books might be, to contact the Denver D.A.'s office.

Authorites arrested Thomas Pilaar within the last week on an unrelated parole violation. He is being held without bond at the Denver County Jail. He declined a CBS4 request to discuss the library thefts.

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For more news from this CBS station, visit cbs4denver.com.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

#18 - Online Productivity Tools

If you have a Blogger account, you can log in to use Google Docs without registering. According to Google, when you publish your document to the Internet, anyone will be able to access and view it online. Your document will be assigned a unique address (URL) on google.com that you can send to your friends and colleagues.

The above article was copied and pasted using Google Docs.

Zoho Writer is comparable to Microsoft Word in terms of the number of useful editing features. Importing a complex Word document with pictures results in a jumbled mess. Uploading a Word document with Google Docs doesn't distort the formatting as much, but it's not as perfect as if you copied and pasted a Word document from one window to another.

#17 - Learning 2.0 Sandbox Wiki

On Maryland Libraries Sandbox Wiki (http://marylandlibrariessandbox.pbwiki.com/), I shared some of the criteria I use to choose titles for the monthly BookShare Notable New Hardcover Fiction and Nonfiction Lists.

#16 Wikis - Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Wiki: A Community for Book Lovers

The New York Times is right on the money to call Nancy Pearl "the talk of librarian circles." She may not be a rock star (I leave that honor to the Eric Claptons and U2s of the world), but she taught us librarians the value of readers advisory and offered ideas on how to market our knowledge of and passion for the book in the Wired Age. Thanks to her series of best-selling books and syndicated book reviews on NPR, Pearl has developed quite a cult following for people unsure of what to read next.

Pearl's Book Lust Wiki: A Community for Book Lovers is based on on her best-selling books Book Lust (2003) and More Book Lust (2005), 011.73 P. (http://booklust.wetpaint.com/). Sasquatch Books published her latest book Book Crush: For Kids and Teens in April (028.55 P).

Since her retirement from the Seattle Public Library, Pearl writes books, speaks at bookstores and libraries, edits her Book Lust Wiki, and contributes two weekly "Book Beat" book reviews each week for NPR station KUOW in Seattle. Quite a work load!

In creating Washington County Free Library's BookShare program, I took inspiration from Pearl's belief that we should enlighten our library's readership about books - both fiction and nonfiction - that never make the bestseller lists. This is about 95% of books published and sitting on our shelves unread, so we have our work cut out for us.

Book Lust Wiki has several interesting features. Pearl invites readers to share their ideas of what will be the new literary classics for adults and children. She's also starting a list of the most popular authors "too good to miss" and encourages readers to add their favorite. I wonder what Pearl thinks about Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo who completes one book every six or seven years. His Empire Falls (2001) is a masterpiece and equals to his earlier work about life in small town America: Straight Man, Nobody's Fool, and Mohawk. Russo's latest book is Bridge of Sighs, to be published by Knopf in September.

You can post a notice in the Out of Print Books section which connects you to members of the community who may have a copy of the book you're interested in buying.

You can link your book discussion blog to Book Lust Wiki. Most helpfully, Pearl has categorized the blogs contributed so far into recognizable genres:

Chick Lit
Contemporary Romance
Fantasy
Historical Romance
Horror
Inspirational Romance
Mystery
Non-Fiction
Paranormal Romance
Science Fiction
Suspense/Thriller
Women's Fiction
General Book-Related Blogs
Children's Literature Blogs
Bookseller Blogs

When you join Book Lust Wiki, you can submit comments, edit pages, add a page, and keep tabs on a favorite page.

Her list of books guaranteed to "ignite" discussions are taken from her 2005 book More Book Lust. However, the world of books never stands still, so it would be interesting to see what newer titles in paperback Pearl recommends. The list includes Deborah Schupack’s The Boy on the Bus, Ann Packer’s The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, and two novels by Anne Ursu: Spilling Clarence and The Disapparation of James.

Book Lust Wiki accepts Google-generated ads and acts as a marketing campaign to sell Pearl's books. I have no problem with Pearl running a commercial website since marketing is what sells and/or circulates books.

I suggest that we invite Nancy Pearl to speak at a future Staff Day.

#14 Technorati

The heart of Technorati is blogs, or what the company calls "citizen media." It currently tracks 94 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.


