MacLean Hall at the University of Iowa

MacLean Hall
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Laura and I just spent the past two days at her orientation at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She now has a schedule for the fall, which may change after she takes another placement exam. Parents had their own orientation schedule. Some of the meetings were informative, especially the one devoted to computing and the one on student health and counseling services. The one on finances was almost a complete waste of time, as there was about three minutes worth of new content; I could hardly believe the questions some parents asked at this late stage in preparing to send their kids to college. I know we say that there are no dumb questions, but some sure come close.

I took some time to wander around campus. I also took Laura and her boyfriend Matt to see Harry Potter instead of hearing a third "what's it like to live on campus" lecture of the day. We had a good time.

On Wednesday Laura filled out forms at the employment office of the university libraries. With public library work experience and two librarian parents, she is a natural.

Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power by Ross King

I read everything that Ross King writes, so when I saw Machiavelli on the shelf at the Downers Grove Public Library, I had to check it out.

Has Machiavelli been maligned by historians?

Machiavelli was very untrustworthy as a diplomat and as a husband. He was very cynical as a writer of political philosophy and ribald plays. He was implicated but never convicted of assassination plots. Many people counted him as an enemy. Can anyone view him sympathetically? King provides evidence for the debates about the infamous Renaissance statesman who rubbed shoulders with tyrants, popes, and artists. (He even knew tyrannical popes who were art patrons.)

This book is not for gentle readers. King includes some grisly details about executions and some profane Machiavelli quotes. Of course, gentle readers are probably coming nowhere near this book anyway.

Why is Machiavelli still relevant? His book The Prince is part of a tradition of writing about government and public policy, which goes back to Thomas Aquinas. The tradition continues as nearly every key figure who leaves the U.S. government writes a book. As a diplomat, Machiavelli can easily be compared with Henry Kissinger. He's written books. His care for public opinion was much like that of Dick Cheney. He wrote a book. His insistence on military buildup resembles that of Donald Rumsfeld. Will he write a book?

Machiavelli is part of the Eminent Lives Series from Atlas Books. (Hey, editors, these books should have indexes!) It is a great addition for library collections.

King, Ross. Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power. Atlas Books, 2007. ISBN 9780060817176

Thank You Blogger, Thank You Readers

I have had thousands of extra readers over the weekend, as Blogger made me Blog of Note on Friday. Since it was a weekend, I got to stay first in the queue two extra days. Thank you, Blogger.

Thank you, readers. I hope my blog was worth your visit. I hope lots of you now want to read about the black baseball players of the 1950s and 1960s, about Lady Bird Johnson, and the works of Wendell Berry. I hope you can find libraries that own The Power of Art DVDs. (See my posts of the last week.)

Thank you, everyone who commented on the postings. I appreciate the the kind words. Several of you asked questions that I am still contemplating.

Thank you to those of you who identified some book review blogs. I will post about these soon.

I did delete a few of comments because they offered book reviews and when I linked to the blogs I found no reviews. If you did this, post some reviews and try again. I also deleted some spam.

Thank you, librarians, who inspire me to blog.

Fidelity by Wendell Berry

In his novels and short stories, Wendell Berry writes about the people of Port William, Kentucky, a farming community that you will not find on any map. Fidelity is one of several volumes adding to the story of the Coulters, Feltners, Catletts, Rowanberrys, Penns, and other families who settle on the hills and in the valleys of the small rivers feeding into the Ohio River. These books take readers back to the nineteenth century and up through the twentieth, revealing how life in rural America has changed.

Fidelity starts with “Pray Without Ceasing,” a story in which the narrator receives an old newspaper clipping, which sparks his memory of his grandmother telling him about his grandfather, who was shot to death by a close friend. Many of the families are involved.

The embroidery on the book jacket refers to the second story, “A Jonquil for Mary Penn.” Not wanting to delay her husband who is going to help a neighbor, Mary tries to hide an illness. After he leaves for the day, alone and isolated, in a time before the party-line telephone, she finds her illness more serious than she would admit.

I read “Making It Home” on Memorial Day, which was very appropriate. Art Rowanberry returns from his service in World War II, having received a medical discharge. As he nears his home, hiking in because there was no bus, sleeping overnight in an abandoned barn, he remembers his experiences of combat.

In “Fidelity” Berry tells the story of the death of Burley Coulter, a character who appears in many of the Port William stories. His son Danny can not stand to see his father full of tubes and tied to monitors in the hospital and removes him in the night. The story ends with a scene that reminds me of a Miss Marple mystery, with family and friends gathered in a lawyer’s office to unravel the events for a young police detective.

The collection ends with “Are You All Right?” in which Andy Catlett worries about the elderly Rowanberry brothers, who are isolated by flooding. He and his friend Elton go out in the night to see if they can help.

The books of Wendell Berry do not have to be read in any order. I especially recommend the Hannah Coulter, a novel with many connections to this wonderful short story collection.

Berry, Wendell. Fidelity: Five Stories. New York: Pantheon Books, 1992. ISBN 0679416331

Carrying Jackie's Torch by Steve Jacobson

According to Steve Jacobson in Carrying Jackie's Torch, the story of integrating major league baseball did not end with Jackie Robinson surviving his first year with the Brooklyn Dodgers. For the next dozen years an unpublicized quota kept the number of black players down , and the men who followed the Dodger second baseman faced entrenched discrimination. In some cities, not all in the South, they had to eat in kitchens while their white teammates ate in dining rooms. They were restricted to certain cars of trains. They were not allowed into many of the team hotels. Abuse from the bigots in the stands and hate mail dogged them whenever they excelled.

In separate chapters in Carrying Jackie's Torch, Jacobson tells the stories of eighteen players and Emmett Ashford, the first black umpire in the major leagues. Several of the players are lesser known, but many are stars, like Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Bob Gibson, and Henry Aaron. The saddest of the tales are those of Charlie Murray, who found the discrimination in the minor leagues unbearable, and Curt Flood, who challenged the baseball reserve clause that kept players enslaved to their teams.

Jacobson says that he wants current players, with their big salaries and many perks, to read about these men who made modern baseball possible. He also argues that integration of baseball and other sports was essential to the success of the civil right movement. Public and school libraries should own this book.

Jacobson, Steve. Carrying Jackie's Torch: The Players Who Integrated Baseball - and America. Lawrence Hill Books, 2007. ISBN 1556526393

Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007

All the newspapers across the land are running obituaries of Lady Bird Johnson today. In the Chicago Tribune, the emphasis is on her beautification of American highways and environmental work. Because of Lady Bird, we now have many highways lined with wildflowers or other native plants.

The stories also talk about her concern for the poor and her kindness to anyone. I remember as a student at the University of Texas in the 1970s that she was the only member of the board of regents whose door was open to students. At a time when Frank Erwin and the other regents wanted to shut down the student newspaper, which kept investigating and reporting their crimes (university investments going to their own corporations), Lady Bird spoke up for the students. She was deeply respected across campus.

