Not One Of Them

Please don't let me become a crazy librarian who is constantly giving a talk aloud
update on what she is doing. To no one.

I Can Read Your Mind

There is something so satisfying about making a spot on book recommendation.

At first it seems like making an educated guess. Usually it is a book I've read, possibly loved and held dear as a good read. So you hand over that name, hoping a new connection can be made between the new reader and this treasured title.

Then I wait.

And maybe a few days or a few weeks later, I see the person coming back and cringe inwardly, not knowing their response to the book. I wait, expectantly, hoping it worked out. And this time, it did.

With every success, I feel the excitement of being a reader and know the other person feels that way, too. This is part of my job. I LOVE it.

Zany Words

zaftig

• having a full; rounded figure

zapata

• flowing, drooping moustache

zatch

• female genitalia

zebrinny

• offspring of male horse and female zebra

ziraleet

• expression of joy among Arab women

A Moment's Notice

My blog has been stagnant due to a brief foray out of the country to Nicaragua. Regularly scheduled posting will soon follow.

Since my poll on what book to read next did not end with a decisive winner, I read the three books that got votes, in alphabetical order. :)

I read Gilead, Impossible, and Love Among the Walnuts. Gilead was a beautifully written prose style book - a man's reflections to his son as he approaches death. Not exactly airplane reading, but I wanted to stay true to my poll. Impossible was GREAT - a modern day fairytale without the helpless damsel crap and a true love story. And last, Love Among the Walnuts - a kooky story about a young man trying to save the family business from his greedy power hungry uncles, interesting read.

So Many Good Books...So Very Little Time...

And now, time for a poll! I have a BUNCH of books on queue for this holiday break. Which should I read first? Here's a little break down of some and then I'll read which one wins the poll.

Impossible

Elsewhere

Prep - recommended as a not-to-read book, so how can I NOT read it to formulate my own opinion?

Love Among the Walnuts

Gilead - did you know that before Obama started reading the Twilight series with his daughters, he was reading this book?


(Look for the poll on the left hand column)



did I ever tell you about my second foray for my "books gone wild" section? if anyone noticed, i have been applying this label loosely, and not to pictures of random people's reads. BECAUSE i tried to ask a few people on the T about the books they were reading, thinking the T ride was a perfect time to ask since lots of people read. I approached a middle aged woman and a guy around my age. Both were very embarrassed and very apologetic in their refusals. it discouraged me, but made me realize there are optimal conditions for getting people to agree to my crazy idea. So..."books gone wild" has morphed to incorporate other things for now.

now on to book talking! I found a new teen/YA review site that has really random, not always typical fluff sounding reads - Reading Rants! Here's a few I picked out that sounded good enough to add to our collection at my work:

Janes in Love by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

What I Saw and How I lied by judy blundell

The Ghosts of Kerfol by Deborah Noyle

Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Rolston

Mexican White Boy by Matt de la Pena

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

Chains by Laurie Halse

Getting the Girl by Susan Juby

If I stay by Gayle forman

The Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness


Cheers y'all and happy holidays.

Pimp yo' book cart

The people over at Unshelved, the librarian comic strip, hold an annual contest to see who can trick out a book cart the best. I'm not sure what they use as qualifiers for "best" because I wouldn't have chosen their winner. I would have chosen 'Mini Me.' What do you think? Check out the winner and the runners up here.

Others

Rather unexpectedly, you realize there are Others out there. Others who notice you. Or your work. Others that are interacting in your life without you ever knowing unless they let on. And as impossible as it seems, you are a part of these Others' lives too. Not just smiles shared, simple eye contact, or anonymous nice gestures. I'm talking more random occurrences. Occurrences that seem one sided, but spread like a ripple of air through the atmosphere. You realize that life is interconnected...but every once and a while, you get proof that it really is.

Of course I have an example, why else would I be writing this post?

Friday at work I decided it was now-or-never-time to change the bulletin board to a "holiday season" or winter theme. The design I was taking down was one I was so proud of - a fall theme of autumn colors, acorns, and pictures of REAL squirrels (and their scientific data) which I made holding books. A few of my regulars asked why I'd chosen squirrels, but those were the only comments.

As I was taking the squirrels down, a teacher happened to be passing and she exclaimed, "Aw, you're taking the squirrels down! I really loved this board every time I saw it. Squirrels are my favorite animals." I've never spoken to her before, maybe I've passed her in the hallways, and I would never have known she noticed the board. Instead, her path crossed mine at just the right moment.

