American Library Association

Older than the IRS but young at heart

Blog Posts Across American Library Association

Jess Introduction

Just wanted to post on my blog and say hello to everyone on the ALA Ning group. I'm a new youth services librarian in small town Virginia, gearing up for summer. My crusade right now is gaming in the library, so I am going back and forth with my advisory board about the Wii, trying to convince them that this is a great way to get the teens in. Wish me luck! Continue

Posted by Jess on May 19, 2008 at 3:00pm — 1 Comment

Eileen Hardy A New Blog

I'm starting a blog. Hmmm. What to communicate about? I'll start with travel books. Paul Theroux and Polly Evans have written enjoyable, interesting travel books. Continue

Posted by Eileen Hardy on April 17, 2008 at 10:19am — No Comments

Susan Fisher Usability testing

Anyone have a sample RFP for usability testing that they would be willing to share? Continue

Posted by Susan Fisher on April 14, 2008 at 10:56am — No Comments

char booth not much going on here...

I haven't found that I spend much time on Jing, but I do blog actively over at infomational.
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Posted by char booth on October 25, 2007 at 12:32pm — No Comments

Good Day Florida Media Specialists

I'm taking the FL Teacher Certification Exam for Ed Media Specialist in 7 days! As the lucky 13th of October approaches, I'm freaking big time! Help! Has anyone in the state taken the test recently and can share some words of encouragement?? Is there anyone near Orlando who's looking at that date and is available to study with me??
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Posted by Good Day on October 6, 2007 at 9:46am — No Comments

Valerie Hawkins Happy birthday ALA!

ALA turns 131-years-old on Saturday, October 6 (and doesn't look a day over 60)! What would you give ALA as a present, if you could?

Feel free to be creative! Continue

Posted by Valerie Hawkins on October 5, 2007 at 3:17pm — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Another Look at SLoodle

A few months ago, I wrote about the grand opening of the San Jose State Unviersity's School of Library and Information Science in Second Life. One of the biggest impressions left on me that day was how they connected the inworld presentation with a Moodle chat room, allowing people without SL connections to chat with those who were in world. By happy chance, I was inworld and alerted to a me…

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Posted by Donavan Vicha on September 25, 2007 at 11:50am — No Comments

Donavan Vicha What We Need to Know About Wikis

I talked to Jenny Levine, our Wiki expert at ALA, about developments in providing and promoting wikis to the association. At RUSA, we have a number of wikis under development and as they "blossom" I add a link to each wiki to the ALA ReadWriteConnect lisiting of wikis. When enough wikis are ready for greater exposure, I'll put a page together on the RUSA site as well. But it makes little sense to make known the existence of… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on August 16, 2007 at 11:29am — No Comments

Jenny Levine Do American libraries have to remove "Alms for Jihad?"

From ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF): Can They Do That?

"Unless there is an order from a U.S. court, the British settlement is unenforceable in the United States, and libraries are under no legal obligation to return or destroy the book. Libraries are considered to hold title to the individual copy or copies, and it is the library…
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Posted by Jenny Levine on August 15, 2007 at 1:29pm — No Comments

theshiftedlibrarian Help Us Help You Collaborate Online

We've posted an online survey requesting feedback about our Online Communities service, as well as other collaborative software you've used inside and outside of ALA. We're hoping to use this feedback to evaluate the current OC product in order to decide if we should continue forward with it, start with something new, or find a mix of products. Or do something else we haven't thought of yet. Basically, we want to know what you need so we can help deli…

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Posted by theshiftedlibrarian on August 8, 2007 at 12:52pm — 2 Comments

Kelley Minars New Osceola Library System Website

The redesign for the Osceola Library System is now up and running. Please feel free to take a look and see what you think.

http://www.osceolalibrary.org/ Continue

Posted by Kelley Minars on August 1, 2007 at 1:56pm — No Comments

Crystal Hammon Librarians are cool--again?

According to a recent article in the New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/fashion/08librarian.html, a hipper crowd of shushers now reign where "bespectacled women with a love of classic books" once did. Wow! I love these articles because they make me feel somehow cooler than I am as I approach 50. The writer even extols hip, young librarians for their thrift store clothes. Wait a minute. I thought that’s why l… Continue

Posted by Crystal Hammon on July 11, 2007 at 8:37pm — 1 Comment

Jenny Levine Become an Emerging Leader

You can now apply online to participate in ALA's 2008 Emerging Leaders program, an initiative aimed at younger librarians who want to get involved with ALA and learn skills that will help them become leaders within the Association, our profession, and their own organizations.

