Nuovomondo, directed by Emanuele Crialese

One sweaty man inside third class steerage said that a river in California ran with milk. Salvatore said that he could not swim but he would get in that river.

Nuovomondo (marketed in the U.S. as Golden Door) is an incredibly moving film about Italian immigrants leaving the rocks of southern Italy for America, a land of wealth and giant vegetables. I saw the movie with the After Hours Film Society at the beautiful Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove on its large screen. The audience was large and appreciative.

I do not want to spoil the film for you. You should see it. I will just give you the questions Salvatore needs to answer.

• Should we go to America?
• How will we get there?
• Who should we befriend on the way?
• Will we be able to negotiate Ellis Island?

The questions are tough.

I foresee Nuovomondo being shown to high school history classes for years to come. I hope history teachers learn about the film and accept that it is in Italian with subtitles. Its cinematography is so powerful that it hardly needs any dialogue. Strip off the soundtrack and it will still tell its story.

With so few good films in theaters this summer, it is sad that so few people have the opportunity to see this great Italian film.

The DVD is not yet available. Libraries should buy it when it is.

Chopin's Funeral by Benita Eisler

Chopin's Funeral by Benita Eisler starts, as you would expect, with the composer's funeral. It was a big affair with four thousands invitation-only guests, held in a cathedral, with music chosen by Frederic Chopin himself. Rich friends paid for the affair, which masked the near poverty in which he died.

Despite the title, the focus of the book is Chopin's life, especially his unlikely nine-year relationship with the French novelist George Sand. He and the novelist were in many ways opposites. She was more gregarious, and some of the friends that she chose shocked him. She was a socialist, and he longed for a good monarchy. They also disagreed about how Sand should raise her daughter.

Chopin's Funeral is a great book for a discussion. It is only 206 pages of text (not counting the notes and index), and the story is deftly told. Readers will know the some of the characters already, including Franz Liszt, Eugene Delacroix, and Victor Hugo. Gustave Flaubert, Jenny Lind, and James Whistler also make cameo appearances. Readers will want to learn more about the French singer Pauline Viardot.

Reading about early to middle nineteenth century Paris life is also interesting. Chopin sees the procession to encrypt Napoleon's ashes and is trapped in his apartment when the streets of Paris are barricaded in 1848.

What really makes the book a candidate for discussion is questions everyone will ask:

• Why did Frederic Chopin never go back to see his family and the homeland that he claimed that he loved?
• Why did Chopin detest Liszt?
  
• What did Sand and Chopin see in each other?
• Why did Sand treat her daughter Solange so badly?

Play Chopin's Preludes as people arrive and serve French wines. A discussion of Chopin's Funeral will be a party to remember.

Eisler, Benita. Chopin's Funeral. Knopf, 2003. ISBN 0375409459

Use Blog Comments for Questions and Answers

I occasionally get reference questions in comments to this blog. I try to answer them. Sometimes another reader comes up with the answer, as in these comments to my review of Simon Schama's Power of Art.

David Wagner said...

Does anyone know the background music played in the "David" episode of The Power of Art. It was sublime.
Thanks

1:29 PM

ricklibrarian said...

The PBS website for the series does not have any information on the music, though the box for the DVD might. Another idea is contact the series producers using the query form at http://www.pbs.org/wnet/powerofart/view.php?page=feedback

8:51 PM

Anonymous said...

Hi,
It is great, isn't it! The name of the background peice in the David is Nisi Dominus in G Minor, RV 608: IV. Cum Dederit. I got my copy from iTunes. Enjoy!

2:43 AM

Thanks to you, Anonymous.

A Look at 63 years of ALA Notable Books

I have been mining lists of American Library Association Notable Books awards to find worthy titles for my biography project. In the process, I have read 50 Years of Notable Books thoroughly and noticed a few things that I wish to report. I also used the The Lists on the Reference and User Services website to bring the research up to date.


Some Lists Hard to Use

Identifying the biographies was not exactly easy, as the various committees at RUSA (and at both the Lending Round Table and the Division of Public Libraries before RUSA) have not agreed through time on how to report the Notable Books. A single alphabetical list that did not distinguish between fiction and nonfiction was issued until 1974, when the committee divided the titles into the two categories. Someone must not have liked the idea, for the dividing into fiction and nonfiction did not reappear again until the 1987 list. Most years since then are divided, but some are not. I am happy to see that the most of the recent lists do separate.