And now...now she has three of my squirrels above her desk in the history department. Life can be oh so grand.



one she took was this one below - the red bellied squirrel aka Rubrisciurus rubriventer

Nicaragua, Here I Come

My American Express Card now has a bill for a round trip ticket to Nicaragua on it. (which was only $410, what!?#@?!) During my long luxurious graduate student Christmas break, I and 9 other students will be going to volunteer in Nicaragua for 10 days. I. Cannot. Wait.

During that time we will be working at one central library to help them run an after school program, build up the catalog, develop their collection, and just see if we can bring any new ideas there. Then we'll also be doing a BOOK MOBILE! This is the part that gets me the most excited - bringing books to schools in rural areas to kids who haven't or can't or are waiting to check out books. We'll also be driving to a few different locations to see some very old libraries, ones that still do not let people check out materials, and to some very new libraries, like in peoples homes. Whatever it is, I want to be there and experience it all. All through college I went on "Alternative Spring Breaks" either working with habitat for humanity or other similar type sponsoring organizations connected to my school. Volunteering is one of few ways I get to do everything I enjoy in life - travel, meet new people, do hands on work, and actually REFLECT on what I am doing, why I am doing it and how it impacts me and others.

When I told a few friends about this trip during the holiday, their eyes were huge and their mouths were hanging open. One said, "I didn't know librarians do that kind of stuff..." and continued to mumble off in utter amazement. Yes folks, it's true. Librarians do way way more than just check out books and put books back on the shelf. Librarians are all over this world doing incredible jobs, like -

• government that sends a librarian into war zones after some combat training, where he or she would be risking their LIFE!
  
• working for Google over the summer
  
• working for international non-profit organizations to develop new libraries and support people in continuing efforts

Noah Wyle is giving us a bad name, librarians are fo' real guardians and custodians of information. We want to help people have access to knowledge...help people solve their problems...

Sigh.

love my job. I am lucky and blessed.

Books are luxury items? Really?!?

The NYT had an article on booksellers and publishers yesterday (or was it Monday now...?). Like everyone in the production business, they too are feeling the fear that this economy has shrouded the nation in. Are people going to stop buying books?, they ponder (so types the lender of books, the under miner of empires)

What do you think - is buying a book a luxury? Is having a home library (no matter the size) a luxury? How important is it to you to own books?

And more importantly, do you let people borrow your books?

I was in the habit of lending my books out without a thought...Until I started seeing them turn up on that person's bookshelf! The person would say something like, "Oh, just there until I read it." But seeing the book all cozy and comfy on their shelf, blending in with all the person's other books, a sense of dread would slowly begin creeping into my brain. My sister-in-law (after being a player in a scene like this with me) bought me some stick on name plates to identify my books, but that did NOT stop people from not returning them. "Timely" is so subjective that saying it is a wasted breath. I might as well have started putting due dates in the books! But then...then people would know! People would feel an intimation that I might not trust them or think them responsible, so I made a system - when someone takes a book, I make a slip of paper with the name of the person who took it, the date, and the book title and slide it between the books where the book belongs.

My home library.

Just In

Just finished reading two of the most WONDERFUL Young Adult novels. One is a full on graphic novel and the other is quite literally the literature version of mixed media painting.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Coraline. Read them both in one night only so they are not time consuming. The graphics in each are both very different styles, but both add a level of engaging with that text that enhances the story. There was one picture in the Hugo book that took my breath away with its ability to capture the feeling in a shared look between two characters. The author was also the illustrator/media includer and the drawings are simple, black and white pencil drawings...even more incredible for the depth they contain.

The images in Coraline are full color and range from beautiful and flowing to jagged and disturbing. All integral to certain affects/effects/and situations happening in the story. Both are MUST READS!

Who Brought the Idiot?

In class, the professor started to dismiss class a half hour early. Somehow he thought class ended at 5pm when it really ended at 5:30pm. As people began putting their stuff into bags, and he went on about not covering everything, without even thinking, I said, "We still have time. Class ends at 5:30."

The professor looked at the clock, confused. Everyone else stared silently ahead or looked at me with wide eyed disbelief. You what!?!? You want to stay here when we could have LEFT?!?! The professor bumblingly went on for another fifteen minutes while I sat there, my ears burning from embarrassment.

I'm still the over achieving little girl I was in grade school...drat.

Of God and Google

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson is a...haunting book. Her descriptions of ordinary things reveals something almost...supernatural about them, and just how much significance actions and things can hold. How everything sane can hang on the edge of insanity. Calm with disorder. Nature and civilization. I got swept up in the language at certain points, even though I was also a little lost at the same time. Her prose is very poetic, beautiful, but sometimes strays so far into lucidity that I couldn't remember our point of departure.

