Cookie, the Major Mitchell's Cockatoo

Cookie, the Major Mitchell's Cockatoo
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

Bonnie and I often go to the Brookfield Zoo on New Year's Day, which is open every day of the year. Being a cold snowy day, there were not many people about the place, so we had good views wherever we went. We were glad that we went, for we saw many active animals, many exhibiting interesting behaviors, such as howling or calling. Hudson the polar bear was playing a blue plastic toy. We saw the baby gibbon from afar. A quartet of penguins was rapidly swimming around in the Living Coast tank. A guenon was howling in th Tropic World indoor rainstorm.

On most of trips to the zoo, we stop by the Perching Bird House to see Cookie, its oldest resident. Cookie was there when the zoo open in 1934. No one really knows how old he is. At his latest physical exam, his bone density was low, so he now has a special sunlamp to help him get more vitamin D.

I posted another photo of Cookie, a nice orangutan shot, and many snow scene photos in a folder on Flickr called Snowy Day at Brookfield Zoo. Take a look.

Mozart by Peter Gay

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died too soon. He was still young, at the height of his artistic achievement, and had a commission to finish, a requiem mass. Novelists, dramatists, and filmmakers have made much of this tragedy. In Mozart, his short collection of biographical essays about the composer, his family, and his music, biographer Peter Gay admits the story is sad but insists that the musical genius had enjoyed much of his life, despite his overbearing father, poverty, and failure to gain high appointments. His peers admired him, and his poverty was mostly self-induced (from enjoying himself too much). Gay's Mozart is a man who lived mostly as he pleased and would have done well with just a little more luck.

Gay emphasizes the brilliance of the music. His chapter that tells about Mozart's transformation from a prodigy to a mature composer is enthusiastic. I now want to devote some time listening to symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and operas. He also suggests that Mozart had a genius for characterization and story and could have written plays.

I listened to this early volume from the Penguin Lives Series read by Alexander Adams. I enjoy listening to Adams, who has many audiobooks to his credit. I always feel that he is just telling me a story that interests him very much.

People who enjoyed the movie Amadeus or who are interested in music history will enjoy this book. Many library own it.

Gay, Peter. Mozart. Viking, 1999. ISBN 0670882380.

AIA Guide to the Twin Cities by Larry Millett

In late March 2008, many public librarians will be in Minneapolis at the Public Library Association National Conference. Because I am attending the conference, I am reading parts of AIA Guide to the Twin Cities by Larry Millett.

In this architectural guide, Minneapolis precedes St. Paul. In the Central Core section, downtown Minneapolis just north of the convention center is in the first section, sixty buildings and two special features of the area are described and reviewed. The special features are the Nicollet Mall and the Minneapolis Skyway System.

The Nicollet Mall is one of the few pedestrian malls that were designed in cities in the late 1950s and 1960s to have survived. It is a twelve-block-long shopping district with restricted traffic (only buses and cabs). Somewhere along this way, Mary Tyler Moore threw her hat in the air. (I wonder if there is a plaque.)

The skyway system is a network of bridges and walkways that lets people walk between buildings without going outdoors. Here is a map showing skyway with the hotels. It looks like there is a possibility of taking wrong turns and getting lost. If the weather is good, it would be faster to hit the streets instead. The author says that the skyway is popular because of the severe winters in the city, but he regrets that it reduces street traffic vital to retail businesses.

So, it seems that the city pulls you outside with the pedestrian mall and pulls you inside with the skyway. Perhaps it is nice to have the choice.

Back to the architecture. I want to see the Minneapolis Public Library. Millett says that the interior is "suave and gracious, the library delivers that most precious of architectural gifts - the natural daylight." He then compares the exterior to a stack of glass trays, four on one side and five on the other, with an awkward wing that swings up. I need to see it for myself.

There are also AIA Guides for Boston, Chicago, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Millett, Larry. AIA Guide to the Twin Cities. Minnesota Historical Society, 2007. ISBN 9780873515405

28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen

Who has AIDS in Africa? Between twenty-five and thirty million people do. Because it is so difficult to understand and care for so many unfortunate people, journalist Stephanie Nolen chose to write about a limited number of individuals with the disease, who have lost family, and/or who treat the victims of the disease. 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa works out to about one story for every one million victims.

Nolen spent six years following the AIDS crisis around Africa. In that time she met people in many countries, revisiting them as their disease progressed or regressed. Her contacts included miners and their wives, truck drivers, soldiers, subsistence farmers, teachers, clergy, shop owners, and sex workers. She visited with grandmothers who cared for all their grandchildren because an entire generation of parents was missing. She also visited children who were on their own, trying to live inconspicuously in dangerous neighborhoods. Many of the stories make you want to cry. Others surprise you with how long the victims have survived.

A theme that runs through the book is that the West does not really understand the epidemic and often acts in ways that worsen the situation. Western governments pledge funds that are never actually delivered, or, when they are, come with conditions that lessen the aid. The donors often require the African governments to use funds to buy more expensive medicines from their own countries, limiting the number of doses that can be purchased. They also like to demand reductions in government bureaucracies so debts can be paid, which, of course, results in reductions in health personnel in hospitals and clinics, making distribution of medicines more difficult.

Many think that the situation is hopeless and write the continent off. Nolen's message is that there is hope. She discusses how some prevention and treatment programs have made progress and could make more if the wealthy nations would offer more helpful help.

Nolen also shows how African governments and cultures have often made the situation worse, too. Here again, she offers evidence that some governments are being to understand their problems. Some of the individuals profiled were the first people to admit having AIDS in their communities. Initially, many were shunned but tolerance is growing as more people suffer deaths in their families.

Nolen provides a list of organizations providing help to African AIDS victims in the back of this important work.

All public libraries should get this book into the hands of their readers.

Nolen, Stephanie. 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa. Walker and Company, 2007. ISBN 9780802715982

Best Book Lists Abound

I enjoy the end of the year when best book lists are everywhere - in newspapers, magazines, websites, and blogs. There are always items that catch my eye that I passed over first time around. Here are a few lists that look particularly interesting to me.

Best Books of 2007 from Reader’s Advisor OnlineReader

Book Sense Picks

Economist Books of the Year

Ten Best Historical Novels by Sarah Johnson of Reading the Past

Best of 2007 from the Village Voice

800-CEO-READ Best Business Books

ricklibrarian's Books That Matter 2007 and Other Awards

It's that time again, Many newspapers, magazines, journals, and other media are publishing their best books lists. One that I found particularly useful was "Books That Shine," a list of cookbooks from 2007 in the Good Eating section of the Chicago Tribune, December 12, 2007, page 1. I ordered six or eight books for the library from this list. I enjoy and benefit much from the end-of-the-year lists.

For the second year, I am now presenting my own best of the year list. Some, but not all, do tend toward the serious side. I am also adding some music, film, and library awards, all chosen through personal deliberation. I hope that you find something of interest to you in the list.

