Four teens who read above and beyond won college scholarships from EdVest through a partnership with KnowHow2Go Wisconsin as part of the ending of this year’s Summer Library Program. Scholarship winners are: Kelsey Anderson, Leigh Gregory, Ethan White, and Jele Magdalina. View pictures of the winners on our Flickr photostream, or read a full press release on the City of Madison website.

You can win a scholarship, too! Wisconsin teens in grades 7-10 can create a video by December 21 that dramatizes one of the KnowHow2GO Four Steps to college to win a grand prize of a $1000 EdVest College Savings Account or win a 2nd and 3rd prize of a $500 EdVest College Savings Account.

Four teens who read above and beyond won college scholarships from EdVest through a partnership with KnowHow2Go Wisconsin as part of the ending of this year’s Summer Library Program. Scholarship winners are: Kelsey Anderson, Leigh Gregory, Ethan White, and Jele Magdalina. View pictures of the winners on our Flickr photostream, or read a full press release on the City of Madison website.

You can win a scholarship, too! Wisconsin teens in grades 7-10 can create a video by December 21 that dramatizes one of the KnowHow2GO Four Steps to college to win a grand prize of a $1000 EdVest College Savings Account or win a 2nd and 3rd prize of a $500 EdVest College Savings Account.

Did you know? You can find the Madison Public Library on many of your favorite social networking sites.

Become a fan of the Library on Facebook and have our posts appear alongside your friends’ status updates. Follow @MadisonLibrary and @SequoyaLibrary on Twitter for real time news and info. Share our bookmarked resources on Delicious. See photos from events and libraries on Flickr - Sequoya Branch and all other Madison Libraries. Check out videos and tutorials on our YouTube channel. Keep track of the library through your favorite blog reader or RSS service with all of our RSS feeds.

We want your feedback: how do you want to use the internet to connect with us? Please take a minute to complete our quick Social Media survey. We’re looking forward to putting your ideas into practice!

Not sure what a “tweet” is? Perplexed about “tagging”? Check out our quick introduction to social media, with short descriptions of all of the sites we use to connect with you.

Did you know? You can find the Madison Public Library on many of your favorite social networking sites.

Become a fan of the Library on Facebook and have our posts appear alongside your friends’ status updates. Follow @MadisonLibrary and @SequoyaLibrary on Twitter for real time news and info. Share our bookmarked resources on Delicious. See photos from events and libraries on Flickr - Sequoya Branch and all other Madison Libraries. Check out videos and tutorials on our YouTube channel. Keep track of the library through your favorite blog reader or RSS service with all of our RSS feeds.

We want your feedback: how do you want to use the internet to connect with us? Please take a minute to complete our quick Social Media survey. We’re looking forward to putting your ideas into practice!

Not sure what a “tweet” is? Perplexed about “tagging”? Check out our quick introduction to social media, with short descriptions of all of the sites we use to connect with you.

There has been a lot of talk lately about local foods and the quality of our diet. The Go Big Read discussions and the recent appearance of Michael Pollan at the Kohl Center have helped focus that discussion. But what about other aspects of our lives as consumers? Ellen Shell Ruppel takes a look at some of them in Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture. Ruppel’s focus is not exclusively on where our goods comes from and their environmental impact; instead she looks at impact, and maintains that our hunt for cheap goods and labor, is causing an economic downward trend, as wages drop.

Ruppel, who is a writer for the Atlantic Monthly, explores the downside of the American search for bargains. The quality of goods suffers as well as the wages of workers that produce and sell them. The price of the item is now the main factor in many purchasing decisions, and the buyer is often well aware that lack of quality is part of the deal. Ruppel describes the drastic changes we Americans have made as consumers in the last century, from a time when most people had very few possessions and the ones they had were used until they fell apart. From this, we have evolved into a throwaway society, in which items that break are tossed out and no repair is even attempted.

Two sections of this book really stood out : the chapter on Ikea and the description of farm raised shrimp. Ruppel took a field trip to Ikea headquarters and closely examines some of the furniture and the reasons why it is so cheap. She describes book cases, with sagging shelves that fall apart when moved. But it costs less than $100, and is easily replaced with another, also disposable. And as for the shrimp, the farms that raise them are unappealing and often dirty, but the low cost is the reason restaurants can have inexpensive all you can eat specials.

What to conclude ? Perhaps looking for items, like furniture that are made to last, maybe even long enough to pass on to someone else. Spend a little more and buy less. And when buying shrimp, look for fresh caught, and avoid those chain restaurant specials. Despite all the information provided, Ruppel is hopeful we can change our behavior and still enjoy shopping. And for another take on the subject, take a look at Confessions of an Eco-Sinner which I reviewed earlier this year.