Before 1970, the committee did not write annotations. I had to look at a variety of online library catalogs to identify the subjects of many of the books without subtitles. The titles alone were often insufficient. Some possible biographies turned out to be fiction. Some that I suspected were novels turned out to be biographies, histories, or other nonfiction topics. I'm glad recent lists are more informative and of more help to readers' advisers.

For my purposes, I am excluding autobiographies and memoirs.


Biographies by the Years

The number of biographies in Notable Books have decreased since a high in the 1970s, but may go up slightly again in the 2000s.

• 59 in the 1950s
• 53 in the 1960s
• 67 in the 1970s
• 33 in the 1980s
• 21 in the 1990s
• 21 in the 2000s (through 2007)

Individual years can go way up and down. There was only one notable biography in 1991, 1992, 1997 and 2001. There were twelve in both 1950 and 1973.


The Lists Reflect Their Times

According to the introduction of 50 Years of Notable Books, the first list, called "Outstanding Books," was compiled by the Lending Round Table in 1944, a time of war. Among the titles on that first list were the following:

• How to Think about War and Peace by Mortimer J. Adler
• How New Will the Better World Be? by Carl L. Becker
• They Call It "Purple Heart Valley" by Margaret Bourke-White
• Ten Years in Japan by Joseph C. Grew
• America Unlimited by Eric A. Johnston
• U.S. War Aims by Walter Lippmann
• Prejudice: Japanese Americans by Carey McWilliams
• Brave Men by Ernest Pyle
• Tarawa: The Story of a Battle by Robert Sherrod
• People on Our Side by Edgar Snow
• Lend-Lease: Weapon of Victory by Edward R. Stettinius
• They Shall Not Sleep by Leland Stowe
• The Veteran Comes Back by Walter Willard
• Time for Decision by Sumner Welles

In the late 1950s and 1960s, there were many books reflecting the civil rights movement and environmental concerns. At that time, there were also many anthropology books suggesting nontraditional social arrangements.

What will people notice looking back at the 2000s?


Some Authors Repeat

As you might expect, some great authors appeared in several lists. Wallace Stegner, John Updike, and Eudora Welty were honored six times each through 1996. The committees always seems to like historians. Arthur M. Schlesinger and Catherine Drinker Bowen each appeared in the lists seven times. The champion of Notable Books was the very famous Sir Winston Churchill, whose books were listed eight times.


Some Subjects Repeat

Just publish a book on Samuel Johnson and you get a Notable Books honor. The same can be said for books about Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. Margaret Bourke-White not only won for a book that she wrote, two books about her were also named Notable Books. Can you say John Maynard Keynes and Douglas MacArthur twice quickly. Did I mention John F. Kennedy?


Many of the Books Have Lasted

In my checking library catalogs, I found all the books that I checked were still available in Illinois somewhere. Most of the Notable Books of the last fifty years are still in my library's seventy library consortium. From the mid-1950s to the beginning lists, many of the titles that I searched are only available at colleges and universities. Of course, I was searching for the titles that I did not recognize. The more famous titles are available everywhere.


Reflection of Me

I was please to see books that I read on many of the lists from the late 1970s forward. I have often thought I had rather specialized tastes. Maybe I just fit a public librarian profile.

I also saw many books to try if I ever find the time. How about Popular Book: A History of America's Popular Taste by James D. Hart from 1950? I wonder what it would say to us now?

Take a look at the old ALA Notable Books lists. Allow a couple of hours.

Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference by Joanne Oppenheim

"Dear Tetsuzo,

I am going to miss you a great deal, as you must know. You have been one of my restorers-of-faith in the human spirit. I know that you will keep your courage and humor in the weeks and days that lie ahead, no matter what they may bring. ....

Clara E. Breed"


About four months after the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the War Relocation Authority (WRA) began moving all people of Japanese descent out of the Pacific states. For months newspaper columnists and racist organization leaders had been arguing that "Japs," naturally loyal to the Emperor they insisted, were a danger to our country as spies and saboteurs. From the outcry, most Americans would never learn until long after the war that most of the people imprisoned without any legal hearings were American citizens, second and third generation Japanese Americans, born in the United States. According to Joanne Oppenheim in Dear Miss Breed, no case of espionage was ever filed against any of the prisoners.

Few people stood up for the civil rights of the Japanese Americans. One who did was Clara E. Breed, the children's librarian at the San Diego Public Library. When their families began being removed from their homes and businesses, Breed distributed stamped postcards with her address to the children, asking that they send them back to her with their new addresses. She promised to send them books, magazines, and assorted items to help them in their new lives. As a result, Breed maintained dozens of correspondences throughout the war.

