In memoriam, Uncle Ruby, 1928-2006

The nicest guy in the world died on Christmas night
He wasn't rich, except in love
He wasn't famous, except for his stories
He was tall and handsome, a really good dancer
A snazzy dresser, always well turned out
But Hollywood didn't know him

Palmyra knew him, and Frankford, and Torresdale.
He attended his high school reunions
And the homecoming football game, every year
He loved parades, rode his decorated tandem on July Fourth
Had baseball season tickets, even after the strike
He was someone you could trust completely
Even though he was involved in Republican politics
He was a joker, a tease, so I know he wouldn't mind
Me getting that dig in, I think he'd laugh that
Even his death doesn't stop me from arguing politics
He'd tell me he knew I wouldn't like what he'd say sometimes
He wasn't afraid to tell you his opinion, or where you were wrong
But there was never an ounce of meanness in what he said to me

He didn't drink, rarely swore, slow to anger but watch out!
When someone or something got his goat
He was smart and tenacious and he didn't forget
He might forget his glasses, but never a face
He could run into some buddy he hadn't seen
In thirty or forty years and talk like it was yesterday
Remember their name, their street, their dog, their mother
Had he ever told you that story? The one about the dog?

He claimed his family, our Bud, our Jane, our Annie and Else
Our Billy and our Susie were the most important of all
And even though they bickered, and she played bingo
He always loved the most beautiful girl in the world
Wrote her video valentines, her life story in pictures
His home movies so carefully produced.

It seems hard that he left on Christmas
When he turned into a big kid every year
The rotating tree, ornaments arranged just so
The trains, the Hess trucks, the lights in the windows
A present for everyone under the tree
I know he had perfect faith, looked forward
To seeing his mother, father, brother, sister, son
All of the Mohicans together again
In their Presbyterian heaven, sharing a story.

Illustrated, Modeled, Drawn, Painted

I snagged Paint It Black from the new book shelf when I saw it, having a vague recollection of good reviews, and at one point having seen hundreds of reserves on it in our system. Now I must post about it, even if it may not seem the best topic for the season.

Paint It Black opens with the heroine, Josie, cramped and uncomfortable holding a pose for an artist. She is nude, and a Beatle has been murdered just a few days ago. So it is December 1980, a time redolent with memory for me, as I was living in my first apartment in NYC. But Josie is in LA, and cares very little about John Lennon. She is thinking more about the recent suicide of a local punk rocker, which has been completely overshadowed by Lennon's death.

There, in the very first scene, we have the interlocking themes of the novel: suicide, art, music , fame. In just a few more pages, Josie gets a phone call. She must go to the coroner's office and identify the corpse of her lover, Michael. Michael, an artist, had told her he was going to spend a few days at his mother's house, painting. But he has been gone a week, and now he has blown out his brains in Twentynine Palms.

I don't think I have ever read such a searing depiction of grief. And deception, including of self. Layers of it. Josie, an actress, model, and teen runaway on the LA punk scene, is ill-equipped (unless you count downers and Stoli as equipment) to cope.

The novel is wonderful on many levels. The physical descriptions are precise. We see everything through Josie's eyes, and she sees things as an artist, and as a muse and model. Plus there is music and poetry. I actually photocopied the copyright acknowledgments page so I can follow up on some of the poetry--I don't think I have ever done that before. I particularly loved the plant and landscape descriptions. Janet Fitch is a Los Angeles native, and she and Josie know the names of all the trees and plants (unlike most of the Californians I have encountered). Actually, my one quibble is that Josie seems to know far too much for a high school drop-out from a tow yard in Bakersfield. Even with a year with Michael, I don't see how she would know that much German and French, history. But I think that just might be my own over-educated East Coast elitism peeking out.

Josie is a fully realized character. Her grit and tenacity kept me moving through the surreal events and settings, the fantasy life revisited and a movie shoot. Drunk, stoned, emotionally wrecked, Josie keeps on looking to find understand what happened, what is real and true, in love and death.

I don't want to tell you that the novel is ultimately uplifting, but I can say that for me, reading it was. I haven't yet done the review to state with certainty my best reads of 2006 (soon, really), but this is definitely going to be a nominee.

Decking the blather

It is that time of year. If you have the time and are so inclined, please join me, and share some virtual cheer at tintinnab.

Ex-Homeless Attend to Library Bathrooms

Newsday.com: Ex-Homeless Attend to Library Bathrooms

Whoa. If we can't beat 'em, have 'em join us? Actually, I think this is brilliant. I almost wish I could see it, though seeing those bathrooms in my dreams turns them into nightmares. They were a disgrace. I am glad that is changing for the public and for employees, and that the solution includes helping the homeless, rather than harassing them. Yeah.

Thanks, for once, to Greg S., and as always, to Lisnews.

Like dropping a dozen eggs

(which really enlivened our Sunday morning, and led to fabulous, enormous mushroom asparagus omelets.)

I thought I would try reading short stories on my lunch half hour and breaks, as both are often interrupted and not conducive to long narratives. So I borrowed Across the Wall: Tales of the Abhorsen and Other Stories. I am a big fan of Sabriel and Lirael. I haven't read much other Garth Nix. I was surprised to see how much he had done when I typed him into WorldCat. The stories were less than absorbing. I gave up when I hit a lengthy choose-your-own-adventure style thing. Oh well. By the way, one of the subject headings is "magical thinking". Is someone confusing magic and magical thinking?

On the other hand, I also got Fragile Things. In the land of young adult=I mean=teen=I mean children's=I mean adult? authors I enjoy, Neil Gaiman is special. These stories and poems and fragments are a fascinating collection. Some are quite weird. I am doing this post right now because the book is overdue and six people have reserves behind me so I can't renew. I am bad about some aspects of librarianly privilege, but not so bad as that! I am saddened, because it has taken me away on magical flights of supposition. There's eerie, there's romance, there's sci-fi and horror all combined with jokes. I loved the spun glass commedia dell'arte of Harlequin Valentine, and the B-movieness of The Facts In The Case Of The Departure Of Miss Finch. I guess I'll get it out some other time, and spend more time on the poems.

I am probably fooling myself at best. I received the new Pynchon the day it was released. (I cannot ever say too much good about the Boyfriend. The spoiling is outrageous.) I am holding back from reading it because 1) It's a Christmas present and 2) once I fall in, who knows when I'll fall out.

But first I have to finish Paint It Black. I still need to post March. Did I already do it? I live in confusion. I think there's something else. Will keep you posted ;)

In the shadow of no shadows

In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant was not at all the little piece of historical fiction fluff I was expecting when I grabbed it off the new book shelf at Boyfriend's library and brought it home for the weekend. This was one of those rely-on-the-cover-since- you-don't-have-time-to-read-the-jacket selections. I often feel jealous of my customers who really take time to browse the shelves. Of course, the same people take home 8-10 books a week, and confide to me that reading is their life/they don't own or watch TV or have cable. We do not have cable. I think about "we read not to be alone". (Eek, put that in Google and Biblioblather is hits 2 and 3. For the record, it is from Shadowlands, the biopick about C .S. Lewis.). Of course, I was beguiled by the cover, which is a detail of the Venus of Urbino by Titian. I am a little perturbed that I found that high quality image on the free web. I am just using a small thumbnail--you can follow the link to see bigger/better. Since it's from a .edu, maybe it's just up for someone's art history final and will disappear anon. I am going to believe that my use is educational. Might be a little bit of a stretch, but I don't think most people subscribe to this merely for entertainment. (That or you are even weirder than I imagine.) The jokes tend to be lame and the gossip is very thin. OK, not to go wandering too far off topic, Titian is one of the characters in this novel. It is set deeply in Venice in the 16th Century. (There's a beautiful Canaletto on the back cover, as well.) We begin by experiencing the sack of Rome in 1527 through the eyes of Bucino, dwarf companion to Fiammetta Bianchini, a beautiful courtesan. There's a mystery surrounding the theft of a large ruby Fiammetta swallowed before fleeing Rome, a strange blind healer, a Jewish pawnbroker, and a host of challenges to the perfect partnership of the courtesan and the dwarf. So violence and mystery and intrigue, and the business of pleasing wealthy men far outweigh any kisses or bedsports. Life is and was harsh, but it is dazzling.

World AIDS Day--Light To Unite

Light To Unite

Bristol-Myers Squibb is donating $ 1 to fight HIV/AIDS for each person who visits their
website and "virtually lights a candle".

Please take a minute to "light a candle"


Thanks to BabylonSister. I got this late in the day, but maybe some of you are still awake

poster girl with no poster

My friend Mary sent me this toy a while ago. The screen cap on the left has almost the right amount of purple, but I wasn't happy with the weight. Maybe Bakashoujiki can make me a preety one?

