Judith Krug dies

Today, in the Denver Post (and many other newspapers around the country, the news was carried that Judith Krug, Director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, died over the weekend after a year-long battle with stomach cancer.

I didn't always agree with her. More than once, I found her public positions harsh and divisive. I thought there might be a better way to make the library point without polarizing the debate.

But I never doubted her deep and genuine passion for one of my profession's core values -- the freedom from censorship. Her contributions to the cause have been many, stretching over 40+ years. She made a difference in an area where it mattered. She served the profession.

Well done, Judith Krug. Very well done indeed.

Her morning elegance

I've been interested in animation since the late 1970s, mostly because of the BBC series "International Festival of Animation" (hosted by Jean Marsh of "Upstairs Downstairs" fame), and the very beginnings of computer animation. A couple of years ago, my son got interested in stop action animation, which I find fascinating, too.

My daughter just sent me a wonderful piece, "featuring photography by Eyal Landesman and music by Oren Lavie." It has a wonderfully surreal quality to it, with more than a dash of whimsy. Click the title entry to watch it.

Twist on the word cloud notion

Click on the title entry here to see a live feed on the zeitgeist.

Sixth Sense Machine

Here's a video (click the entry title) to see a protoype wearable web interface, running off natural gestures, and capable of projecting onto any surface (a nearby wall, a T-shirt, the inside of a book, your own body). It shows that the integration of the Web into daily life, with a simple physical interface, is right around the corner.

Word cloud: what is literacy?

We asked a group of long time library users living in Douglas County, often vocal about library support, to respond to this prompt: "In four words or less, what does literacy mean to you?"

Here's a word cloud of the phrases they used to respond.