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I'm OBSESSED with Disney Channel's Fish Hooks. It's about 3 teenage fish friends living in asorted aquariums in a pet shop. It combines photo collage animations (think if Eric Carle and the Monty Python animations had a baby) with traditional animated characters. Children's book illustrator Noah Z. Jones is the creator. 

But what I'm really obsessed with are the supporting characters such as Clamantha the yearbook editor clam, Shellsea-the main character Bea's beastie, Mr. Baldwin-the pregnant seahorse teacher, and Jocktopus-the football playing jock octopus. 

The voice of Clamantha (who by far is my favorite) is by Alex Hirsch who made Off the Wall, a short about a doodle on a wall named Wallby. It made the rounds for awhile on art/animation blogs because he was a student at CalArts at the time, and because it's hilarious.

It's called obsession for a reason. You do your research.

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OMG! I LOVE the work of British artist Chris Holloran. His drawings and murals are super awesome. I also really like his really simple animations that combine drawings and stop motion animation. They bring me back that feeling of being a kid, when something could turn into something different and the transformation was natural and very real. 

If you like Chris' animations then I think you should also rent the Science of Sleep. Plus Gael Garcia Bernal is in that and he's hot.

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René Colato Laínez

In my classroom, I loved to tell funny, scary, sad, happy and adventurous stories. One day, one of my students asked me, "Can you write that story and draw the pictures?"

"What a wonderful idea!" I told him.

That night, I wrote and illustrated my first picture book- "El numero 1/ The Number 1."

I finished the book at 1:00 A.M. and I was thrilled.

Then, I wrote and illustrated more books. Soon, I had a box labeled “Mr. Colato’s Books”. I discovered that during independent and silent reading, this box was empty. All around the classroom, my students were reading my books. I was so excited and decided to write more and more books.

After presenting a new book, Elvis told me, “You are the teacher full of stories.”

“Sí, yes! He is the teacher full of stories,” all the children said at the same time.

And I became the teacher full of stories at Fernangeles Elementary.

One morning, children’s book authors Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy visited my school and told me, “You have to send this wonderful books to publishers.”

Then I met Amada Irma Perez at CABE, California Association for Bilingual Education. Amada inspired me with her workshop about writing your own stories and get them published.

On March 2001, I was ready to drive the bumpy road to publication. I signed up for the Chautauqua Workshop in New York. Highlights for Children was one of my favorite magazine. I wanted to learn from their creators. This could be a great workshop for my writing career.

By July 2001, I had written two manuscripts and had rejection letters for both of them. I took the manuscripts to Chautauqua.

Patricia Lee Gauch, editor at Philomel Books, read my first manuscript and told me, “Good writing but I have seen many picture books about this topic. Do you have another manuscript?”

“Yes,” I told her. “It is in my room.”

That afternoon, I gave her my manuscript “Waiting for Papá.” Something magical happened. Patricia did not like my manuscript, SHE LOVED IT. Patricia sat with me and with her pen, wrote suggestions all over the manuscript. At the end of the workshop, she gave me a big hug and told me, “We can do this book together.”

Four months later, I received a lovely rejection letter for Patricia. She still loved the manuscript but the acquisition table did not select the manuscript. However, Patricia had more suggestions for me. I followed them and submitted my manuscript to Piñata Books/ Arte Publico Press.

On January 2002, my dream became a reality; my manuscript was selected for publication by Piñata Books. Bravo! Ahora era un autor, I was an author.

Yes, the Chautauqua Workshop changed my life and now it can change your life too.

Kent Brown, the executive director of the Highlights Foundation, is offering scholarships to Latino writers to attend the conference this summer. The funds are there but you need to apply before February 15, 2008. Get in contact with Kent Brown.

This is info about the scholarship:

Since the Highlights Foundation Scholarship Program was first established in 1988, more than 250 scholarships have been awarded to applicants who wish to attend the Foundation's Annual Children's Writers Workshop at Chautauqua, New York. These scholarships make the experience of Chautauqua possible for many individuals who might otherwise not have the opportunity or the resources to participate.

Individuals with a serious interest in writing for children and who have an established financial need are invited to apply. Scholarship applications are evaluated on an ongoing basis by the Highlights Foundation Scholarship Committee. Scholarships vary in the stipend awarded depending on an applicant's requirements and the funds available. Funds for scholarships come from two sources: a Foundation Endowment Fund or scholarships that are funded annually by donors.

This year the scholarship committee will be considering applications in two groups. It works in your favor if we receive your application early. The early group of applications is reviewed on December 1, and you are encouraged to apply BEFORE that date. The final deadline is February 15, 2008.