Anywho, I thought I should give you a toy as what follows is going to be a rather messy exculpation (word? yes, thank you Google define: syntax) and laundry list. I will not try to excuse or explain. It just is.

Recovered scribbling from October?

In The Pink (Pacific)

Thursday

I got home, just in time to grab the dog and walk to the beach, to see the most incredible sunset yet. The Pacific was pink. Picture perfect waves. The sky was pink and gold with aquamarine streaks. I tried to take a picture with my mind. I think it was better than trying with a camera phone, but maybe I am wrong. I am still stuck on memory as important. Computer memory, yes, including iPod memory (possibly my best birthday evah this year). But really and truly, I think brain memory rules. I am unsure if I will be able to call up those exact colors of tonight's sunset in six months. But I think if I reread this, I can maybe catch a bit of it. It was worthy of oil paint.

Monday

So far it's working. Unfortunately, my digestive system is not. The Boyfriend and I caught an obnoxious stomach bug. He' s better; I am not. I think this s what I hate most about this disease, more than nightly injections or the endless fatigue and muscle weakness. I almost typed weekness, which is seems some times. It's so boring. I don't type so well either. My eyes and my mouth are always dry from the meds. But it's the fact that when I get even a little sick, I am very sick and it lasts days longer than you could expect. Argh. Very poor customer service from my body.

The Elements of Style by Wendy Wasserstein is very pink. The cover looks like a gift from a very expensive store, with one of those fabric ribbons with the store's name woven into it. Weeks after reading, I thought about why I read it. I liked Wasserstein, of course. I loved the Heidi chronicles and Shiksa Goddess. I heard her read from that at MFPOW. She mostly talked about a program she was involved with that took disadvantaged young people to Broadway shows. I generally hate that kind of thing, noblesse oblige crap, but she was passionate about the theater and this program. I read EOS hoping for some more of her wit and passion, posthumously. I saw a production of The Sisters Rosenzweig locally this summer It was pretty good production and it was funny. Plus EOS is set in Manhattan. I feel a need to keep my connection with NYC going. But EOS was teh kind of reading about rich people that makes me hate myself.

I felt the same way after The Nanny Diaries. A bad taste in the mouth. I ended up thinking that Frankie, the heroine, just had a customer service problem. Why should any doctor think they can keep patients waiting in the waiting room over an hour? Of course I have strong sentiments on the subject, but really, it didn't matter if Frankie was the greatest do-gooder in East Harlem history. Making rich patients mingle with poor patients was not the problem, it was overbooking! Gnash of teeth. Maybe it was another example of a lost sense of humor, but looks like other reviewers agreed.

But briefly or I will never catch up:

The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens. Haunting. I think I read it in September, and there are images I just cannot lose. When I started it (another ARC from ALA), I thought, not really my taste for bed time reading. I mentioned it to the Boyfriend, also part Irish, and he said he doesn't read about The Hunger for pleasure. But I couldn't and didn't put it down. When a review says "beautifully written", I never believe them, but it is true this time.

I remember thinking when I failed to finish Thunderstruck, that I was really through with reading novels as memoirs or memoirs as novels or whathaveyou. I don't much care for memoir memoirs, with few exceptions. Personal history can just stay personal, in my book. But but but, The Law of Dreams. Not a memoir, but based on the author's family history. I asked my grandmother about Ireland when the IRA was making headlines in my childhood. She told me, "We left. When anyone asks about your family and Ireland, just tell them we left." I have not been very curious about it. Now I am. It seems all the persons with my surname in this hemisphere can trace back to a common ancestor who crossed the water from County Antrim around 1840. I probably won't do the work to figure out that ancestor's story, but I will think of the law of dreams and let it inform the family romance.

Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. OK, another take on the future when we can wear our computers in our clothes and message back and forth just by blinking. But Vinge takes an interest in how we know who is who online. Plus it is set in San Diego, digitization provides the drama, and the Geisel Library at UCSD is both part of the setting and almost a character. I have to mention that the first time I visited La Jolla and saw Torrey pines, I said "who knew Dr. Seuss was drawing from life?" Yes, it is that Geisel, and the library's fantastic architecture should definitely play a role in sci-fi. Yeah, Mr. Vinge. I read the book fast, and often while awaiting Morpheus, so I think I missed bits. Like who was Rabbit??? That's ok--it'll be fun to re-read.






But I still have two titles to blog before I can read more. But this has been forever, and I must away to spell check and link check and save already!

Dorothea Speaks - For the Love of Libraryland, Please Listen

Design Speaks - October 15, 2006 - Library Journal

Oh Dorothea. You've made me want to blog again! Thank you. I got in official trouble for telling someone from ALA-OLOS that the architecture of MFPOW's buildings were a hurdle for outreach to prospective patrons. I had even said it in writing! Ouch. I was supposed to be contributing to a book on outreach. By the time my supervisor's supervisor finished editing my article, I withdrew it.

MPOW now has about six things they call blogs for employees. New posts are very infrequent. They do not allow comments, from their own employees. I don't think these blogs are in any way findable by the outside world. Are we worried about comment spam? I did my own separate blog for ALA 2006, which I encouraged my staff to read and comment on. I think they enjoyed it, and got a better sense of ALA than they could from the official notes that were attached to an executive memo.

I feel, over 15 years inside of libraries, that to get and understand information I have to engage in sifting arcana, engaging in apophenia. Even gossip is thin and unreliable. When a patron asks me why we do something whatever crazy way we do it (this applies to shelving, computer sign ups, printers, copiers, supplies, you name it), at this point I am nonplused. I cannot say "tradition", "bureaucrazy", "it's complicated", to all these people who just want to understand how some simple seeming aspect of a little branch library works.

I used to work in a large reference collection. The staff there had decided long ago that they could improve on Dewey. Books would arrive from Cataloging with a Dewey classification. A note would be added to the item record that the item would be S.W. (shelved with) some other call number. The S.W. info did not appear in the OPAC, only in the circulation client. The amount of time spent reclassifying, typing labels to sit above the existing labels, and then hiding these books was astounding. I could not understand it. When I said it should stop, I was told I did not understand how the S.W.s saved the librarians time. To this day, I think those S.W.s were just a way to keep those librarians busy and necessary. I guess that collection, which was deep and rich, must still have some users. I hope they managed to migrate the note info into the OPAC when they migrated to a new system. At least I can hope.

I had not been reading blogs for a while. So few seem to say much to me as the head of a small branch library. The Boyfriend said to me recently that being a branch manager means accepting mediocrity, as no one can do all the functions well. I know today, after a full week of running ragged from the fourth grade assignment on California endangered species, I care very little about buying books, planning March programs, writing performance reviews... A customer complained today about having to wait 40 minutes to use a computer. I said I have no control, but that something might turn over faster; there's just no way to know. He said, "Well, how many of them are on MySpace?" I answered, "It's none of my business." Mistake. Trying to explain intellectual freedom, the value of getting teens to hang out in the library, that social networking skills have value. Let's say it fell on deaf ears.

I was waiting for something to happen the other day, so I peeked in Bloglines. There were four new posts from William Gibson. After I read those, I opened my "liblather" folder. Daunting. So I scrolled down to Caveat Lecteur, thinking Dorothea always could make me laugh. That truth held. But ten or so posts down, I hit the article link. And discovered Digg, and WPopac, which completely blew me away. Use the links in the article, as I continued tired and spent. But excited, too. Yeah!

Girl Trouble

I went on a tiny, unintentional chicklit binge last month. First, I read The Book of One Hundred Truths by Julie Schumacher. It was an advance reading copy that I picked up at ALA, and featured at the Random House fall book preview I attended. Conference tip: the programs hosted/sponsored by publishers are the best place to pick up the hottest ARCs--much easier than fighting the mobs and begging the beleaguered staff at the exhibit booths.

Anywho, a teen problem book (my all-time fave genre) set at the Jersey Shore with fairly enticing cover art. I was ready to fall in love. I almost did. The conceit is that the heroine, Thea, must keep a journal for the summer writing down four true things every day. Thea, you see, has become a liar. And she has a secret. Schumacher does a good job on building interest. Thea's relationship with her extended family is interesting. But the foreshadowing is very heavy handed, and some of the dialogue is leaden. I became impatient waiting for the big truths to be revealed, and felt a bit cheated. Nothing all that awful has or will transpire, so it seemed a bit melodramatic to me. I guess Notes From A Liar and Her Dog will remain the gold standard for me. Still, there are days when I have difficulty with keeping melodrama out of my life, so this maybe another pot and kettle thing. Goodness knows, as a teen, my family romance was twistier than a Celtic knot. Though I truly believe in truth and honesty as the best policy, I do remember when that just seemed SO boring and/or so unbelievable.