Up to 120 participants (60 sponsored and 60 open)
  • ALA member, and
  • Young (under 35 years) or new librarians of any age with fewer than 5 ye
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Posted by Jenny Levine on July 6, 2007 at 12:30pm — No Comments

Jenny Levine Presentations from Annual 2007

We've started collecting links to Handouts, Podcasts, and other Post Conference Information given to us, provided by, or posted online given by speakers at the Annual 2007 conference. This will be a permanent archive to the content.

It will take a little while for this to fill in, and by all means, please help with this task if you know of something available that's not… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on July 5, 2007 at 12:59pm — 2 Comments

Jenny Levine Yahoo Avatars READ!

As recently noted by the Librarian in Black, ALA's Graphics staff is working with Yahoo to provide "READ" t-shirts for Yahoo avatars. LiB provides instructions for how to create an avatar and clothe it in one of these shirts, and you can then use the image anywhere you want (Ning, Facebook, MySpace, etc.).

I didn't know we were working with Yahoo on… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on July 2, 2007 at 4:15pm — 2 Comments

Crystal Hammon RA resources for those of us who are no longer "cool young librarians"--but still wanna be!

Every time I attend an ALA conference, there's always at least one "blow my wig off" experience--one that makes me think, "Girl, you've got to overcome your introverted ways and get OUT there more, because there's LOTS going on that you don't have a clue about. If you're of the same ilk--an introvert who carefully manages stimulation from the outside world because you are so easily overwhelmed--you understand what I'm talking about.

Here's the session that rearranged a few molecules f… Continue

Posted by Crystal Hammon on June 30, 2007 at 8:39am — No Comments

Bill Drew ALA Videos

I just discovered that it is impossible to add the videos that are on the ALA websites to Ning. None of them are posted to Google or to You Tube. Come on, ALA! Loosen up and make them available to the world!
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Posted by Bill Drew on June 28, 2007 at 1:38pm — 5 Comments

Jenny Levine ALA Council Wiki...with Content!

Heidi Dolamore has led the charge to create a wiki for Council, a task that at times seemed herculean. But her hard work (along with that of many others) is now visibly paying off as Annual 2007 ends. Check out the ALA Council Wiki to… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on June 28, 2007 at 10:20am — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Some Conference Comments

Male menopause? I found my eyes misting ...

... listening to Michael Stephens speaking at a RUSA MARS/RSS preconference about Reinventing Reference. He told a story about a guy who once a month sets ups his computer at the wifi seating area of the local Panera Bread and puts up a sign: Ask a Librarian. He spoke of his own natural leanings of overhearing someone asking a question and know how to answer it. It made me think of more than 500 self-identified librarians who perform pretty mu… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on June 28, 2007 at 10:08am — 5 Comments

Cynthia Bischoff Back from D.C.

Well, okay, I wasn't that far away, but I am back. It was a great conference, as usual. We finished up our Emerging Leaders project with a poster session and a reception at the President's Suite. Woo-eee, fancy schmancy up there on the balcony overlooking the city.

More to come...
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Posted by Cynthia Bischoff on June 27, 2007 at 5:27pm — No Comments

erikboekesteijn Shanachietour 2007

It is final. 13th October we will be back in the USA. The shanachie tour is set out to be a marvelous event of keeping, sharing and making stories. Our Library Bureau of Investigation will not only search for be

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Posted by erikboekesteijn on June 27, 2007 at 10:49am — No Comments

Crystal Hammon The Author Who Stole My Heart at ALA

I attended this year's ALA conference in Washington D.C. last week with only one thing in mind: inspiration. From start to finish, that's exactly what I got, partly because I was willing to buck up for the paid events that allow you to listen to and keep a little company with the best writers of our day. The next time you find yourself coughing over the expense of an event like the $45 Gala Author Tea, presented by Friends of Libraries USA, I hope this story will help you decide to forgo a few l… Continue

Posted by Crystal Hammon on June 27, 2007 at 9:06am — 2 Comments

Jess Vargas future librarian

Currently applying to MLIS programs and looking forward to diving in... I welcome any advice! Continue

Posted by Jess Vargas on June 20, 2007 at 10:27pm — No Comments

Jenny Levine Social Annual

Some ways to participate in, track, and/or contribute to ALA Annual online this year.

