Hey, do you want to know what the library staff is reading? Then you are in luck! Since we are a bunch of bookworms, we like to share what we read every month on the Cook web site. You can find the June lists on our Books/Movies/Music page. The books are separated by Fiction, Mysteries…
If you had a 50-50 chance of inheriting a disease that was guaranteed to debilitate and eventually kill you, would you want to know? That heavy question faces the four O’Brien adult children in Lisa Genova’s new novel about family, happiness, love and choices. Genova, a neuroscientist, broke out as a novelist with her debut,…
Recently, we added a nifty program called ScreenFlow to the Digital Studio computers. ScreenFlow is a simple video editor with an emphasis on screencasting. With ScreenFlow you can create professional instructional and presentation videos with ease. Screencasting is the process of recording your computer screen's activity. People screencast all the time for demonstration purposes. For example, at…
Every spring our intrepid Children's Department librarians visit 13 schools and talk to over 7000 students about all the summer fun awaiting them at the library. Last year they amazed the kids by using a banana to power up a slide show. This year, in visits concluding June 10, they are asking, "What do you get when you put together…
I spent a hot summer before my sophomore year in college studying my Grammar for Journalists book. I was preparing for the dreaded test that the University of Wisconsin Journalism School gave prospective students as part of the admissions process, and was told that more than 60 percent failed. I was one of the fortunate…
Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens and Ghosts by Tiya Miles This is a fascinating fictional account of a little known aspect of America’s past. Using historical sources about the Chief Vann House Historic site and a Moravian mission in 1800s Georgia, Miles uncovered the practice of slaveholding by southern Creeks and Cherokees. The lives…
The big scoop this week is that Cook Memorial has a newly appointed leader. The Library Board has selected Assistant Director and Aspen Drive Library Manager, David Archer, to take over as Library Director when Stephen Kershner retires on June 1. When Board President Bonnie Quirke announced the Board's choice at a recent all-staff meeting, the news…
I have a list of books that I’ve been meaning to read—waiting for a rainy day, when I’m in the mood or when I retire. Finally I’m going to have time. But what I keep hearing is that I’ll be busier than ever after I retire. I hope that doesn’t happen—at least not yet. I…
The blockbuster new film Mad Max: Fury Road was one of the big winners at the box office this past weekend. The highly anticipated movie is the fourth film in director George Miller's successful Mad Max franchise, and the first of the series to hit movie screens in thirty years. Set in Australia in the not-too-distant…
Lloyd Dobler expresses his love the only way he knows how - through a cassette boombox For me, there's a lot of nostalgia tied up in cassette tapes and I know I'm not alone. I came of age just as cassettes were on their way out to make room for CDs, but everyone still used…