Not every item chosen is actually from 2007. My encounter with each was in 2007.

Recent Nonfiction

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. HarperCollins, 2007. ISBN 0060852550

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

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

Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007. ISBN 1565124383

Johnny Cash: The Biography by Michael Streissguth. Da Capo Press, 2006. ISBN 0306813688

Killed Cartoons: Casualties from the War on Free Expression. Norton, 2007. ISBN 9780393329247

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. ISBN 0374105235

Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route by Saidiya Hartman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. ISBN 0374270821

The New York Botanical Garden. Abrams, 2006. ISBN 0810957442

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Doubleday, 2007. ISBN 0385516401

Stolen Voices: Young People's War Diaries, from World War I to Iraq. Penguin Books, 2006. ISBN 9780143038719

A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith by Anna-Lisa Cox. Little, Brown and Company, 2006. ISBN 0316110183

Best Old Book Newly Discovered

Adventures of a Biographer by Catherine Drinker Bowen. Little, Brown, 1959

Poetry

Domestic Violence: Poems by Eavan Boland. Norton, 2007. ISBN 0393062414

Library Science

Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries by Sarah Houghton-Jan. ALA Techsource, March/April 2007. ISSN 0024-2586.

Movies

Away from Her

The Lives of Others (I never wrote the review)

Nuovomondo

The U.S. vs. John Lennon

Television

Simon Schama's The Power of Art

Music

Love by the Beatles

Living with War by Neil Young

Book Review Blogs

Librarian's Blog

Pop Goes Fiction

Library's Blog

Newton Reads

Best Presentation at a Library Conference

He Reads ... She Reads ... with David Wright of Seattle Public Library and Katie Mediatore of Kansas City Public Library, Missouri.

I now look forward to another year of reading good books. Have any suggestions?

Rumpole Misbehaves by John Mortimer

Rumpole is back with more cases at the Old Bailey. This time he is himself a defendant as his own chambers tries to have him served with an ASBO (Anti-Social Behavior Order) because he is eating, drinking, and smoking in his office. At the same time he is trying to gain a QC (Queen's Council) appointment so he can "wear silk."

From Rumpole Misbehaves by John Mortimer, American readers can learn a lot about British law while laughing at silly characters like Samuel "Soapy" Ballard and Claude Erskine-Brown. Mortimer really is a lawyer, and in this new book he criticizes the ASBO for its excessive regulating of behavior. He is not alone, as the Guardian also reports on its misuse.

Of course, learning about British law is not the real reason to read Rumpole books, which have been coming out since the 1970s. Having read bunches of them, I simple enjoy the continuing story of the aging junior member suffering through the schemes of his wife Hilda (She Who Must Be Obeyed), defending the Timson family in court, and solving a murder case.

Libraries should add this new title to their collection of Rumpole books and DVDs.

Mortimer, John. Rumpole Misbehaves. Viking, 2007. ISBN 9780670018307

Christmas Gifts That Really Matter

For Christmas, my aunt Marian Sue sent me a CD loaded with old photos. Most are of ancestors, but I appeared in this one, in which I seem to be eating pancakes with my hands while my grandmother pours more syrup. I still like pancakes.

I hope your Christmas, Hanukkah, or other holiday presents are just as wonderful.

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Helfer with Art by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton

Ronald Reagan seems to be a perfect subject for a graphic novel biography, especially one in black-and-white. As an actor, he often played rather comic book figures, and his world view was rather uncomplicated. There were good guys and bad guys. Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Helfer with art by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton reflects these ideas and presents the former president as simply a man who sought fame.

The statement on the back cover claims that Reagan would have enjoyed this telling of his life. He might have, as he seemed to be a person with a sense of humor. He was rarely upset. Besides, for an actor there is no such thing as bad publicity. His fans and the people who worship his legacy may not be so please. I notice that the book is not for sale at the website for the shop at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation.

The book starts in a reverential tone as it tells about Reagan's death and funeral. Then it shows his birth and childhood, college days, early days in radio, and arrival in Hollywood in a mostly positive tone. Only when the story reaches his involvement in the actors union and politics does he become flawed. As depicted by Helfer, Buccellato, and Staton, Reagan seems to have no qualms about the political positions he takes. In his mind he is always right and there is no doubt about it. Winning elections and pushing his agenda become more important than truth and fairness. When Reagan refuses to let his speech writer correct an easily-verifiable factual error in a State of the Union speech because he insists it makes a better story than the truth, the reader knows that Reagan's act has become more important than actual service to the nation.

The final pages seem reverential again. The effect is like tacking a happy ending to a tragic movie.

With so many of the recent books portraying him positively, Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Novel can be seen as a needed balancing viewpoint. Being somewhat sketchy, it can only serve as an introduction, but it does suggest further reading in the back pages. It can go either in the graphic novel section or biography section in public libraries.

Helfer, Andrew. Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography. Hill and Wang, 2007. ISBN 9780809095070

Between Barack and a Hard Place: Second City of Chicago's 94th Revue

Last night Bonnie and I attended Between Barack and a Hard Place, a hilarious revue at Second City in Chicago. Without prior knowledge, we were there on the 48th anniversary of the comedy club's founding in an old Chinese laundry in 1959. We got to sing "Happy Birthday" to the club at the beginning of the third set of the evening.

As you can guess from the title, the revue had a good bit of political humor. The members of the troupe began by all declaring that they were Barack Obama, representing every ethnic group and special interest in the country. This theme is repeated throughout the revue with variations. Other sketches deal with terrorism, minor countries that support U. S. occupation of Iraq, tax preparations, smoking in the workplace, and the campaign of Hillary Clinton. Two musical pieces that I particularly liked featured Meagan Flanigan singing a love song to Al Gore and Amber Ruffin singing about why it is a good time to be black.

Other than Obama and Clinton, no other presidential candidates were mentioned in the show. Public libraries were mentioned in the bungling terrorists sketch.

Not all the humor was political. Many of the skits revolved around the problems of being socially awkward. The comedians parodied couples entertaining other couples, students on dates, and workers discussing their sexual orientations. There was not time for applauding because you kept laughing.

One of the pleasures of attending Second City performances is wondering whether you will see any of the players later on television and in movies. So many alums have gone on to great careers in comedy and acting. We may have some trouble being certain of who we saw last night. The photos on the playbill insert are a bit grainy. We are sure that Flanigan and Ruffin were there. Dave Colan was also obviously Dave Colan. Was the guy in the glasses Joe Canale? Was the guy who played Lincoln Tim Sniffen? Who was the other guy? He most definitely did not look like Ithamar Enriquez.

The third and final set for the night was impromptu skits. The players asked the audience for ideas and did "something wonderful right away." Some of the biggest laughs of the night came in these skits.