For more information on the Foundation Scholarship Program or to receive an application form, please contact:
Kent L. Brown Jr.
Executive Director
The Highlights Foundation
570-253-1192
[email protected]

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David Weinberger has a concise summary of Thomas Mann’s long article about the concept of reference and scholarship and how it fits into modern day librarianship, especially research libraries. This is the sort of thing Michael Gorman talks about in grouchy pundit ways, but Mann really digs deeper and seems to understand both sides of the equation. Weinberger’s posts sums up some of the high points with some strong pullquotes, but I’d really also suggest reading Mann’s entire essay. Here are some quotes that I liked, but don’t think that gets you off the hook from reading it. You hve to get to about page 35 before you hit the “what sholdl we do about this?” part.

I cannot claim to have a system that flattens all the lumps, but I am concerned that many of the more important problems facing scholars are being ignored because a “digital library” paradigm puts blinders on our very ability to notice the problems in the first place.

On different types of searching:

Note that as a reference librarian I could bring to bear on this question a whole variety of different search techniques, of which most researchers are only dimly aware of (or not aware at all): I used not just keyword searching, but subject category searching (via LC=s subject headings), shelf-browsing (via LC’s classification system), related record searching, and citation searching. (I also did some rather sophisticated Boolean combination searching, with truncation symbols and parentheses, discussed below.) Further, as a librarian I thought in terms of types of literature–specialized encyclopedia articles, literature review articles, subject bibliographies–whose existence never even occurs to most non-librarians, who routinely think only in terms of subject searches rather than format searches. And, further, one of the reasons I sought out the Web database to begin with was that I knew it would also provide people contact information–i.e., the mail and e-mail addresses of scholars who have worked on the same topic. The point here needs emphasis: a research library can provide not only a vast amount of content that is not on the open Internet; it can also provide multiple different search techniques that are usually much more efficient than “relevance ranked” and “more like this” Web searching. And most of these search techniques themselves are not available to offsite users who confine their searches to the open Internet.

On folksonomies:

While folksonomies have severe limitations and cannot replace conventional cataloging, they also offer real advantages that can supplement cataloging. Perhaps financial arrangements with LibraryThing (or other such operations) might be worked out in such a way that LC/OCLC catalog records for books would provide clickable links to LibraryThing records for the same works. In this way researchers could take advantage of that supplemental network of connections without losing the primary network created by professional librarians.

davindweinberger, folksonomy, lcsh, loc, scholarship, thomasmann

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I wanted to help La Bloga celebrate LGBT Pride month by profiling Amigas Latinas, an affinity group here in Chicago and one of its founders, Evette Cardona. I was lucky enough to meet Evette through her partner, Mona Noriega, both of whom have done groundbreaking work in the Latina and queer communities, with local and national impact. As a typical example of the kind of support the organization offers, when I, Ann Cardinal and Jane Alberdeston Coralin launched the release of Sister Chicas in Chicago in 2006, the Amigas were in full force at a reading they co-sponsored with a landmark Chicago independent bookstore, Women and Children First. With love and gratitude, I offer this post.

Find out more about this remarkable woman who is also an inductee in the City of Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame and this vital organization.

Evette Cardona's lesbian activism began in 1993 when she came out "publicly" and became a founding member of WACT (Women of All Cultures Together), a gathering of lesbians, bisexual women, and heterosexual women allies taking advantage of Chicago's diversity to bridge racial, ethnic, and cultural divides. The group has held monthly potluck brunches throughout the Chicago area. During Cardona's tenure with WACT, over 70 brunches gathered suburban and city lesbians together.

As an organizer, she has helped to lead or found several community groups, including Women of All Cultures Together, Amigas Latinas, the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, and the Center on Halsted Steering Committee. As a philanthropic administrator, she has been especially helpful in funding organizations serving historically underrepresented community sectors.

In the summer of 1995, Cardona helped to found Amigas Latinas as an organization for Latina les/bi/questioning women. Through a model of monthly dining and discussion groups, the organization has provided a celebratory environment for English- and Spanish-speaking women to learn about the Latina community's diversity. The group addresses such issues as immigration rights, language barriers, and homophobia in special relationship to ethnic discrimination. In 1999, Cardona helped to create the Aixa Diaz Scholarship Gift Fund, named after an Amigas Latinas founder, to aid a Latina lesbian or bisexual student fighting high school homophobia and to aid children of Mozart Elementary School, where Diaz had taught first grade.

In 1997 Cardona became a member of the planning council of Color Triangle, a consortium of persons from various organizations who meet to discuss racism within the Chicago lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. She also co-chaired the Leadership Development Institute, designed to foster leadership in Chicago's LGBT community.

In 1998, Cardona joined the board of the Lesbian Community Cancer Project, which addresses lesbians' and women's health issues. In the autumn of that year, she aided in producing El Sexto Encuentro, the annual conference of LLEGO, the National Latina/o Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Organization, which was hosted in Chicago.

Most recently, Cardona has become a member of the Center on Halsted Steering Committee, which in conjunction with Horizons Community Services is developing a community center that is anticipated to open in 2004. The committee is seeking community suggestions and involvement.