Here is one interesting passage I'll share -

"Cain killed Abel...a story so sad even God took notice of it. Maybe it was not the sadness of the story, since worse things have happened every minute since that day, but its novelty that God found striking. In the newness of the world God was young, and grew indignant over the slightest things. In the newness of the world God had perhaps not realized the ramifications of certain Laws..."

Setting aside the cliche of God being a figure and a person, more the Catholic idea of God, what I find so interesting about this perspective is thinking of God...as new. As someone who could make mistakes. Someone learning the ropes. Someone prone to tempers or joys or other emotions that might influence actions in a split second, not someone who always thinks everything out. If I fully believed in a Catholic image/idea of God this notion might help explain a lot of things about the Bible and Gods actions in the early days.


Close to Godliness in the world of information search and retrieval is Google. Reading over a Wired Magazine I came across some awesome search features I didn't know about and thought, hey, maybe you don't either!

* to find sites in the government or education sector, add :gov or :edu to the end of your search terms

* Google will convert currency and units. their example - "12 par secs in light years."

* Enter a ticker symbol to check out how your stocks are doing

* Limit your search to file type by adding :PPT or :doc to the end of your search term


Google just keeps getting better and better. You GO Google. You go...

Food - its not just what's for dinner...

It seems the New York Times Magazine is not the only one noticing the buzz about food and food policies. The geeks over at Wired are too! I cannot tell you how...excited I am to see this issue cross boundaries and become the topic of discussion in as many different forums as possible. I've yet to make my way through the Wired issue, but I have gone through the NYT magazine and was...enlightened by some things I read (the young up and comingpeople section), amused by others (the spotlight on a small restaurant that makes mac n' cheese pancakes), and frustrated by few (damn you, Doug Fine! how dare he make it into the NYT magazine before me$#@@# the guy CAN'T WRITE!).

But I've seen food and food politics and sustainability issues popping up everywhere, not just "on the cover of a magazine" (thanks, Madonna). At my job, one of my duties is to cover new books with a protective jacket and stamp them with identifying stamps. A few new books we've received of late are Food Politics by Marion Nestle, Chew on This by Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson, which is a young adult version of Fast Food Nation, and finally, this book which I began last night and almost could NOT put down -

This guy is making a LOT of sense and every post from this one forward miiight just have to be on points from this book as I read on. For a long time now, I have felt like a miscreant of sorts, someone un-American and un-patriotic. This book has opened a window on my soul and illuminated me as none of those things. What I hope for, what I long for, and the possibilities I dream of for this country are ALL patriotic are ALL American. As my posts go on, I'll explore this idea a little more in depth.

For now, I will continue to enjoy the rise of awareness in the importance of food and our connection to food production and I will keep spreading the word.

E - B - S - C - O

Through my college, I have access to some awesome databases. Literally, a world of information is at my fingertips...well, if I can use the right search terms to find it. One of my favorite databases is Academic Search Complete. The interface is easy to look at and intuitively set up to find what goes where and how one performs a search. One of my professors demoed this in class and it was very extensive with results. But one thing the professor didn't comment on was a word on the right in that picture, with a box to check it for a...reaction. Do you see it? It's like a BIG RED BUTTON SCREAMING to be clicked. Explode.

Who says searching databases can't be exciting? and have DANGEROUS options? When I'm feeling lucky, I don't go search on Google, I click the "explode" box in the Ebsco Host database.
Try it sometime. I dare you.

Cataloging

Of which I learned two steps of how-to-do today!

I learned how to delete a MARC record and I learned how to reclassify a book's holding code. I know, big deal right? BUT IT IS! These are the essential duties of a librarian that no outsider would ever guess as part of a librarian's job. I am finally being initiated, slowly but surely. When I deleted a record, I deleted the book from our collection. Then the physical book also has to removed from our space so I get to stamp them all with a big rubber stamp that says



So cool.

What also makes it cooler is that in the cataloging program we use, there is a button that looks like this -


The button states it "reveals spaces" when I place the cursor on it, but what that means...I have yet to find out. Moi ah ah ah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Books Books and more Books

Don't know what to read next?



Try this handy dandy site to see what else is out there that is similar to the last book you read, similar to your favorite book of all time, or similar to that title someone randomly told you and you never read.

This site is free and it ROCKS.