Here is a bit of advise for attending The Second City, which I recommend:

• Wear warm clothes if you are going in winter. We are not sure whether there was any heat. The crowd did not warm the club.
• Park in the garage just west the club. Unless you park at roof level, you can get in and out without being in the rain or snow. Like the club, it is still cold and there may be ice to avoid while walking into the building. While there is snow, the side streets are a poor choice, as the plowed snow traps lots of cars.
  
• The waiters and waitresses will keep a running tab for you into the second set of the revue. There are nonalcoholic drinks, food, and desserts available in the club.
  
• There are numerous restaurants in the immediate area. Even suburbanites will recognize the chains.

Libraries with comedy collections should consider the books and DVDs for sale by Second City.

51 Birch Street: A Film Discussion Guide

Last night at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library, we had one of the best film discussions that I have ever witnessed. Fourteen people came to see the documentary 51 Birch Street by filmmaker Doug Block. In this film, which begins when his mother dies, he seeks to learn why his father would remarry within three months of her death. Was his parents' 54-year marriage a happy one? When his father decides to sell the family home, he and his sisters come to sort through all the possessions. They discover 30 years worth of journals written by the late mother.

After the film ended, the discussion began and lasted for half a hour. I did not need a list of questions or to even direct the conversation. Here are questions that the viewers asked and discussed.

1. Is it right to read a deceased person's journals? How would you know whether they intended them to be read? Would you want to know what is in your parent's journals?
2. Would you trust what was written in a journal?
   
3. Why do children dislike the idea of a surviving parent remarrying? Should there be a period of grief observed before remarrying? When life expectancy is already short, is there a reason to wait?
   
4. Was Block's mother depressed? Did the traditional housewife role doom her? Would she have enjoyed life more if she had a job? Did psychotherapy help her?
5. Was Block's parents' marriage a mistake? Were they just not compatible? Was she incapable of love or was he incapable? Was making do for so many years acceptable?
   
6. Did Block's father have an affair? What constitutes "an affair"? How did he reconnect with his new wife so quickly after more than thirty years?
   
7. Why do Block's sisters disappear in the latter part of the movie?
8. Is Block honest about his own feelings about marriage?
9. How do fathers and sons learn to accept each other? What right does Block have to ask his father such personal questions?

I was struck by the sheer amount of stuff that in the Block house after 50 years. It is so funny and sad how the father keeps trying to get the son take some of the things that he has saved for so many years.

I had thought that the film might be terribly sad, but it was not. Block takes the film in directions that the audience does not expect, probably because he was very surprised by the developments. I recommend it to public library discussion groups.

The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg

Four out of six said they disliked the book. It was "dry," "long," "boring," etc. Three of them did not finish reading it. Still, they joined in a very lively discussion of The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg at our monthly church book group.

Of course, I found the book fascinating and compelling. Having recently seen the movie Das Leden der Anderen (The Lives of Others), I wanted to learn more about the culture of distrust and betrayal prevalent in Soviet-block countries and how the end of communism had affected many lives. I was not disappointed, as The Haunted Land was filled with interesting stories about Czechoslovakia (before the split), Poland, and East Germany. I do admit, however, that the section on Poland focused too much on Wojciech Jaruzelski, the prime minister who declared martial law in 1981. It would have been more interesting to have read about Polish soldiers and intelligence agents under orders to suppress Solidarity. Like communist agents in the other countries, they must have had mixed feelings.

The section on Czechoslovakia discusses the lustrace laws, which were designed to keep communist collaborators out of public service in the post-communist government. The difficulty was that almost everyone other than youth had talked with intelligence officers at some point in their life. Many had provided sensitive information unwittingly. Because their names were on lists of informers, many talented people found themselves left out of the new government unfairly. Some lost their jobs, and there was no method to challenge the rulings.

My favorite section of the book deals with East Germany. According to Rosenberg's account, the Stasi records on individuals were opened to the public after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many people who went to read their own files discovered that their friends and family had informed on them. Others found that sympathetic Stasi had actually shielded them by writing false reports. Viewers of The Lives of Others will conclude that the actions of agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler were not unbelievable.

The Haunted Land is now a historical work, as much has changed in twelve years in the formerly communist countries. Though it will never be a popular book, this National Book Award winner is still worth reading for it captures a moment in time when it was difficult to judge guilt and innocence and to know when forgiveness should be offered. Retain your copy if you have one.

Rosenberg, Tina. The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism. Random House, 1995. ISBN 0679422153

Moooving Art

Moooving Art
Originally uploaded by ricklibrarian.

From Sarah at LibrarianInBlack I learned about the museum photo toys at Dumpr. You can put your favorite photos into art gallery scenes. You can insert photos directly from your computer or from Flickr. Then you can send it to Flickr, send in an email, or save to your computer. It is very easy, fun, and free.

Here is one of my favorites from my November trip to West Texas. I also have an entire folder of cattle photos from the family ranch, if you like to look at cattle. The calves are sort of cute. They don't really stay that way very long, except in nice photos.

Enjoy.

The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History by David Freedberg

In writing my reference book on biography, I have been seeking out group biographies, books in which the several individuals are profiled (perhaps with chapters) and their relationships described. I think it was in the bookshop at the Morton Arboretum that I first saw The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History by David Freedberg. I may have seen it in a catalog from the University of Chicago Press. Perhaps I read a review. I am uncertain, but I did see it somewhere and placed a request for the book. It landed on my desk late last week.

Now I have the book in my hands, and it weighs a ton. The high quality paper and the binding are appropriate for an art book, which it is. It is also a history of science text, which includes beautiful reproductions of scientific illustrations from various members of the Academy of Linceans, a seventeenth century Italian organization founded by Prince Federico Cesi in 1603. Though Galileo was a member, most of the illustration (some in color) are from other members. Because they were a diverse lot, there are drawing of the planets, plants, insects, mammals, birds, and fossils.

What is important about this group is that they pioneered methods of dissecting specimens and drew structures not apparent from a glance at the exterior surfaces. There was some drama in their lives, for in the wake of Galileo's trial for heresy, their revolutionary drawings were dangerous. Because church authorities discouraged studies that contradicted accepted explanations of nature, they only shared their work among trusted friends.

The story of how Freedberg came to write this book is included. He found a cupboard full of old drawings in Windsor Castle about which there was little information. He began an investigation, which took him across Europe in search of more drawings and the identities of the Linceans.

The reader of The Eye of the Lynx learns much about the study of natural history and how the art of drawing advanced the sciences, but personal details about the men involved are pretty buried in this text. So, I am not adding it to my biography book, but I want to recommend it to someone who enjoys botanic and zoological drawings. You may have to request it from a special or academic library.

Freedberg, David. The Eye of the Lynx: Galileo, His Friends, and the Beginnings of Modern Natural History. University of Chicago Press, 2002. ISBN 0226261476.

In Hiring, Is Your Library the New York Yankees or the Minnesota Twins?