My library branch used to have an Amazon.com wish list. It had not been updated in years, and I thought it was a little weird to be linking to it and asking people to donate materials. I thought it was particularly odd as we have quite a healthy book budget. I have to really work to spend enough each month. (Well, I do manage.) I was also curious about the relationship to our collection development policies. There are some rules, of course. So I wondered if I put just anything on the wish list, would Cataloging add a record? That could solve some user satisfaction issues. While I was looking in some mystery folders in my desk drawer, I found out that three years ago, we were not so flush. The Cedars fire (the HUGE fire in Socal in 2003) had raged and ravaged Lakeside. Lakeside had more deaths than any other town. A website called Pamie.com adopted our county libraries and people from all over the country purchased books on our wish list and donated them to us.

On inspection, it turns out pamie.com is a blog with an annual book drive for libraries. How did I not know about this? The shame. I decided to drop our Amazon wish list, which was quite moribund. But, still in sleuthing mode, I saw that Pamie, aka Pamela Ribon is an author, as well as blogger, actress, and scriptwriter. A quick look in Millenium shows we own Why Girls Are Weird. The subject headings mention Austin, Texas but not blogging. The book is about Austin like In Her Shoes is about Philadelphia. It is about blogging. And being autobiographical and the whole intersection of physical world and virtual world. Which has parallels to one hundred truths, if tracking a hundred or more lies with post-its on your living room wall can be a parallel.

Anyway, it is very funny while posing questions and poking about issues with issues. I guess if you can get this far in this entry, you can understand why I find these intersections interesting.

My daughter (not a girl, not trouble, you understand) was here for a visit for two weeks, meaning my access to the MacBook was limited. In her life, she is beginning to have more and more meat space interactions with her many "internet friends". Some of those friendships are six years old now. I did worry when she was 13 and chatting with complete strangers she met via LiveJournal. However, she is just as capable of judging character online as off. I want to tell people that is possible. Those of us who are accused of spending too much of our time plugged in need to show others that the ability to interact online is going to become more and more important. I long for the day when the interface is less clumsy than me typing into a text editor. But the ability to sort the chaff and the dross and the lies and the truth, that we are going to need.

Hum, ho...and blogging avoidance techniques

How I avoid blogging:

1. Washing breakfast dishes

2. Showering

3. Trimming toe nails

4. Going to work

5. Reading other blogs

6. Commenting on other blogs

7. Working at home

8. Housekeeping.

OK. Time for the rubber to hit the super highway. (Does ayone still call the internet that? besides me?) I should have listed reading novels as another blog avoidance technique.

Maul by Tricia Sullivan. Cover quote: "This is the new face of Feminist SF" Cheryl Morgan. Blurb: "Sheri S. Tepper meets Neal Stephenson (and kicks his ass!) in this feminist-cyberpunk thriller by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Tricia Sullivan."

I am not so sure. The opening pargraphs were gripping enough, and the plot lines convoluted, so I promoted this title from lunch/break reading to taking it home for a weekend. Unfortunately, girls with guns creating havoc as a game for human male lab rats in a future where viruses have killed most men did not really hold my attention after around 80 pages. Hard to think how that could become very predictable, but it did. I don't think I have ever felt that Sheri or Neal had painted themselves into such corners. I guess I think Sullivan's character development was too shallow. I did not feel invested in main characters Sun or Meniscus. Having the narrative go back and forth between them just made it seem disjointed, and the ending too much deus ex machina even for me, and I like deuses and machinas. Oh well. Hum ho. Could be worse. I did like the cover art.

Metrics, moi?

We've been measured. It is not true that I am innumerate, though Quicken did make me cry. No, I am a high-functioning dyslexic. Fortunately, the dyslexia does not affect my reading or spelling. Apparently, I read by shape. Good thing, as I missed phonics in school entirely. Unfortunately, numbers swim. In recent days, they are even doing the back stroke. But I did find an error in a spreadsheet from HQ today, which my staff ascribed to divine powers (they know I muddle Dewey numbers relentlessly).

Anyhow, the fabulous Walt Crawford has released a study over at Cites & Insights, (I've been in love with Walt and C&I since 1996, I think): "Perspective: Looking at Liblogs: The Great Middle."

"Biblioblather

No motto. Author: lislemck. Established March 2005. First March topic: "Bibliomemetica, cont." (a meme). Most comments (3): "Gubmint cheeeeeeese?"

Metrics: More conversational (1.29), 5th longest essays (681 words per post)."

That's this in a nutshell. Chatty and windy. I am thrilled that Walt still subscribes via Bloglines. I can pretty much pin the "blather" as inspired by C&I, though I do think I take it to greater heights, or is that depths? I can hardly believe I make it into the Great Middle, but it's you guys, the 21 Blogliners, 7 Feedburners, and 12 LiveJournal friends...geez, I hadn't counted the total in like a year, since I went into semi-retirement. Of course, it's the quality, not the quantity...gag.

Speaking of which, if I had a motto, should it be "Numbers? We don't need no stinking numbers?" That is too harsh. I even like the occasionalional chart. And I am limitlessly proud that my branch's circulation stats (as we live and die), have had double-digit increases over the previous year's stats for seven straight months! July 2006, 33.9% higher than 2005. Woo hoo. Those are numbers to warm the cockles of my heart.

I am going to spend some time looking at Walt's list--though I can barely glance at my five faves on a regular basis. Still, liblogs have enriched me on so many levels, besides this one keeping me slightly sane.

Motto: "Wondering if there really is a dog?"

Open WorldCat on B-cubed!

If the gods and goddesses of bibliodom are willing, you should see a WorldCat search box on the bar to your right. I just checked and it was there! Might even be worth popping over from your aggregator for a minute. Forgive me if you got two posts. I am pinching myself purple. My little rainbow friend (the OWC icon/favicon) is gracing my blog and it is completely legal. I signed the agreement. This means I am in a official relationship with OCLC.

I am sure this seems a little over-the-top weirdness to some of you. I can't help remembering all the years when I had to beg friends in ILL or Cataloging to let me search OCLC. It was always a big deal. I guess they worried I would corrupt their records. As if. I am the first to report such when I find it, which is not always welcomed by catalog departments. But really, I just wanted to search those records. I remember being thrilled when I found the illegal backdoor from AbeBooks. I also remember when it was taken away.


Putting the Boot In by Dan Kavanagh (better known as Julian Barnes) is available at a number of California academic libraries, and even at King County Library System. One of them is bound to do an Inter-Library Loan...

I know that lots of libraries/librarians are upset that content they have been paying to add and to search is now free. I assume that OCLC will be changing its fee structure. It is indeed the members' content, their holdings. WorldCat is such a great, good thing. For libraries, all our ships will rise with this tide. If it were in my power, this would be on MPOW's site tomorrow. I will definitely suggest it!

Dopes and DOPA

ALA | House Passes Bill Restricting Social-Networking Sites in Libraries

OK folks, I lure the teens into the library with MySpace. OK, I am exploiting Dungeons & Dragons, and planning a video game night in the fall, too. They find out about the manga and the video game cheats, I mean magazines. They meet the girl who read over 20,000 pages for summer reading! She hands them Sabriel. Maybe...Really--it works. AND I DO PROGRAMS ON INTERNET SAFETY, YOU MUGGINS. Which they won't learn about in the cool kid's basement (his parents don't filter, are never home, and fully stock their bar--you know, that kid!) Grrrrr.

Showing that librarianly love

Voices by Ursula K. LeGuin [No WorldCat link yet. Thank me for wending my way through UKLG's site to get you to the title--the image map is pretty but excruciating, IMHO.]

Granted, I may have read too many teen novels, in particular, in speculative fiction. Oh Podkayne, what a road you led me down! I remain willing to walk down that road.

Thank goodness for friends in Collection Development! Non-biblio folk just don't know the joy of having your own personal librarians watching out for you. Once again, I got a review copy of something I wanted. Brand new pre-release date Ursula K. LeGuin. "Score!" yells the junkie.

So I entered the Annals of the Western Shore. I somehow missed the first book in the series, Gifts. Don't miss the review by ricklibrarian.

(It's starting to frighten me that I have had some communication with reviewers on WorldCat. Guess it takes a certain type to heed that call. Or the biblioblogosphere is even smaller than already suspected. But I am glad WorldCat is getting more content, in an interactive manner. )

(Another aside--my apologies! MPOW has an online summer reading program this year. It allows kids and teens to log their reading, get certificates and prizes, sponsor an animal shelter adoption, and write reviews that display online. So far, the reviews are pretty funny. One title was "good and boring." I would love to see a teen's take on Voices. Actually, I love when the teens write just about anything, even "You Suck Ass" on a customer comment form last month. I just wish I knew which experience led them to voice that. Of course, there's a chance it wasn't a teen.)

Ok. Our heroine, Memer is a siege orphan, the result of her mother's rape by an enemy soldier. The enemies are from a monotheistic desert culture. Memer's culture is polytheistic, with tiny altars and temples everywhere. The bad guys have come to Memer's port city to destroy her culture. They are particularly opposed to books and reading. Along with killing, maiming, and starving many of the city's residents, they have thrown every book they can find in the bay.

