Once, I participated in an awareness exercise that included the challenge to complete the sentence "Black fathers ___." And the group the group talked about various images that arise and how one manages oneself in the face of any negative images. At work for the past several years, every single day I see dozens of kinds of dads: black dads, Asian dads, white hipster-dads, Spanish-speaking dads, new Americans of all types -- all of them doing something interesting with their kids. You could take any of those generalized types and complete their sentence with:
- read with their kids.
- take their kids to soccer practice then the library.
- participate in baby story time.
- color with their kids.
- help their kids with their homework.
- pick out comic books with their kids (ok, sons).

You know what, though? I can't say I've ever noticed any two-dad families, or, for that matter two-mom families. But so much of the time, only one parent takes the kids to the library while the other gets time off or is schlepping some other kid or however it is families cope -- so, how would I really know?

Circle Heart

For the last 4 or 6 weeks, I've been working on spending a nice chunk of money from the Friends of the Library to redecorate my Teen section. These green circle curtains (fabric scraps, above) were on sale -- but needed hemming. Sewing, I find, is mostly prep work and relatively little actual stitching. I put them up, pinned them up in place on the window (just out of view, sadly, in that shot below, which is all I have handy), took them down, measured and pinned and fussed, pressed, eyeball measured, pressed under the raw edge -- then sewed. They turned out more even than most things I hem!

Hemming isn't creative, but I feel like decorating is. My rockin' predecessor covered and hung those fabric bulletin boards and acquired the blue and orange little bookshelves at left. I picked up on and expanded the pallet and worked with blues, greens, gray, and orange. The circle decals came from Walls Need Love and arrived with alarming directions in a tiny font. Luckily, the circles weren't the kind that needed ultra-careful handling: I worked out air bubbles easily and lifted and repositioned them readily. I think they look swell. I had just calmed down from being pleased with myself over the circles when our fancy beanbag chairs arrived! The orange and gray (the footstool thing at left, by the bulletin board) match just fine and finish branding the area as for teens. 

The kid who was in an armchair in Teen yesterday when the beanbags arrived has been camping out with us for 3 or more weeks, having been thrown out of school. "Want to be first to try out our cool new beanbags?!" I gushed. He looked at me with more than usual disdain, turned his back and continued dozing. I sat on one beanbag, decided it worked, and left the second one in the middle of the space. Much later on (after dinner and a turn at the Children's desk), I found him showing off for a noisy threesome splayed all over the beanbag chairs. Once they left, two high schoolers (their junk, pictured) took over. I declare the beanbags a success! 

Change is in the Air

We're re-arranging some staff in my library system -- as a hiring freeze keeps us from replacing folks who have left over the past year and a half -- and I need to pack up my stuff and head to one of the big libraries soon. Yeah, that's right: I moved house in February (learned a new phone number), got new phones at this lib (learned a new phone number), and now I need to move my office (and learn another new number!). Once again, I am becoming friends with copier paper boxes full of things I think I need at the new place. As at home, I am trying to toss unneeded stuff, rather than move it across town. Pictured below, two items I won't move. The 1970s GRE prep book was donated to us. You know, for the collection or book sale. Because patrons always ask for oldest test help book we have. Or - no -- because a professor writing a definitive history of test prep books might shop our book sale!

The gems below (scanner made them washed out - click and they look better) have been on my cubicle wall, to make me smile. The note reports a patron's comments to a circ staff member. I agreed with the patron that the book was too old to be useful in a public library collection and withdrew it. Someone drew the bugs on a bit of scrap paper and left it by a computer. I think I found it the year the summer reading club had the theme "catch the reading bug," but these weren't like any of the official art. They were much more fun.

Funny 'Cause It's True Files
See also, gag gifts

Smell of Books comes in New Book, Bacon, and, Eua You Have Cats. If you have ever spent time around library books, you know they do seem to hang on to odors.

Bacon -- or greasy kitchen, at least -- I have encountered many times. New Book lingers as briefly as New Car. I hope they are developing ashtray. Many of the books donated for our Friends of the Library book sale come in that flavor. Even if it's a title we really could use an additional, free, copy of, I won't send a cigarette-y book to cataloging. Yuck.

by poesygalore | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Running Start

At about 2 minutes to opening, the phone rang. Since H had just announced she'd unlock the door, I grabbed it. Ah, Horoscope Man! I didn't recognize his voice, and at first thought he wanted to come read back issues of the paper. When he launched into a long explanation of why he couldn't come in -- naming the car part that needed replacement so I'd know he was for real -- I knew who it was. I'm not much of a reader of the paper, so it took forever to find the horoscopes. When I finally got him off hold, the phone, naturally rang in two more calls! After I picked H.M. up again, I got to read five horoscopes; I only had to re-read one.

Then Golf Guy wanted to say Hi, and I guy angled to borrow some headphones, and then a lady wanted Ginter Park Branch in the city, not us. (I got to test the Delicious bookmarks I'd just created on that last one. I'm not sure that using those is any faster than going to the link I have on the blog for My Lib.) Normally, Firdays are way slower than this!