A is for Awesome

Awesome = my job = Wednesday of this week

Wednesday was community curriculum day at the school. A topic was chosen, in this case Campaign '08, and the whole school (faculty + staff included) participated in assemblies and workshops and discussions on that topic. First guest speaker was Karen Sautter, the Northeast Regional Vice Chair for the Young Republicans. The last guest speaker was Vanessa Kerry, Board Member for the Young Democrats and John Kerry's daughter. What two very interesting and opposing view points, speech styles, and ideas these two people expressed. The girls were all eager to ask as many questions as they could and I was shocked at the depth and intelligence of the questions. How many people can say they see REAL LEARNING and CRITICAL THINKING happening at their school? I hope many people, but my heart tells me probably not many.

At one point, Karen Sautter was asked about her stance on abortion. She said she is pro-life as is McCain because as a party, the Republicans have decided that the unborn baby needs an advocate and that an unborn child's rights need to be heard and represented. She also said that women who have had abortions suffer more health problems later. I was surprised at this statement and surprised that she did not go on to qualify where that statement came from. Just threw it out there, a statement of fear to a crowd of impressionable young women. I attempted to ask her to back this statement up during the Q & A session, but unfortunately was not called on. Later, when Vanessa Kerry was up, I again attempted to ask her since she also has a medical degree, but again, my attempts were thwarted when the session ran out of time. I was so frustrated to not have been able to discuss that statement further with the entire student body. On my own, I talked to Vanessa and she said that statement could be taken to mean ANYTHING, but at its face value, it was not true. Women do not suffer any permanent side effects or later health problems after having a safe, legal, and doctor administered abortion. To settle this, I've contacted Karen via facebook since this was the only means I could find of contacting her directly. We'll see what she says in response.

Sandwiched between the two parties were a bunch of workshops. I sat in on "Campaign 2008 and the New Media." Let me tell you, I felt like a proud parent listening to these girls answer some questions on the effects of YouTube and other new media. They were saying things I WOULD say. I just sat back and basked in the hope I felt these young women represent for the future.

Fall Is A Good Time for Mysteries...

At work I've made two displays this month, well, three actually - two for mysteries and one for the Halloween/Scary themes of Fall. There are two mystery sections because there are two schools here, the Upper school which is grades 9-12th and the Lower School which is grades 5-8th. The library itself is three floors, so each school has its own floor of fiction books with one floor for dear Dewey Decimal books.

As I went through the catalog to make the mystery displays, I kept finding books that sounded so darn interesting and readable. Just from this search I added three more books to my already towering stack of books-to-read.


Here are a few titles you might want to check out:

The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman

Good and Dead by Jane Langton

Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christy

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst

Death By Chick Lit by Lynn Harris

No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Something Rotten by Alan Grantz

Spiderweb For Two by Elizabeth Enright (this lady is a CLASSIC)

Shooting Stars Everywhere by Martina Wildner

Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator by Jennifer Allison

Last month I made displays for memoirs, non-fiction, and classics. I noticed MANY of the books I'd put out were checked out. This month I'd like to monitor the books I've selected and see if the display increases their usage. However, with all this privacy protection and avoidance of cow towing to the Patriot Act, I'm not sure we track those things. Looks like I have a little mystery to solve.

I'm on the case and will report my findings...

Check Out a Book Near You

Did you know this is National Get a Library Card Month? Well...IT IS! If you don't have one, check out your local librarian (and no, I don't mean the person's rear end, but the building he or she is working in!) and see what awesome resources are contained therein.

How do I know such glorious and pertinent information? As I was perusing the school library's copy of American Libraries, I came across not only that juicy morsel of info, but also an article on public outreach for libraries across the country. Carnegie Melon just dumped $270,000 into the ALA (American Library Assoc.) to boost public awareness. Why?

Because librarians are losing their jobs all over the country. Just as art and music were the first to get the axe before with governmental budget cuts, now that they are all gone, it's on to the "useless" librarians. There is currently an addition in the works to the No Child Left Behind act that would ENSURE all schools have media specialist librarians within them. For more info visit www.ilovelibraries.org and read more on contacting your local congress people about adding the SKILLS bill to the No Child Left Behind Act/Law/Mandate, whatever it is called. The sad fact is that if every congress person does not support this addition, it will not happen...and then I'm $22,000 in the hole with a Masters degree to...no job land.

What is more important to me though then having a job is children having the valuable resource that is a librarian. For children having a safe place to go and learn or just to be quiet and alone that is a library. When I was in elementary school, I loved the safe haven that was my school library, as well as my town library. And the librarians knew me by name and trusted me enough to let me help out with shelving and other menial tasks. My parents let me go there alone and I felt grown up and responisble being able to have this place as my own place. Among being repositories for information, community resources, and books, videos, and cds, libraries are the holders of memory, history, and rites of passage.

If you have a minute, please do check out the website. If you have two minutes, send an email to your congress people to endorse the addition of the SKILLS section to No Child Left Behind.