After doing a keyword search for “Learning 2.0” in Blog posts, in tags and in the Blog Directory, it produced 3,614 results. Each blogger offers a different perspective of "Learning 2.0"

A blogger from Athens, Greece (http://e-learningpractice.blogspot.com/2007/07/e-learning-20.html) writes that Learning 2.0 reflects changes in how we use the web to communicate:

E-learning has seen a radical change recently. This change is due to the transformation of the Web itself. There have been efforts to transform platform based applications to web-based applications. The dominant way of technology enhanced learning is through learning management systems, which are also called Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), for storing and exchanging digital and multimedia content. However, due to the nature of the Internet and the way people are using it, e-learning is starting to be approached by teachers and students working collaboratively online.

Tony Karrer, CEO of TechEmpower, a software company that specializes in innovative uses of technology that aid human performance, views Learning 2.0 as a tool to conduct business in a global economy as outlined in his article, "Understanding E-Learning 2.0" (http://www.learningcircuits.org/2007/0707karrer.html):

The changes in e-learning are being driven by two primary forces. The first force is a steady increase in the pace of business and information creation, which has led to a shift in work, especially knowledge work, and an evolution in information needs. In turn, this has led to the following expectations for corporate learning:

Fast transfer of knowledge is a must.
Learning should transpire in short burst within the context of the actual workflow.
Learning professionals need to develop learning experiences quickly—and at a lower cost to the organization.

If you enjoy reading blogs that discuss digital gadgetry, a Technorati search is worthwhile.

1. Engadget http://www.technorati.com/blogs/www.engadget.com

Top tags:
apple cellphones desktops features gaming hdtv handhelds laptops microsoft peripherals
robots sony storage wireless breakingnews digitalcameras displays homeentertainment
portableaudio portablevideo

3. Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide
http://gizmodo.com

Top tags: apple cellphones digital cameras home entertainment laptops microsoft pcs
peripherals portable media robots samsung smartphones sony wireless iphone ipod
roundups software

5. Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post
By Arianna Huffington · 5 days ago
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Top tags: ann coulter corporation for public broadcasting dick cheney eat the press editor's pick
fox news george w. bush global warming google iraq israel jack abramoff nbc new york times
politics supreme court wal-mart washington post 11 2006

#13 Tagging & Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by in 2003, and is now part of Yahoo!.

The most popular bookmarked site is "10 Tips for Razor Sharp Concentration"

(http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-tips-for-razor-sharp-concentration.html)

I and 211 other people bookmarked this site, although only a few bothered to comment about.

I believe that organization is important, but what you really need is focus. Being able to sit down and concentrate intensely on your work for a few hours. Even a half hour of focused effort can get more done than an entire day of distraction and multitasking...
rinux

10 Tips for Razor Sharp Concentration Razor Writing to-do lists and keeping a schedule may keep you organized, but does it really help you get more done? I believe that organization is important, but what you really need is focus. Being able to sit down...
lei.zhang

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Since I spend a great deal of time reading and reviewing books, I already have a preconceived idea in my mind what I'm going to put down on paper. This approach lessens the chance of developing "writer's block." Very rarely does the blank sheet of paper remain blank for long - unless I'm procrastinating putting the words to paper. Unlike alot of people who can't write without background noise, I need it from time to time. Background noise is not just listening to music or the radio, but surfing the web, reading e-mail, and watching movies.

At this point, I'm not completely convinced about the value of del.icio.us other than the ability to share bookmarks with others, but you can do that as a moderator of a blog or as a member of a news group, MySpace, or Facebook. IMHO, none of the content being shared on del.icio.us was particularly interesting or useful.

#12 Rollyo

Rollyo Beta is advertisted as a "personal search engine" of most frequently searched sources. You are limited to 25 websites. You can either make your search engine public or keep it private. There's even a RollBar similar to the Google Search toolboor you can add to your browser.

I created a search engine called "News Desk" to search my most frequently used media websites. Search results were not as current or relevant as using Google News, which is still the best news search engine around. If you depended on Rollyo alone, you'll end up either going back to Google or using the search engines on your favorite web pages. NY Times, WashPost and the Baltimore Sun, for example, have excellent search engines since they are Google-powered. Rollyo's pages are loaded with advertising and junk URLs but they be cleaned up with ad blocker software. I was amazed that Rollyo is powered by Yahoo! but I guess Yahoo! is failing even with new Web partners to build an audience to its site and compete with Google. To its credit, Yahoo! has the best Web e-mail program. Otherwise, I rarely visit Yahoo!

