I don't want to wait for our lives to be over.

Found in a box of paperbacks from 2004, intended as summer reading prizes:

Also in the box: a Buffy paperback about Cordelia, a Clueless tv show tie-in, a Sabrina the Teenage Witch (although not my favorite Sabrina, which features the world's saddest piratical eye patch. Like, I think they just took an old pictures of Clarissa and sharpied an eye patch on.*), and a Popular. Remember Popular?
Here's the back cover blurb of Bayou Blues

"No one is allowed."
Joey, Pacey, Dawson, and Jen shudder at the housekeeper's ominous words. It's dark and gloomy at one end of the Southern plantation where Jen's cousin Monique lives, and nothing's been touched in the off-limits wing since 1870. Isabella Percy, Monique's relative, died there of a broken heart, waiting in vain for her true love to return after the Civil War.
A spooky mansion, a secret tunnel, a romantic love story, and some voodoo: Dawson is convinced the group is in for the adventure on their lives.
But evil is near.

Jinkies!

*

That's in juvenile. This is Young Adult.

...or, "It's a record we've been listening to and enjoying, Barry."

Last week, one of my coworkers was on the phone for twenty minutes, giving by-the-minute direction action to him while he drove over half an hour to get to our library. You know the kind: "OK, coming up on your left is a Skyline...let me know when you get there..."
What was this patron coming for? Doogie Howser dvds.
The week before that, we all laughed uproariously when another teen librarian told a story about a teen's spectacularly false claims of Dance Dance Revolution mastery. In my head, it looked a lot like the dance scene in Better Off Dead.

(I couldn't find the dance scene. Sorry.)
So is it any wonder that yesterday on my first trip to the record store in the painfully hip part of town I went looking for and then asked the clerk where I could find the new Arctic Fire album.
I also bought this super-cute li'l guy:

I'm so all about Japanese and fauxJapanese surprise toys for "grownups".
And then I went home and did my taxes with an excellent soundtrack.

Why start a conversation you can't even finish?

(found in the library, late February)

Zodiac shot young couple in 1968 Boy Survived girl didn't
2 more people shot (collage age)
Searial Killer! Signed Car door! enjoys taunting Police/meadia! Upped MO
Mix up with descreption!
Told to look for Black man not White man!
Said he would shoot out School bus tires then pick off children on at a time!

Also, I found 2 Chick tracts in the teen area yesterday, one under a bunch of Buffy paperbacks, one in what looked like a retelling of the Ark story. I didn't know those things were even still in circulation. So, total score...

Lying in wait at the Birmingham Mall.

So I was thinking this morning about the AV catalogers I know, and the catalogers I know who are supposed to be general and do AV but don't.
And then I was thinking about how libraries are always all riled up about being more like those bookstores who totally modeled themselves after libraries in the first place.
So now I wonder: When are we going to start modeling our music and movie collections like they do at those stores? (And, yes, I'm fully aware that everyone thinks the music store is dead. Bear with me, and just think about the music sections of Walmart or Target or whatever, ok?)
My library organizes most DVDs into "general" and "feature". As far as I can tell, none of my coworkers know what the distinction is. We all have guesses though. Wouldn't it be easier on the patrons to do like Blockbuster and organize by genre, or do like the stores and just do straight alphabetical? The other library I use doesn't have an anime or a TV programs section. If you want to check out, say, the 6th season of Gilmore Girls (guess what I'm at the library for...), you have to figure out whether some cataloger thought the show was more drama or comedy. Needless to say, most anime winds up in sci-fi. Wouldn't it be easier on the anime fans to throw that stuff all together?
If we can get things like the newest Harry Potter before its street date so that libraries have copies available for check out (or, as is more likely, on the hold shelf) the same day people can buy it, shouldn't we be able to do the same with new DVDs and CDs?

What's a little boy like you doing with big boy smut like this?

