The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The Teaching Librarian 22.3 21 Brenda roberts BE SELF-AWARE WITH TOOLS @ YOUR LIBRARY self-tracking is here to stay. Many tools are available to assist you in tracking your reading choices. sites like Library Thing (www.librarything.com), shelfari (www.shelfari.com) and Goodreads (www.goodreads.com) allow you to review, star, tag and recommend books. not only can you track yourself but you become part of a global reading community. older students can set up their own accounts. Teachers can model the use of these sites for younger students by hosting a classroom read-aloud account. fox (n.d.) mentions services like Mint.com, GitHub, Goodreads, openPaths.cc (openpaths.cc), and Pocket (I try to only read articles through Pocket so I can accurately track how many articles I am reading and of what variety). These all allow for data tracking, even if it might just be an rss feed. combined, they become interesting. I can find out if I read more articles in a particular location by comparing my Pocket data to my openpaths data.…I can find out that on days I play video games I very rarely end up reading or writing (para. 8). BE BALANCED WITH NATURE @ YOUR LIBRARY Games, e-books, self-tracking apps -- it's easy to become consumed by technology. carr (2011) suggests a solution. He summarizes research findings that claim technology use decreases our ability to attend, think deeply and even empathize. He goes on to share that researchers found these effects are countered by "spending time in a quiet rural setting, close to nature, people exhibit greater attentiveness, stronger memory and generally improved cognition. Their brains became both calmer and sharper" (p.219). as we promote the use of technology we'd be irresponsible if we didn't model and encourage balance. If "simple and brief interactions with nature can produce marked increases in cognitive control"(p. 220) how do you bring nature into your library?" It could be something as simple as a fish tank, plants or even pictures. zSimCity (www.simcity.com)