#11 Library Thing

Library Thing Beta enables you add books to the database and share your comments with other users. Here is my list:

Alexander Hamilton America's Forgotten Founder by Joseph, A. Murray
1 other members. Tags: None (edit)

Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
2 other members. Tags: None (edit)

The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate by Michael Wallis
1 other members. Tags: None (edit)

The Unaffordable Nation: Searching for a Decent Life in America by Jeffrey Jones
No other members. Tags: None (edit)

Breaking News: How the Associated Press Has Covered War, Peace, and Everything E ... by Reporters of the Associated Press
4 other members. Tags: None (edit)

The Martin Book: A Complete History of Martin Guitars by Walter Carter
2 other members. Tags: None (edit)

Robbing the Bees: A Biography of Honey--The Sweet Liquid Gold that Seduced the W ... by Holley Bishop
66 other members. Tags: None (edit)

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant
17 other members. Tags: None (edit)

Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton
3 other members. Tags: None (edit)

Robert Schumann: Life and Death of a Musician by John Worthen
1 other members. Tags: None (edit)

So far, I am only one of two members on Library Thing that have started to read the new biography of Robert Schumann by John Worthen (Yale University Press, 8/07, B S3927W), Worthen is not a musicologist but a professor of English literature who has written about the Lake poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. Worthen captures the essence of Schumann's genius: his gift at improvisation and rhapsodic fleets of fancy. My favorite Schumann composition is the Piano Concerto in A minor Op 54, and the best version is performed by Murray Perahia and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis (CBS Masterworks, 1988).

Book Description:

This candid, intimate, and compellingly written new biography offers a fresh account of Robert Schumann’s life. It confronts the traditional perception of the doom-laden Romantic, forced by depression into a life of helpless, poignant sadness. John Worthen’s scrupulous attention to the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute, witty, articulate, and immensely determined individual, who—with little support from his family and friends in provincial Saxony—painstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician, overcame problem after problem in his professional life, and married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with her father. Schumann was neither manic depressive nor schizophrenic, although he struggled with mental illness. He worked prodigiously hard to develop his range of musical styles and to earn his living, only to be struck down, at the age of forty-four, by a vile and incurable disease.

Worthen’s biography effectively de-mystifies a figure frequently regarded as a Romantic enigma. It frees Schumann from 150 years of mythmaking and unjustified psychological speculation. It reveals him, for the first time, as a brilliant, passionate, resolute musician and a thoroughly creative human being, the composer of arguably the best music of his generation.

* * *

For a musicologist's perspective of Schumann's life and work, turn to John Daverio's Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age" (Oxford University Press, 2/97). Daverio is Associate Professor and Chairman of the Musicology Department at the Boston University School for the Arts.

Book Description:

Forced by a hand injury to abandon a career as a pianist, Robert Schumann went on to become one of the world's great composers. Among many works, his Spring Symphony (1841), Piano Concerto in A Minor (1841/1845), and the Third, or Rhenish, Symphony (1850) exemplify his infusion of classical forms with intense, personal emotion. His musical influence continues today and has inspired many other famous composers in the century since his death. Indeed Brahms, in a letter of January 1873, wrote: "The remembrance of Schumann is sacred to me. I will always take this noble pure artist as my model." Now, in Robert Schumann: Herald of a "New Poetic Age," John Daverio presents the first comprehensive study of the composer's life and works to appear in nearly a century. Long regarded as a quintessentially romantic figure, Schumann also has been portrayed as a profoundly tragic one: a composer who began his career as a genius and ended it as a mere talent. Daverio takes issue with this Schumann myth, arguing instead that the composer's entire creative life was guided by the desire to imbue music with the intellectual substance of literature. A close analysis of the interdependence among Schumann's activities as reader, diarist, critic, and musician reveals the depth of his literary sensibility. Drawing on documents only recently brought to light, the author also provides a fresh outlook on the relationship between Schumann's mental illness--which brought on an extended sanitarium stay and eventual death in 1856--and his musical creativity. Schumann's character as man and artist thus emerges in all its complexity. The book concludes with an analysis of the late works and a postlude on Schumann's influence on successors from Brahms to Berg. This well-researched study of Schumann interprets the composer's creative legacy in the context of his life and times, combining nineteenth-century cultural and intellectual history with a fascinating analysis of the works themselves.

Eric Clapton Broken Hearted (Acoustic Version)

On the evening of September 15, 1997, British music producer George Martin organized a benefit concert at London's Royal Albert Hall for the small Caribbean island of Montserrat, which had recently been devastated by a volcanic eruption. One of the highlights is Eric Clapton playing an acoustic version of a song that appeared on his forthcoming album, Pilgrim (1998). The guitar is a vintage 1950s Martin D-28.

Eric Clapton Unplugged Lonely Stranger

Eric Clapton played a 1977 Juan Alvarez classical guitar on several songs during his legendary MTV Unplugged performance on January 16, 1992: Signe, Tears in Heaven, and Lonely Stranger. The cover of Clapton's Grammy award-winning Unplugged album shows him playing a 1939 Martin 000-42 which was a gift from Steven Stills, who owns a substantial number of coveted pre-war Martins. Clapton's best performance overall was his acoustic version of "Layla" which shocked the music world. It's no surprise to avid listeners of his music that Clapton is one of the best reinterpreters in popular music. The MTV Unplugged concert proved once and for all that his guitar playing is peerless, acoustic or electric.