Our libraries have books about Lady Bird, including the attractive children's book Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers: How a First Lady Changed America by Kathi Appelt. Recent biographies for adults include Lady Bird: A Biography of Mrs. Johnson by Jan Jarboe Russell and Lady Bird Johnson: Our Environment First Lady by Lewis L. Gould.

Lady Bird wrote some books herself, which are still widely available, Wildflowers Across America and A White House Diary.

It is a day for book displays.

A Day Without A Library Catalog

The woman holding the biography of Harry Houdini asked us to conjure up another book.

With the U. S. release of the fifth Harry Potter movie days away, it seems a good time to ask some questions. Do librarians practice magic? If so, can they conjure without their wands? Can they borrow wands?

My library had no access to its catalog yesterday. It was down as the Metropolitan Library System replaced some of its computer equipment. Since we disposed of the card catalog on December 30, 1999, we had no tool giving the call numbers and statuses of our books, movies, and music.

We were not totally stranded, as our materials are included in the WorldCat database, which we access through FirstSearch. I have found that our new materials do not appear for months, but most older items are included and identified by our three letter code HAO. With this in mind, we set up for the day with Firstsearch on our screen at the Reference Desk and signs on our catalog monitors promising that the reference librarians could help find books. I also printed up Dewey cheat sheets

Business at the desk was definitely up and I thought I did quite well. (Please excuse the boasting.) In a three hour period, I found seven books that WorldCat indicated we owned. The only one that I did not find is being read by a book club, so I am sure it was checked out. I took numerous reserves for items that I found at other libraries.

I was particularly proud of a few of cases.

When Worldcat showed that we owned a book about a corrupt policeman, I tried going to true crime 364.1## on the Dewey shelves, and there it was with a three digit extension. The reader was pleased.

Sandy, our head of circulation and interlibrary loan, asked me whether we would really own a book on the operations of electrical power plants. She had gotten an ILL and thought it odd that our medium small public library would have a book otherwise owned by only two universities nationwide. I recognized the author as a local resident and we did indeed have his book on the 621 shelves. She was surprised.

Our reference staff and Aaron Schmidt will be proud to know that I do know where to find the birdhouse construction books. There are two places - in the 598 and 690.89 areas.

I suspect other reference librarians in MLS libraries did just as well yesterday. Our requests were pretty common. (I'd like to hear other stories.) We all know a lot of Dewey from years of handling books and answering questions.

Today I see that the catalog is up. I would not have minded another day without it. (Wash my mouth with soap!) I enjoyed getting an increase of people at the desk, meeting a few that I had never helped before yesterday. I enjoyed seeing the books get into their hands.

There have been several stories lately about libraries using bookstore models and going without Dewey. It is not really that shocking an idea, as Dewey is somewhat 19th century in its organization, and bookstores are not totally without organization. I suspect that the bookstore model will not of itself, however, really solve any problems. I have trouble finding books in bookstores.

Books often defy classification, as their texts often combine subjects with very separate Dewey numbers. Librarians often disagree where to put them. Booksellers are not any more agreeing. Will a book on baseball cards be with the sports books or in the collectibles department? It is the same problem, no matter how you arrange books.

The key to book-finding success is knowledgeable staff and a good catalog. I once witnessed in a Books-a-Million a clerk tell a shopper that he had never heard of Dr. Seuss and, being alone at the time, he did not have time to look the author up. I hope that would never happen in a library, where we have librarians trained in magic.

Simon Schama's Power of Art

I do not follow the television listings and am dependent on Bonnie to find us interesting programs to watch. She is highly selective, and I have full confidence in her choices. Her latest great find is Simon Schama's Power of Art, which is running this summer on PBS stations.

At this point, we have seen four of the eight episodes, each of which focuses on a different artist and a masterpiece that transformed the world of art. Episode One tells how Vincent Van Gogh came to paint Wheatfield with Crows (1890), which Schama claims is the first work of modern art. When the British host is not on screen, Van Gogh's career is dramatized by actors. The artist walks the streets, drinks with friends, writes to his brother Theo, visits prostitutes, and, of course, paints in the French countryside. The result is an art documentary that could draw viewers away from lurid reality shows on MTV.

In the second episode, the historian tells about how Pablo Picasso became political and painted Guernica (1937) after the slaughter of the Spanish Civil War. The self portrait within the painting David with the Head of Goliath (1610) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and the passion within the sculpture The Ecstasy of St. Theresa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini followed in Episodes Three and Four. Both Caravaggio and Bernini attack people with knives. These lives of artists are not for elementary school art appreciation show-and-tell.

Is that blood on the DVD box?

We are awaiting episodes about Rembrandt, David, Turner, and Rothko.

The Power of Art is available in a three discs DVD set. As a librarian trying to build a nonfiction collection, I wish each episode were on a separate discs, so eight students could borrow the episodes for their assignments at the same time. Still, it looks like a great set for public and academic libraries.

******

The Power of Art also has a website, which includes background on each episode, lesson plans for teachers, and a Google Map mashup to show where to find works by the artists in American museums. Unfortunately the map identifies only one of the works by Van Gogh in the Art Institute of Chicago. Still, it is interesting to see what PBS web developers are doing.

Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson

Mike May was blinded by a chemical explosion in his family's garage when he was three. He almost died and was in the hospital for months. Not the shrinking type and supported by his mother, he learned to lead an almost typical boy's life of climbing trees, playing sports, and, when old enough, dating girls. The title Crashing Through refers to the risks he took to ski downhill at record speeds. He was known for dangerous behavior. He even tried to drive a car once, just to say he had.

When May was 46, an ophthalmologist in San Francisco told him that stem-cell and cornea transplants might restore his vision in his one remaining eye. Being a semi-famous advocate for the blind, he was uncertain whether he wanted to see. He had done so well without sight, and there were many risks involved with the surgery and the drugs he would have to take to avoid tissue rejection. After months of debate, he decided that to be true to his usually bold spirit to have the surgery.

In Crashing Through, Kurson tells about May's initial year of sight. As a reader, I sometimes thought the author included too much detail about May's experiences, especially his intimate relations, but I was fascinated. When the bandages were removed from his eyes, May had color vision and the ability to follow motion immediately. He could even catch a ball thrown by his son. Identifying images and faces was, however, difficult. The field of vision was crowded with shapes and colors. As in the other rare cases of sight restoration, May needed to physically touch items to understand them. The implications for child development of sight are immense.

The access that Kurson had to May must have been extensive, as Crashing Through seems almost a memoir, though it is written in third person. It's tone is much like that of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, which is a memoir written in the third person (probably by the joint author). Many readers will enjoy this book.

Kurson, Robert. Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See. New York : Random House, c2007. ISBN 1400063353

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

"You can't go limp in the face of the world's horror."

One of the things I really enjoy about Anne Lamott is that sprinkled among her engaging stories about her life are great pronouncements fit for framing. If I had had a paper copy of Grace (Eventually), I could have yellow highlighted something on nearly every page. As it was, I listened to her read her book on my iPod. She is the exception to the rule that authors should not read their own books. She is very expressive and conversational. I could listen again.

