Soldier in Afghanistan

A reporter from the Birmingham News, is stationed in Afghanistan right now. He has a blog that he tries to write on every day to keep everyone informed on how it it over there. He is in the National Guard. Here is his blog address: http://blog.al.com/afghanistan if you are interested.

Linda Greene, a day in the life of a shelver

Linda Greene is one of the library's crown jewels. How do I know that? For fourteen years at least she shelved books in the Children's Department and then one day last week her doctor said "No More!". A problem with her back that could be really serious if she continues to bend, stoop, and lift heavy things. Because she was gone so suddenly, other staff members have had to try to take up the slack and I have been shelving books in the Children's Department for the past few days. This was Linda's main responsibility and she took it seriously. Every book in its place standing up straight and tall just waiting for little hands to come along and choose it. I am no match for Linda. It takes me all morning to shelve what Linda could probably do in an hour. But it is interesting the things you learn.

For instance, in the nonfiction 300s (fairy tales), 500s (space, planets, dinosaurs, insects, animals), 700s (hobbies & crafts, drawing & painting and sports) and 900s (history and geography) seem to be the most popular.

When children start to read chapter books such as Junie B. Jones, they don't just check out one such book but a whole stack. (The same is true with Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, Goose Bumps, Boxcar Children, etc.) I was introduced to Junie by my granddaughter heather who was 6 or 7 at the time, but I have to say I was a little surprised when my grandson Carson, who will enter first grade soon, asked me to read him a Junie B. Jones book. He said his teacher, Ms. Haynes, read one to them at school and he liked it. Some of Junie's traits I would prefer Carson not pick up but Junie is a very unique little girl and kids seem to love her. But back to the shelving, it sure makes it easier when I get to put a whole stack on the shelf under PARK, KEENE, or WARNER! Clears my book cart much faster.

One thing I wondered: why do children always seem to choose the books from the bottom shelf where I have to bend way over or get on my knees to put them away? (Bless you Linda, I can see why your back hurts!) Could it be because they can see those easier? I also noticed that you have to pull the books on the top shelves right to the edge or children can't see the titles. We didn't used to put books on the top shelves until we started to run out of space.

Yesterday while I was shelving, I became aware of four little girls searching for books. What first caught my attention was the language they were speaking-certainly not English. When I asked if they were finding what they needed, one of them smiling said "Yes, we are" in perfect English. Here was a child who was obviously fluent in two languages and I especially had to admire that since I had been on the library's Rosetta Stone trying to learn Spanish. Not an easy thing! (Is a young child a nino or a nina?) Do you know about Rosetta Stone? It's an online language course that teaches you a language in a very easy way. Just go the library's web site www.decatur.lib.al.us and click on Rosetta Stone and start learning any one of several languages. Before you know it you'll be reading a whole sentence in Spanish and picking out the picture it describes! Rosetta Stone is also audio so you learn how to say the words as you go. But I still can't roll my r's. Just in case you don't know about the real Rosetta Stone, there's a book in the Children's Department about it.

Another thing about shelving, you get to help kids find things. They think because you are in there working that you must know where things are. Wrong! But I did enjoy trying to find things, like books on snakes, that's 597.96 just in case you need to know. I tried to help a grandmother who was looking for books that her granddaughter needed to read before school started but most of them were checked out. However, Kimberly came to the rescue and found her several. I found a joke book. "What did the football coach say when he learned his piggy bank was stolen? I want my quarter back!" That's J818 Ris if you're interested. (Okay, these jokes are for kids!)

Other than the physical thing, you might think shelving would be easy and for some it probably is. But when the number goes out to 533.0712, I have to pay careful attention to get it in the right place. Sometimes the 7 looks like a 1 or vice versa. It is so important to put the book in the right place; if you don't, the next person who shelves might find that book and match theirs to it and you end up with a row of 504.5 and somewhere in the next range there might be another row of 504.5. so you have to check the books before and the books after. I admire Linda more every day that I shelve! The shelver must also be on the lookout for books that need replaced or repaired. Yesterday I pulled two that still had the green magic marker stripe on them from where we first added books to an online catalog back in the early 80s. Today a paperback Garfield had to go because it was worn out from use. It will probably be replaced if still available because it was obviously popular.

Thank you Linda for all your faithful years of work. I'm sorry you came to the 999.999s so much sooner than we expected. We miss you and wish you well!