#15 Web 2.0, Library 2.0 & the Future of Libraries

Michael Stephen's essay, "Into a new world of librarianship" (http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm)



Stephens proposes a Librarians 2.0 program that he believes can help information professionals better manage the changing needs of users who are finding their information needs being satisfied by the Internet. Librarians 2.0 is what he calls a “strategy guide” for helping users find information, gather knowledge and create content.


Librarians 2.0 assumes that libraries can be a relevant social institution in a 24/7 Webcentric society if they offer technology, programs, and services that meet the needs of today's users.


If libraries are to remain relevant for their users, librarians must be in touch with what users want now and be in touch with trends that indicate what users's demands will be in the near future.


In essence, librarians must act and think like marketers of consumer products, always being on the lookout for new consumer targets.


Advertising Age has reviewed a new book, Karma Queens, Geek Gods, and Innerpreneurs by Ron Rentel and Joe Zellnik (McGraw Hill, 5/07). Rentel is the founder of Consumer Eyes, a New York-based marketing firm, which recently released its first collection of data on nine new types of consumers they call C-Types or "influencers."

"After culling thousands of brand insights -- S.C. Johnson & Son, Motorola, PepsiCo, and P&G are on its client roster -- using the consultancy's Consumer Immersion process, founder Ron Rentel and his team selected nine C-Types of true-to-life consumers who they believe should be on every marketer's radar. The resulting profiles may sound like stylized caricatures, but they're personas with tangible auto, wardrobe and mixed-media preferences, the company said. And while the book notes C-Types are not a "black box to success," Consumer Eyes hopes its research sparks creativity in marketing innovation. "


Advertising Age, July 23, 2007, http://adage.com/article?article_id=119415


For a more indepth understanding of the new C-Type consumer, go to: http://adage.com/images/random/0707/Consumers.pdf



Librarians 2.0 plans for their users - Make the library "transparent" by making your decisions and plans known in open forums and respond to comments. Ask your users what new technologies or new materials they need. Involve your users in the designing of new libraries.



Librarian 2.0 embraces Web 2.0 tools -Librarians must create new services born in a climate of collaboration. Build connections online where your users live.


Librarian 2.0 controls technolust - Technology is put to the test: Does it meet the users need in a new or improved way? Does it create a useful service for putting users together with the information and experience they seek?


Librarian 2.0 makes good, yet fast decisions - When redesigning your web site, keep in mind ease of use and user involvementcontent. Create content that can be easily added or reconfigured.



Librarian 2.0 is a trendspotter - Read outside the profession and watch for the impact of technology on users and spotting emerging trends in the business world.

Librarian 2.0 gets content - The future of libraries will be guided by how users access, consume and create content.

To a Temporary Place in Time (Dr. Wendy Schultz, Infinite Futures)
http://www.oclc.org/nextspace/002/3.htm

Dr. Schultz defines the library in a Web 2.0 environment:

What are libraries? Libraries are not just collections of documents and books, they are conversations, they are convocations of people, ideas, and artifacts in dynamic exchange. Libraries are not merely in communities, they are communities: they preserve and promote community memories; they provide mentors not only for the exploration of stored memory, but also for the creation of new artifacts of memory. What was the library of the past? A symbol of a society that cared about its attainments, that treasured ideas, that looked ahead multiple generations. Librarians were stewards, trainers, intimate with the knowledge base and the minds who produced it. Librarians today are not just inventory management biobots: they are people with a unique understanding of the documents they compile and catalog, and the relationships among those documents.

The Future of Libraries & Library 4.0: Schultz thinks that libraries will serve an "aesthetic economy, the dream society, which will need libraries as mind gyms; libraries as idea labs; libraries as art salons." Merriam-Webster's defintion of aesthetics is: "responsive to or appreciative of what is pleasurable to the senses."

The library as aesthetic experience will have space for all the library’s incarnations: storage (archives, treasures); data retrieval (networks—reference rooms); and commentary and annotation (salon).

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Pride and Joy, Acoustic version

An MTV Unplugged performance that originally aired on March 4, 1990. SRV is playing a 12 string Guild.

Meez Avatar Generator

Creating the Meez avatar and posting it to the blog was easy. For the animation to work, you must copy and paste the html code for the animation into the Blogger HTML editor.