Memer lives in a partly destroyed mansion. Her mother lived and worked in the house. It is the home of the Waylord. The Waylord had been a local dignitary, who the enemy has tortured and crippled. Memer knows how to get into a secret room--her mother and she hid there from the soliders at one point. The room is filled with books, and something strange, involving running water. Memer meets the Waylord in the secret room, and he agrees to teach her how to read, even though it is dangerous.

Of course, I am completely hooked. The story is pretty formulaic, but LeGuin transforms the ordinariness of the plot with her exploration of the dynamics between characters and cultures. It is not heavy handed, or incredibly deep, but it is a nice exploration of enmity, war, history, belief structures, the role of storytellers, story makers, and librarians! Yeah, us. Books, dear books. I just have to keep reading.

A trailer for a book?

HarperCollins Canada book trailer

No, not manufactured housing, manufactured video to convince you to check out a book. At least I am hoping these could build circulation stats. Next we will need high-definition flat screen TVs on the wall at the library to screen a stream of mini-videos for books.

Speaking of book/video convergence, I just finished Lennon Revealed. I could start in on a boring argument about one of the subject headings. But why do I care? I was lured in by the cover photo plus a starburst on the cover "DVD EXCLUSIVE Final interview with Lennon and McCartney."

I saved the DVD for last, making myself read it all before the treat. Mistake. Don't bother with the DVD. The book is more interesting, though die-hard fans will have been over the territory before. There are some nice interviews with regular folks who knew John on various levels, plus both Yoko Ono and May Pang. (Cue up Dar Williams, "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono".)

The last chapter is more interesting as Book 2.0, if you can stand the conceit. Kane invited the regular listeners of Beatles Brunch, a syndicated radio show, to email in how John Lennon affected their life. The messages came from all over the world, from people born in 1940 and people born well after 1980. They express deeply personal sentiments. The grammar is unedited. It's raw, but more meaningful in its rawness. It helped me to understand why I would read a 287-page biography of a man whose life story I know too well. I need to do more to work for peace, personally. Imagine.

All I want for Christmas...

This was apparently on the Amazon page yesterday, but gone today. Fortunately, Babylon Sister copied and forwarded it--thanks! She's excited about Tesla. I'm wondering if I can tempt the Offspring down the primrose path with Bela? I am not a good mother, but just the thought of a new encyclopedia to devour and decode! I also discovered the existence of a new Crusie novella this weekend (coming in October) and I've been following the new Gibson via his blog. There are people who think reading and books are boring, but I am someplace past excited right now. Caveat lecteur?

Untitled - Thomas Pynchon

Product Details


* Hardcover: 992 pages
* Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The (December 5, 2006)

Book Description
Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.

--Thomas Pynchon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159420120X/sr=1-8/qid=1152975017/ref=sr_1_8/002-4788346-4228062?redirect=true&ie=UTF8&s=books

The Bigger Shifts…

Weblogg-ed » The Bigger Shifts…Deal With It

Educating, informing, censuring? MFPOW had it as policy that children need to be exposed to technology, including the internet, at libraries, in order to help bridge the digital divide. It did and does employ filters, and has required internet safety programs in its after school program for years. Now I work in a system that requires that parents sign, in person, a permission form for their child to access the Internet at the library. Otherwise, they can't get on, except through the catalog PCs which have unballyhooed links to susbscription databases.

Let's face it, almost all employment these days requires some computer skills. Unless you want to be a maid or janitor, and probably not even them for that much longer. So if we want kids to grow up employable, making more than minimum wage, we'd better do something somewhere.

But, what I was really thinking about when I read this post is the dress code for prepubescent girls in my library's corner of God's green acre. These children that must be protected at all costs from neopets can come in to my library unescorted wearing spaghetti-strap tanks or tube tops and the shortest of short skirts and shorts imaginable with platform wedgies. We are talking about 8, 9, 10 year olds. I feel like they are putting up billboards to attract pedophiles. The teens I can somehow handle, though sometimes I do stare at their come-hither "outfits". But the intense sexualization of the younger girls makes me crazy. It reminds me of the first time I saw a Black Muslim mother in Philadelphia pushing a stroller with a veiled five-year old daughter in it. I just about freaked. School girls in Saudi Arabia, the home of Wahhabism, don't cover their hair or wear an abaya, because that would be to sexualize them. Actually, I just found an article from the Arab News where it seems that has changed in Saudi in the last ten years, and the writer seems as puzzled as I am.

Well, I still don't get it. I understand parents being concerned about MySpace. I still read my daughter's LiveJournal page regularly, not out of fear, but for news--more rliable than phone calls. When my daughter mentioned she had a facebook account, I was curious to see it. Turned out, I needed a facebook account just to see it. So I got one. Now I am complaining about being the only person above 35 in my school's network. Getting old is getting painfully obvious. Big sigh. OK, call me old, but make your little girls wear some clothes to the library! Then I won't question the stupidity of censoring what they can see and read (oh no, we subscribe to Cosmo! they don't need an Internet Access card to read that toxic sludge?), but not what they wear, maybe.

Tangled in a spider web

A customer found a big sticky web in our children's room today. Not in a dim, dark corner, but in the aisle between juvenile fiction A-C and Folklore, Poetry and Jokes (398, 811, 818, etc.), near the fire exit. It turns out this is a particular concern, because it is consistent with the M.O. of a black widow spider, which is common to our area. Who knew? No spider could be found. We destroyed the web and crossed our fingers. No one in California has died from a black widow spider bite in over ten years. How comforting Google can be.

Extremely tangentially: Google has crawled LKNOLA. I discovered it this afternoon when I was polishing one of the session posts for consumption via MPOW's intranet. I searched on a phrase to check I had one of Chris Anderson's stats right. Fourth hit from the top, LKNOLA, which did nothing for my confidence in the stat. However it did quite surprise me. I remember not too long ago, I had to submit forms and beg and plead to get a search engine to glance at a site I had created. This was not for vanity; these were page

s I created for MFPOW. Even four years ago, this represented a substantial challenge. Of course, part of my shock was being on the first page of results. PageRank used to really foil me. But in the case of the particular phrase I searched on today, there just weren't that many links. But I still walked around in a bit of a daze that Google had crawled LKNOLA. I was happily thinking it was a one-off thing that only the truly dedicated among my staff and Bcubed readers would ever happen upon. More of my naivete, I suppose. Create any content, no matter how vapid, vacuous, or tangential, and it will live forever, or until?

Stars and jars

Well, the book I took with me to the MD/ER/UCSD Hillcrest Medical Center last month was My Lucky Star by Joe Keenan. It came across the desk at work, and I said, “Funny, I used to know a Joe Keenan.” Of course, I know Paddy Keenan as well, but I didn't think the two were related ;)

So I flipped the book over to check out the author picture on the inside back cover of the jacket. And lo and behold, it looked like an airbrushed photo of the Joe Keenan I last saw in 1979/80? The bio said Joe is a playwright, lyricist and novelist. This clicked well with my memories of him in a Musical Theater class. Then it said he was a writer-producer for Frasier. Then I googled him and discovered he has also been doing Out of Practice for CBS. Busy dude. Always was high energy. So I had to put a reserve on the book (it was headed elsewhere to fill another reserve). It wound its merry way back to me in June. So I took it along to a doctor’s appointment. Thank god I took a book.

And thank god it was funny. Someone else described it as “pretty, witty, and gay.” I can't get any cleverer than that. Starred review in PW. Jacket blurb from Eric Idle. Jeez. Joe has come a long way from our days together (using the term very loosely as I doubt he remembers moi at all). I thank my lucky star that while I was tied to a hospital bed (by an IV stand), rendered completely sleepless (combination anxiety and steroids), I had excellent company. (Besides the humans that is—the ever-excellent Boyfriend, Ericky, my bestfriend since high school who brilliantly moved to San Diego in May, and my wondrous sister Rufus. But they couldn't stay past 8 p.m.) My Lucky Star gets huge points for keeping my interest and keeping me laughing, though my roommate and the night RN thought my laughter at 3:00 am rather peculiar. But I think it helped keep me sane.

OK. I got home from the hospital. Returned to work and got ready for New Orleans. I decided to hit the Friends of the Library book sale at work for some plane fodder, rather than carry hardcovers on my way to picking up as many Advance Reading Copies as I could carry. I grabbed two relatively new-looking paperbacks. Number one: YouÂ’ve Got Male. I think I made it nine pages the night before we left before I declared it unreadable.

That left Jarhead. Not my usual leisure reading, but I knew it was set in the big sandbox, and who can resist reading about their home town? OK, I was not riveted—which explains why it took me so long to finish it. I seem to have inherited the antipathy of my father (WWII era USN CPO) for the Marines. My first reaction to SwoffordÂ’s complaints was to say, “You signed up, dude.” Which is exactly whay he said himself.