Professionally, as a Senior Program Officer at the Polk Bros. Foundation, she co-chaired the Funding Lesbian and Gay Issues Group of the Donors Forum of Chicago, which is a regional association of grant-makers. She is a current board member of the national Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues and is an executive committee member of Chicago Latinos in Philanthropy. She received a master-of-arts degree from the University of Chicago's School of Social Service Administration in 1998. In 1997, Cardona received a Leadership Award for Community Service from Chicago's Association of Latin Men for Action (ALMA). In 2001, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois presented her one of its annual John R. Hammell Awards for her work in the LGBT community.


What is Amigas Latinas, and what need did it meet for Chicago area Latinas?

Amigas Latinas is a support, education and advocacy organization that provides safe spaces, educational opportunities and resources for Latina women who love and partner with women to explore, challenge and celebrate who they are as women, as mothers, as daughters, as comadres.

The need we fill is both to offer space for women to understand and explore their lives at the intersection of their identities - Latina and woman-loving-woman at the same time to just be in the same space as other women like themselves, speaking the same language and sharing
the same culture.

Can you talk about its constituency and the ways the organization is representational? What kind of outreach does Amigas do to meet its goals? Platicas? Events? Socials?

Our membership is close to 300 women from all Latina cultures and all ages. Our diversity spans the range from third-generation, monolingual English speakers to recently-arrived, monolingual Spanish immigrant women. Many are newly out, many have been out for years and years and seek us out for the friendships and affinity we provide. About a third have children from previous heterosexual marriages, some are still in heterosexual marriages, some have disclosed issues of domestic violence and struggles with alcohol/substance abuse.

In the past several years, we have seen a 50% increase in the number of immigrant monolingual Spanish-speaking women seeking services that are non-existent due to a chronic lack of bilingual, bicultural service providers that are sensitive to sexual identity issues.

We mail to our membership of nearly 300 once to twice a month to advertise our monthly platicas, workshops and events, we have a listserve with about 200 women on it that is a great way to advertise quickly and broadly. Our web site is increasingly becoming a way for women to find us, too. We also advertise somewhat in the gay rags especially around special events, but we rely a lot on word of mouth. We have linkages with other lgbt organizations and are present at public events be it LGBT or Latino events to ensure the Latinaqueer voice is heard.

Aside from social contact and support, what kind of community building is Amigas involved with in both the Latino and LGBT community?

We spearheaded the development of the Chicago LGBTQ Immigrants Alliance (CLIA) to look at the challenges, myths and realities that arise at the intersection of queer and immigration issues. (We're planning a town hall for CLIA on June 12). We also helped create Entre Familia, the first Spanish-speaking PFLAG in the Chicago area. It's been meeting for three years. We partner with ALMA ( a gay Latino men 's affinity group) to do that work. We also partnered with Center on Halsted to start the first Latinaqueer youth group that meets monthly at the Center's facilities.

This January we launched our Proyecto Latina survey to gather information about who we are and what our needs, dreams and challenges are. That data will be used to inform our future work mobilizing the Latinaqueer community to inform and challenge policyholders and legislators to respond to and improve our lives.

Our biggest non-queer partnership is with Mujeres Latinas en Accion (a social service/anti- domestic violence organization) and we have annually provided trainings and education sessions to help their staff better serve Latinaqueer victims/survivors of domestic violence.

Talk in depth about the organization's scholarship activities and it's significance.

In 1999, Amigas launched the Aixa Diaz Scholarship Fund in memory of founding member, Aixa Diaz, who brought vision and commitment to the Latina lesbian/bisexual community through her organizing efforts, and knowledge and encouragement to Latino children through her dedication as a teacher. Over the last 7 years we have raised money to provide financial assistance to a young, lesbian/bisexual student activist of Latina heritage entering or enrolled in college who actively works to fight homophobia in high schools. Awards have also been given to gay-straight alliances (GSAs) in high schools with large Latino student populations and to the Mozart Elementary School where Aixa taught first grade, served on the Local School Council and was the Chicago Teachers Union delegate.

This work reflects the commitment Amigas has to education as a means of empowering women. We have awarded 12 scholarships ($1,000 - $2,000) to date and will award 3-4 scholarships this June. Our biggest success with the scholarships was last year when we brought on a 2004 Aixa Scholar, Zaida Sanabia, to head up our youth group efforts. She has been a wonderful addition to the Amigas family and is doing excellent work reaching out to Latinaqueer youth.

There are been much invisibility in the Latino community for women who love women. How would you describe the importance of LGBT reality to our people.

Amigas is built on the philosophy that as Latinas who love and partner with women we cannot separate our identities and often are asked to do just that throughout our lives. Coming out is a life-long process and being able to successfully blend our identities to live as healthy and complete persons in our families, work environments and communities is the reality we strive for with every activity we provide. As our vision statement proclaims we "celebrate our lives with pride and acceptance, without boundaries or limitations, fearlessly and unapologetically."

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