I wish the Fender Telecaster guitar could be shown plugged into a vintage Fender amplifier!

The animation is much more limited than the original to save bandwith.

As for a real guitar player, I'd say Eric Clapton is the Segovia of modern blues guitar.















Eric Clapton and his 1939 Martin 000-42, January 16, 1992.
Photo credit: Philipp Ollerenshaw/Starfile

Eric Clapton's MTV Unplugged concert inspired a new generation of guitar players to take up acoustic guitar at a time when synthesizers and drum machines ruled the airwaves. Clapton also helped to revive the fortunes of C. F. Martin & Co. One of Martin's most popular production models today is the 000-28EC.

Read Clapton's 1993 interview with MTV Unplugged producer Alex Coletti, which is posted at http://www.clapton-online.com/clapton/mags/gl0694/ecgl0694.html

MERLIN & Other Useful Library-Related Blogs

MERLIN, or Maryland's Essential Resource for Library Information Networks, is a discussion board for Maryland Library staff to talk with each other, ask technical questions, pose thoughts and gain access to online learning resources. You must create an account in order to use this website.

URL: http://www.merlin.lib.md.us/

The heart of MERLIN is the Learning Links page. If technical terms such as "social bookmarking," "wikis" and "RSS" are news to you , start here.

I first heard of the term "wiki" from using the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Wikis are websites used to share information and files. They are great for team projects (designing a new library, planning an agenda for annual staff day, roundtable book discussion) because groups of people can share and edit information on the same web page. Many libraries are using wikis for their staff Intranets so that staff can share ideas and edit files together. Organizations sponsoring conferences also use wikis to build enthusiasm and collaboration amongst conference goers.

Web/Learning 2.0 Resources

Feed Readers, RSS, XML, Atom
Blogs
Gaming, Avatars, Virtual Worlds (Appeals more to children and YAs)

For an introduction to podcasting, go to http://podcasting101.pbwiki.com/

None of the podcast search engines were particularly great. Google wins hands down. You really need to know what is being podcasted to find relevant podcasts that interest you.



One of the most fascinating podcasts was found on Podomatic.com was a 22-minute "Beatlegs Podcast" (http://www.podomatic.com/search/directory/Music) celebrating the 50th anniversary of John Lennon meeting Paul McCartney for the first time at a Liverpool church fete on July 6, 1957, which is the date of the above photograph. The historic meeting has been well-documented in every book and video about the Beatles. The sound quality of this podcast was excellent. Most amazing are the first recordings of John Lennon and Paul McCartney performing old country and rock and roll tunes such as Cumberland Gap and Eddie Cochran's Twenty Flight Rock, Elvis Presley's Baby Let's Play House, from previously unreleased sources.

Previous Beatlegs Podcasts can be accessed at http://dinsdalep.podomatic.com/.

Social Bookmarking, Reference, Tagging, Alerts (del.icio.us)
Video, Photo & Media Buckets (no links as of 7-18-07)

Wikis & File Sharing

My top pick: WetPaint (http://www.wetpaint.com/), which enables you to create a website that combines wikis, blogs, and forums. The blog phenomenon could not have happened until software was developed that didn't require a knowledge of HTML (although that knowledge is very essential for advanced website design).


The primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. You can use tags to organize and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders.

Computing and Technical Resources

Beginning Computing
Handheld Devices
Network & Security
Trends & Cool Stuff
Web & OS Vulnerabilities
Web Design

Instruction and Online Learning

Content Management Systems
Course Management Systems
Shared Training
Online Courses & Webinars
Presentation and Screen Recording Software
Web Conferencing/Webinar Development Tools

Library Databases & Catalog Interfaces

Library Thing (http://www.librarything.com/): An online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.

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Podcasting is really another name for Internet radio. The issue for podcasters who broadcast copyrighted music is that record labels and artists are demanding of them the same BMI and ASCAP royalties that are collected from terrestrial (AM-FM) and satellite broadcasters.

Published in today's Baltimore Sun:

www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.internet17jul17,0,685364.story

baltimoresun.com

Radio Web casters get reprieve on royalties

By Jim Puzzanghera

July 17, 2007

WASHINGTON

Podcasting is really another name for Internet radio. The issue for podcasters who broadcast copyrighted music is that record labels and artists are demanding that the same fees collected from terrestrial and satellite radio broadcasters.

The songs remained the same on Internet radio yesterday, as many stations continued to stream music while their representatives negotiated to lower a controversial royalty increase that took effect over the weekend.

With talks progressing, SoundExchange, the organization that collects royalties for musicians and record companies, indicated to Web casters that it wouldn't seek immediate payment of the higher rates.