My way of thinking about hiring reference librarians has been challenged. I had not even realized that I had an assumption about practices regarding large and small libraries and the individuals that they add to their teams. Now I see there is another viewpoint, which has some merit. Of course, reality falls between the philosophies.

It has been said that to understand America, you must understand baseball. I think baseball modeling can apply to libraries, too. So, I ask this question:

Is your library the New York Yankees or the Minnesota Twins?

I have always thought that smaller public libraries take a more Minnesota Twins approach to hiring librarians. Not able to offer the highest salaries, smaller libraries tend to choose recent library school graduates (fresh from their farm teams) and put them in the lineup. They then field questions at the reference desk and go to bat for the libraries to order books, plan events, and design websites. These rookies bring a lot of excitement into the smaller libraries and develop a strong fan following.

After a few years, these librarians elect to become free agents and hire themselves to new teams at higher salaries. Larger libraries, like the New York Yankees, are always looking for veteran players who excel in the game. These institutions accumulate the stars, the heavy hitters, the gold glove librarians who will make few errors.

It was suggested to me recently that this thinking is all wrong and that new librarians should start with the big libraries and that the smaller libraries need the veterans. New librarians need the mentors and the greater resources available in the big libraries. In small libraries, where a librarian may often be alone without another professional on deck, a veteran will know what to do in difficult situations and need few reference tools because she will know how to get the answers from what she has on hand.

This challenge has made me look around, and I see that both philosophies are in practice. Recent graduates go to both small and large libraries. They learn a lot when they are the only players on the field, or they benefit from being with vets in a full lineup. Veteran librarians are sometimes moving to smaller libraries where they may be more comfortable than in large organizations. Sadly, no one is throwing money around like the Yankees.

Ironically, when I think about my career, I realize that I actually started at a fairly large library and then moved to a small library. Subsequently I worked for a big organization and then a small one again. I will take my bat and glove wherever I am needed.

Few of us are like Craig Biggio, Kirby Puckett, or Robin Yount, staying with one team. Most of us aspire to be Don Baylor or Nolan Ryan, starring for several libraries.

Put me in coach! Let's play two!

From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad by Jacqueline L. Tobin

Sometimes titles deceive. In choosing From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad as her title, Jacqueline L. Tobin has shortchanged her book, which is about much more than the transport of escaped American slaves before the Civil War. Instead, she depicts racial conditions in various regions before the war and explains how regional differences destabilized the continent. She tells about the abolitionist movement and the press it spawned, the passing of the Fugitive Slave bill and its application (or lack of) in various states, organizations to aid fugitives once they reach free lands, and the development of black communities in Canada. Her book is more about the context in which the Underground Railroad ran than about the running of the Railroad.

What does it matter? Well, student looking for escape stories or descriptions of the routes taken by fugitives will be disappointed by Tobin's book. There are, however, many other books with these stories. What the author contributes to the literature are stories of the black communities in Canada, like Buxton, Sandwich, Wilberforce, and Dawn. Getting to Canada was not the end of the story. The fugitives did not all live happily ever after. There were hard winters, lands to plow, good and bad neighbors, bills to pay, rights to be earned. Abolitionists in the U.S. spent much time reporting on and debating the merits of these communities. Should they send aid or would blacks better learn self-reliance if they got no aid? Should free blacks receive the same help as fugitives? What agreements went with the aid, such as temperance or church attendance? Could the communities serve as models for forming black communities in the South after Emancipation?

Readers of From Midnight to Dawn learn much about the abolitionist press, which was far from united in mission. Some writers really wanted all the blacks sent back to Africa. Opinions about Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and about John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry varied. The role of women in abolition was also debated. Ironically, not much was said by abolitionists about the Underground Railroad, which needed secrecy to survive the Fugitive Slave Law.

Readers who think the 21st Century is remarkable for its communities divided by controversies need only read this book to see that nothing is new. Look for it in public libraries.

Tobin, Jacqueline L. From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad. Doubleday, 2006. ISBN 038551431X

Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte by Maureen Adams

Dog stories are pretty hot in the publishing world right now. It was only a matter of time before the trend would cross from the memoir camp to literary biography. Maureen Adams accomplished this feat with her new book Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte.

Dogs are known for their loyalty and freely-given companionship, which was something all of the women in this book needed. All of the dogs sat with their mistresses as they wrote their stories, poems, and essays. They also became subjects in some of their greatest works.

The best story in this book may be the first, that of Browning and her dog Flush. Caring for her dog got the young invalid out of bed and eventually led her to stand up against the wishes of her father, who refused to ransom the kidnapped dog. Browning defied him and arranged for the ransom to be paid to get her beloved dog back. She might never have eloped with Robert Browning had she not learned she could trump her father. Flush went with the couple to Italy, where he lived out his days happily.

After the story of Flush, Shaggy Muses is not a warm and fuzzy read. The remaining women had many problems, and their dogs sometimes played roles in disturbing episodes. In great anger over his getting on the furniture, Emily Bronte beat her dog Keeper savagely; she immediately regretted her outburst and nursed his injuries. This uncontrollable violence is reflected in incidents in Wuthering Heights.

Virginia Woolf wrote about her dog Pinka's feelings of loneliness instead of her own in letters to her lover Vita Sackville-West. Her husband Leonard also deflected some of his thoughts through the dogs in his messages to Virginia. No one seemed willing to admit their own feelings.

Late in life Woolf wrote Flush, a book about Browning's dog. Though it was supposed to be a quick, easy project, she spent over two years researching and writing what is now a mostly forgotten book. She realized what an important character Flush was and gave him full biographical treatment.

I enjoyed Shaggy Muses as both a dog book and as an easy introduction to the lives five literary women. The book deserves to be in more public libraries.

Adams, Maureen. Shaggy Muses: The Dogs Who Inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edith Wharton, and Emily Bronte. Ballantine Books, 2007. ISBN 9780345484062

The Canning Season by Polly Horvath

Needing an audiobook for a long, lonely drive from Iowa, wanting something to keep me awake, I looked at the teen collection in my library where I have found good books in the past. I choose The Canning Season by Polly Horvath based on the Chas Adams-like art work on the box. I think that I may have seen the title on recommended lists, but I knew nothing about it. Embracing the attitude of blind discovery, I checked it out.

I like some teen audiobooks because they have engaging characters and their stories move along at a quick pace. They often have irreverent viewpoints, satirizing adults who are bound by the conventions of the adult world. They also remind me how horrible and wonderful that it is to be young. For all these reasons, The Canning Season was a good choice.

The story starts in Pensacola, Florida. The central character is a girl named Ratchet, who has a "thing" on her left shoulder that she hides as commanded by her mother. Her single mother, who struggles to pay for their basement apartment and a few groceries, is really more grossed out by the "thing" than Ratchet herself, perhaps feeling guilt for the birth defect. In desperation, she sends her daughter up to Maine to spend a summer with her aged aunts Tilly and Penpen, who run a blueberry canning business on a remote estate. One aunt holds the shotgun and watches for bears while the other picks the wild blueberries in the woods.