Breed also went public. She wrote articles on the children that were published in Library Journal and Horn Book, which garnered donations from other librarians nationwide. As a member of the the Newbery-Caldecott Committee of the American Library Association, she also received hundreds of review copies of books, most of which were sent to children in the concentration camps.

As Breed would have liked, Oppenheim concentrates on the children in this book. Most spent a couple of years at first the Santa Anita racetrack in California (living in smelly stables) and then in the extreme desert heat of Poston, Arizona. She used the letters that they sent to Breed, testimony at Congressional hearings, and interviews for much of her content. Sadly, she has only located one surviving letter written by Breed to the children. Several of her children do, however, still have the books that she sent to them.

Dear Miss Breed is an attractive book, which includes photos of and art from the children. It should attract many readers in school and public libraries. Currently most public libraries have it in their children's or teen collections, which I support, but they also need to put copies where adults will find them. Older folks should not miss out on this fine book.

Oppenheim, Joanne. Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference. Scholastic Nonfiction, 2006. ISBN 0439569923

Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell: 2007 Audiobook

For years I have heard about the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, which was first published in 2000, but I had not gotten around to checking it out. What "tipped" me to finally read it was that an audiobook version was available at my library. As Gladwell says, little things like that matter. With the book loaded on my iPod, I listened while I worked in the yard and garden.

What I did not realize until the end was that I was listened to a new version with an afterward updating the story. In the extra twenty plus minutes Gladwell, who does an excellent job of reading his own book, tells about some reactions to his suggestions about starting word-of-mouth social epidemics. One of these was that the Karma Foundation offered Tipping Point Grants to New Jersey public libraries.

I've heard the book described as a marketing text. I usually dislike marketing publications because they seem to be about manipulating people, not serving them. The Tipping Point, however, seemed to me an entertaining philosophical text about close observation to discover what people want in their daily lives. I enjoyed it.

The Weeding of Compassionate Conservatism

Nancy at my library recently left a couple of dozen books about politics and government on the weeding cart for us to consider. Among the many that it was easy to withdraw from our collection because they were obviously dated and no longer being read was Compassionate Conservatism by Marvin Olasky with a foreward by George W. Bush. I remembered this as a book that was hot during the 2000 presidential campaign. It was reported that it contained the principles that guided Mr. Bush as governor of Texas and that he would use as president if elected. According to Nancy's notes, the book, which we acquired in 2000, was not borrowed from our library until 2003 and had not been borrowed ever again. So, it had just one circ in seven years. It should be easy to withdraw based on local non-performance.

However, I hesitated to dump it. Wasn't it supposed to be an important book in our continuing political debate? Was it a fluke that it did so poorly at my library?

I checked the records on the SWAN database, which is shared by almost eighty libraries. Eleven libraries currently own the book. I have no way of knowing if others have already withdrawn it. Of the eleven copies, two have been borrowed in 2007 and one went out in 2006. Our is next in line as most recently borrowed. The other seven have not been out since 2000, 2001, or 2002. Only one copy, the one held by the largest library of the eleven, has as many as eleven circs. Most have four or fewer circs. Most of the larger libraries in our system do not currently own the book. I suspect these libraries have already tossed it. It seems it would be easy to do likewise.

I love to weed books, but still, I hesitated. I wondered whether I would be throwing out an important bit of history if I weeded the book. On the other hand, I feared I would just be cluttering the shelves with another dead book if I kept it.

I started to actually read the book and my answer became obvious. Compassionate Conservatism is really just a follow up to The Tragedy of American Compassion by Olasky, which was published in 1992. The Tragedy of American Compassion is the book that had the endorsement of conservative politicians. Compassionate Conservatism reports on Olasky's visits to states and cities where the principles were being applied in the late 1990s. It seems incidental and includes what are now old statistics in need of being revised.

There are still ten more copies of this book in the system should we need it.

We are freeing seven eighths of an inch on our shelves.

Darwin's Origin of the Species by Janet Browne

Charles Darwin was a quiet, humble man, unlikely to stir up trouble. Still his key work, a book that he issued in seven editions, shook the foundations of society, making some doubt their religious convictions, letting others espouse new theories of science, anthropology, and sociology. In Darwin's Origin of the Species: A Biography, Janet Browne tells the story of the author, the writing of his book, its initial reception, and its legacy.