I am the daughter of two veterans and the granddaughter of two veterans. According to undocumented family history, someone in my gene pool served in the Civil War, and someone else in the American Revolution. Yeah, I am purportedly eligible for the DAR. No spitting, please.

I generally think that anyone who enlists is crazy. This might be from watching the Vietnam “conflict” on the TV from under the kitchen table—a safe place to be terrified as a small child. Maybe it was the friend who enlisted after high school with the goal of becoming a nurse and ended up ordering office supplies. I do know people who were grateful for the military’s role in their lives. Reagan era warriors who never saw a shred of conflict, but got three squares and a regular check. A kid who didnÂ’t actually have a home (foster home even at that point). A guy whose family shunned him. But in both those cases, “don’t ask, don’t tell” probably was not the easiest policy to live. But I digress.

There are definitely plenty of negative reviews of Jarhead. I laughed when I saw the one on WorldCat, merely because of course itÂ’s by KGS. I am amused because Free Range was my introduction to all things bloggy, and because I almost never find reader reviews on Open Worldcat.

I am not unhappy I read Jarhead. I think I need to stick a toe in different waters occasionally. All-male sniper platoons qualify. Plus I could almost feel the sand. My horror at the seven-mile belly slither have beenhe desert may havereeen deeper than the average readers, because fear and caution of that desert and ingrained (pardon) in me. The scenes of desecrating dead Iraqi corpses was not as shocking for me. At least they were dead.

“I am entitled to despairfurtherthe likelihood of futher atrocities. Indolence and cowardice do not drive me—despair drives me."

SwoffordÂ’s anti-war theme emerges gradually. I think some misread it as an anti-military theme. Are the two the same? Is saying something negative about the military unpatriotic? Is reading the Iliad before a battle near the fertile crescent too precious? Jarhead reports ambivalence, and weighs the then-now transformation of memory carefully. That's a difficult tightrope to walk.

Note: Please forgive any typographical weirdnsss. I am taking a vow never to compos in Word again. I have spent more time cleaning this post than I did writing it, I think. I am at the too tired to care point now.

Egrets and regrets

Welcome to my longest post ever (first apology), and yes, more birds, but no pix. I finally got to see an egretling, or at least a juvenile egret. It was sort of one of those nature show things, though. The young egret was apparently injured. Maybe a broken leg? On the lawn near my office. In any case, the other egrets had turned on it, and been pecking at it. All this less than 20 yards from my library, i.e., in full sight of staff and customers. It has been going on for about a week, my staff told me yesterday afternoon.

Earlier in the week, a staff member went to the Parks office next door. They told her that they knew about the bird already, that there was nothing to be done, and they wished people would stop asking about the bird already. Right. Well, another of my staff members went and asked at the Community Center yesterday. They said there was nothing they could do, and gave her a phone number for Project Wildlife. She came back and shared the info with me. I called what turned out to be their hotline. I told them about our feathered friend. They asked suggested we put a box over the bird, and call someone in El Cajon (7 miles away). I still didn't know who or what Project Wildlife was, but they at least seemed to care.

I called the person in El Cajon, and got voicemail. The outgoing message said that if you were calling about Project Wildlife, to leave a message and someone would call back in under one hour. Indeed, about twenty minutes later, someone called back. She said she could assist, but that the bird needed to be transported to the care center in Mission Beach (about 25 miles). She also asked if we had talked to Jeff in the park. I said, “young guy, red hair?” She said no, older man, brought her two herons from Lindo Lake (our lake) earlier in the week. So my staff member went off again to the community center. Turns out there are two Jeffs. The older one is a volunteer. We asked if they could call and give him a message to call the library. Before I left for the day, with the help of our branch family who did not give up, transport to the care center had been arranged for the poor little egret.

I am already thinking of getting a speaker from Project Wildlife in for a program at my library--the biblio connection for this post, at last. I want to connect my library to our incredible setting, besides admiring it from the windows. Plus, I have a stated goal to improve relations between the community center, Parks, and the library. So that just got reinforced big time.

Now for the regrets. (I know, an injured baby bird wasn’t enough?) On Tuesday, I received an email message from a former boss at MFPOW. We had a good relationship, and this was not my first message since moving here. However, this message, to paraphrase, said, “so sorry to hear about your diagnosis.” I was completely astounded. So far, I’d only told one person, let’s call her Dee, connected to MFPOW about the diagnosis. Dee is one of my closest, dearest friends. We talk by phone usually once a week. She is kindness itself from the get-go, and includes the entire planet in her sphere of influence. Maybe the universe.

So my still-addled-by-steroids brain said, Dee must have told someone. I could see that she might need someone to talk to about it. I also quickly “concluded” that Dee told someone we both know who is not evil, but a gossip, and who now works under my former boss. So I worked this all out, and called Dee, to basically accuse her of betraying my confidence. Dee said she hadn’t said anything until someone else came to her (the gossip) and said, with hurt, “why didn’t you tell me?” OK, my theory is shot to pieces, and Dee is very upset. Excellent. Dee and I talked lots more, with me saying “not to worry, love you”, etc., and Dee saying “sorry, maybe I did say something, sorry” and similar circles.

I get off the phone and check Gmail. I had emailed another friend in Philly, Babylon Sister, yesterday morning, saying the news was all over MFPOW, and had she spoken to anyone? I knew her connection to MFPOW was mainly moi, so I didn’t think she was the loose lips. She, in her wisdom, emailed back and said “Hello?!? You put it in your blog, dimwit.” OK, she was too nice to say dimwit. So let me indulge in a little self-excoriation: twit, idiot, horrible person, loca loca loca, stupid fool, egregious example (ok, who saw that coming? X(), with vulgarisms sprinkled on top.

It would be handy to blame the steroids, the insomnia, the “disease.” No, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I still want to curl up and shrivel into ash when I think about accusing Dee of betraying me. I am thinking that there should be a way I can combine hubris with chutzpuh . Chubris, anyone? Nevermind, I already got there, didn't I?

It does sort of beggar the imagination how I did not imagine that anyone at MFPOW would still be following my blather. I knew there were still people out there in the wide, wide world with B-cubed in their aggregators. But they/you were at some kind of remove from real life. I know you exist. Hell, Mock Turtle and I met in real space in New Orleans and had a great time, at least I did. I have been a bit worried that I have been enjoying a manic episode. I am happy, for Pete’s sake. The world is a wonderful place. The Supreme Court ruled against the tribunals at Guantanamo! I need very little sleep. I spent every piece of folding money I took to New Orleans. (Well, that was according to plan.) There’s definitely been some logorrhea, verbal and written. All of this spelled mania to me. I asked the neurologist I saw on Thursday about it. She actually laughed.

So, I remain so sorry. I called Dee back halfway through reading Babylon Sister's message. Dee, of course, forgave me instantly (she already had, because she is proof that humans can be completely good). She was just relieved to know how the info had “leaked.” Oh, those loose, loose lips. Like I never read any of the many postings out there about mixing up real life and confidential info with blogging. I want to officially apologize to the world, and the biblioblogosphere, somehow. It’s weird to say that blogging and blogs have been such a comfort to me this year. But it is true. In the “we read (and write) not to be alone” category.

I may indeed cross the lines of personal and professional again. I can no longer think of the two as so divorced. Part of the reassessment I am engaged in and will no doubt drone on about anon. I librarian (noun form). I library (verb). I librarianly (adverb). (Attending ALA Annual always hypes up my inner biblioness. And from now on, I will succumb to the temptation of parentheticals as much as I want.) I will be more mindful of what I am doing/saying, I think. I will not discount who may or may not reading this. It only just yesterday occurred to me that my staff and boss may easily follow the profile on LKNOLA here. So, hello and welcome to anyone out there from MPOW! (Have I said anything to offend? Probably. But not with that as the goal.) It is a package deal, folks. Me, the chubris, maybe some humility and humus on the side? I will continue the biblioblather. Thanks for reading.

Come see me (sort of) in NOLA

This is just a quick post to remind you that I'am blogging the conference over at LKNOLA. I know there is some way I could use RSS to make those posts appear here/in your aggregator. But I am not going to figure that out any time soon--sorry! Meanwhile, here's a pretty picture of Lake Pontchartrain at sunset, which I saw yesterday. Forgot the camera, of course!

Good times will roulez!

Wow. I cannot begin to describe my feelings about the support you are all offering. I am beginning to feel like a bit of a fraud. Then I remember that weird other person in my body last week. The one who couldn't log onto Millenium by herself, and had great difficulty finding reference? I tried being a librarian who hands out p slips with Dewey numbers from the desk and points. So not me, plus I was getting to a point where I couldn't write down a Dewey number, or hazard a guess past Dewey century! I am at the best of times challenged by numbers, but this was dyslexia on crack. Hope I don't meet that awful librarian again soon!