  • There's a Meebo Chat Room on the Annual 2007 wiki as a virtual meeting place for physical attendees who may want a place to gather online with virtual attendees or as a place for virtual attendees to chat together. This could also be used for interactions during sessions. Basically, it's th
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Posted by Jenny Levine on June 20, 2007 at 3:35pm — 1 Comment

Jenny Levine "I Love Libraries" Soft Launch

We're ironing out the kinks before officially announcing this, but the new I Love Libraries website for the public is live. We know there are some issues (such as missing alt tags on images, the form for signing up for the enewsletter is not ready yet, etc.), but we'd appreciate feedback on what is there. Thanks!
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Posted by Jenny Levine on June 19, 2007 at 8:42am — No Comments

Barbara Fister Like I Need Another Blog ...

Chances that I will do much with this are slim to none. But it looks so naked, I thought I'd post other places I blog...

ACRLog
Librarians at the Gate
my own blog, which gets lonely at times



The other Ning place I hang out is CrimeSpace.
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Posted by Barbara Fister on June 9, 2007 at 3:21pm — 5 Comments

Donavan Vicha New Professional Tools Pages

I've added pages to the Professional Tools sections of the ASCLA and RUSA Web sites. One is on Podcasting and the other on Social Networking tools. If you click on the Professional Tools tab on respective division
pages, you will find menu items for these pages on the left. Clicking on the Social Networking page will bring up a left-hand menu item f… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on June 6, 2007 at 3:27pm — No Comments

Jenny Levine "ALA in Focus" Video

The first in a new series of videos from ALA called "ALA in Focus."

"In this segment of "ALA in Focus," Gwendolyn Prellwitz, Program Officer at the ALA Office for Diversity & Spectrum, chats with ALA Manager for Membership Development John Chrastka about what her office is up to, their search for a new director, the various grants they are working on, the exciting Spectrum Scholarship program - mentioning along the way some of Gwendolyn's fav… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on June 4, 2007 at 12:51pm — 1 Comment

Lisa Coleman ALA Conference in SL?

Recently, having become a resident in Second Life, I attended a Best Practices in Education conference on May 25. I only attended one presentation and walked around a bit, but I made an attempt, nonetheless. Did anyone else attend this? And, I wonder if ALA would ever consider a live feed from an ALA conference session. I know that I would attend, because I can't afford to go to the Conference every year, and at our library, we take turns attending conferences. How would one go about suggesti…

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Posted by Lisa Coleman on May 30, 2007 at 8:31pm — 5 Comments

Julie Elliott Recreational Reading promotion in College Libraries

Hi! Anyone interested in discussing reading promotion in college libraries? Continue

Posted by Julie Elliott on May 30, 2007 at 9:12am — 1 Comment

Jenny Levine Logging in to Edit ALA Wikis

I just wanted to note that we've had to lock down editing of our wikis due to the amount of spam they're getting. Unfortunately, it's taking an inordinate amount of time to keep them clean, so we've resorted to this next step. We're sorry about this, but anyone can still create an account, log in, and contribute, so hopefully y'all will keep adding content.

In case you haven't seen them all lately, you can view the most… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on May 22, 2007 at 3:44pm — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Accessibility Resource Center ... in a most unlikely place!

[10:05] Lorelei Junot: First of all, we have just received 2 grants to build an accessibility resource center
[10:05] Lorelei Junot: exhibits, programs, and resources on disabilities
[10:05] Maxito Ricardo: fantastic
[10:05] Lorelei Junot: We will have money to get 60 people with disabilities a free premium account for second life
[10:06] Lorelei Junot: our center will attempt to bring information and resources on disabilit…
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Posted by Donavan Vicha on May 21, 2007 at 3:51pm — No Comments

Jenny Levine Hooray for Hollywood (The Librarian, that is)

If you're coming to ALA Annual in D.C. next month, be sure to attend the world premiere of the movie "The Hollywood Librarian" on Friday night at 8:00 p.m. There is no charge to attend the premiere if you're registered for the conference or if you work at a D.C.-area library. Bring your family and friends, t Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on May 21, 2007 at 3:28pm — No Comments

Sarah Belisle Stop telling me about ALA in DC...

...cause I won't be there.

I was looking forward to it! I had planned on going. Then my sister decided to have her wedding in the middle of the ALA conference. Sigh. Why didn't she consult my scheduled before deciding when to schedule one of the biggest days of her life?