The great aunts are twins who have spent years out in the woods in an old mansion with a telephone that accepts but does not make calls. The place is surrounded by bears, who may have eaten the servants years ago. Neither aunt has gotten a driver's license, but that does not stop "those queer Menuto women," who have a very old car that they take into town to get their mail once a week. They also have a pact to die together.

During the course of a long summer, they are joined by Harper, another abandoned teen, who longs for a good meal, an Internet connection, and a new swimsuit. Getting food onto the table and being civil to others are just two of the challenges the strange quartet face. As wickedly funny as The Canning Season is, it also becomes sweet near the end, as the four deal with aging, death, and commitment.

Read by actress Julie Dretzin, The Canning Season is a good audiobook for long, lonely drive.

Horvath, Polly. The Canning Season. Recorded Books, 2003. 5 CDs. ISBN 1402566069.

Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote

Since seeing the films Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006), I have planned to read something by Truman Capote. The obvious choice would have been to read In Cold Blood, which Bonnie and others recommended, but I planned to go for lesser works first. I thought about reading some short stories, but I never followed through. Then, back in October, I found a cheap paperback of his first novel Other Voices, Other Rooms at a book sale at the Iowa City Public Library. We bought it, and I started it while flying from San Angelo to Chicago via Dallas and Minneapolis. It certainly made a long day much shorter.

Capote's novel draws the reader into a strange world full of unusual characters right away. Twelve or thirteen year old Joel Knox is trying to get a ride to rural Noon City (in one of the southern states) from a trucker. He is bound for an old plantation called Skully's Landing where his father, whom he has never met, has invited him. The house and its inhabitants prove to be mysterious.

For about half the novel, I thought that it was a mystery. Why was Joel never able to actually see his father? Who was the woman he saw beckoning from a window? Why was he invited? I thought the answers to these questions would be cleverly revealed. Well, I never found the answers (maybe they were there), but the father was nominally present in the second half as if he had always been there. The issue of the unknown woman was dropped. I was confused.

Plot is not the strength of this book. In fact, it may be anti-plot. Like real life, something different happens every day and little is ever resolved. The reader is a witness. The strength is the descriptive prose. The reader can almost feel the heat and the dust, smell the sour beer, see the squalor, hear the flies buzzing.

What is the reader to make of it all? The easy conclusion is that Joel is a reflection of Capote's youth. His tomboy friend Idabel Thompkins is Harper Lee. They are outcasts of a society that is not worth joining. Still, no matter how much they protest, they do need some form of acceptance.
Other Voices, Other Rooms is a book that will appeal to readers who do not insist on nicely tidy stories. If you can get a group to read it, it is certainly worth discussing, if only to sort it all out.

Capote, Truman. Other Voices, Other Rooms. Vintage Books, 1994. ISBN o679745645

Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith

Much of what I like in Alexander McCall Smith books is humorous, but it is always based on real human emotions, like envy, pride, or insecurity. In Love Over Scotland, like in his other 44 Scotland Street novels, the characters struggle with these emotions to make ethical decisions. After a bad start with many misunderstandings, novelist Antonia Collie recognizes that she must reconcile herself to the gruff artist Angus Lordie to maintain her friendship with anthropologist Domenica Macdonald. Near the end of this book, Antonio has this moment of thought:

She arose from the chair and looked out the kitchen window. The sky was perfectly empty now, filled with light; the rooftops, grey-slated, sloping, pursued angles to each other, led the eye away. When Domenica came back, thought Antonia, I shall do something to show her how much I value our friendship. And Angus Lordie, too. He's a lonely man, and a peculiar one, but I can show him friendship and consideration too. And could I go so far as to love him? She thought carefully. Women always do this, she said to herself. Men don't know it, but we do. We think very carefully about a man, about his qualities, his behaviour, everything. And then we fall in love.

The reason Antonia is in the story is that Domenica has loaned the novelist her apartment in Edinburgh while she goes to tropical Malacca to study the rural village society of pirates. She has to negotiate an invitation to the village, where she learns of the death of a previous anthropologist. After dismissing an unreliable translator, she finds the true nature of piracy.

Meanwhile, her friend Pat is attending art history classes at the University of Edinburgh, where she meets a handsome young man who calls himself Wolf. He even likes to howl. Shy Pat does not know what to do about the attention he gives her, especially after her flatmate (his girlfriend) threatens her.

Fans of Bertie Pollock, the six year old who is studying Italian, learning to play the saxophone, and undergoing unwanted psychotherapy, will be please that he has more adventures in this new book. His parents again lose their car, and his mother insists that the Edinburgh Teenage Orchestra let him audition for its upcoming season and trip to Paris. Bertie, who just wants to be allowed to be normal, finds his early introduction to adolescence to his liking. He especially enjoys his free day in Paris.

Love Over Scotland is the third book in the 44 Scotland Street series, each of which ran in daily installments in The Scotsman newspaper. Readers do not have to start with 44 Scotland Street, but I think they will enjoy the series more if they do. All libraries need to have these books.

McCall Smith, Alexander. Love Over Scotland. Anchor Books, 2006. ISBN 9780307275981

Living with War by Neil Young

Listening to Living with War, Neil Young's 2006 CD, I feel thirty years younger. Like a teen who has just discovered a new musical hero, I'm listening to the album over and over again. Why did it take me so long to check it out?

Though I have always liked some of Young's music, he has never been one of my favorites. I have an old vinyl of Harvest and am always glad to hear "Cinnamon Girl" or "Ohio" but I have not collected Young. His voice is strained, and I never thought the work was consistent. Living with War surprised me with how good every song is. Most have a driving beat, and I enjoy the chorus that joins him on some of the songs. I'm not skipping any tracks when I listen. These songs all fit together well.

As you can guess if you have not listened, Living with War is a politically charged collection of protest songs. The title cut is an anthem for the peace movement. "Shock and Awe," "Flags of Freedom," "Families," and "Roger and Out" sing about the American war experience. "After the Garden" imagines how bad continuing years of war will be. "The Restless Consumer" is a rap song about corporation manipulation of truth. "Let's Impeach the President" is sure to upset George Bush supporters.

The CD has a companion website called Living with War Today. Videos of the recording of the songs, stories about the Iraq War, lists of protest songs by other musicians, and a clock counting down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds of the Bush presidency can be found on this page, which looks somewhat like a newspaper. If you have the sound up, you may listen to the CD.

A look at Worldcat shows that many libraries already have Living with War, which I give an grade A for excellence. I think it is the best thing Young's ever done.

Family Albums from Little, Brown and Company: A Warning

Reality tampering alert! There are two new books from Little, Brown and Company that present very sanitized portraits of their subjects. Frank Sinatra: The Family Album by Charles Pignone and Elvis Presley: The Family Album by George Klein are books written by personal friends with the support of family estates wanting to influence public perceptions. In both books happy times prevail.