Patricia

Endings and Beginnings

I'm molting. In the last few weeks I've been forced to shed the skin/feathers/carapace/whatever which was so comfortable and familiar for so long and, with much hope and some apprehension, see how the tight and shiny new covering will function.

After 10 years with Decatur Public Library I have accepted a position as a Youth Services Librarian at Madison Public Library. It's like moving away from home all over again. Even though my natural inclination is to be introverted and insulated, I grew to think of the staff at Decatur as family and I care about them a great deal whether they ever realized it or not. OK, so I was starting to think of my computer at Decatur as family too and it's probably healthier to sever that particular addic...um, relationship.

I arrived at Madison Public just in time to help end the summer reading program. Coinciding with these momentus transitions is the release of the final Harry Potter book (NO SPOILERS please, I'm only on chapter 13). While I'm very excited to see what will happen, I also don't want it to be over, don't want to let go of a proven and established good thing. That pretty much sums up my feelings about the job change as well.

In the beginnings category, my oldest son is starting kindergarten in a few weeks and shortly thereafter I'll be starting the regular storytime schedule at Madison. I've already run into three or four families at Madison who knew me from the children's department at Decatur.

Anyway, I'd better end this before I get all sniffly.

P.S. Some of you may be wondering why I'm posting to Decatur's blog even though I no longer work there. To this I reply "All your blog are belong to us." Just kidding--this was hacked by permission, nay request, as are any subsequent contributions.

Each year when my family gets together for the 4th of July my friend Matt and I are inevitably designated official instigators of pyrotechnics and every year as we light the fireworks and run for our lives I am surprised at the inappropriate and pointless names concocted for these things. “Purple Haze,” “Jump Jive and Jam,” and “Pretty Little Boat” were some of the names I encountered this year. What in the world those names have to do with chunks of incendiary chemicals flying through the air is beyond me. Somehow “Peony Shower” just sounds more like potpourri than a product designed to explode in front of my family. I have concluded that the fireworks industry must be very stable. Americans are always going to buy fireworks and, being Americans, all we really care about is the size of the package.
If fireworks manufacturers had to really market these things, I suspect we’d see some much more dangerous sounding names. Each 4th of July I start thinking of names I would use if I were trying to sell fireworks. Here is this year’s list of names guaranteed to boost sales to teenage males:

• Severe Tire Damage
  
• Uninsurable
  
• Satan’s Flatulence
  
• IED
  
• Cauterization
  
• “Hey y’all, watch this”
  
• White Phosphorus
  
• Pointy Pointy Shrapnel

"Just a minute--I'm uploading."

Books: the most popular portable media device in history.

• No user manual needed.
• No need to buy or recharge batteries.
• Compatible with nearly every platform (all languages including Braille).
• If you can read this, you already have the technical knowledge required.

Busy summer at the library

What are your plans for this summer? Allow us to make some suggestions.

Free Rock Concert at the Library

Summer Reading Program

Meet "Doc Travis"

You can also leave comments letting us know what you're doing over the summer.

Gremlins stole the links from the library website and tinkered with the code. We have our entire IT staff working on the problem and he hopes to have everything back later today. Thank you for your patience.

Thumb's Up--from Tina (note her new avatar)

Thumb’s Up! An Ode to Wanda

Wanda hurt her thumb:
It was no longer plumb.
She had to get it fixed;
Surgery she did not nix.
But when it came time to work,
This duty she did not shirk.
When checking out those books,
She gets many funny looks.
And in spite of that big cast,
She’s really getting fast!
So I’d like to say,
She’s admired in every way.
And we hope she heals real well,
And knows we think she’s swell!

Photos from Feline Fantasy with Sondra Gray, author of According to Punkin.

Prestigious prestidigitation

Within the last couple of weeks I have watched two fascinating films by the same director, Christopher Nolan. Both also featured Christian Bale and Michael Caine. I recently finished my first viewing of The Prestige and my third viewing of Batman Begins. Banal as it is, my first observation was that the cockney tinged accent used by Caine that was so inappropriate for the character of Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth fit quite well with his role in The Prestige.

Perhaps a more important connection is the fact that the two films are based around the concepts of duality, identity, and the misdirection that may be required to protect them. Of course, these ideas are at the core of any Batman movie. For decades, comics scholars have debated whether Bruce Wayne or Batman is the façade and which, if either, is the true identity.