Everyone's got their favorites, and I'm no exception. I've got my regulars, my favorites, the ones I call "My Crew".
Like any crew, there are some I see every day, some I don't see often and I wonder what happened to them (or, I'll read something, think of one of them, and lie in wait for their next library appearance), and some I kind of forget about until they come in and then I remember how awesome they are.
Badger* is one of that last group. He's this babyfaced 11yrold I see once a month or so around the YA graphic novels. He used to worry me a bit, because he looks so very young and fresh-faced, and we all know the caliber of graphic novels I buy. See, I have a lot of kids of a certain age who are attracted to, for example, Hellboy Jr. And then I have to show them where their comic books are.
But then I started talking to this kid, and noticing what a repeat customer--and reader of things like Lenore--he was. And that, when he asks about movies, they tend to involve Monty Python. Earlier today, he was online and I happened to catch a glimpse while I was overriding the filter so a patron could use the Google Image Search. He was reading "Maakies".
So gradually, it becomes clear that we haven't got some child to protect from scary, scary stuff he isn't ready for. We've got an 11yrold whose sense of humor is already pretty sick and demented. And that's AWESOME.
C'mon, don't you wish you had had the Bunny Suicides in junior high?
Of course, my favorite Warner Brothers cartoons were always the "Duck Season Rabbit Season" ones, so maybe I'm not one to talk...

*Not his real name, obviously. It hit me earlier today that he reminds me a bit of the younger brother character in Better Off Dead. And you can't really get a better compliment than that, can you?

Don't care if this archive's destroyed.

I spent the other night getting some old nonfiction on its merry way along the weeding track. So, yeah, I typed the barcodes from a truck of books into the computer. And then pushed them into the back. Ever pushed a truck stuffed to the gills of heavy, heavy books over carpeting? It's not fun. I kept having ILL flashbacks, hating the microform and Asian language departments at Hillman because I visited them after the bound journals and that floor was carpeted.
I love old nonfiction, though. There's a certain time period, post-WWII to about 1970 I think, that manufactured books that now, with age, have a great smell. The best used bookstores smell this way.
The design of the covers from this time period is good, too.

At my old clerk job, one of my duties was taking the deselected (nice use of librarian-speak, eh?) children's nonfiction out of our catalog. I also got first dibs on any discarded books I wanted. This is why my copies of the first 4 Harry Potters have broken spines, multiple repairs, and look like library property.
Mostly, though, I like out of date nonfiction. I have a book about Communism from the 1960s, written for children. I published a zine at one point of pictures of scientists from 1950s science books for kids.*
One of the sections adult services was weeding was all the old space exploration books. I wanted to adopt them all, even though I suspect I already own at least one of the titles we were getting rid of. Artist's renderings of space travel, the future, and the surface of other planets are something I never get tired of.
Plus, sometimes old books are just fun to mock.

I don't know if you can tell, but every single one of those pictures is identical. A more accurate title would be, 24 Table Saw Projects, All of Which Look Exactly Alike.

I like to think this entire book is dedicated to making sure you don't buy a ring this ugly.

Killer bison!!! I know you can't tell, but it's eyes are totally red, too. And it may or may not be foaming at the mouth. I also like this one because it looks like the awesome caveman hunting/TRex double-sided mural they used to have at the Carnegie Museum (behind the TRex). Its historical inaccuracies always irritated my dad, but I miss it.
It's a short jump from mocking books to mocking authors. For example, if you had written this book:

Wouldn't you choose a bigger horn-thing to hold in your picture?

And here, finally, is the best one. I giggled like a schoolgirl for about twenty minutes over this, plus showed my coworkers and made them giggle. I am, after all, so good at my job because of my stunted maturity.


*I still have copies, if anyone wants one. Darren, I'll trade you one for a nudie pen.

You wax poetic about things pathetic as long as you look so cute.