The Frank Sinatra book is especially guilty of omitting anything unpleasant. After looking through it, I was almost convinced that Old Blue Eyes had been happily married to one woman all his life. He is shown in many home photos with his first wife Nancy, including some in which their grown children appear. His daughter Tina also looks a lot like her mother, perhaps aiding the illusion. Wives Ava Gardner (1951), Mia Farrow (1966), and Barbara Marx (1976) do not appear and are not mentioned in this book. I guess they are not considered family by the Sinatra estate.

While there are many photos of Sinatra with his entertainment friends, there are few with men who might be mob connections. Photos of his bad behavior are also missing. I guess this is to be expected from a book that suggests that it is a leather bound family keepsake.

The book about Elvis Presley is equally cleaned up. I think there are only a couple of photos that date after 1970. Elvis still looks young at the end of the book. In fact, there is no suggestion that Elvis died. On the other hand, there are some pretty scary-looking characters in the wedding photo on page 131 - especially the bride.

I searched through the Little, Brown website and the databases of Baker & Taylor to see if any more Family Albums are coming. I did not see any. I can imagine more of them: Ronald Reagan, Kurt Cobain, Judy Garland, etc.

Libraries may still want these attractive books, as fans will like them and students can find lots of photos to copy for their reports. We do present all points of view in the public library. These books are living proof.

Pignone, Charles. Frank Sinatra: The Family Album. Little, Brown, 2007. ISBN 0316003492

Klein, George. Elvis Presley: The Family Album. Little, Brown, 2007. ISBN 0316003506

Old Heart: Poems by Stanley Plumly

While it may be hard to imagine the typical poetry reader, I suspect many enjoy finding a story within the poem. I do. Having a narrative somehow anchors the ideas espoused by the poet. For this reason, I like many of the pieces by Stanley Plumly in his National Book Award nominated collection Old Heart.

The stories may be sketchy, episodic, brief, but there is a person or object, a scene, and an action. In "When He Fell Backwards into His Coffin" on page 50, Plumly tells of a man who died in the bathtub. Many people want the story to be happy and imagine that the man was enjoying a nice bath while listening to opera. Plumly reveals that the man was actually just sitting on the edge fully dressed when he had his final moment of thought. The truly shocking part of the poem is the last thought. The man remembers his mother holding his head down in the water.

"Debt" on pages 34-35 is a bit of memoir. He remembers three creditors standing in the yard with his father on a cold, blustery day, discussing the resolution of a debt. One man is measuring the yard in a threatening way. Plumly links the image to thoughts about debt and poverty from the poets Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and T. S. Eliot. He leaves us a mystery: did the family lose the house?

Like Robert Hass in Time and Materials, which won the National Book Award for poetry last week, Plumly writes often about birds. The poems include "Spirit Birds,""Magpie," and "Missing the Jays." I wonder about the other nominated poets.

My favorite poem in the collection might be "The Woman Who Shoveled Snow" on page 60. The poet observes and wonders about an older, poorly dressed woman who picks up extra cash by shoveling snowy sidewalks, a job usually performed by kids. In her need, perhaps to support a habit, she does a thorough job.

Old Heart is an accessible modern collection of poem that many readers may enjoy. It should be in many public libraries.

Plumly, Stanley. Old Heart: Poems. Norton, 2007. ISBN 9780393065688

Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr

How can I encourage you to read Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr? How about a paragraph showing his passion for the great old city?

"We came to Rome because we would always regret it if we didn't, because every timidity eventually turns into regret. But the enormity of what I don't know about this place never ceases to amaze me. In 1282, the Tuscan monk Ristoro d'Arezzo declared, "It is a dreadful thing for the inhabitants of a house not to know how it is made." Dreadful indeed. What I think he meant was that we ought to understand the earth we live on, its skies, its stones. We ought to understand why we live the lives we live. But I don't even understand the apartment building in which I live. How is linoleum made? Or window glass or porcelain? By what power does water rise to the third floor and pour out of this faucet?"

Coming to Rome was not easy for Doerr and his family, as the twins were only about six months old. It would have been much easier to stay comfortably in Boise, Idaho, but the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts was an offer that was too good to refuse. Can you imagine being paid and housed for a year in Rome so you could work on whatever you wished - your novel, your art, your research?

Doerr does not actually write much on his novel. The wonderful distractions of family and the ancient city are too much to ignore. He walks the streets of the city, looks in the museums and alleys, tastes the food, meets the neighbors. He and his wife visit surround villages. What he tells you makes you want to visit.

• You can lie on benches to look up at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.
• To see the Crucifixion of Saint Peter by Caravaggio you have to put coins in the vending box to turn on the spotlights.
• Giotto added ground lapis lazuli in the blue robes in his frescoes in Assisi.

The big event in Rome during Doerr's stay is the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Thousands of people young and old stream into the city during the pope's last days and sit in vigil. The lines to view the body are so long that many never reach their goal. Doerr wades into the crowd to feel the passion.

As interesting as the funeral reporting is, it is the descriptions of Rome and everyday dramas that make this book worth reading. It certainly substitutes well for the novel he has not written. Look for it at your library.

Doerr, Anthony. Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. Scribner, 2007. ISBN 9781416540014

At the Ranch in West Texas

I have been in West Texas for a little over a week with my mom. On Monday, I got to go out to the ranch north of Big Lake. I took over one hundred photos of cattle. The photo to the left is just one. Many of them include my mom's calves. I will be posting the better shots on Flickr when I get back to Illinois.

In the next post you will find my review of Wildlife by Richard Ford. In the story, fires are burning outside Great Falls, Montana. There have been daily brush fires outside Big Lake every day since I have been here. The alarm calling for volunteers has gone of daily. We saw one of the fires as we drove in from San Angelo last week. Because there was lots of rain early in the year, there is lots of dry grass and brush now. The cow and calf in this picture are standing in a fire hazard. Do not worry. Should a fire start, they would move.

While in Big Lake, I have been visiting the Reagan County Library every few days to check my email and post. Thanks, RCL.

I have my laptop, so I have been working on my book, rewriting book reviews and working on the index. I am struggling a bit with consistency in the way I apply descriptors. I am sure Bonnie will be able to advise me when I get home. I am looking forward to getting home.

Wildlife by Richard Ford

I have planned to read Richard Ford for years, ever since I read about awards that he won for The Sportswriter. At a recent book sale benefiting the Iowa City Public Library, I found a nice paperback edition of his book Wildlife. The price and time were right, so Bonnie bought it for me, and I brought it with me to Texas.

It is a good traveling book, easy to carry, memorable to read. Ford hooked me in the first couple of pages. I did not read it in one evening sitting because I needed sleep, but I did pick it up in the morning and again whenever I could through a day and half. I had to hear Joe Brinson's story.