That amounted to a reprieve for Internet radio stations, some of which had warned they would have to shut down Sunday when a major increase in music royalties and fees kicked in.

"Each company has had to decide how they want to act on their own, but I think it's pretty clear that SoundExchange is not going to go after people providing they are trying to work it out," said Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora Media Inc., which operates one of the largest Internet radio sites from Oakland, Calif.

The federal Copyright Royalty Board set the higher royalties in March, retroactive to the start of 2006, when the previous rates expired. The board boosted the amount Web casters must pay per listener for each song they play, from .0762 of a cent to .19 of a cent by 2010.

It also eliminated a provision that capped the royalties of small Internet radio stations - many of them run by hobbyists - at 10 percent to 12 percent of their revenues, and set a $500 administrative fee for each Internet radio channel.

Some small stations already have shut down because the loss of the revenue-based cap meant they would owe much more in royalties than their stations earn. Web casters have organized online petitions and appealed the rate increase in court.

Fears that the new rates would squelch the musical diversity of the growing number of Internet radio stations have led some in Congress to propose halting the increases.

SoundExchange has the ability to strike separate deals on royalties. It has been negotiating with organizations representing various groups of Web casters, including small and large Web sites, religious broadcasters and National Public Radio stations.

Jim Puzzanghera writes for the Los Angeles Times.

Bloglines Newsreader - RSS Feeds

Bloglines Newsreader is an excellent way of keeping up with the latest news on one website. I'll use it as a companion to Google News to monitor business news stories as they develop. After you sign up for an account, you are directed to http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs.

The Bloglines search enables you to search not just news feeds, but even blogs posted with Blogline. Most helpfully, the search engine enables you to include or exclude your feeds in a search. The results are much more interesting than using Google's blog search.

The blog template in Bloglines enables you to post to a blog, but you cannot edit or remove your posts.

I subscribed to the following news feeds:

baltimoresun.com - business (0) (0)
baltimoresun.com - maryland news (0) (0)
BBC News News Front Page World Edition (200) (0)
Bloglines News (0) (0)
The Herald-Mail Online (200) (0)
NYT > Arts (130) (0)
NYT > Home Page (193) (0)
NYT Book Review (0) (0)
Reuters: Top News (200) (0)
WSJ.com: US Business (200)

It's interesting that you can access a Wall Street Journal news feed through Bloglines even though WSJ Online is a subscription-only service. The New York Times is mostly free, except for the subscription-only TimesSelect selections which include the ed and NYT columns from Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd.

With Bloglines, you can become an armchair media critic. Looking through the news feeds for the Baltimore Sun and the Herald-Mail, it's interesting to see how each media outlet chooses to cover the day's major local and regional stories.

Unfortunately, the Herald-Mail does not break down their blog feeds in sections like the major papers. The feed gives you the ENTIRE paper to scroll through. You might as well just log into the H-M website and select which sections interest you.

I was trying to find the Herald-Mail's take on the Cal Ripken Jr. - Aberdeen Stadium Deal Scandal. None to be found. The Baltimore Sun is covering it to the hilt on the eve of Ripken's induction to the Hall of Fame. Sun reporter Justin Fenton writes: "Several state lawmakers urged Ripken Baseball yesterday to renegotiate deals with the city of Aberdeen and help the small community as it struggles with debts it took on to build a minor league baseball complex."

Baltimore Sun, 7/17/07:
Ripken urged to renegotiate stadium pacts; State lawmakers seek relief for Aberdeen as it struggles to pay debts from complex http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.ha.stadium17jul17,0,5544400.story?track=rss

What isn't clear in any of the Sun's coverage is how much of the $18 million stadium was taxpayer supported and Ripken-backed.

NEW TECHNOLOGY: Apple iPhone

Apple's iPhone is an amazing device. It's not just the neat features, but it's the ease of use and clean design that sets Apple apart from competitors. I like the feature where you make a call by tapping a name or number in your address book, favorites list, or call log. E-mailing photos is hassle-free.

Other amazing features: a multitouch interface, visual voice mail, iPod cover flow, integrated e-mail to links to a web site, audio and video files, or phone number in message.

The hang up is that the iPhone is only available through AT&T (formerly Cingular) whose signal quality is varies from OK to terrible, depending on where you live and the volume of cellular traffic on the network.

iPhone features a 2-megapixel camera and a photo management application, but I would prefer downloading photos from my computer that were captured with a better-quality digital camera.

Negatives?

A replacement battery is very expensive: $85.95 per unit. The battery in the iPhone is

apparently soldered to the device and this means that the customer cannot replace the battery by himself.