Batman Begins is much more about Bruce Wayne and his development of and transformation into Batman than previous movies. Joel Schumacher’s Batman films are as colorful, campy, and over the top as 1966’s Batman the Movie and the TV series on which it was based. While I enjoyed Tim Burton’s takes on the franchise, and while his Batman was certainly darker, the characters were still surreal and imaginative enough that it could be hard to suspend disbelief. In concentrating on the “real” half of Bruce Wayne’s identity Nolan presents the characters much more seriously and on sets that more closely resemble the real world. Although the characters and situations are still not realistic, they are more “believable.”

The same is in evidence in The Prestige. The fact that it is about stage magicians adds to its realism. After all, when dealing with prestidigitation and legerdemain you can’t trust anything anyway so what’s one more stretch?

I have long been fascinated by stage magic and illusion and love to discover the secrets behind the tricks even though I can then no longer enjoy them on the same level. When I know how David Blaine “levitates” or how Criss Angel manages close up vanishes their melodramatic buildup actually becomes silly and boring. I can’t help it though. I revel in reading about the history of sideshows, scams, and magic as revealed by practitioners such as Harry Anderson and Rick Jay (who makes a cameo appearance in The Prestige as Milton the Magician).

That obsession is shared and taken to extremes by the two primary characters in The Prestige. Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale, who mimics Caine’s accent) are two stage magicians working in England at the turn of the century (19th to 20th, not modern day). After an accident on stage kills Angier’s wife, the two magicians become enemies, each determined to undermine the other’s act. Keeping with the duality theme, the accident is caused by the choice between two types of knot that could be tied in a rope.

The order of events is hard to follow at the beginning due to the nature of the plot. Each magician obtains a copy of the other’s journal at a different point so we see Borden reading in Angier’s diary about secrets learned from Borden’s own journal. You see how it can get confusing? Angier obsesses over Borden’s signature illusion “The Transported Man” and follows every lead to discover its secret. As remarkable as the illusions are, any of them could actually be performed…except one.

Things turn decidedly weird when Angier travels to Colorado to visit the real life scientist Nikola Tesla, played by the most subdued David Bowie I’ve ever seen. The trick that comes into being with Tesla’s aid could never really happen, but gives Angier his own fascinating counterpoint to Borden’s deep secret.

The secret of “The Transported Man” is also the film’s message about illusion and deception: it’s quite easy to do—if you’re willing to sacrifice enough. One character, Fallon, is obviously someone else in disguise, but every time I had a guess about his real identity I would see him in the same scene as my suspect. After eliminating all the suspects, the real solution finally dawned on me, and just like most magic tricks once I knew the secret it seemed as though it should have been obvious from the beginning.

I won’t give away either magician’s big secret, but I will say that each is disturbing in its own way and that spoilers are available at Wikipedia.

Both movies on DVD may be checked out at the library.

FYI

The Microsoft Office software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.) on the library's public computers has just been upgraded to Office Professional Edition 2007.

I'm way behind in updating this blog and since today is Valentine's Day, I dug up something extremely mushy I wrote for my sons a few months ago around 4:30 one morning when I was up with a sick baby. VERY rough draft by the way.

Yes it's corny, but keep in mind I'm extremely rusty at this type of thing. Other than a few anniversary poems, this is probably the longest rhymed thing I've written since college.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How many times have I greeted the morning
While changing your diaper or calming your cries?
How many times at the sound of your voice
In the dead of the night like a zombie I rise?

How many times have I prayed that your sickness
Be taken from you and delivered to me?
I have cried when you’ve hurt and been scared when you’re worried
From going new places to scraping your knee

How many nights have I lain awake listening
Just to be sure that your breathing was clear?
How many times have I fretted because
Any danger to you is the worst of my fears?

How many times have I stood stunned and watched you
Discovering life like receiving new toys
The sound of your laugh is the best of rewards
And the sight of your smile is the greatest of joys

How many times has my hope been restored
When I’m watching you play or just watching you sleep?
You are never a burden and always a lesson
The care of your life is a trust I will keep

33 Reasons Why Libraries and Librarians are Still Extremely Important

Article from DegreeTutor.com:

Are Librarians Totally Obsolete?