Some of my regular customers were so sweet when I went in for four hours yesterday. I didn't think they would even notice, as I was only out for a week, and I often feel part of the furniture/equipment. I have to hold on to the knowledge that the customers do notice and care. Cynicism just comes so easy. The cockles of my heart are just toasting!

It is my plan to attend the Leslie Burger Blogger Bash on Saturday night (but not the scholarship bash). Last year's was so much fun. I am sad that Alane won't be there, that Eric won't be filling my wineglass, and the Steven and I will not drunkenly discuss thick books this year, but I am sure hoping to connect with a few particular people? there.

I have confirmed with ALA accessibility that I can have a pushchair for the Convention Center. I wonder if I can find a Blogger button. No, decorating the chair is not a good use of time/effort! I am afraid that my swag greed will be on steroids, too. No, will not use wheelchair as swag ferry! Though we do need more teen summer reading prizes...If you are at the Blogger Bash, I'll be the ornery one with the cane!

Truth and consequences

Warning: this post was not outlined or structured in advance. It contains messy thoughts and feelings, and some startling (at least to me) news. It is not an outright sympathy ploy. I am feeling better than I have in months! But I do feel a need to share, and apparently my blather hasn't completely turned you all off (yet, that is).

Well, last week, I started having double vision, and if I ever heard AC/DC again in this life, it was too soon. By Sunday, I was getting terrified. I consulted my handy home copy of Merck Manual. Its conclusions were that I needed to go to an emergency room immediately. I did not like that advice one bit. [OMG. All this and I am sticking in a serial record.] So I emailed my primary care physician and asked her if I should go to urgent care. That was Sunday afternoon. So then I tried to distract myself from the idea of brain cancer, mad cow, neuro-syphillus, myasthenia gravis, and all the other ideas Merck gave me. I know medical reference goes that way, really. But I couldn't stop. Plus I could not read at all by evening.

Long story short: admitted to hospital, many many tests, Around 10:00 p.m. Monday, the ER neurologist came to tell me I have MS. I spiralled all over Kubler-Ross and really chewed out anyone in earshot. Terrorized the residents--they scattered! They had never seen an angry librarian I guess.

Some time Tuesday, when the drugs kicked in and my vision began returning (no, I will not be spending the rest of my life in a nursing home listening to audio books!), I started thinking. I thought about requesting the MacBook so I could blog the experience. I do scare myself. Of course, I have concerns beyond the professional, but by Wednesday I was asking if I could still go to ALA Annual next Friday.

I am going to New Orleans, albeit with a cane. Plus Boyfriend will be there with me, and will help me to keep the pace sedate. I am wondering what it will be like not to jam in every possible session at ALA. Maybe better?

The picture up top was sent to me by Boyfriend's friend, J.M. J.M. recently flew his two-person plane from San Diego to New Orleans, where he lives. We will be seeing J.M. next weekend, and maybe going for an aerial tour--how's that for cool?

This is a shot from a camera phone from inside the plane near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico--literally a town named after a game show. I think the photo is awesome. J.M. stops every 300 or so miles to refuel his plane. That's based on how much fuel he can carry safely. So he stops in at little airfields, camps out over night, talks to other pilots and passengers. It is not about speed.

I have been driving a Toyota Prius hybrid car since last October. I really like the fuel efficiency of course; that's why I bought it. But I also enjoy it's quietness. It doesn't idle. It doesn't pollute much. It is small and nimble and turns on a dime.



I have been thinking/planning/plotting my big bad librarianness for years. I have always been pretty competitive. I actually bore civilians with my circ stats, talk about authority files in public, and thought I would eventually be running the show somewhere in some corner of libraryland. I wanted bigger, stronger, faster, larger. Now I am thinking to see what I can get out of librarianship on a small tank of fuel. I have been having a grand time at my little branch in San Diego. Things have been going swimmingly on the work front while my body was burning violins and haystacks and whatever to get my attention the last few months.

I am not thinking about this just on the basis of my personal situation. It is so easy in this business to want more. More budget, more materials, more staff, more space, more respect. Yadda yadda. I am not saying I want to give my customers less, of course. But maybe we can walk a little lighter, listen a bit more? I am not exactly sure, but it is something I am going to ponder.

Duck, duck, goose

OK, another post about the ducks. Also goslings, this time. I will get over them soon, really. On Thursday we had a very special pre-shool story hour at my library, which included a nature walk. It surpassed fun. We walked along the lake with a park ranger. She brought binoculars for the kids. We all clambered along in stroller brigade. The ranger pointed out ducklings, goslings, and a red-winged blackbird. Also, an egret nest. If you look hard, you can see an egret, I think. To make this biblioblather, here's a link to Make Way For Ducklings.

Ducklings a l'orange, but no egretlings

Sometimes it's life that is stranger than fiction, or even the "nonfiction" 133s.

Ducklings hatched under my office window this week. Way beat when pigeons hatched on my apartment windowsill in Hell's Kitchen. I did not kill the pigeonlings before or after they hatched. So I was not a real New Yorker. The ducklings are very twee. They actually follow mama duck down to the lake for a dip and back. Almost makes me want to set the staff digicam to video. What a misuse of the taxpayers' money! Bad bad librarian.

I am a bit cheesed about the egrets. Approximately twenty egrets are nesting in the trees between my libe and the parking lot. You probably are unaware of the noise and mess of nesting snowy egrets. Just take my word for it--mess and noise times ten. So I said ok, I won't park anywhere near you guys for months. In return, I get to see egretlings, right? Wrong. So far, no egretlings.

Guess what?!? I am typing this on my brand new shiny black (that's right) MacBook. First order of business, charging battery. Second, connecting to DSL wireless. Third, Firefox, with search engine plugs for IMDB, Wikipedia, and Dictionary.com. Have to keep looking for the Worldcat one--couldn't find. Wait, it's in this blog (somewhere) and in my del.icio.us--with gmail, LISNews, Bloglines, and Blogger as my home page tags! Oh happy happy joy joy. Pig in ordure. All it took was money, patience, planning. OK, fourth thing is to finish this post! Well, with a brief pause to find th Open World Cat search plugin. Cannot resist such goodness, plus am lazy.

Back to this post! I read THE BEST BOOK, Julie & Julia [365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen], when I was sick last week! I laughed until I wept. It's kind of a strange book. I am not one to browse 641.5092 for fun. But Divya recommended. I understand that Mme. Child was not a big fan, but the breadth of the effort. I have engaged in some maniacal Christmas cookie baking in some hellish NYC apartment kitchens. I mean, I can talk at length about the importance of counterspace, and I dragged my KitchenAid mixer (<3 <3) 3,000 miles even though it weighs a ton and eats an acre of countertop. I have baked every day for roughly 21 days in a row, and I have baked all night more than once. But my mania is contiguous with Advent, a short, sweet season. The idea of engaging in 365 days of far more challenging recipes than Chocolate Crinkles, Pinwheels, or the dread Pecan Tassies. Aspics! Cold-blooded mobster-style lobster murder. Boning a duck in one piece. It would have beggared my imagination, but Julie Powell took me along for the ride, fueled by gimlets, friends, and a truly loving spouse.

Mind you, Julie is not welcome anywhere near my libe's ducklings!

Bibbity bobbity blather

Been sick. Not just an excuse to read, unfortunately. However, here's where I've been:

The Ivy Chronicles Silly, but I kept reading, in hopes that the obnoxious protagonist would get it in the neck. No luck; happy ending. I guess there is some kind of prurient allure in reading about how the really rich are different, psychotic, evil, etc. Well, most of them. I didn't make it through the Nanny Diaries, so it's a little surprising I made it through this. Chalk it up to misery.


Bollywood Babes Well this fun little read went much too quick. It was recommended by my friend Divya, whose blog I would link to if I had the link (hint, hint). God, I love a good teen problem book. Amber, Geena, and Jazz's Auntie moved in with them and their Dad when Mom died last year. Auntie is a formidable opponent to their various schemes. Then they discover that a former Bollywood star, Molly Mahal, is living in obscurity near them. They invite Molly to stay at their house when they discover she is on the verge of homelessness. Let's just say that Bollywood divas make interesting house guests, washed up or not.

An Imperfect Lens This seemed interesting, set in Alexandria, Egypt in the 1880s but after thirty pages, I knew I could not read any more graphic tellings of people dying of cholera. Trust me, not sickroom reading.

Deirdre and Desire OK, I really needed a well-crafted Marion Chesney, This happened to be the only title my branch had. Tragic. I bought some large-print Georgette Heyer recently. Now I need some intelligent publisher to reissue Marion. Dry wit in the finest Austen manner. This one was not her finest, but still, a nice deft touch on a classic Regency.

