Thursday, June 15, 2006

Quotes about libraries, books, and reading

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island..." –
Walt Disney (1901-1966)

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." –
Groucho Marx


"My alma mater was books, a good library ... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity." –
Malcolm X From “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”

"When I was your age, television was called books!" –
Grandpa in The Princess Bride

"You must live feverishly in a library. Colleges are not going to do any good unless you are raised and live in a library every day of your life." –
Ray Bradbury

"What can I say? Librarians rule!" –
Regis Philbin (Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? 2/17/00)

"I have found the most valuable thing in my wallet is my library card." --
Laura Bush, First Lady

"I would walk into the Carnegie Library and I would see the pictures of Booker T. and pictures of Frederick Douglass and I would read. I would go into the Savannah Public Libraries in the stacks and see all of the newspapers from all over the country. Did I dream that I would be on the Supreme Court? No. But I dreamt that there was a world out there that was worth pursuing." --
Clarence Thomas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice

"When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully -- the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer." –
Keith Richards, Rolling Stones Guitarist

"I cannot live without books." –
Thomas Jefferson

"...I spent many, many hours in...libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were." –
Arthur Ashe

"The only way to do all the things you'd like to do is to read." –
Tom Clancy

"Life would be--to me in all events--a terrible thing without books." –
L.M. Montgomery

Friday, June 02, 2006

A lifetime of folklore finally pays off.

I love folktales. From Anansi and Raven stories to Bugs Bunny and urban legends to Bruno Bettelheim's and Paul Barber's explanations of the sociology behind them, I've long been interested in the connections between similar themes and plots from different cultures and in the lessons sometimes imparted. But until recently I had found very few, if any, practical applications.

However, last week I was washing my oldest son's hair and he said "Tell me a story." Now, for an avid reader and a former children's librarian this shouldn't have been too difficult a request, but keep in mind it was the 8,739th time I'd been asked that week alone and it needed to be a good story because my son does NOT like being shampooed. He has the same irrational but intense fear of getting water in his eyes that I had at his age. So I told him the following story:

Once upon a time there was a little boy who didn't like to have his hair washed. He would kick and fidget and worry and make it take longer than it would have otherwise. So one day his daddy gave him a shampoo rock. The little boy would hold the rock while he was getting a shampoo. He would feel the bumps and ridges on it and name all the colors he could see on it and wonder about all the places it had been and before he knew it the shampoo would be over. AND if you're very good and listen to Mommy and Daddy at [my cousin]'s wedding I'll see if I can find a shampoo rock for YOU too.

After a long and dangerous search (OK, I looked out the back door), lo and behold I did manage to find a shampoo rock for him and so far it has worked exactly as advertised. It may not end up being happily ever after, but I am grateful all that time spent reading folk stories wasn't wasted.

From Tina in the Information Department:

YAY! The latest in the Amelia Peabody mystery series has just been released [Tomb of the Golden Bird] and I'm the first one to check it out from our library! They're by Elizabeth Peters and start with Crocodile on the Sandbank. If you enjoy mysteries with intelligence, wit, romance, Eyptian archaeology, strong independent women, virile heroes and yummy villains, I highly recommend this series!

Amelia Peabody
1. Crocodile on the Sandbank (1975)
2. The Curse of the Pharaohs (1981)
3. The Mummy Case (1985)
4. Lion in the Valley (1986)
5. The Deeds of the Disturber (1988)
6. The Last Camel Died at Noon (1991)
7. The Snake, The Crocodile and the Dog (1992)
8. The Hippopotamus Pool (1996)
9. Seeing a Large Cat (1997)
10. The Ape Who Guards The Balance (1998)
11. The Falcon at the Portal (1999)
12. Thunder in the Sky (2000)
13. Lord of the Silent (2001)
14. The Golden One (2002)Amelia Peabody's Egypt: A Compendium to Her Journals (2003) (with Kristen Whitbread)
15. Children of the Storm (2003)
16. Guardian of the Horizon (2003)
17. The Serpent on the Crown (2005)
18. Tomb of the Golden Bird (2006)

From BusinessWeek online

The Library: Next Best Thing to an MBA