TechWhack: http://news.techwhack.com/6105/iphone-battery-replacement/

Talk of iPhone 5.0: Apple is not known for sitting still with its designs, Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine senior editor writes:

To catch a glimpse of iPhone 5.0, forget the notion that we're all bound to own the same model.

For one thing, look closely at iPhone 1.0 and you'll see that this is a device with a lot of customization in its future. See that tantalizingly blank row of icons on the main screen? The software that fills that row will depend largely on what you, the user, want from the device.

For example, future iPhones might have programs that let you play World of Warcraft or cruise through Second Life. And while you can already download applications like iZoho, which lets you edit Word and Excel documents, to your iPhone, it probably won't take Apple long to add a similar feature.

The iPhone's hardware will change too. Apple's recent patent filings suggest that one day we'll have an iPhone encased in zirconia and another with an iPod-like trackwheel on the back. And when Jobs described the iPhone at its January unveiling as "the best iPod we've ever made," it was a strong hint that future iPods too will start looking a lot like the iPhone.

It's now hard to imagine that the next iPod won't have the iPhone's gorgeous touchscreen features, the better to watch movies with. Conversely, the iPhone would be vastly improved with the iPod's supersized storage and easier access to iTunes. And while Apple engineers are at it, why not use the same basic motherboard, screen, and interface for both devices -- with touchscreen on the front and a trackwheel on the back, perhaps?

CNN Money: http://money.cnn.com/2007/07/03/magazines/business2/iphone_what_next.biz2/?postversion=2007070609

THIS JUST IN @ YOUR LIBRARY

Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals

By William Queen and Douglas Century

Hardcover 224 pages Random House July 2007 364.177 Q

Queen, author of the best-selling Under and Alone: The True Story of the Undercover Agent Who Infiltrated America's Most Violent Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (Random House, 4/05, 364.1066 Q), relives his relentless pursuit of Mark "Mountain Man" Stephens, an elusive gun-toting narcotics trafficker who terrorized neighborhoods in the hills and valleys of Southern California in the mid-1980s.

23 Things - #6: Flickr Mashups & 3rd Party Sites

This Flickr-based tool is recommended for avid digital photographers who enjoy manipulating images to improve the look of their photos. If you have already saved your photos to Flickr and want to use Preloadr, Preloadr doesn't seem to work if your photos are saved to Flickr for private access. You have to make public your photos on Flickr for Preloadr to work. After you have finished manipulating the photos, then you can reset the photos back to private viewing.

URL: http://preloadr.com/

Preloadr is a free service that enables you to manipuate images uploaded to your Flickr account. providing image manipulation functions linked with your Flickr account.

Based on the unique technology of nexImage and the public API of Flickr, this platform connects to your Flickr account and brings powerful image manipulation tools right to your browser. No special installation and no additional registration is needed.

Before sending the images to Flickr, you can modify them with several tools like cropping, sharpening, color correction and much more. Once you've optimized your photo you can specify details about the image and set tags, as you're used to do at Flickr.

Using Preloadr is free and does not require any registration. You will be redirected to log into your account at Flickr.com and then sent back to this platform where you can access all your images and upload new photos. Before sending the images to Flickr, you can modify them with several tools like cropping, sharpening, color correction and much more. Once you've optimized your photo you can specify details about the image and set tags, as you're used to do at Flickr. If you're a Flickr Pro user, you can edit an existing image and replace the current copy with the new version.

Preloadr works best if you have a broadband internet connection.

23 Things, Week 3 - Having Fun With Flickr

The photo above is my Breedlove Revival OM-M #9839 (December 11, 2006) from BCR Music in Lemoyne, PA, which is across the Susquehana River from Harrisburg.

I downloaded the Flickr Uploadr software and uploaded the above picture to the Flickr website.

Flickr tag: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9628179@N03/tags/breedloveomm/

* * *

Observations about Blogger and Flickr

When you paste an image into a Word document, it will not be of the same quality as it appeared on the web page. A program called SnagIt 8 should allow me to capture a digital image cleanly and rename it as a jpeg, jif, etc., save it to My Pictures folder, and upload it to Blogger.

Digital images must be clearly captured and of large size if you intend to manipulate them for publication, especially in a Word document or your blog.

Blogger may not be the most sophisticated blogging software available, but it's fine for beginners. I was amazed how easy it was to create an attractive-looking blog with. While you can wrap photos around text, the results are less than spectacular compared to using Word. J.K. Rowling's picture had to be manipulated several different ways until it harmonized with the adjacent text. Trebuchet is a readable font and seems to accomodate photos better than the other Blogger fonts: Times, Courier, and Georgia. Unlike Word, you are very limited in how you can size your text - "Bigger" or "Smaller."