Wildlife is a first person narrative told by sixteen year old Joe whose family has moved to Great Falls, Montana. When his father, a golf instructor, is unjustly fired from the country club, he uncharacteristically decides to join a forest fire fighting team, leaving Joe and his mother alone for several days. His mother reacts badly, and Joe's life seems to unravel.

In his book, Ford suggests that we are all only a couple of stupid decisions away from disaster. The bad moves may not even be our own. Joe is not responsible for any of his bad fortune, and his words and actions are confused, as you would expect from a teen whose home and prospects are threatened. I really wanted his parents to straighten up.

Because Ford does not tell us what to think or really spell out why the characters do what they do, Wildlife would be a good discussion book. I also recommend it to teens.

Ford, Richard. Wildlife. AMP, 1990. ISBN 0871133482

Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass

I am again blogging from the Reagan County Library in Big Lake, Texas. I appreciate that this rural library now has a great computer lab.

Poetry is not easy to read. I have just finished Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass, which is nominated for the National Book Award for poetry. I have mixed feelings about this collection. There were some poems I understood and liked, but I was unable on the first attempt to find the meaning of others.

One of the reasons that many people do not like poetry is they do not understand it. That seems a rather narrow view to take, but I think not understanding is why people have many of their prejudices. They do not like certain forms of music, computers, electronic devices, other people, or foreign nations because they do not understand them. Understanding takes effort. With poetry, you can reread. You can read aloud. With a good try, you can eventually get it. Perhaps reading poetry can teach patience and be practice for other forms of tolerance. You do not want to have a closed mind.

In the next to last poem in the collection, "Exit, Pursued by a Sierra Meadow," Hass says that beauty is "unendurable." Humans do not really value what is not immediately useful. He is commenting on the beauty of park land and wildlife in this poem, but he could apply the thought to poetry as well.

Birds appear in many of the poems as the focus or as incidental details. I wonder whether they have a certain meaning to Hass or whether he just likes birds. The truth is probably a bit of both. In "On Visiting the DMZ at Panmunjom: A Haibun," the cattle egrets at the end of the poem seem to be the witnesses of human folly. Perhaps they will even inherit the earth after all the people have been killed by war.

While most of the poems are environmental, the poet does get political in "Ezra Pound's Proposition." Look out, World Bank and Halliburton! Robert Hass has figured you out. I do not know what the reference to Pound in the title means; he is not mentioned in the poem.

My favorite poem is "Art and Life," in which the poet looks at paintings in the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague. When he lunches in the museum cafeteria, he looks at the staff, wondering who has restored the paintings, bringing back their colors, peeling back time. I also enjoyed the little stories in "Domestic Interiors" especially the incident in which a village comes together when it loses its electricity.

Not many libraries have Time and Materials, but I think that they should consider it. It may never be popular but some one is going to enjoy it very much.

Hass, Robert. Time and Materials: Poems, 1997-2005. CCCO, 2007. ISBN 9780061349607.

Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio by Jeffrey Kluger

Before Jonas Salk introduced his vaccine for polio in the 1950s, it disabled and killed many American children every summer. Some years were much worse than others, requiring health officials to shut down swimming pools and movie theaters. My mother remembers a summer in San Antonio when she was not allowed to go anywhere that the virus might be found. Years later, I remember a friend who wore a leg brace because he had contracted polio as an infant. I also remember going to our school cafeteria in the early 1960s to orally take the vaccine on a sugar cube.

In Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio, science writer Jeffrey Kluger profiles reluctant hero Dr. Jonas Salk, who was born in New York at a time when infantile paralysis was an annual concern in the city. Mothers hid their children from the health department patrols, who combed neighborhoods looking for suspiciously ill youths. Salk's mother was especially diligent, making sure he always washed his hands and did not play with other children in the streets. She wanted him to become a rabbi, but he chose to become a doctor dedicated to disease research instead. Before work on polio, he helped develop influenza vaccine.

Though polio primarily attacked young people, it occasionally infected adults, including failed vice presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt. Kluger tells how the future president went to Warm Springs, Georgia seeking treatment in the hot water. His buying the old resort that he modified for polio victims led to the creation of the March of Dimes, which later funded Salk's work.

The story of the development of the vaccine is filled with disappointments and controversies. I enjoyed hearing Splendid Solution read by Michael Prichard, who I have heard on other nonfiction audio books. Baby boomers who grew up in the wake of the polio epidemic will enjoy reading about their roots. Medical professionals will also find the story inspiring.

Kluger, Jeffrey. Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. G.P. Putnam's Sons, c2004. ISBN 0399152164.

Audiobook: Tantor Media, 2005. 11 compact discs. ISBN 1400101492

Library Technical Competencies: What Do We Have? What Do We Teach? What Do I Hire?

I am posting this from the Reagan County Public Library in Big Lake, Texas, where I will be for the next week.

Zone One Reference Librarians met a couple of weeks ago to discuss computers in libraries and staff technical training. In all our libraries we have computers for staff and clients to use. Most of us also have web sites, and many offer wireless Internet. Our staffs have developed many technical skills in the past ten to fifteen years. No one has totally non-technical staff members anymore.

Technology continues to change quickly, and libraries want to use these developments to better serve clients. This requires us to have well-trained staffs both in public service and working behind the scenes. How to get everyone on a staff up to par on the latest skills is a great challenge. In many cases, some one lags behind, resulting in varying public service. You know your library has a problem when some fairly common client requests are regularly written up and referred to the more savvy staff.

Sarah Houghton-Jan's points out a process to improve staff competencies in her technology report. What she leaves for the reader to discover is the specific competencies needed in her library.

During our conversation, I thought of one way to start the specific list competencies for my library. All staff members in public service can log every technical skill used for several days. These logs can also record when a skill is missing. Before I ask anyone to do this, I thought I should try it out myself.

For two days I kept a running log of technical tasks, including time in public and behind the scenes in support of our library mission. Here is what I listed.

· Turn on public PCs
· Turn off PC security to load software
· Load Firefox browser update
· Troubleshoot printing on the microfilm reader printer
· Read and write email
· Edit online calendar
· Set up projector and laptop for a meeting
· Add to the staff wiki
· Load paper into the copier
· Open an email attachment and save it
· Set up an Excel spreadsheet
· Send document to remote printer
· Add book titles to an online shopping basket
· Post on the staff blog
· Teach client how to create a PIN for the online catalog
· Troubleshoot monitor
· Resize photocopies for a client
· Cut and paste into Word document for our newsletter
· Search remote databases to answer reference questions
· Troubleshoot email with client
· Use Dreamweaver to update library web pages
· Load web pages onto the remote server
· Place holds for clients
· Explain "reply to all" to a client
· Search library catalog
· Load an iPod for a client


As I look at this, there are many skills that I did not have fifteen years ago. It was not hard to learn them, but I can remember times when I was baffled by something that ended up being easy. Luckily for me, my library has always sent staff to classes, workshops, and conferences. The knowledge gained at outside training has laid the foundation of my technical skills. In our meeting, we talked about our libraries sending more staff out for training more often, but we recognized this still is not enough. Besides, we need our staffs in our buildings most of the time.