I'm trying to convince others to go in my place, but for some reason the sight of thousands of librarians makes them want to run away instead of invading the city on my behalf. :-/

In other news, I'm… Continue

Posted by Sarah Belisle on May 17, 2007 at 10:10am — 2 Comments

Rhonda Crim-Tumelson ALA Annual Conference and Sensible Shoes

I finally had time to sit down with the online ALA meeting planner, my headphones, and a soda. After about fifteen minutes I decided that since I cannot clone myself -- legally, this is Alabama after all -- there is only one thing I can do to make it to all the sessions I want to attend:

wear Sensible Shoes -- and I don't wanna. The folks over at Lifehacker had my hop… Continue

Posted by Rhonda Crim-Tumelson on May 15, 2007 at 7:03pm — 2 Comments

Lo Claesson Swedish member?

I hope you don't mind me joining this network although I'm not american. I 'm a Swedish library consultant and very much interested in library development and want to know what's going on within this field in the US. Continue

Posted by Lo Claesson on May 5, 2007 at 12:35pm — 3 Comments

Jenny Levine ALA Election Results

The lowdown: "James Rettig elected ALA president for 2008-2009; Rodney M. Hersberger elected ALA treasurer 2007-2010"

More in the press release on the ALA website, including Council results.
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Posted by Jenny Levine on May 1, 2007 at 3:09pm — No Comments

Brandee Hi Everyone!

I'm Brandee, a Reference Librarian in Park Ridge, IL. I'm the closest thing in or department to a "techie", and I try to learn as much as I can from our IT manager. I also supervise the pages for the Reference and Readers Services departments. MySpace and Facebook help me keep in touch with "my kids"! Meebo helps my coworkers and me answer chat reference questions more efficiently in Ask?Away. I am also a Flickr enthusiast and recently became addicted to Anobii and Shelfari.

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Posted by Brandee on April 28, 2007 at 9:03pm — 4 Comments

Donavan Vicha A Two-Fer: Second Life and Moodle in One Course

A lot going on with Internet developments and I thought I should end my blog silence with an update:

The Two-Fer: Virtual World Librarianship - Your Second Life : A continuing education course presented by the Illinois Alliance Library System and GSLIS. I've registered! Not working on my MLS, but I'm very interested in seeing how Second Life is used in a blended online environment with Moodl… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on April 24, 2007 at 10:42am — No Comments

Sarah Belisle Turnitin, Fishes, and other TLA Observations

So as you've all been anxiously awaiting, here's some of my thoughts about the Tennessee Library Association Conference that I attended this weekend. I haven't been to any state conferences before this and had fun. As a school media specialist, I'm not sure that I would try to attend every year, but it's nice to go when I have a chance.

First of all, the keynote speaker of the event was ALA President-Elect Dr. Lor… Continue

Posted by Sarah Belisle on April 21, 2007 at 2:01pm — 1 Comment

Sarah Belisle Networking we will go

So it's not quite as big as the ALA conference but tomorrow I'll make my first journey to the Tennessee Library Association conference.

Yeah for meeting new library friends! Stay glued to your screens for updates.
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Posted by Sarah Belisle on April 18, 2007 at 10:26pm — 2 Comments

Jenny Levine 2007 ACRL Baltimore Conference Video

The Baltimore Convention Center played host to about 3100 academic librarians who came March 29-April 1, 2007, to navigate new technologies…
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Posted by Jenny Levine on April 18, 2007 at 1:30pm — No Comments

Linda Absher Spamming on Ning

Just a warning: I just received my first spam message via the ALA on Ning.com. And what a surprise to be receiving a Nigerian scam letter....

--The LL
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Posted by Linda Absher on April 14, 2007 at 10:54am — 7 Comments

Bill Drew Library 2.0 now has over 1000 members

Today is an important day for Library 2.0 on Ning. We went to over 1000 members over night. We also made it onto the home page of Ning right next to the World of Warcraft Community. You can see the page at http://www.ning.com.







Technorati Tags:… Continue

Posted by Bill Drew on April 9, 2007 at 1:01pm — No Comments

Jenny Levine File Under "Great Ideas" - 365 Library Days Project

Libraryman, aka Michael Porter, has done it again. Inspired by the 365 Days Project on Flickr, he has created a new group called the 365 Library Days Project. It's a great idea, one your library should seriously consider joining.

"Let's get as many libraries as we can to sign up for a customized, li…
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Posted by Jenny Levine on April 8, 2007 at 10:03pm — No Comments

Sarah Belisle salutations!

Time for proper introductions...

I'm *this close* to graduating with my MS from an ALA-accredited program. I started about 2 years ago saying that I liked kids but that I didn't want to work with them all day every day. Thankfully, God changed that plan and I jumped on the children's and youth services track about 2 months into the program.

