Wednesday, November 7, 2007

The library gets Koha and the elderly get playgrounds


do the upper-body twist

walk for your health

My little two-branch library is very excited about Koha: it meets all our needs (full featured ILS!), it arguably has better security than a commercial product, it's free (or at least the money we'd normally spend on software, licenses, and support can now go to hand-picked individuals who work for us - with benefits! - by providing support), and it's philosophically in-line with our desire to promote the sharing and dissemination of information (or source code). I do hope the board picks Koha.

Now, on to more exciting stuff: not library or book related, but too lovely to miss. Japan is taking care of its aging population by installing playgrounds filled with equipment specially designed for the elderly. The top picture shows an apparatus called the 'Upper-Body Twist': sit down and rotate, all the while strengthening hip muscles and improving balance. The bottom picture is of the 'Health Walk': walk on the bumps to improve circulation and balance. Neato. See more here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I understand it, Koha is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

I arrived a the same conclusion as you did, although I really widh I cold have tried it out.

Thomas said...

I love the senior playground! Thanks for including it in your post. I have absolutely nothing to say about Koha, and am sick to death of reading about it...

sawfast said...

It is such a strange coincidence, but I have also recently evaluated the Koha software package for a more or less imaginary little library, and I also found it to be a good choice. If only Koha could count these numenological institutions as part of their total momentum to take over the world of public information institutions...