Is this a biography of the author or of the book? I'd say it is mostly a story of the book. While the initial chapters tell about Darwin's childhood when he read his grandfather's books on natural selection and about his five years as science officer on the Beagle, it is mostly about getting the book written and the reaction to it.

I particularly liked reading about how Darwin maintained friends and colleagues worldwide from his refuge in rural England. He wrote over 500 letters per year at a point when the postal service was more efficient and quicker than ever before. His book was published at a time when the book trade was expanding and review journals were proliferating. The result was a well marketed science book read by the public at large. Some scientists and religious leaders objected immediately, but they were not as well organized as Darwin's supporters. The quiet biologist became a best selling author.

Browne suggests that there is more opposition to the ideas in Darwin's book now than ever before, so this is a good time to revisit the work. This title from the Books That Changed the World series is a good addition to school and public libraries.

Browne, Janet. Darwin's Origin of the Species: A Biography. Atlantic Monthly, 2006. ISBN 9780871139535

Harry Potter Goes to Camp

Three Reading Harry Potter
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Ever heard of synchronized reading?

Laura and her friends spent the first two days at camp reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Each had a copy of the book. As each finished a chapter, she waited for the other two to finish so they could discuss what had happened in the story. Of course, there was a lot of whispering from the back of the van where they started the book as we drove from Illinois through Indiana to Saugatuck, Michigan. Then the whispering was from the porch of our cabin or from the girls' bedroom. They did not want to spoil the story for those of us waiting our turns for the book.

It was a Harry Potter camp. There were three copies of the new book in our cabin, and the Karstens also had three copies. Various counts had between 14 and 18 copies among the 80 people at camp. Everywhere you looked, someone had a copy.

We are back from camp now and everyone in the family has had a turn. I finished Monday night after we got back. I do not want to spoil the story for anyone, so I'll just say that people who enjoyed the first six will enjoy the new book, too.

A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States by Timothy J. Henderson

Growing up in Texas, I studied the state's history in 5th, 7th, and 12th grades of public school. I know the stories of Stephen Austin's colony, the Alamo, the Battle of San Jacinto, and the years of the Republic of Texas quite well. The presentation was always, of course, from the viewpoint of the victors. In A Glorious Defeat, Timothy J. Henderson examines the Mexican part in the war or wars. (Do you count the Texas Revolution as part of the U.S. War with Mexico?) Rather than assign blame, he examines the social, economic, and political forces in Mexico leading up to and existing through the war. Then he describes the legacy for both countries.

The central point is that many Mexican leaders knew that their country would lose the war before the fighting ever started. The young country, independent from Spain for only fifteen years when the Texas colonists rebelled, was poor, sparsely populated, and politically divided. The liberals wanted to form a democracy, while the conservatives wanted to establish a European style monarchy. The political sides only agreed that the United States was taking advantage of their country's weakness. Most of the leaders foresaw the inevitable loss of Texas, New Mexico, and California. So, why did they reject U.S. purchase offers and fight a losing battle?

According to Henderson, fighting the U.S. was seen by the Mexicans as patriotic and opposing the war became politically suicidal. Few dared to speak up, and they were exiled or executed. As a result, the military drafted poor and native peoples (few of the landed or merchant classes served) and sent them on military campaigns without weapons, food, or clothing. Many died of starvation or disease before battle. Desertion was rampant.

While Henderson concentrates on telling the story of the country as a whole, he does include tales of key figures, such as Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Vicente Guerrero, and Anastacio Bustamente. The saddest of the stories is about General Manuel de Mier y Teran, who commits suicide rather than see all his grim predictions come true.

Many public libraries are short on materials about this war that preceded and in ways led to the American Civil War. It is a good purchase and a good read.

Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States. New York: Hill & Wang, 2007. ISBN 9780809061204

Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject by Meryle Secrest

"... I must see the purpose of biography as not just to record but to reveal." Meryle Secrest

Meryle Secrest has been writing biographies for about thirty years. Readers find art historians, artists, architects, and musicians, living or deceased, among the subjects of her first nine books. In Shoot the Widow, she tells about meeting her subjects and interviewing their families, friends, enemies, and other associates. As you might imagine, many of these people have been more interested in their reputations than in honesty.

One of her most interesting projects was writing Kenneth Clark: A Biography. She first interviewed Clark when writing her first two books, biographies of the artist Romaine Brooks and of the art critic/dealer Bernard Berenson. When she asked to write about him, Clark seemed receptive and granted many interviews over several years. His sons and wife, however, tried to limit her access. As his health slid toward his eventual death, he became less reliable. She found herself often in the uncomfortable position of accepting hospitality from the Clarks while knowing they would not approve of what she was writing.