So, one of my regulars was looking for some books and the internet catalog told him they were "available in CHECKED OUT". I hate our online catalog so very much.
***
Billboard October 21

• All kinds of country on the cover.
• Also, this headline:
• "Menudo's New Beginning"
• Which is almost as terrifying as Eddie Murphy and Scary Spice together.
• Which I didn't know about until Tiff informed me today.
• So, uh, thanks Tiff.
• I guess.
• Gah! Barry Manilow in a sequined jumpsuit!
• It's kind of weird that Tower Records are closing, but I was actually never that big a Tower fan.
• I don't know--is there even one in Pittsburgh?
• Was it a closed town, more or less, in the National Record Mart days?
• Menudo are going to have a tv show.
• Wow, Ricky Martin had some cheekbones.
• Aw, Mountain Goats.
• Insound didn't have a digital store 'til now?
• I always just assumed they did.
• I ♥ promo items: here's a condom whose wrapper says "I promote records and save lives."
• That's pretty damn sweet.
• Hee, Robbie Williams in a track suit.
• Poor Robbie--he's the opener to an article entitled "Famous Everywhere Else".
• And here's a scruffy Ricky Martin, who is being honored for his work with children.
• You know, in case you were wondering, I am planning on actually writing real blog posts at some point in the future. I'm just in a bit of a lull right now.
• I'm assuming everyone else knew that Johnny Marr was a Modest Mouse now.
• Before he went Electronic?
• And Dinosaur Jr have reunited as well.
• I suppose I have to order Diddy's new album for the library.
• I wonder if I can make Marissa order it?
• And Sarah McLachlan's releasing a Christmas album.
• Marr looks pretty adorable in this picture right here. I couldn't find the picture online, but you're welcome to look for yourself if you'd like.
• There's no back page on this issue. Looks like someone's removed the advertisement cover.

Scenes from a class visit.

Some notes from a week of visiting ninth grade classes:
Ask who watched the premiere of Heroes earlier that week. It will help you identify any fanboys you don't already know*. Quickly mention that a large part of why you watched the show was because Jess from Gilmore Girls was in it.
If you have strong opinions about the Jess/Dean/Logan debate, this would be a good time to bring them up. Feel free to reward with candy those in the group who share your opinion.
Feel kind of weird that you have to explain to the teacher the general synopsis of the show, as you feel like you haven't been able to escape its PR campaign for the last month or so. Wonder if the teacher's been living under a rock, or just doesn't pay attention to popular culture, or network tv. Realize after the fact that you should have offered her candy for asking a question.
Be sure to mock any and all regular members of your crew (including any running jokes from, say, your anime club) who happen to be around. Not because you're mean-spirited, but because you honestly suspect they'd wonder what was wrong if you didn't. Also, if a patron has checked out a book you wanted to read, pretty much under your nose, bring that up too. You're allowed to pout and/or be sarcastic.
Don't just pay attention to what the internet is telling you about teens and immergent technologies/entertainment deliveries. You've got a captive audience and are offering candy (you are offering candy, right?) for opinions. What do these kids think about Jackass? Downloading tv shows from iTunes? Do they care? And isn't that why god invented YouTube, anyway?
If someone tells you they've read a book a movie was based on, ask which they liked better. Ask why. Don't judge if they liked the movie better.
If you've got Laffy Taffy, why not ask a student to tell you a joke in return?
Especially if your library is in a one-video-store town, be sure to mention how much cheaper your library is for movies, compared to said video store. Also mention that you order just about all the new releases, a bunch of older stuff, and will most likely order what patrons suggest. Talk as much shit as you'd like about how better your library is than the video store. Because, let's face it, you should be. If you work at the sort of library that doesn't order new releases on DVD and older stuff, especially anime, horror flicks, and other teensploitation, what the hell is wrong with you? Seriously! Why are you even bothering to do class visits if you aren't ordering popular movies?
Find out how many books you have at your library. They really like to ask that one.
If someone asks you what the meaning of life is, you say 42. You have just been tested.
Secretly, you are allowed to get annoyed by teachers judging what their students have read. Just try not to show your displeasure when the teacher says, for example, they'd rather a student was reading about Hannibal-who-invaded-with-elephants than the Lecter one. Kick yourself when you realize you had the perfect excuse to trot out your "my vice-principal was in that movie" story.
If someone asks you what you've been reading, and it happens to be 30 Days of Night**, warn the squeamish in the class about the gore.
Before throwing candy around any classroom, be sure to warn students of your terrible aim and the fact that you throw like a girl. Also tell them to duck. Laugh along with everyone else when the girl who wasn't paying attention gets beaned by a left-over summer reading sucker. Apologize too, though.
Yell at everyone to pay attention when you give the hours of the library, because you hate pulling out the "our system automatically shuts off in 5 minutes" bit.

