Poking Around

Poking Around in the real world usually starts with learning frontiers in my immediate neighborhood, Northeast Minneapolis, or places in the St. Paul/Minneapolis area that are reachable by public transit. While others rush by I poke around by foot and by bus or light rail transit. There’s no end of things to see and hear and learn. On a good day I just hop off the bus and check out a neighborhood or a building or a park. I’m not so much into museums as into the treasures that are overlooked. Same goes with people.

In the digital world my favorite frontier is access to public information and to the public institutions, especially libraries and librarians, that rise to the challenge of enhancing access to public information. When you get through the endless discussion of “pipes” and get to the hard core of live information, it’s a fascinating information frontier. Though the technology may be 21st Century, the tools of the trade of librarianship has passed down through the centuries. And the more information there is, and the more people who need the information, the more those tools become indispensable.

Books for adults during Children's Book Week

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

In recent days I’ve been bumbling around my brain looking for a way to think and then write about Children’s Book Week, May 7-13, 2012 I have plumbed the digital depths of new books for children, bookstores, publishers, writers, illustrators, library programs, awards, children’s book centers and more.MORE »

Minnesota constitution – a work in progress

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

It’s Sunshine Week, the annual shout out to open government – a great way to celebrate is to dig deep into some of the information by and about state and local government.MORE »

Open government issues on Minnesota legislative agenda

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

If all politics is local, policies, laws and regulations pertaining to state and local government information are hyperlocal. What matters to most citizens is the right to access to information by and about state, regional and local government information – state agencies, county boards, advisory committees and regulators, every entity from the Governor’s office to the local school board.MORE »

And now the facts about Native Americans in the Minnesota Legislature

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

With the Legislature headed to town for the session that opens Tuesday, January 24, I find myself thinking and fretting about issues of transparency and open government. At the same time I am intrigued by the changes in legislative composition that result from recent elections, including the election of Kari Dziedzic to replace Larry Pogemiller as Senator from my legislative district.MORE »

Reflections on the "1968" exhibit

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

The Minnesota History Center’s blockbuster "1968" exhibit has definitely got museum visitors talking – during and after the exhibit. Having made but one pilgrimage to the MHC for the exhibit I have been mulling it over in the aftermath of what I do hope is the first of several visits during the month to come.MORE »

Legendary African American filmmaker/writer, Oscar Micheaux — Just down the road

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

Every summer Minnesotans head Southwest for the hills, eager to visit the mountains or the Coast – and every trip means a stop at the Wall Drug or the Corn Palace in Mitchell, by legend the only places worthy of a pit stop in South Dakota. The good news – there is a treasure to be explored in Gregory, South Dakota. It’s a treasure well worMORE »

Epiphany – expanding the customs

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

For reasons too numerous and too vague to recall, Epiphany, the Feast of the Three Kings, has always been a special day for me.MORE »

New Year's Day – Celebrating whenever, wherever and however

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

For many Minnesotans, the media, shopping centers, nonprofit fundraisers and tax collectors it’s common knowledge that January 1 marks the first day of the year – Sunday we will wake up in a world in which it’s 2012 – even in Samoa. Or is it?MORE »

Transparency – A concept whose time (may have) come

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

We may be living in the Teachable Moment when open government takes its rightful place as a major player – the bulwark that it must be – in the local/state access arena. Images of a closed Capitol, news reports of sequestered politicos, clandestine sessions and sub-rosa text messages have combined to dawn on us little people that we may be shut out of the process.MORE »

Addressing vo-tech interests of 21st century learners and employers

By Mary Treacy, Poking Around

An earlier post related the tale of my unlikely appointment to the Minnesota State Board of Education in the late 1970’s. Writing about my experience on the Board agitated a concern that festers every time I hear or think about the state and future of vocational education.MORE »

Poking Around

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