Librarians will like the story that she tells of going to a rally in Salinas to support keeping the public library open. She was just going for the day and planned to sleep comfortably in a bed that night. When she found that all the old hippies and famous authors and actors were camping out, she felt it was the right thing to do. She has many wonderful things to say about libraries in this story. Have a highlighter handy when you read.

Not all the stories are so happy. Lamott tells about the friends she has lost, fights with her son, and the days before she quit drugs and alcohol. She describes fearful times when she lost the dog in the woods, when she was taken for a long ride by a suspicious cab driver, and when she was very sick after an eating binge. She has trouble asking for help, but when she does, she comes through her trials. If only she would learn before the next incident.

Lamott is not neutral on any subject and will annoy some readers. However, if you like humorous, sometimes outrageous tales from left-wing sunday school teachers, you will like Grace (Eventually).

Lamott, Anne. Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. New York : Riverhead Books, 2007. ISBN 1594489424

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar ...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein

Customer in a restaurant: "How do you prepare your chickens?"
Cook: "Oh, nothing special really. We just tell them they're gonna die."

Have you been meaning to study philosophy, so you can separate epistemology from existentialism? You might start with Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar ... Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, who went into social work and comedy after philosophy school, have written a primer with a big twist of humor. Every section is full of jokes to introduce philosophical concepts, such as metaphysics, logic, and ethics.

Salesman: "Ma'am, this vacuum cleaner will cut your work in half."
Customer: "Terrific! Give me two of them."

This customer obviously has not studied philosophy, for if she had, she would know Zeno's Paradox. Every time that you cut something in half, you still have a half remaining. In theory, you never reach zero, but in reality, people actually do finish projects. How can this be? Cathcart and Klein toss this paradox around and then go on to more jokes.

Joe: "What a fabulous singer, huh?"
Blow: "Ha! If I had his voice, I'd be just as good."

Epistemology is a study of knowledge and knowing what you know. When you define something as something, is it really something? The authors may not agree. Maybe.

I enjoyed Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar ... on an airplane, completing it during the return flight from Washington, D.C. to Chicago. It can easily be set down and picked up again without losing the discussion line. Most of the jokes are actually longer than these samples. Some of them will offend gentle readers, but those who enjoy Las Vegas stand-up comedy will be prepared.

More serious students will want Philosophy for Dummies by Thomas V. More or Philosophy Made Simple by Richard Henry Popkin.

Cathcart, Thomas and Klein, Daniel. Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. New York: Abrams Image, 2007. ISBN 081091493x

Who Pays to Attend ALA Conference Survey Results

84 librarians have completed my survey Who Pays for ALA. While that is a small sample, not enough to be significantly statistically accurate, it is enough to show that librarians are finding a variety of ways to attend the annual conference of the American Library Association each summer. It also is enough to show an inconsistency among libraries in whether they support their employees attending professional conferences.

The Questions

My survey only asks two questions.

The first asks who pays for the attendees to attend. The choices for the survey takers range from the attendees' employing libraries paying the costs to the attendees paying all the costs themselves. In between are other options.

The second asks the attendees types of libraries.

The Results

Here are the results, starting with the largest respondent group and descending to the smallest, with non-categorized respondents at the end.

Academic librarians:
12 - my library is paying the conference costs
15 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
6 - I am paying all the costs myself

Public librarians:
16 - my library is paying the conference costs
5 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I got a scholarship to attend
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
5 - I am paying all the costs myself

Non-profit agency librarians:
3 - my library is paying the conference costs
2 - I am paying all the costs myself

Job-seeking unemployed librarians:
3 - I am paying all the costs myself

Corporate librarians:
1 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

School Librarians:
1 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
1 - I got a scholarship to attend

Retired librarians:
1 - my library is paying the conference costs
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

Vendor librarian:
1 - I am paying all the costs myself

Others:
4 - my library is paying the conference costs
1 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
2 - I am paying all the costs myself


Totals:
36 - my library is paying the conference costs
22 - my library is paying part of the conference costs
21 - I am paying all the costs myself
3 - I am earning my way working for a vendor
2 - I got a scholarship to attend
0 - I am earning my way as a paid speaker

You can see all the survey submissions by clicking this permalink.

My Thoughts

Because the sample is small, I do not want to make grand pronouncements. Also, I see some flaws in my questions, as I did not specify exactly what conference costs were. I was thinking registration, hotel, meals, and transportation, but I did not list these. I think most respondents assumed this, but some may not have.

Still, I see some interesting results.

1. The portions of academic and public librarians having to pay all their costs themselves is relatively equal. Early in the poll I thought I saw academic librarians having to pay their own way and public librarians getting more library support, but the numbers approached each other as more librarians took the poll.

2. More public librarians had all their conference costs paid for by their libraries than academic librarians who often had to pay part of their costs. This is where I wonder if my questions were too vague.

3. It makes sense that the three unemployed job-seeking librarians paid their own way.

4. The number of school librarians in the poll seems rather small. As a group, this poll did not find them.

5. The results for non-profit agency and corporate librarians are not what I expected. I thought many non-profits would not have the funds to support librarians at conferences, while I thought corporate librarians would get support. The sample is small.

6. There are seven respondents from uncategorized libraries. Librarians work in a greater variety of situations than I allowed for in this poll.

7. I can see that there are stories behind all these responses. I wonder about the retired librarian who still has a library to pay the conference costs. I wonder about the person working for a vendor who had to pay his/her own way; was he/she actually the vendor/entrepreneur?
Did the public and academic librarians working for vendors get to attend any presentations? Who were all the librarians wanting to come badly enough to pay all their own expenses?

What Now?

I admit that I have not looked to see if anyone has studied the financing of ALA conference attendance. No one has commented yet to say that I should look at existing reports. I am sure that it can be done again in a more planned manner with more reliable results. This might be helpful in the future.

Why does it matter? I think the results show that high percentage of attendees do get support from their libraries. Paying all or part of the costs for an attendee is an accepted and good policy for libraries wishing to further staff development. Perhaps more thoughtful library administrators can use such findings to initiate programs to support their employees for future conferences.

Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire by Marybeth Loriecki

For years I have read quotations by Aldo Leopold on signs in woods and nature preserves, especially in Wisconsin. I knew only that he was a naturalist famous for his book A Sand Country Almanac. That book is still on my to read list, especially now that I have read Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire by Marybeth Lorbiecki.

Leopold (1887-1948) was a controversial figure in his day. When he started working as a forest ranger in 1909, he agreed with the United States Forest Service pro-lumber and pro-grazing policies. He even supported the bounties offered by the various states to get rid of "vermin" that were supposed to be in competition with hunters for game animals. As he worked in remote forests in New Mexico and Arizona, he began to realize that the land was being damaged by the lumber companies and the ranching industry and that wildlife was in trouble. He upset many with his newsletters that argued for limiting private use of public lands and for the end of anti-predator laws. He eventually lost his job with the Forest Service. This is a complicated story too long to repeat here. You have to read the book.