P and P and Crusie and...moving to the groove

Ha! You thought I'd a) stopped reading b) lost my password c) stopped caring. Wrong on all counts. But I have been burdened by work, moving, and a slooow internet collection. I swore it wouldn't be a month between posts again. I did do a couple of drafts, but didn't have the time to polish. (What, you thought this is completely off the top o' the brain? No, I spare you that.)

Now I have moved to a new apartment half a block from the beach, and I am actually paying for internet access--first time in approximately ten years. Though there are wireless networks at the new place, they were unreliable and slow. (the nerve! free service unreliable? slow?). Now we have wireless DSL! Soon to be followed by a new laptop. Our nonmarriage is rather challenged only by the sharing of a solitary iMac. Once I tumble for the new MacBook, look out world. (Poll: comment if you think I should pay $150 extra for the black one).

But I am typing this right now while having my Prius serviced. Just a routine oil change. Imagine, this dealership, with palm trees all around the lot, has an internet cafe. Wireless. If your don't mind, I'll just take a moment to glory in Californianess...oh, car is done.

My reading for the past few months has been hindered by fatigue, and a large collection of mass market Regencies donated to the Boyfriend's library. He gave me a shopping bag with over twenty titles at Christmas. What happens when you give a junkie crack? Right. None of them were good, except the Marion Chesney, but did that stop me?

A day later, at the fabulous Casa Pacifica, and to work on this post:Flirting with Pride and Prejudice, edited by Jennifer Crusie. Strange cover art. 1907 Marcus Stone with superimposed shopping bags, cell phone and Starbucksian coffee cup. Fun essays plus some thought provoking--"High-Class Problems" by Laura Caldwell, "Gold Diggers of 1813" by Jo Beverley; "Any Way You Slice It" aka love and onions by Elisabeth Fairchild. Proof positive that romance writers think a lot about their business. You'd have to be completely obsessed with P & P to read every essay. But that probably does describe quite a large number of people :D Personally, I decided to buy the BBC DVD set for my library after my recent friends group meeting which featured a discussion of Colin Firth's roles in P & P and Bridget Jones...

Don't Look Down...Only the dumb luck of library requests that I got these two in the same month. OMG. A Crusie novel with a child in a high-powered gun sight in the first ten pages. It is a testament to my love for Jenny that I kept reading. It was not the worst book I read this year. But not the laugh-out-loud or been-there-done-that yucks I usually get from Crusie. OK, I am a pacifist. I do not get kicks out of military heroes. I have been steadfastly refusing to read Suzanne Bronkmann, though my sisters love her. I read DLD while packing and moving--not my best attention mode, but I wanted an escape! Of course, I loved the part about missing the dogs from the dog food commercials. The Wonder Woman theme was fun.

So I could spot Crusie here and there, but I got more satisfaction over the short intros to each essay in Flirting. I have nothing against Jenny trying new things. I am so glad my library-covered copy kept from me the camo cover. If I'd seen that, I would not have read it. I will not be buying it for the collection, which will no longer include every Crusie I could get my hands on from the Harlequin Getting Rid of Bradley on. What an ugly sentence. But I am determined to finish this post! I am not bashing the book here; just not my cup of tea.

Yaps, claptrap, and coinkydences

In one of the most delightful, spontaneous combinations I have hit in years, this week I read Inside Job and A Man without a Country. If one doesn't get you, the other will. Of course, it was preaching to my personal choir.

Inside Story by Willis uses a professional skeptic to poke fun at channeling and the rest of the Dewey 133s (which I tend to think of as the hoohah section, but I do not vocalize that thought aloud). There's a boy-meets-gorgeous actress thing, and wonderful H. L. Menken quotes and factoids throughout. At 99 pages with plentiful white space, this is just a delightful romp of a novella. Of course, Willis interweaves everything masterfully. I spent most of the 99 pages thinking I knew where I was going, but still was surprised. A great short read.

And another! I read everything I could find by Kurt Vonnegut in the 1970s and 1980s. I would have said I loved Vonnegut. It turns out, I didn't know very much about him. Vonnegut and my parents were all born in the early 1920s, came of age during the Depression, and served in World War II. My father's response to that war was similar to that of Vonnegut. I think about what my father would have thought about our current war, the Middle East, and this President and administration. (Sometimes, death has its advantages?) It was good to hear from a kindred "no BS" person from his generation.

A Man without a Country gave me lots to think about. Some of it made me want to cheer. Of course, the little lovesong to public librarians warmed the cockles of my heart. But in general, although Vonnegut is very dark about mankind, the environment, human relations, war, modern "conveniences", I still came away uplifted. Like Willis, Vonnegut comes down hard on frauds, liars, and manipulators. Yet their warmth to our shared humanity is inspiring. I want to try to sit back a bit and say, "If this isn't nice, then I don't know what is" every chance I can.

It was a wonderful bit of serendipity to combine these two short works in one week. By coincidence, I also made settlement on my condo in Philadelphia. Amazing how the feeling of flush pockets makes everything seem better, even customer request for 1986 Sylvia Browne titles, and the fact that our beautiful blue spinning orb is sending us dire warning signals. I won't lose sight of the problems. I thought about the C. S. Lewis quote, "we read not to be alone." I am feeling less alone, thank you Connie and Kurt.

bibliomemetica, cont'd

For Rochelle—with fingers crossed for you.

Note: the single title thing just did not work for me, in most instances.

a book that made you cry: Too many! Full watering pot honors to In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner.

a book that scared you: Other People, Martin Amis.

a book that made you laugh: Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis.

a book that disgusted you: Other People, Martin Amis. Yet still I read...

a book you loved in elementary school: Harriet the Spy, Louise FitzHugh; Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

a book you loved in junior high school (am sooo old did not attend middle): Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell; Beanie Malone, Leonora Mattingly Weber.

a book you loved in high school: Candide, Voltaire; all of Dumas pere; Turquoise, Anya Seton; War and Peace, Tolstoi

a book you hated in high school: Huckleberry Finn; The Scarlet Letter; Crime and Punishment; all Dickens!

a book you loved in college: The Crying of Lot 49 (plus V and Gravity, etc.), Thomas Pynchon; The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot.

a book that challenged your identity: Trying Hard to Hear You, Sandra Scoppetone.

a series that you love: Discworld group, Terry Pratchett (an improper series); His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman.

your favorite horror book: none. Not sure I’ve ever even read any. Metamorphosis?

your favorite science fiction book: Podkayne of Mars, Robert Heinlein; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Leguin.

your favorite fantasy book: The Gate to Women’s Country, Sheri S. Tepper; Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey. Really. It's good.

your favorite mystery book: To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis. Oh, if you want real mystery, just do Agatha Christie already.

your favorite biography: Hmm. Coming up empty right now.

your favorite "coming-of-age" book: Notes from a Liar and her Dog, Gennifer Choldenko, <3<3<3; The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky; To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee. Maybe my favorite genre?

your favorite book not on this list: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson; Getting Rid of Charlie by Jennifer Crusie.

How did I not mention Jane Austen?

Formal protest about the lack of romance on this meme!

Em, you are it!

Gubmint cheeeeeeese?

I was invited to be a Guest Blogger. Moi? Turn around to see if someone is sitting behind me. Nobody here but us chickens. Cannot be really me. They got this address from ALA? Web4Lib? I can't still be on the LITAblog list, can I? (Actually, I thought that stint put me on some "whilt never be on professional real estate of the biblioblogosphere again" list.) Besides, what would LITA have to do with govpub?

Oh no. Just bopped over to Litablog, and I am still listed there. With my LISNews profile, which I must have copied, and which in my mind no one has ever read. Blush. Cringe. Etc. Thomas Dowling. Me right in front of Eric Morgan. Cringe cringe. OK, get over self. Should I ask to be deleted? Maybe dele profile? I don't even want to make that much work for someone there.

[Strangely enough, just yesterday, someone from college found me/my email via LITAblog. Weirdness.]

Well, anyway there's my answer for "how did I get an email message from jrjacobs?" I did comb the brain a little. I figure I must have talked about govpub a tinge at some point. (Where did that idea of indexing this thing with del.icio.us tags ala Catalogablog, was it maybe, yes, damn I should do that! go? Nevermind.) It's also strange because back when I applied for a job at UCSD, I did quite a bit of reading of a paper by Mr. Jacobs. Thought it was the coolest. Even passed it around to the govpub librarians at MFPOW. Title escapes me, but I am sure it led to the birth of FGI.gov. Which is of course way cool. I get Daniel's journal as a feed on my LISnews home page--another coolness. Daniel is really good at short synopses of FGI, so it's great when I am avoiding my brimming-over Bloglines, like now.

I do have some thoughts about gov docs that I am willing to share right here in the blathersphere.