Back at Work

I got to work early on Saturday, expecting a ton of e-mail to sort through. I had only 43 messages. Children's Librarian and I found we were vacationing ships passing in the day: she's off to the beach for the coming week. We got ore pre- and post-vacation minds together, opened, and I did these things:

• I remember nearly all passwords for various lib softwares on the first try!
• Dude says, How do I sign into my Comcast account? (Um, with the password you created with them?) He comes back later, because "it still won't let me in." I note that he's typed "Mr Blah Bluh" in the box that comes before "@comcast.net" and I say, Now that's an unusual e-mail address, are you sure you created it that way, with spaces and all? "Oh, I don't have e-mail. I just put that there."
  
• She's using Word's calendar template and I get lucky and immediately find "gridlines" for her even though I never use that template. She thinks I am a genius and gushes about her new(?) job and whatnot.
• Sure, let's sign you up for kiddie summer reading! I have totally forgotten how the prizes work, but I am sure you will love them!
• I get an adult and various random middle schoolers signed up for their SRCs with less drama.
• Most kids (or their designated grown ups, who call back home to check the title with the kid) looking for school summer reading titles come from Neighboring County and I decided to print more of those lists and provide links on staff blog for my colleagues.
• I run a report with the summer reading club program and see that, finally, more kids from "my" middle school are signed up for the SRC. For the longest time, of the 317 tweens I pitched SRC to, only 3 had signed up.
• A man plays "that other lady always does it for me" and gets me to look up Selina and some gospel singers for him and print off pages. Then he complains because the print is so small. (Well, this is why we like you to do it yourself, I don't say.)
• A cool, quirky woman we see often is camping at the lib because her A/C is out for the weekend. She finds the general hubbub too much and gets a study room, but she hears weird running water sounds in their so she comes out again.
  
• Two cool high schoolers complete the teen treasure hunt really quickly. After seeing so many 12-year-olds who needed help to go from clue to clue around the lib, it's nice to see that some people can get it without a hitch.
• At 2:45, the day seemed infinitely long, and I craved my daily splash in the Bay, then suddenly CL was doing the closing announcement on the PA and it was time to find the keys and toss out folks!
  

Re-reading: The Hobbit came camping with me and I am nearly done, but Phusband wants to go see "Get Smart" today.

Still Another Way To Celebrate Library Week

Tom Swifties (Swiftys?) at Shelf Check.

Listening: Cotton Dick Clinton (playing at the Camel tomorrow) practicing

Library Week Continues

Entertainment Weekly celebrates with a list of "Sexy Trips to the Library Stacks." Am I a boring old shrew if I say that while I applaud the inclusion of Ghostbusters, I must note that NYPL uses Library of Congress call numbers, not Dewey? Yeah, I guess so.

via Information Junk.

Happy National Library Week!



Video from ALA.

Video Killed the Poster Star

More of those videos (see below) on ALA's website, here. Info about National Library Week, over here.

Edible Book contest on Flickr. My favs: Burger King Lear, Tipping Point, Humpty Dumpty (the latter mostly because of Cadbury egg withdrawal).

Random
From a book of history I weeded: When Oberlin College began admitting women in the 1830s, it "made sure not to 'neglect' female students' 'domestic education' and assigned them tasks of cooking and cleaning for the male students. Womanly modesty was also carefully enforced. . . . At Mount Holyoke, however, there were no men to keep the women demure and womanly." (Lillian Faderman. To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done for America - A History Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1999; p. 179).

Library-Literary Nerdiness: six degrees of Francis Bacon. (via Library Stuff)

Homer Simpson Untooned: kinda the reverse of Simpsonizeme.

Ref Desk Random:
- Meeting room
- Explain downloadable audio collection
- How to get a library card
- Take your cell phone outta here
- Didja know you have to have a state license to sell cars? Do you have books on that?
- Yes, adults can see MySpace. Oh, not on that PC. It's busted.
- Where's Science Fiction?
- Meeting room
- Books on the Buffalo Soldiers for a boy of about 8
- ValueLine
- How to get a library card
- Caught up with a friend/patron
- Where's my print?
- No cell phones
- Meeting room

Collection of Librarians in Lit, Pop Culture

Here's a swell little website. I recommend the Clark Gable - Carole Lombard talkie posted on 2-18.

Link

Eureka! My new favorite library comic does have a real home! I kept trying to use toondoo.com to read it, and that was not working. I found it while combing the links lists at Tales from the Liberry.

Librarian Humor (not animal related): WDL spins great humorous tales.

Trading Card

For my librarian trading card, use "search for a person" on Flickr with the name "LisaLib."

More from Marky Mark (clearly the man needs his own blog): Library of Congress Flikcrs.

Online Sources: Xmas, etc.

Santa is ... "a transnational corporation with one mission-critical fulfillment goal: Every kid who celebrates the holiday gets a toy on Christmas eve," according to Wired. Note the men in black.

NORAD helps you track Santa.

A selection of photos of the White House Christmas tree.

Robot creche.

On Festivus: a book, a fan site, defined by our pals at Wikipedia.

A review of the screaming latke book.

I guess saving the result is one way to make this card generator fun.