Leopold struggled to support his family with his writing and his work for conservation organizations until he landed a professorship at the University of Wisconsin. His real fame came as federal policy changed during the Great Depression when drought in the Southwest created the disaster known now as the Dust Bowl. The Roosevelt administration hired him as prime advisor on the restoration of damaged lands. His work with the Civilian Conservation Corps was reported in national newspapers.

Readers will find Lorbiecki's biography of Leopold easy reading. She tells the story of his career in chronologically arranged chapters with only the most necessary details and includes many photos of Leopold, his family, his colleagues, and the locations at which he worked. She also liberally added maps and quotations from his books. With interest in the environment increasing, librarians will want to promote this book.

Lorbiecki, Marybeth. Aldo Leopold: A Fierce Green Fire. Helena, Montana: Falcon, 1996. ISBN 1560444789

United States Botanic Garden

DC Day 7 157
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

There are so many places to visit in Washington, D.C. that some do not get the notice that they deserve. One of those is the United States Botanic Garden, which in next to the U.S. Capitol. This flower is one of its many orchids in an orchid room. There are many rooms in the conservatory, including tropical and desert habitats and special theme rooms. It is a great place to go on a hot summer day. Winter is probably also a very good time to go.

Around the building are many beautiful outdoor gardens, too. The new container gardens in front of the USBG allow visitors to enjoy the beauty even before and after the facility is closed.

Put the USBG on your next DC itinerary.

Time Odyssey: Visions of Reference and User Services

Everything that reference librarians do may change in the next ten years, but they will still be needed. This was the consensus from four panelists at the RUSA President's Program Time Odyssey: Visions of Reference and User Services, one of the final presentations at the American Library Association conference in Washington, D.C.

The future is not magical, according to Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist from Intel. There are always unforeseen consequences of technological change. Libraries will survive, she said, as people want the library as a place and books are stubborn, persistent artifacts. Libraries are "centers of gravity" - important to society for the tradition they foster, for the distribution of knowledge, and for the stamp of legitimacy they give to the materials they collect.

Bell said that libraries have always been high tech. In the 19th century they broke ground in the use of indexes and filing systems that would be the backbone of business and government. In today's world there is a crisis in the disorganization of digital information. Society need libraries to make sense of the information explosion.

She went on to say that libraries are needed to preserve civilization. They have done it before, especially when Islamic libraries preserved classical Greek and Roman literature.

Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project said that there is a new twist on Andy Warhol's statement about everyone being famous for fifteen minutes. In the Internet age, everyone is famous to fifteen people.

Rainie said we have several questions ahead of us. First is "What kind of Internet do we have?" There are more kinds of information and more methods of dissemination than ever before. Soon there will be smart doorknobs that know when the owner will come home because of Internet transmitted information. Is this good?

We have questions about our national information policy. Are we going to let rural areas and the poor be left out? Are we going to allow corporation to buy higher speeds than anyone else? Who owns information?

Third, we have personal identity questions and security problems to solve. The Internet was built by trusting people who expected good behavior. Some users have abused this trust, so the Internet needs to be redesigned.

Allen Renear of the University of Illinois told a long joke about a girl approaching the reference desk ten years from now. The point was that scholarly publishing, especially for scientific and technical knowledge, will no longer be reliant on expensive periodicals.

The most interesting statistic he mentioned is that scholars are reading many more articles now than ten years ago but in the same length of time. So reading is not as deep. In ten years it is thought that scholars will be reading only little bits of articles as needed.

Wendy Schultz of Infinite Futures said that there will still be reference desks in 2017. She said librarians are in a great position to thrive, as they will be needed more than ever. She urged librarians to plot out alternative futures as to be able to adapt to the actual outcomes as they develop.

He Reads ... She Reads: The Booklist Adult Books Readers Advisory Forum

On Sunday at the American Library Association, I spent the entire day attending readers' advisory programs. I capped the day with He Reads ... She Reads: The Booklist Adult Books Readers' Advisory Forum, a sort of Point Counterpoint formatted discussion between David Wright of Seattle Public Library and Katie Mediatore of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri.

David went first. Through a series of humorous slides, he let the audience know that the readers that concerned him where not "men" but "guys." Serious reading men may not differ so much from women in their reading, but guys have their own desires. Here is what studies show about guys:

• Men read less than women.
• Men value reading less than women.
• Men read less fiction/literature.
• Men read more factual material.
• Men read more newspapers and magazines.
• Men read more science fiction.
• Men are not interested in the lives of women.
• Men who read have narrower tastes.
• Men are more likely to read everything in a series.
• Men do not want to talk about the books they read.

When Katie talked about women, the points were mostly the reverse of the list above. She did also say:

• Women do not care whether a man or woman wrote a book, while men often only consider books written by other men.
• Women will stick with a book longer before deciding not to finish a book.
• Women are more likely to join book clubs.
• Women consider romance novels like chocolates or massage - they are treats to read.

Throughout the program, both speakers used fake book jackets for laughs. (There must be a pulp fiction book jacket generator on the web, but I have not found it yet.) These were funny and sometimes almost crude, but they really supported the discussion. David also kept the crowd jumping with pulp fiction giveaways. About half the audience left with a paperback book.

One of the genres that got a lot of discussion was westerns. Though many libraries do not even collect them any more, David said they are very popular with guys. Seattle loans tons of them. He said it was important to keep up with the new series and to buy all the titles, as those guys who want to read them want to read them all.

Katie said that many women really like bloody suspense titles. She recommended the books of T. Greenwood for women.

David said that pulp fiction that comes in series can be treated as periodicals. Subscribe to the series. Get lots of copies. Do not bother cataloguing them.

In the questions period at the end, Katie said that if you are serious about readers' advisory, you approach clients to offer your service. You can not lay back and wait for someone to ask. You also have to use displays, book marks, and other marketing ploys continuously.

Another long discussion arose from the audience about librarians' spouses who bought books instead of checking them out from libraries, especially in regard to pulp fiction. Some of these spouses, especially the guys, want to own all the books in a series so they will have something they like to read over and over. Others fear overdues. Many of the librarians in attendance said they had spouses and friends who would not use the library because they hate having to have books back at a specific time.

Cheese Shops and Libraries

"Well, I was, uh, sitting in the public library on Thurmond Street just now, skimming through Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole, and I suddenly came over all peckish." Monty Python

Wiking the Blog and So Forth

What are they looking at?

I have posted a report on PLA Blog about the American Library Association Conference program Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog. Above is a photo from this program. Matt Gullett, John Blyberg, and Jed Moffitt were watching Tom Peters' Second Life slides.

There are reports on many other programs from a variety of bloggers at the PLA Blog. Enjoy.

The Future of Information Retrieval

Monday at the American Library Association Conference began with an overflow crowd to an obviously inadequate room for the hot topic presentation The Future of Information Retrieval. Four panelists (not listed in the conference book) discussed the trends that they foresee in professional and amateur research.