Flickr is a great tool if you are an avid photographer and you want to share your photo gallery with friends or the public. If you are a member of a forum that collects antiques and own a digital camera, it's easy to share your pictures of collectibles with other interested forum members.

THE OPEN BOOK: 1776 by David McCullough

David McCullough's best-selling 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 5/05, 973.3 M) ranks as one of the greatest books ever written about America and her War of Independence.

In celebration of our nation's birthday and a wonderful book, I've posted an excerpt from a review of 1776 that appeared in the May 23, 2005 issue of The New Yorker.

* * *

It's time for Americans to see that to really honor our country and troops overseas, whatever we buy must keep Americans working. A strong economy requires that we consumer-citizens must demand of our political leaders that corporations make our food, toys, appliances, clothes, etc. in the USA. Buying American not only means more American jobs, but avoids so many of the problems we've encountered recently with unsafe imports from China.

BOOKS

National Treasure

In the year 1776, character was destiny.

by Joshua Micah Marshall May 23, 2005

The title of the book, “1776,” is no mere flourish; the narrative is confined almost entirely to that single year, in which the fledgling Continental Army battled and retreated—mainly retreated—from Boston to New York and then, finally, across a wintry New Jersey to the outskirts of Philadelphia, before snapping back at the battles of Trenton and Princeton. The Continental Congress, sitting at Philadelphia, figures in the narrative as little more than a faraway home office, freely dispensing suggestions and requests that seldom square with the desperate situation at hand. Even the Declaration of Independence, splitting the year in two on July 4th, plays only a cameo role in the story. There are vivid biographical vignettes of Washington’s deputies, including Knox and General Nathanael Greene, and of foes like General William Howe (Lord Richard’s brother) and George III, but Washington remains the moral axis around which the drama revolves. McCullough, whose books include superb biographies of John Adams and Harry S. Truman, rarely finds his way into clashes of ideas or vast impersonal forces. (The word “equality” gets its only mention halfway through the book.) This is history at the ground level, sometimes even a few inches below. There is squishing mud for soldiers to trudge through, letters about absent loved ones and heartbreaking deaths, driving snow, and battlefields tipped with sun-gleaming bayonets like so many teeth grasping for prey. The prose is vibrant, and there is a telling insight into each character—William Howe, we learn, is valiant and courageous in battle, lackadaisical and self-indulgent when not. But the book is essentially a portrait of the Continental Army’s commander.

Washington lacked Adams’s intellectual rigor and Jefferson’s curiosity, and, unlike younger members of the founding generation, such as Madison and Hamilton, he contributed no signal writings or ideas to American statecraft. Hamilton, who served under him as an aide-de-camp during the war and understood his iconic power, found him admirable but dull. He could even be a poor general, especially in 1776, when he was still learning how to command an army. Yet men held him in awe. Almost everyone who worked with him or around him or came up against him could see his power, usually from the first moment. It was his stature and gravitas, more than anything else, that held the country together through the dark months that followed the Declaration of Independence.

The key fact about the Revolutionary War is that the colonists didn’t have to win their independence from Britain so much as they had to fend off Britain’s efforts to snatch it back. Before the revolutionary crisis began, in the seventeen-sixties, British dominion had rested lightly on the American colonies. Merchants in port towns who shipped goods overseas had to contend with the King’s laws and tariffs, but few other Americans had much contact with either. In the century and a half after the first colonies were established, the mother country had tried to exert real control for only a few short spells. Each time, Crown and Commons soon shifted their attention to some other pressing matter, and the colonists were once more left to their own devices. Royal authority in America collapsed as swiftly as it did because it was scarcely entrenched to begin with, not because there was overwhelming support for the patriot cause.
The fledgling United States had only to avoid being overrun or demoralized. As Washington quickly saw, above all else that meant keeping the Continental Army intact—safe from annihilation in the field and from hunger and disease off it. He proved uniquely suited to the task, although just what it was that set him apart is often difficult to grasp at a remove of two centuries. Sometimes we can make it out only as astronomers discern black holes, from its effects on things nearby. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, claimed that Washington had “so much martial dignity in his deportment that . . . there is not a king in Europe that would not look like a valet de chambre by his side.” Shortly after making Washington’s acquaintance, General Greene, a Rhode Islander who became one of his most trusted deputies, told a friend that Washington’s very presence spread “the spirit of conquest . . . through the whole army.” Greene hoped that “we shall be taught to copy his example and to prefer the love of liberty in this time of public danger to all the soft pleasures of domestic life and support ourselves with manly fortitude amidst all the dangers and hardships that attend a state of war.”

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/05/23/050523crbo_books

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