*Not surprisingly, I'm pretty familiar with my area's fanboy population. We can smell our own. At some point, I began avoiding booktalking Joss Whedon-related works, because of my tendency to nerd out and alienate the class.
**Fucking amazing.

They're throwing a party and you're not invited.

(This is a librarianing post.)

How much of readers advisory services should be about bibliotherapy and how much is pure entertainment? How do you discern what a patron needs versus what a patron wants? If those two really are diametrically opposed, which do you go with? I know teen librarians tend to be all about the bibliotherapy (My life changed! Because of a book! The librarian gave me!), but does life really work that way?
The most dangerous question: Can one book really make that much of a difference, or are we all a sum of everything we read, view, and/or listen to?
Can you point to the parts of your personality or belief system that come directly from your favorite or most-read book? (Obviously, this question is a moot point if your favorite book has a major world religion behind it.)
I've been wondering all this for the last couple days, after someone on my trusty teen lit listserv asked for recommendations for a group of seventh grade girls looking for fiction about rape, abuse, incest, etc. Immediately, many of my fellow librarians went into bibliotherapist mode. Which is great, if that's indeed what these girls need. I can't argue with the idea that reading a story similar to your troubles could very well help you to at least begin to verbalize and heal from those problems.
But I also think I know a little something about middle school girls. I remember the kind of stories I was attracted to as a middle school girl. If you're a girl, think about what you read and watched in middle school. That's when soap operas first caught your eye, right? Did you have a friend surreptitiously pass you a copy of Forever, Go Ask Alice, or Flowers in the Attic? Did the "nonfictional" aspect of Go Ask Alice make a difference to you? Did you take a cursory glance over the new fiction before heading back to Sweet Valley High? Don't lie--that's when you started reading Anne Rice's books, isn't it?
My point is, middle school girls like trash. The trashier, more sensationalistic the trash, the better. It's something most of us go through. What harm are we doing by not acknowledging that guilty pleasures have their place as well? If you're shaking your head in disagreement with me, ask yourself this question: You have the day off, with nothing to do but sit in the world's comfiest armchair in front of a sunny window. You can read Noam Chomsky or V.C. Andrews. Which do you choose? Are you imposing a different choice on those younger than you, simply because you're older? Who do you think is the favorite aunt or uncle--the one who buys those paperback Nickelodeon tie-in picture books, or Patricia Polacco's latest adult-reader-oriented tearjerker?
Also, you'll pay attention to how I say begin to. There are many, many books I love and would recommend to a person in the same situation as the protagonist, or to someone looking for a genuinely well-written story, but that in no way can compare with counseling or other professional help. Sometimes, it's okay to say you're just a librarian, not a social worker. Or a doctor. Or a psychiatrist. Or a lawyer.
At its heart, readers advisory is about matching people with stories. To me, a huge part of that is finding out the motivation behind wanting a particular story. Rats Saw God fits the questions: I need 10 AR points; my son is suddenly flunking his senior year and screwing everything up; I'm a huge Veronica Mars fan; What have you got that's good to read? But is it necessarily the best answer to all of those questions for the person standing in front of you, or on IM, or through MySpace*?
And I kind of wonder if we're not doing a disservice to the not-trash by recommending, say, Leaving Fishers or Godless when what the patron is really looking for is some sensationalistic mass market paperback "about" "not Katie Holmes" being trapped in "not Scientology"?

Reading a book or watching a movie before you're emotionally and intellectually ready for it can ruin that book or movie for you. I think everyone has an example of something they thought sucked, but then went back and liked 5-10 years later. But what if no one went back?

Other random readers advisory anecdote:
The other week, one of my regulars came in and said he needed some stuff to get out of a reading funk. I had given him at least 5 books a couple days before (and when I say "given", what I mean is, "shoved at him and said, here--read this" and he did), but even the usual suspects weren't catching his interest. He's also slogging his way through a big thick classic for AP Senior English. So I headed into the juvenile fiction stacks. I asked how often he reread stuff, and explained that, when I'm stuck, or not feeling well, or cranky, I tend to go back and reread certain things. If I'm sick, for example, I want Mrs Grass's chicken soup and Narnia. So I gave him Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising (he hadn't read it) and sent him on his way. Reading slump solved.
We can all talk about reading up, or down, or comfort level, or finding reflections of our lives in fictional work and the importance of that, but sometimes it's really as simple as What fits the best in this particular situation?