Marydee Ojala of Online magazine and the blog Online Insider issued a warning. She said that the Internet 2.0 movement reduces the effectiveness of tools for the professional researcher, as free Internet resources muscle out the more precise fee-based databases that have been the backbone of the research industry. The databases that survive modify themselves to be more like amateur search engines. She compared an intricate search strategy from a database with a one-word search engine query, saying the former will obviously get a more precise result. Users of search engines accept top ranked answers while information professional want right answers.

Ojala said that the free search engines are obviously attractive, but corporations with interests tamper with their results. The integrity of research is challenged.

Jay Datema, technology editor for Library Journal, sees five trends in information retrieval:

1. Older resources are becoming available on the web.
2. More authentication is being demanded.
3. There are more ways to distribute and receive data.
4. Privacy is challenged.
5. Use of mobile devices for retrieval is increasing.

Datema cautioned that Internet searches have become commodities. They may be free of charge to the end users but at the price of privacy as all their transactions are monitored.

On a brighter note, he spoke about back runs of newspapers and periodicals breaking the "nothing before 1980" rule in database contents.

He recommended watching a new search engine called Powerset, which is in beta testing.

Datema said that there is an amazing lack of control in the digitizing of books. In the interest of speed, many mistakes are being made and the quality of some images is poor. He said the digitizers are making all the same mistakes made in the rush to microfilm documents in the mid-20th century. Regardless of the quality issue, he said that digitized books will allow for (1) faster interlibrary loan, (2) more print on demand, and (3) a boom in historical research.

Mike Buschman, a technical editor for Microsoft Live Search, was less critical of the book digitization effort. He said that Microsoft is working with the University of California, University of Toronto, Cornell, New York Public, and the British Library. He said that there are currently 40 million items from 30,000 journal in addition to books on Live Search Books.

Buschman sad the digitization of print is important because the web has only about five percent of the world's knowledge. Many forgotten resources are now getting new life in digital form because they are being found through online searching.

He posed four benefits of digital research:

1. increased efficiency
2. new research connection (data found in unexpected resources)
3. enhanced texts (with comments and hypertext links)
4. liberated forms (not rely on loan of physical items)

He also said we will stop thinking of the resources as books as we mine their sentences and paragraphs.

R. David Lankes of Syracuse University described a trend in librarianship. He first spoke about a failure - an attempt by his university library to create prepackaged generic search aids. They were never of much use to any library users. He said his clients had specific, not generic needs. As a reference librarian, his strength is helping people with their specific research needs. Every request has a context. Advice without a context is weak.

Lankes indicated that reference librarians have job security because they can not be replaced with digital documents. Every client needs the reference interview, which he called "the conversation."

He said that there are other conversations, some of which are digital. An academic course syllabus can be a conversation if it is loaded onto the Internet and loaded with hypertext links. A librarian should still monitor and update it. Also, librarians can start collaborative bookmarks, which become conversations among the participants. The knowledge value in these efforts is in the conversations, which gives context to the information being exchanged.

The role of the librarian is to be a conversation facilitator and community advocate.

Lankes thinks that the profession has gone as far as it can go with metadata. The future of librarianship is in service.

Librarians Wait to Cross the Street

Librarians Wait to Cross the Street
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

The American Library Association Conference in Washington, D.C. is almost over. I heard unofficially that it was a record turnout, but I have no numbers. That will be coming in the next few days.

What will also still be coming are more reports on the programs on this and many other blogs, as bloggers find time to sit down and write. There is a list of bloggers covering the conference on the ALA conference wiki. You can probably spend weeks going through all the reports.

My favorite program so far was the presentation by Ken Burns on Saturday morning.

My worst experience was a program on academic humanities librarianship (I won't be more specific) at which the moderator went on and on, almost forgetting to let her panel speak. In that same program, no one on the podium could figure out how to run the slide show that one of the panelists had on a CD. Another of the panelist knocked all of the Internet sources in his discipline. The program was a downer and I left early.

I enjoyed meeting several people with whom I've had numerous virtual conversations.

While the conference experience this year has not had the sense of mission that we had last year in New Orleans, it was still good. My list of books to read and websites to check is much longer.

ricklibrarian at PLA Blog

So far I have posted two items at PLA Blog. Here are links to them.

Off the Chain: Readers' Advisory for Exploding Genres

The Google Five Libraries: Two Years, Six Months, Seven Days in the Life of the Google Library Project

There will be another later.

Nancy Pearl on Book Crush

The young librarian in a Mohawk, clicking her knitting needles, laughed at Nancy Pearl's stories. I laughed, too.

(Pearl said today that first sentences are important for hooking readers.)

I did not do my homework, so I did not realize that Pearl's new book Book Crush is aimed at children and young adult readers' advisory until she began speaking. She told us that a teen librarian had recommended the title and concept to her. Because she was looking for a new project and because her More Book Lust had included some recommendations for teens, she decided the idea was good for her to target young readers. She drew on her own memories of being a child and a parent to start the project, and then she read hundreds of books in its research. She also interview many children about their reading tastes. Her aim was to include in her reference book titles children like and want to read, not those that adults recommend to them.

In Book Crush, Pearl tried to arrange the titles creatively. One of her concerns is that librarians with their categories often narrow the range of recommendations instead of broadening them. Children and teens have moods that call for different types of books at different times. She is trying to escape from genre labels.

Pearl told us how she had refrained from putting some old classics into the new book because she thought they had inappropriate racial stereotypes. A few others she kept with notes that the misrepresentations could be discussed between parents and children. She also said that there is a movement to rewrite some classics to remove objectionable materials. The example she used was that Rosemary Wells has rewritten Lassie without stereotypes.

After telling us about Book Crush, Pearl read first lines from some of her favorite children's books to show us how important the openings are to setting tones for stories. I wrote down many titles to seek out later as she read. (I was inspired then to write the first line of this blog piece.)

Throughout the presentation, Pearl made quotable statements. Here are two that seem most memorable to me. Put them in your quote books:

"We have only one life, but through books we can lead other lives."

"Other people have lives and I just read."

I think that Pearl actually has a pretty cool life. I hope she keeps reading and writing for us.

Pearl, Nancy. Book crush : for kids and teens -- recommended reading for every mood, moment, and interest. Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 2007. ISBN 1570615004

Ken Burns Previews "The War"

"There are no ordinary lives," according to Ken Burns, who focuses on individuals to tell his stories about historical events. In his new documentary series The War, he and the crew of Florentine Films anchor the story of World War II on the experiences of people they met in four American towns: Sacramento, California; Mobile, Alabama; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota. Like his series on the civil war, baseball, and jazz, he weaves together interviews, still photos, archival film, and period music in this production, which will premiere on PBS in late September.

Burns said that many people have requested that he make a series on World War II, but he had resisted for years. He changed his mind for two reasons. First, he read seven years ago that a thousand WWII veterans were dying every day, and he realized that many of their stories were being lost. Also, he read in the late 1990s that a poll of high school graduates revealed that many thought the U.S. fought with Germany against the Russia in the war. Being interested in the power of history, he had to address these problems.