I've loved working towards my masters, but I am so excited about finding that mysterious firs…

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Posted by Sarah Belisle on April 6, 2007 at 7:47pm — 2 Comments

Kate Hall A Little About Me

Hello! I am the Children's Services Manager at the Park Ridge Public Library and have been working in libraries for the past seven years. I love working with children and teens (hence why I am not a reference librarian) and can't think of any profession I would love as much as I love this one. I am a voracious reader (compared to some) and will read anything from children's, young adult, biography, romance, chick lit, science fiction, fantasy, fiction, mysteries, and, well, the list could go…

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Posted by Kate Hall on April 4, 2007 at 12:15pm — 4 Comments

char booth too busy to post anything but...

the link to the slides from my recent acrl cyber zed shed presentation on using video im/ video call software as a reference tool. here's a selection that attempts to show the brave (and ever complicated) new world of multimodal virtual reference:

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Posted by char booth on April 3, 2007 at 7:26pm — 2 Comments

Jenny Levine Virtually Attend the ACRL Conference!

The 2007 ACRL Conference is in full swing in Baltimore. There's already lots of blogging come out of it - track it on Technorati and on the ACRLog, as well as on the ACRL Podcasts blog. Watch for an interview with keynote speaker John Waters soon, too!

Update:… Continue

Posted by Jenny Levine on April 1, 2007 at 1:16pm — No Comments

Jeff Scott Anothing Ning

The ning phenomenon is certainly spreading. I think this one for ALA will get traction for those who are not used to technology. Should be interesting to see who pops up!
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Posted by Jeff Scott on March 30, 2007 at 10:46am — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Get Googled! (I Did and I'm Glad)

I've been introduced to a dazzling number of social networking applications:

del.icio.us, save bookmarks to the Web. What's the big deal? Well, a few months ago, an outside IT guy decided to get rid of the cookies on my work PC, and somewhere along the line, I lost all my favorite bookmarks, too. Even the bookmark to this ... the lightbulb goes on! ... really useful site.

BlogBridge, and a number of… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on March 29, 2007 at 1:07pm — 1 Comment

Steve Campion Exposing our entire staff to the social web

Using Michael Stephens' keynote at the Polaris User's Group last October as motivation, we at Pierce County Library began a system-wide initiative delving into all the dynamics of Web 2.0. We designed a 4-hour class called "Social Web Literacy" which looks at all the ways people are using online social networking these days: wikis, gaming, person

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Posted by Steve Campion on March 29, 2007 at 9:02am — 5 Comments

Rob Darrow Blog Postings

Blog is here. Continue

Posted by Rob Darrow on March 28, 2007 at 8:23pm — 1 Comment

adri First timer

This coming conference in DC will be my first time to attend an ALA conference -- any words from the wise?
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Posted by adri on March 27, 2007 at 8:59pm — 7 Comments

Jenny Levine It's Unofficially Official - an ALA Social Network

Internally at ALA, a group of staff have been talking about the potential benefits of a social network for our members for months. We have a vision for it, have outlined some of the possible features, and even pitched for money at a recent budget meeting. Even if the funding request was approved tomorrow, the startup time until there is something to soft launch would be months at best, so we've decided to get our feet wet here on Ning with this her

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Posted by Jenny Levine on March 27, 2007 at 2:49pm — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Equal Time

Following the theme of my previous post of how I can simplify my duties as they seem to be multiplying with each new shiny "social network" toy that comes on the scene, I am inviting RUSA members and ASCLA memebers to feed off this blog rather than where I began my reports on the RUSA blog, Talking Reference & ... (I have registered to more cost-free Web sites in the past ten days than in the previous four months! I'm in password ge… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on March 23, 2007 at 10:03am — No Comments

Donavan Vicha Die/|\Hard is back!

I've discovered that I need a project, something substantial to push myself to do something. Practicing guitar is maybe the one exception, but even then I do better if a performance of some sort is driving me beyond just noodling on the strings. When the Learning 2.0 blogs and the other toys faded away, I fell back into my previous blogless routine. But a few weeks ago, learning that ALA was getting half an island in Second Life (SL), I fired up the program, downloaded the latest… Continue

Posted by Donavan Vicha on March 19, 2007 at 10:44am — 2 Comments

Bill Drew Looking Good!

Don Wood responded to my message on LITA-L where I asked why or if ALA was on Ning. How soon will this network be announced?
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Posted by Bill Drew on March 13, 2007 at 9:10am — No Comments

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