To avoid repeating her difficulties with the Clarks, Secrest did not plan to meet Salvadore Dali, but the invitation came and she felt she could not refuse. On the day of her visit (it can hardly be called an interview), she was told not to tell the bed-ridden and mostly listless Dali that she was writing about him. She practiced an elaborate French greeting, which fell flat. She tried to limit the conversation to safe topics, but the meeting ended quickly when she mentioned Dali's recently deceased wife.

Frank Lloyd Wright had been dead for several decades before she started a book about him, but his family and students were just as difficult as those protecting living subjects. She began her book about Leonard Bernstein the day he died. Writing this book led to writing about Stephen Sondheim, who was mostly cooperative but sometimes challenged her actions.

Throughout the book, Secrest questions her own methods, trying to find the fine line between ethical and unacceptable behavior for a biographer. Readers interested in the issues involved in the writing of books will enjoy Shoot the Widow. Readers in search of good stories will be entertained, too.

Secrest, Meryle. Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject. New York: Knopf, 2007. ISBN 9780307264831

Book Review Blogs for You to Try

I will be away from this blog for about a week. In the meantime, I have some new book reviewing blogs to recommended to you.

Tiny Little Reading Room - The author is a children's/teens' librarian who is trying to keep up with her reading challenges and is telling us about the books she is reading. I especially like how she lays out and labels her reviews. She includes sections a summary of the book, a reason why she chose the book, and her overall impression. She may also include a favorite quote from the text, as in her review of Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind.

Running with Books - Melissa Stoeger of the Deerfield Public Library has begun a blog of book reviews and news. So far most of the titles have been high interest titles like A Thousand Splendid Suns and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I like how she sometimes adds news into the reviews, such as telling us about the three books that Michael Chabon has scheduled for publication.

Brooklyn Book Talk - The Brooklyn Public Library, fifth largest library system in the U.S., with sixty neighborhood libraries, is using a blog as a platform for book discussions. You can see how the discussion on The Night Watch by Sarah Waters is going.

All of these have been added to the Librarian's Book Revoogle.

Harry Potter Party in Downers Grove

Book as Costume
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

A crowd of readers moved on downtown Downers Grove last night, awaiting the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Among the many activities was a costume contest. I did not hear who won, but my favorite was the girl who came as the book. In her interview with Anderson's Book Shop staff, she said that it took her three days to make her costume.

There were lots of Hogwart's student robes, many also sporting the Gryffindor scarf. The scarves looked pretty sharp with the black robes or black t-shirts. I think I know what I want for Christmas.

Of course, our reason for being there was to pick up the book, but there were several hours of party before midnight, so we visited Honey Dukes for chocolates. We also watched a bit of human-sized chess and saw wandmaking.

Bonnie had ticket #45. We had the book by 12:03. She started reading in the car on the way home. Laura gets the book next. I am last in line, which is good because I then get to take my time enjoying it.

More photos are on Flickr. Click the photo.

***************

I notice that iTunes does not have Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I wonder why.

How Doctors Think by Jerome E. Groopman

In How Doctors Think, Jerome E. Groopman is concerned with misdiagnosis of patients' diseases. Early in the text he says that more harm is done through misdiagnosis than through outright mistakes, such as removing the wrong kidney or giving incorrect dosages of drugs. These headline catching mistakes are rare, but treating wrong diseases are not.

Groopman believes the problem stems from physicians not taking time to listen to their patients. He mentions that studies show doctors often interrupt their patients within seconds of the patients starting to explain their condition. The doctors start almost immediately asking narrowing questions. The author says that these physicians have often already started reaching conclusions when they have only slight evidence. Important clues that the patients know are never uncovered by the medical professionals. The book includes many harrowing stories in which patients were treated for the wrong condition because the doctors rushed diagnosis.

Groopman's prescription for doctors is learning to do better interviews, asking open ended-questions and listening. As a reference librarian, I can not help but take notice of this. This is exactly the mandate for the reference interview. First determine what the client really is asking. Let them speak. Time spent at the beginning of the process saves time changing directions later. Perhaps there should be library classes in medical school, and medical students should spend some time at a reference desk.

Groopman's book is already very popular. Every library should have it.

Groopman, Jerome E. How Doctor's Think. Houghton Mifflin, 2007. ISBN 9780618610037

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.