OK, I am a public librarian and it is spring. My library gets plenty of traffic each morning. This pleases me, of course. But most of this traffic barely halts in their dash to find a 1040EZ. One or two customers stop to share with me that they haven't been in a library since high school. Are they proud of this? Do they think it will please me? Thirtyish years are they saying? Can I even imagine a life without going to a library? What does this say about my ability to market to this demographic? Argh. Smile. Say "we're happy to see you" or some such. Try to lure them in. Keep trying.

Puts me in mind of one of my favorite reference questions: "Where is the card catalog?" I wonder what the date of the move to OPAC is for most public libraries, on average. When did I encounter CATnyp? OPACs were completely entrenched at New York libraries by the time I started library school, 1989. Oh, not Jersey City Public, but they were hideously underfunded. Then outsourced to LSSI? OK, this post is officially making my brain hurt.

TAXES! People come up and ask me which form they need for amortizing capital appreciation. Howabout estimated tax payment vouchers for 2004? EITC when the child is the dependent of the non-custodial parent? I keep saying over and over that I cannot give tax advice. They think I am being mean. I keep the J.K. Lassiter Your Income Tax 2006 out on a table and encourage people to use it. Most act like I am crazy. There is also some idea that since we give out tax forms for free, if someone copies something from the reproducible binder or prints from the web, it should also be free. I don't think FGI has that kind of free in mind. I had one older gentleman tell me that charging for tax forms was disgusting, and that he would take his business elsewhere. I wonder where he went. When I found out that the branches of our city library system don't give out federal forms at all, and don't have reproducibles, I was green with envy.

Most of the time, I can keep up some sense of public service about the tax forms. Tomorrow, I work until 8:00 p.m., and I know my tax form customer service skills will wear thin and fray.

It is such a shame that most of the government documents at my little library are almost never used. We are one of the designated places to house and display planning documents. "Comments must be received by October 25, 2004" kind of things. Environmental impact reports. Findings of commissions. All kinds of PVC bindings and black binders.

In my recent weeding of the reference area, I went through these locally-issued documents. Most of them were long past their "comments due" dates. I called the former branch head and asked if we needed to keep all of them (five shelves worth). She thought so, but said I could talk to one of our volunteers who is a long-time resident. I did talk to her. All of the projects but four were either completed, changed beyond recognition, or abandoned. She identified two projects that generated a lot of local concern/interest. So I kept those six. Now I had around forty candidates for weeding. Chockablock with maps and illustrations. Some with local history. I called the historical society. They did not want them. I called the planning board. They sent someone over, who took two of the reports back to their office. Everything else went into the recycling bin.

I am living in the hope that there is some archive of this material somewhere. No one I asked knew. So it is in the finger-cross category. My library has overgrown its space, in a big way. I have a meeting tomorrow to consider how we can fit in another PC to serve as the reservation station, plus create a self-service hold pickup area.

I have been weeding on a daily basis for most of my time as a librarian. I like weeding. But weeding those local documents made me deeply uneasy.

Standard librarian hours

I think one of the hardest aspects to explain about my chosen profession is the hours I work. One week I work six days straight, the next week four. I need to be at work at 9:30 on Monday (when I work Monday), Tuesday and Thursday; 11:30 on Wednesday, and 8:30 on Friday and Saturday (when I work Saturday). The children's librarian and I alternate which Saturdays we work, unless there's an event like her wedding, or a required training. Then we swap a bit, and it can be two six-day weeks in a row, perish the thought.

Actuwackally, any meeting or training can throw off the schedule above, meaning starting the day an hour later or earlier, which of course means leaving for home an hour later or earlier. There is no way my dog can keep track of the schedule. Do we sleep a little late or get up before dawn? Will a dinner be prepared in the kitchen and then consumed en famille with high possibility of scraps in the supper bowl? Or will I have consumed a TV dinner in the staff kitchen? Poor dog--this is important to her!

When I first became a public librarian, I was recently divorced with an eight-year-old daughter. Someone joked that I would be following the established library child visitation schedule, where my child would see her other parent every Monday and Wednesday evening and every other Saturday.

That visitation schedule did not pan out for us. So my daughter spent every Wednesday evening at the library. (This included a very memorable Christmas eve when we were open until 9:00 p.m. Unforgettable. Priceless, not.) Mondays, we had an arrangement where she got dropped off at the library after Girl Scouts. I enrolled her in children's art classes at the local art school, so we got up early every Saturday, and I did the grocery shopping every other Saturday. This worked. Plus, I used to work four hours on Sundays for double-time. So my darling girl got to go to lots of library programs on Sundays! (Will she comment? Probably not.)

I did have a job in a public library for four years that was technically M-F 9-5. I almost never left at 5:00. 6:00, 7:00, 8:00. Saturdays and Sundays. The comp time was terrific, but it was draining. I was not unhappy to return to a more regular 37.5 hours a week. (Don't ask me to explain the math. I worked 40 hours. Really. But I had to record 37.5.)

I have never been able to convince my family members that these schedules are normal. They are always shocked when I say I am working on a Saturday. Yet, they think it is cheating when I work the Saturday of a holiday weekend, get Monday off and earn a comp day because I would have Monday off anyway. Another rape of the taxpayer.

Taxpayers are shocked to discover that I work 8 hours a day five or six days in a row. I must admit that my customer service skills may get a little flaky on day 6. But I cannot tell you how many times someone has said to me, "Oh, you work full time?" There is still an expectation out there that working in a library is one of those nice little jobs you take to keep busy while your husband is at work and your kids are at school.

Yes, it is a woman's profession. I have known a few library workers who did not have to work (including men!). But that is a tiny percentage. We may love libraries, library users, all of it, but in my experience, 95% of us need the paycheck. I hear there is a reverse demographic going on, whereby more women are staying home with their children. I will always wish I could have. At the same time, I am very glad and proud that I was able to support myself and my child. We did have food, clothing, shelter, some niceties (those art classes were not so cheap!). After the first hard years, we even made it into the middle class!

[OK, just to retain my blather rights, here's a tangent about the physical nature of library work:

Would someone get a clue? Upper body strength is key. Books are heavy (art books in particular.) I sometimes wonder how many books I have hefted in my life. Hundreds of thousands? I started as a shelver in my teens. I have worked on reclassification projects and inventories galore. On an average day, I pick up bare minimum 100 books. Yet, whenever I tell someone (doctor, realtor, manicurist, waiter) I am a librarian, they immediately assume I sit at a desk all day and point or something. No exertion, of course not. Books, books, books, books, books. Sometimes I mutter it under my breath, sometimes it is a singsong cadence as I swing a book truck across the room. By the way, a full book truck weighs in excess of 300 lbs.

Don't ask me what percentage of customers can find 615.3 AME all by themselves. That's if they got the number from the catalog without intercession. No, customer service and the "marketplace" vision/ideology currently in vogue require that I walk around the library all day long. I should really try to find that pedometer I got at ALA and measure my tracks one day.

I am unable to resist the temptation to carry on a little about my half-hour lunch hour. In California, doing anything at all requires a car ride, taking up a minimum twenty minutes. Trying to eat in the remaining 10 minutes spells heartburn for me. Eating lunch at the reference desk? I don't think so. I have it really good because my library is on a lake in a park. If I get to work early, I like to take a sedate walk. Or at lunch, or on break. I bird watch in a minor way. But more than that on a lunch hour is just out.] Don't hate me for living parenthetically!

OK, I love being a librarian. I don't hate the schedule. I like lolling around a bit on Wednesday mornings. I try to avoid doing errands or housework then, because it does not pay to arrive at work tired when you will be there until 8:00 pm. The boyfriend and I have set our schedules so we work the same Saturdays. This means we have two days together every other weekend. That solo day off during the week is also very useful. The post office, shopping, maybe even a matinee. Though I still feel like I am somehow out-of-class or something, not being at work on a weekday. But I manage. Here I am, happily working on this post and thinking about making a cup of tea before cuddling up with Team of Rivals for a while.

The head of the community garden I used to belong to could not get it that I was unavailable every other Saturday. He endlessly asked me to attend work day at the garden on Saturdays I was scheduled to work. My neighbor whom I wave to whenever I leave says, "You off today?" every Wednesday. I saw a specialist for five years who a) continued to think I worked part-time throughout our relationship; b) could not understand why muscle spasms in my left shoulder were such a problem.

Grr. Some of this is my own personal class issues. I am jealous of people who stay home with their children. People want at least six days of library service a week; they deserve evening and weekend hours. I remember NYC in the early 1980s, when my neighborhood branch was literally never open when I was not at work. That was terrible. But why can't people figure out that full-time professional service requires full-time professionals to work hours outside M-F 9-5? I keep thinking if we really want to change attitudes about libraries and library workers, we need a half hour weekly sitcom, something like a mash of Unshelved and Scrubs. With Jon Stewart somehow, please?