Burns admitted that he keeps making the same film over and over. The question he is always asking is "Who are we?" He uses the same techniques and always combs libraries and archives for "the grist of all the films." He and his researchers visited hundreds of libraries in the making of The War.

I was impressed by the eloquence of Burn's speech, which reflects on his skill as a writer. I was also impressed by the seven segments of the documentary series that he previewed for us. Burns has gone far beyond the sanitized footage of the war that we normally see. The series will have to have viewer warnings.

I know what I will be doing with fourteen and a half hours this fall.

Great Little Book Shop in the Lincoln Memorial

Great Little Book Shop in the Lincoln Memorial
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Hi. Bonnie and I are in Washington, DC for the American Library Association Annual Conference. We wandered around this afternoon and found a great little book shop inside the Lincoln Memorial. I saw several books that I'd like to read. Not all the titles are about Lincoln, as there are sections on the Vietnam War, Korean War, the parks, and other local topics.

That's a bit of Bonnie in the bottom right corner.

We start attending programs Saturday morning. Our first stop is a presentation by filmmaker Ken Burns.

Update on Who Pays for ALA Survey

So far, 58 people have taken the short survey on who is paying for their attending ALA in DC this year. At first, it appeared that the majority were paying their own expenses, but later submissions have turned the trend toward their libraries paying their costs. The tide flows back and forth like totals on election night.

Here is what we have so far:

16 people are paying all their costs themselves.
13 people have libraries paying part of their costs.
27 people have their libraries paying their costs.
2 people are working for vendors to cover their costs.

The survey is still open for submissions. Tell us who's paying for your ALA experience.

Planet Earth: The Complete Series, a Hit with Teens

I was surprised this spring when I found a bunch of teens gathered around our television watching the Discovery Channel presentations of Planet Earth, a nature documentary series. Bonnie and I have been watching Nature, National Geographic, and other wildlife and natural history programs for years, and Laura and her friends always leave the room. Kids do not normally sit for the sometimes slow moving programs. Planet Earth is not normal. It includes stunning photography and gripping wildlife stories that even impress teens, a tough crowd to please.

Bonnie and I actually became disenchanted with the Discovery Channel presentations. Though we had videotaped the episodes, the commercials were a nuisance. It seemed that bits of the stories were missing, especially after commercials when topics would inexplicably change. Also we were disappointed that the cable network had replaced the narration of David Attenborough with that of Sigourney Weaver. We're Attenborough fans. We decided to wait for the library-owned DVDs.

Now we are watching the DVDs. What a great change! Each episode has about twelve to fifteen minutes longer, restoring what was edited out for commercials by the Discovery Channel. Also, we get to hear the always enthusiastic David Attenborough.

Our daughter Laura says that she preferred the Sigourney Weaver narration because it used American (instead of British) vocabulary. This has not stopped her from watching the DVDs. She watched two episodes late Tuesday night and then showed them again to her boyfriend on Wednesday morning, telling him when the best parts were coming. That proves teen appeal to me.

Libraries that buy Planet Earth should not hide it back in the natural history section. Put it where teens can see it.

Planet Earth: the Complete Series. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2007. ISBN 1419849360. 5 discs, 660 minutes.

Kids, Know Your Rights!

Amanda O'Brien at the Skokie Public Library has put together a really sharp looking four-page PDF called Kids, Know Your Rights! I have passed it on to our teen librarian to get it into the hands of our youth. It defines intellectual freedom, describes challenges to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and discusses the fight against censorship. The last page recommended nonfiction and fiction books to help teens grasp the concepts and discuss their rights. This work is sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee 2005-2007 of the Association for Library Service to Children. It should be widely distributed.

Who Pays Again

I am reposting to correct some design problems. Zoho staff gave me some suggestions.

I am attending the Annual Conference of the American Library Association in Washington, D.C in a few days. I am fortunate for my library is paying for me to attend. It was not always so, as I was not in line to get conference funding at several libraries. Being of modest income, I did not attend conferences when I had to pay the costs. I suspect this is the case with many other librarians, but do I really know? Maybe there are librarians paying their own way or finding creative ways to pay to attend.

If you are among the fortunate attending this week's ALA conference, please take my brief survey about who is paying. I am not asking any confidential information, so there are no privacy issues. Perhaps this results of this survey will show how important or unimportant employer support is for conference attendance.

(If you are using an aggregator, like Bloglines or Google Reader, you will need to come to the original blog to take the survey.)





Thanks for taking the survey.

Librarians' Book Revoogle Article on Readers' Advisor News

Take a look at the June 2007 issue of Readers' Advisor News, which has my article on the Librarian's Book Revoogle. In the article I describe the tool, how it was made, and ask for help identifying book reviews from libraries and librarians to add to the customized search. The article appeared yesterday, and so far, three readers have replied with suggestions.

The link to the article is beside the photo of me taken by Aaron Schmidt last year. Thanks, Aaron.

I am honored to have my article placed with articles by Jessica Zellers and Sharron Smith. Jessica describes the growing genre of women's nonfiction, and Sharron tells about her passion for readers' advisory. There is also an article remembering the author Lloyd Alexander.

Follow-Up on Who Pays for ALA Survey

The Zoho survey that I embedded in a post earlier today is causing some problems. It looks okay (not great) in Mozilla Firefox browsers, but the bottom part of the box with the submit button is not visible for users of Internet Explorer 6.0. I do not know about other IE versions yet.

A second problem is that Blogger will not let me edit the post with the embedded Zoho survey. I remember that this happened before when I pasted in code for the Zoho survey. When I try to edit, I find the word processing box is empty. I can not see anything to edit it.

Another problem is that Bloglines and Google Reader are also failing to show the survey box. Users of aggregators need to come to this blog using Mozilla Firefox to actually take the survey.

That said, 11 people have taken the survey so far. 6 of them are paying all of their expenses themselves, 3 are getting some help from their libraries, 1 is working for a vendor during the conference, and 1 is lucky enough to have her library pay her expenses. This is not what I expected.

Please, keep taking the survey to see if the trends hold up or change. Thanks.

Who Pays to Attend the ALA Annual Conference?

I am attending the Annual Conference of the American Library Association in Washington, D.C in a few days. I am fortunate for my library is paying for me to attend. It was not always so, as I was not in line to get conference funding at several libraries. Being of modest income, I did not attend conferences when I had to pay the costs. I suspect this is the case with many other librarians, but do I really know? Maybe there are librarians paying their own way or finding creative ways to pay to attend.

If you are among the fortunate attending this week's ALA conference, please take my brief survey about who is paying. I am not asking any confidential information, so there are no privacy issues. Perhaps this results of this survey will show how important or unimportant employer support is for conference attendance.




Thanks for taking the survey. I will report the results after the conference.

Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson

Nonanon is in the mood to save older books from weeding. So am I. My latest find among the books not recently borrowed in my library is Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson.

