Sure, we talk about books all the time. But Open Road is plugged into the world beyond books, too. Each Friday we'll step outside of the industry silo to call out what caught our eye. Whether we're talking about technology, museum exhibits, education—and, yes, sometimes books—we're happy to share Links We Like with readers.
- Although I liked being a Girl Scout as a kid, I was always jealous of the adventuring the Boy Scouts got to do. Playing with bees? Swinging around giant rocks? Making fires? And, in 2011, building robots. According to NPR, the Boy Scouts have now added a merit badge for robotics to promote science, math, engineering and technology. It's cool to see them incorporating technology into their assessments of survival skills, and providing a fun atmosphere for kids to get early exposure to these fields. —Lauren
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York" exhibit? There's an app for that! Easy to upload and full of cool extras to check out after you leave the museum, it includes audio descriptions from the exhibition curator, Jayson Kerr Dobney; video and song clips of instruments on display being played; and interviews with musicians. And unlike the normal "one-room video" layout, where visitors crowd around a tiny screen, or sit awkwardly on wooden benches watching the same loop of film, this structure allows for a more interactive and personal experience. Honestly, if they keep making easy-to-follow apps like this, I'll be visiting a few more museums this year. —Lara
- I'm a big believer in the power of a liberal arts education and the
notion that it teaches its students not WHAT to think but HOW to think.
For me, this
piece from Harvard Business Review reinforces the
concept. —Libby
- Earlier this week, PW highlighted a social media venture that brings together Google and Facebook. Travis Alber, the founder of BookGlutton.com, is releasing Readum, "a new social media application that allows readers to add comments and notes to books in their Google eBooks library and easily post them on Facebook for the general public or to specific groups." I think the important aspect here is that he is trying to create a social media connection for readers across different e-reading platforms and devices. Perhaps this will impact online book clubs/reading groups that want to use different devices and connect more through social media as they read? The article includes a video presentation as well. —Nicole
- Sophomore year of college I checked out White Noise from the college library and just couldn't get into it. A few years later I revisited it and now count it among my favorite novels. I thought of this when I came across this fascinating piece from The A.V. Club, in which the magazine's staff members discuss the television shows, movies, books, and other works of art that they had a hard time appreciating the first time around. It's great seeing all the different perspectives because they illustrate how virtually everyone's tastes change over time. —Justin
Nota bene: Open Road in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required); Last week Ruth Rendell made international bestselling author Ian Rankin's list of five great literary crime novels; John Gardner's advice for writers in The Huffington Post; Rafael Yglesias's video inspires a niche for ebooks; and Rebecca West gets a shout-out from Moby Lives.