Tell History

I’ve been dipping into What Poetry Brings to Business (University of Michigan Press, 2010) by Clare Morgan with Kirsten Lange and my friend and fellow oral historian Ted Buswick; this promises opportunities to reflect on life, creativity, and work. Paul Tough’s Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America profiles the project that is the model for the U.S. Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods initiative. Harlem Children’s Zone was featured this week on NPR. The Dayton Teachers History Book Club will read and discuss Jon Hartley Fox’s King of the Queen City (University of Illinois Press, 2009) about Cincinnati’s King Records this summer. I had the opportunity to interview Fox earlier this month. He and King Records are featured in a piece for Our Ohio on drummer and Ohio Heritage Fellow, Philip Paul.  In a similar vein, I look forward to George Lipsitz’s recent book, Midnight at the Barrel House: the Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010); Otis also recorded with King Records. I’ll get started preparing for oral history courses with the Oral History Association’s 2009 Book Award recipient, Joanna Herbert’s Negotiating Boundaries in the City: Migration, Ethnicity, and Gender in Britain and move on to other oral histories of urban life and/or gender studies. I recently downloaded (Kindle on my netbook) New Heritage: New Media and Cultural Heritage by Yehuda Kalay, Thomas Kvan, and Janice Affleck (Routledge). Numerous friends have recommended Michael M. Kaiser, The Art of the Turnaround: Creating and Maintaining Healthy Arts Organizations; I plan to read more about the arts, culture, and community development as I work with Culture Builds Community and other projects.

Ebooks are a cool resource on the OLPC. The computer screen swivels and folds flat to make it easier to explore an ebook. The OLPC is set up to access a wonderful, international collection of children’s books through the ICDL or International Children’s Digital Library. According to their website,
“The ICDL Foundation’s goal is to build a collection of children’s books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary children’s literature from around the world. Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children’s literature from the world community.”
The ICDL currently offers over 1300 books representing 41 languages. These include both lovely old illustrated children’s books and new publications donated to the ICDL. There are simple controls for moving through the picture and story books. You can access this collection for free online. You can also add the ICDL’s “Children’s Book of the Day” as a “gadget” on an IGoogle page.