Wilson is of a rare breed of entomologist, one who can cross over from writing for scholarly publications to writing for a more general audience. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Literature (not science) in 1991 for his book The Ants. Some readers will still find his writing challenging, as he does include discussions of scientific theories and evidence, but with a little skimming, even they can get through Naturalist, a memoir.

The most charming parts of Naturalist are when Wilson describes his observations in nature, beginning with his boyhood on Paradise Beach on the Gulf of Mexico near the Alabama-Florida border. Readers can feel his love of creatures great and small, especially small. The best parts of the book are when he describes finding rare ants during field work.

With such a long career, a 364 book is inadequate to fully tell his story, and some episodes are skimpy on details. Two months in Suriname are passed over in a single sentence. If he would write with a little less personal reserve, he could put together a great big field work memoir that many readers would enjoy.

Among the chapters on studies in the field are chapters about his childhood, his education, and his career. The latter chapters focus on his academic battles over the concept of sociobiology and his becoming an environmental activist.

After reading Naturalist, some readers will want to try On Human Nature and The Future of Life.

Wilson, Edward O. Naturalist. Island Press/Shearwater Books, 1994. ISBN 1559632887

Away from Her, a film by Sarah Polley

As movie titles go, Away from Her is a little weak to market. I have had trouble remembering it and had to look it up even after seeing the movie, which is itself very memorable. The snow scenes of this Canadian film are beautifully filmed and the story is gripping. With some thought I do see how the title is appropriate to this film based on a short story by Alice Munro, as the main character struggles with living without his wife. The short story is "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." If there is a reference to bears in the short story, it was left out of the movie.

Away from Her is the story of Grant (Gordon Pinsent), a retired literature professor, who has been married to Fiona (Julie Christie) for forty-five years. She was always energetic, and he adored her. When her Alzheimer's disease advances and she decides to enter a care center, he is despondent. Pinsent is excellent in the role. Ebert and Roeper gave the film two thumbs up.

Neither Baker & Taylor nor Amazon indicate when Away from Her will be released on DVD. The film has only been in limited distribution for a month. I hope libraries notice when it is, for it would be an excellent choice for a film discussion group. It might be paired with the reading of The Story of My Father by Sue Miller, for another viewpoint on Alzheimer's disease.

See Away from Her if you can.

First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Prisoners of War by George Weller

Chicago Daily News reporter George Weller broke all the rules when he went into Nagasaki about four weeks after it had been blasted by the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan. He escaped his military escort, rode a still-running Japanese train, and pretended to be an American army officer. The ruse worked to the point that he obtained official Japanese cooperation, but his on-the spot reports were snagged by General MacArthur's censors and destroyed. The carbons from his typewriter were found in 2003. First into Nagasaki is the first publication of most of the stories from his months in and around Japan in the fall of 1945.

Why were Weller's reports suppressed? His accounts were not sensational. In fact, the military accounts of destruction and loss of life were higher, and most of his pieces dealt with soldiers and civilians who had been Japanese prisoners of war. In a memoir that he wrote later (also in this book), he surmised that MacArthur and his staff wanted full control of the story, which the reporter threatened.

The prisoner of war stories are more interesting than the Nagasaki story, which is as much about Weller's adventure as about the military event. The reporter spoke with hundreds of service men who had spent years in brutally hard work camps, often recording their own words. First Into Nagasaki should have an index so the descendants of these men could more easily find their stories.

From his interviews, Weller also learned much about the Pacific theater of war, and this book includes stories about Wake Island, the Philippines, and Japanese prisoner transport ships. World War II readers will want this book.

Weller, George. First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Prisoners of War. Crown Publishers, 2006. ISBN

The ricklibrarian Guide to Losing Your Wallet

Losing things. Sunglasses, hats, umbrellas, and jackets are among the things I have lost. I am not alone losing things. Library users often lose diskettes, school assignments, library cards, reading glasses, bookmarks, sweaters, gloves, and their own books. The items pile up in the lost and found.

I have a story. The past two weeks have been extraordinary. My daughter sang in her final high school choir concerts, her grandparents came to visit, we visited Chicago tourist sites, we attended the graduation ceremony, and we threw her a party. In the middle of the festivities, I lost my wallet.

I noticed that I did not have my wallet when Bonnie and I stood in front of a supermarket display of flowers. We were on our way to the last choir concert, and I had at the last moment changed my mind about which pants to wear. I assumed the wallet was in the other pants at home. I asked Bonnie to drive the rest of the evening. We attended the concert and went for dessert before going home.

When I got home, I found the wallet was not in the other pants. It was not on the bed, under the bed, behind the bed, on the dresser, in the dresser, on the bookshelves, in the closet, on the window sill, or on the night stand. It was not by the computer, in a jacket, by the front door, in the kitchen, or on the dining room table, nor was it in the recycling, in the waste baskets, in the clothes hamper, in the flower beds, or in the cat's litter box. I searched both cars completely. I looked everywhere and then I looked everywhere again.

I called the supermarket early in the search. The woman at the customer service desk checked the lost and found and then called around other departments. It had not been found, but she recommended calling back in the morning as there was a chance the overnight custodial crew would find it.

I cancelled my credit card. The agent said there was no indication that it had been used that day, and I would get a call about any further charges that appeared. Then I started trying to remember everything that I had in the wallet - my driver's license, library cards, health insurance card, Morton Arboretum pass, museum memberships, voter's registration, supermarket cards, a note with some little used passwords, emergency contacts, and a little cash.

I also remembered that my Social Security card was in the wallet. Bonnie said that I should not have been carrying it around. Of course, she was right, as the number is exactly what a dishonest person would like to find. I last showed the card to an employer fifteen years ago. It should not have been there.

I called the supermarket again in the morning, but it had not been turned in to the customer service desk. I searched the house, car, and yard again. I got a ride to the driver's license facility and for an hour watched bad public service in action. I came home, double-checked some unlikely spots in the house, and gave up the search.

Two days later, I attended my daughter's graduation ceremony. As I made my way out of the stadium, a woman called to me, "Mr. Roche, do you know the supermarket has your wallet?" She said that it was in a drawer at the camera department, which happens to be about ten feet away from the flower display.

We went straight to the supermarket, and I went in to the camera counter. I asked the woman behind the counter, who replied that she had not heard about a lost wallet. She opened several drawers and then consulted with another employee who said all wallets are supposed to go to the customer service desk. So I went to that desk. The agent there opened a drawer and pulled out my wallet, for which I thanked her. She said that she had tried to call me but that my phone was not in service. (Perhaps she misdialed.) I quickly checked and found all the cards and cash undisturbed. I was greatly relieved.

As I think back on the episode, I have two questions that will never be answered. How did I manage to drop the wallet from my button-closed pocket? Where was my wallet the two times I called the supermarket?

Here are my hard-learned lessons for those who lose things.

Lesson 1: When you discover something is missing, look around your immediate location. Do not assume it is somewhere else. If I had turned around, I would have probably seen the wallet on the floor behind me.

Lesson 2: Do not give up the search too quickly. I should have made a third call to the supermarket.