One of the librarian at our zone meeting told about how her library's technical trainer, a person hired part time to do classes for the public on mostly Internet topics, gives some classes for staff as well. These are helpful but do not meet the need for current awareness of late breaking technical developments. On her own the trainer started sending occasional tech briefs to staff, alerting them to news. We all agreed that she is the kind of person we all need in our libraries.

This reminds me that my library's needs a new reference librarian. I have learned much from and been encouraged to try new things by the last two librarians in this position. Much of this transfer of knowledge happened in our daily unplanned conversations. For this position, we have a brand new job description that more than ever lays out skill sets that are required and activities that will be performed. Teaching other staff members is in the mix. What it does not say is "Will teach the old guy some new tricks." Maybe it should. Teaching the supervisor is important, too.

As important as the formal training and the daily conversations are, I realize further that I am also somewhat self-taught. I think all the best technical minds are. They play with the new technology fearlessly, learning what it will and will not do. They do not wait for their libraries to arrange training. Self initiative needs to be written into all of our job descriptions, too.

For more information on library technical competencies, look at Cultivating Tech-Saavy Library Staff, one of Sarah's presentations as reported by Chad at Library Voice.

They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race by James West Davidson

Born during the American Civil War, about the time of Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, Ida B. Wells was witness to the initial promise and subsequent failure of Reconstruction. Her earliest memories were of her father as a local black activist in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and of her mother as a woman determined to see her children live a better life. When Wells was sixteen years old, they both died from yellow fever, leaving her to support her siblings. In They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race, historian James West Davidson tells how she transformed herself from a teacher with Victorian attitudes to a crusading journalist dedicated to exposing racial injustice.

As a reader, I enjoy how Davidson weave many colorful details into this small book. He tells us how Wells attended as many as three or four chruch services on Sundays when she first moves to Memphis. He describes the rotten wooden streets in the city and the towers of hay along the docks after regional harvests. He quotes Wells saying that she was "unladylike" at a baseball game and moved by the character of Koko in The Mikado. I see Wells as a person with charms and flaws, not a historical figure.

Central to the story is an incident in which three blacks are executed by a mob for an incident that may have been a set up. For reporting on it and questioning the validity of rape charges in many of the lynchings across the South, Wells has to flee death threats in Memphis. Then she becomes famous lecturing in the Northeastern U.S. and in England on the injustice of Southern lynchings.

Using Wells as the focus, Davidson tells a story of increasing racial violence across the country in the late nineteenth century. He stops the story at the point Wells becomes a full time advocate for racial justice. Many readers will enjoy this lively coming of age story.

Davidson, James West. They Say: Ida B. Wells and the Reconstruction of Race. Oxford University Press, 2007. ISBN 9780195160208.

Mongolian Ping Pong

Bonnie brings home some wonderful movies. The latest is Mongolian Ping Pong, a comic look at three young boys in remote Mongolia who find a ping pong ball floating down a stream. Wondering what it is, they ask their parents, a grandmother, and even the local Buddhist monks and get some amusing answers. Even when a wandering merchant, selling odd items from his stripped down van, says that it is just a ping pong ball, they are unenlightened.

There are several things that I really liked about Mongolian Ping Pong. First is the goofiness of the three boys, whose actions make me imaging of Spanky and Our Gang in Mongolian with subtitles. Bilike, Ergoutan, and Dawa run wild with little supervision, cooking up schemes that rival those of old child-star comedies.

I liked the scenery. The vast Mongolian grassland is so green and mostly flat until you see the odd house or rocky outcrop. Anyone who has been to the Serengeti plain will long now to go to remote Mongolia. The background of approaching storms and herds of horses and slow twisting rivers makes me want to see it.

I also liked the camera work, especially how scenes often ended with all of the characters walking out of the frame. The movie watcher is left looking at the beautiful scenery.

There are many themes to contemplate in Mongolian Ping Pong, which seems to show the last days of a rural society being brought into modern society. There are the introduction of technology, the longing of the young to leave, and the care of the elderly. It is a fascinating film that many libraries should had to their collections.

The Contemporary Problem of Mass Rape by Allison Ruby Reid-Cunningham

Today I am reviewing something a bit different. The Contemporary Problem of Mass Rape is a self-published book by my niece Allison Ruby Reid-Cunningham, a doctoral student in social work at the University of California at Berkeley. I promise to write a fair review.

The topic about which Ruby writes is mostly ignored by the popular press and commercial publishing. Do a search of "mass rape" in Worldcat from OCLC and you find little. There is an article in Maclean's in 2006 and another in New Statesman in 2005. There are a few university press books. Otherwise, the topic is found only in reports from international organizations and articles from academic journals. Reading Ruby's book, I noticed that most of the references are to reports from groups like Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, and various bodies of the United Nations.

What is mass rape? In the context of Ruby's book, mass rape is sexual violence against women as a part of war. Throughout history, as the saying goes, "to the victor go the spoils." Victorious armies have always celebrated by looting their conquered cities and raping the women and girls. As horrible as this is, the topic of this book is even more shocking. Rape is used as a weapon of genocide.

Ruby's book includes discussions of recent or on-going wars in Bosnia- Hercegovina, Rwanda, and Darfur. In these wars, soldiers were (are) often under orders to rape women. In these wars, commanders at the highest level directed their forces to use all means to humiliate and eliminate the ethnic peoples against whom they fought. In these societies, the ethnicity of offspring is thought to come from the father and not the mother, so rape serves to wipe out conquered populations. To accomplish the work, rape camps were set up where women were systematically raped, kept until pregnancies were verified, and sent back to their own communities. Many babies were subsequently abandoned.

What is to be done about these atrocities? Ruby discusses war crimes trials. According to current conventions, mass rape is a war crime, but it is often not one of the charges that is pursued. The problem is under reported because in many cultures being raped is actually considered a crime of adultery. Women reporting their rapes in these societies condemn themselves to expulsion or death.

Being a student of social work, Ruby discusses the need for social workers in the wake of ethnic warfare and the care which they need to provide.

On her website, Ruby discusses her ongoing work, which includes interviewing women from the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. I hope she writes a narrative book for mass publication. Readers need to know about this subject. In the meantime, Ruby provides a link to buy her book from Lulu. The paperback is $10 and the download is only $1.25.

300 Books, 300 More to Choose

Today is a milestone in the writing of my readers' advisory guide for biography. I have chosen 300 books and written short descriptions of them. I want to choose 300 more and then put them into a useful order with finding aids and further recommendations. I also will add some helpful appendices.

Number 300 is Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams by Michael D'Antonio. I celebrated with a bit of left over Halloween chocolate. Delicious!