Lesson 3: Do not carry your Social Security card. Put it somewhere safer.

I also have advice for supermarkets, shops of all types, restaurants, community centers, schools, and libraries.

Lesson 4: Have one place that lost and found items go.

Lesson 5: Make sure everyone on the staff knows the lost and found place.

Lesson 6: When the owner of the item can be identified, call more than once.

People will continue to lose things, some of which are important. With care and consistency, we can reduce their distress and help them find what they have lost.

Ladybookbug: A New Anonymous Book Reviewer

Ladybookbug has joined the ranks of librarians writing reviews of the books she reads. Her blog is titled "On the Bookshelf," and her latest review looks at The Road by Cormac McCarthy. She would not have read the book if she had not heard the author interviewed, but then she was glad that she had.

So far, all but one of her books have been fiction, and most are top sellers. My favorite review, however, was of a first novel, Summer People by Brian Groh. I hope that she tackles more lesser-known authors to help us learn about them.

I added her URL to the Librarian's Book Revoogle, but none of her reviews appear in results yet. It appears that Google does not rank her blog yet. Visit her blog to help it out.

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

As Walter Isaacson explains in Einstein: His Life and Universe, Albert Einstein was a key figure in the history of the first half on the twentieth century. Not only did he pose revolutionary theories in physics, he became involved in many of the public issues of his time. Frequently relocating in his most active period, he renounced nationalism and claimed to be a citizen of the world. He supported Jewish settlement in Palestine, but insisted he was opposed the formation of a Jewish state. He preached pacifism until the Nazis took control of Germany. He refused all invitations to visit Russia, which he charged violated the precepts of socialism. He was frequently asked for his religious beliefs, which were reported widely.

His enormous fame did not come easily. He was a lowly-paid patent clerk in 1905, unable to get an academic appointment, when he wrote five scientific articles that challenged Newtonian physics. From these came the field of quantum physics and the concept of relativity. As Isaacson tells the story, it would still be another six years before the great thinker could afford a home with electricity. An ironic note is that Einstein would later regard his patent clerk days as his most creative.

Isaacson includes physics theorems in the biographical narrative, but he explains the concepts step by step as Einstein discovered them, and most readers should understand. They can elect to skim or skip these discussions of energy, matter, atomic structures, speed of light, and relation of space and time, but sticking with them enriches the text and gives a deeper appreciation of Einstein's life.

Isaacson also includes much detail of Einstein's family life, which was always strained and somewhat sad.

I listened to the actor Edward Herrmann reading the book on my iPod, which I enjoyed. Listening might be a good alternative for readers who are bogging down with the print edition.

Einstein is selling well, making the hardcover best seller lists in numerous newspapers. Every library should have it.

Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007. ISBN 9780743264730

18 compact discs. Simon and Schuster Audio. ISBN 9781428149342

Librarians Beware Chicago O'Hare

In a few weeks many librarians will be flying from Chicago O’Hare Airport to Washington, DC for the American Library Association Annual Conference. Because there is construction in and around the terminals and the parking garage, they should allow extra time.Here is what I saw yesterday (June 5, 2007) when I went to pick up relatives in for my daughter Laura’s graduation.

• At noon, the main garage and valet parking were full.The entrance to the parking garage was blocked by barriers and a couple of police cars.
• Cars congested the arrivals drive. Many people stood by their cars. They were apparently watching for friends, family, etc. coming from the baggage claims areas.
• Signs directed drivers to park in remote parking lot E.
• Signs at remote parking lot E said that it was full. New signs directed drivers to remote parking lot G.
• Buses from remote parking lot G to remote parking lot E to catch the tram to the terminals were full. I did get on.
• From the tram I saw that the parking lot for the International Terminal was full.
• Terminal 2 there is a down escalator but no up escalator from the bridge level down to the departures level. (From the tram, you enter at the bridge level.) Any one going up has to take an elevator.
• The departures area of level 2 was full of people. Most were in lines backed to go through security to go to the gates. I unofficially heard that the lines were 30 minutes long.
• Most of the escalators from the departures level to the baggage claim level have been removed. I found stairs at one end of the building and an escalator at the other end. (I don’t remember if it was up or down.)
• Luggage began arriving at baggage claim 25 minutes after the plane reached the gate.
• There was a line to take the elevator up to the bridge level to catch the tram back to parking lot E to get the bus to parking lot G.
• The buses were loaded to parking lot G.

It will be a long summer at Chicago O’Hare.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Some books are remarkable not for what they say but for how they say it. Such is the case with American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, a graphic novel about the son of immigrants trying to assimilate in an American school. The message of the book can be reduced to "Be yourself," which is a common theme in literature, but there is much more to the book.

American Born Chinese at first appears to be three stories in rotation - a Chinese folk tale about the Monkey King, the story of Jin Wang moving into a new school, and the story of Danny being embarrassed by his very stereotypical Chinese cousin. The Monkey King is angered by the prejudice of the Chinese deities, who will not allow him to join the party in heaven because he does not wear shoes. He transforms himself into a revengeful warrior who attacks the hosts of heaven, for which he is punished by being locked under a mountain of rubble until he learns his lesson.

Jin Wang is the central character. He tries to transform himself into an average American teen with increasing embarrassing results. The story of Danny is mostly in the background until the end when he confronts his cousin. At that point, all the stories come together cleverly.

American Born Chinese is aimed at teens, especially boys. It is at times violent in a comic book way, but it is a serious treatment of an ethnic experience that should be considered for library collections.

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006. ISBN 1596431520

Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball

waiting to bat
the hitter swats
a swarm of gnats
Sylvia Forger-Ryan

Nearly two decades after Horace Wilson introduced baseball to Japan in 1872, Masaoka Shiki wrote the first baseball haiku.

spring breeze
this grassy field makes me
want to play catch

Jack Kerouac is often credited with writing the first American baseball haiku, and Beat poets continued the cause.

How cold! - late
September baseball -
the crickets

Baseball Haiku edited with translations by Cor Van Den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura includes a history of baseball haiku, sections of American haiku and Japanese haiku, a short history of baseball, a booklist, and an index of poets. Most of the works included do not adhere to the old 5-7-5 syllable standard. Some even have fewer than seventeen syllables. Senryu count morae (sound units familiar to the Japanese) instead of syllables.

cold day
the traded catcher's
empty locker
Cor van den Heuvel

Poets must not be talented players as there are several last-player- picked or not-even-picked haiku.

the last kid picked
running his fastest
to right field
Mike Dillon

the boy not chosen
steps over home plate,
picks up his books
Edward J. Rielly

Yes, that last haiku had a comma, the only one I noticed in the book.

While many haiku dealt with the play of the game or its viewing, some dealt with the ballpark and the lack of a game.

game over
all the empty seats
turn blue
Alan Pizzarelli

Get it.

Baseball Haiku: American and Japanese Haiku and Senryu on Baseball edited with translations by Cor Van Den Heuvel and Nanae Tamura. W. W. Norton, 2007. ISBN 9780393062199