*Bringing up another question: Should you consider a person's MySpace page before recommending a book? If a girl's page was all faux-Girls-Gone-Wild and she asked you what was new and good, would it all be serious works about girls with bad reputations? Don't you think she'd get the hint, and do you think that would damage your credibility in her eyes?
Can you tell someone they should read Sandpiper (which, incidentally, I love and you should all read) without the underlying sentiment of, "this is book about a slutty girl who realizes maybe it's not such a great idea to be so easy. Hey, maybe you could learn something from it, if you catch my drift"?
And speaking of, when the hell is Sara Zarr's Story of a Girl coming out? I'd let you borrow my galley copy, but I might have to break some legs if I don't get it back.

so wonderfully wonderfully pretty

I was playing with the movie function on my camera the other day, instead of working on my resume.

Anyone know how to embed youtube in blogger?

And how neat is this? Ann Arbor Library set up this thing where you can look at every record as an old-school catalog card, and even add notes to it.

Words Like Violence, a Friday Rant.

Holy hell, I hate AR. Hate hate hate. It's not just the forced reading. It's not just the assigning points to books. It's not just the way PUBLIC SCHOOLS have to pay for each and every test, and don't even buy the same tests district-wide.
Nor is it only the way everyone just expects public libraries to be on board and change their organization practices (you know, like alphabetical. By author.) or the fact that I see a definite difference in the way reading for pleasure is viewed by my jr high kids (who have AR) versus my high school crew (who have a 20 minute free reading period every day).
The parents who ask, over the summer, whether we have AR tests their kids can take, during the summer, are up there on my reasons for hating AR (especially when they get shirty about the fact that we don't*), but even they aren't my biggest beef with the system.
My Biggest Problem With AR
I'm revising our copy of the jr high AR list, because my brain isn't functioning well enough right now to do any of the things I need/want to do that require thoughts beyond "cut" or "paste" or "alt tab".
An aside: Funnily enough, most of the books on the list that are part of our YA collection are also the books on my report for weeding, which goes to show you how the AR people and the test-choosers really have their fingers on the pulse of our fair town. And now I'm stuck with decisions like, Do I keep a book that I'm assuming the jr high library owns but no one even looks at here, and take up precious precious shelf space, just because someone might need it to get their last 5 points to get to the next grade? All that shojo manga's gotta go somewhere, people, and I'm guessing neither Stephenie Meyer's or Christopher Paolini's third books are gonna be exactly thin.
So, back on (sort of) track, I'm going through this excel spreadsheet of all the books. A lot of them are in kids' fiction, but some are in YA.
Some of the titles on the list in our YA collection:

• Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Hard Love
• Born Confused
• Of Mice and Men

Now I love all of these books (yes, even Of Mice and Men. I like Steinbeck, okay?), and recommend most of them whenever I can. Which is whenever it's appropriate. Let's repeat that, shall we? In bold?
Which is whenever it's appropriate.
The jr high stops at 8th grade. Hard Love is not a book for an 8th grader, no matter how smart they are (or how many AR points they need, as is more frequently the case).
Is it any wonder that we're seeing more challenges coming from 5-8th grade parents when these books are offered with no regard for the maturity level of their content? It's like saying James Kochalka's work, all of it, is all-ages-appropriate based on the simplicity of his drawing style and the small number of words he uses.
And, yeah, I was there when Aiden Chambers was all, this is how they learn to be adults! Read up-level, kids! but I think there's a difference between challenging oneself and reading something before you're old enough to get all the meaning it wants to give you.
And this is true for books aimed at 20- and 30-somethings placed in YA collections as well, from the other end. Paul Moves Out is an amazing book, and one that many teenagers probably enjoy. I would have really liked it at 16. But I don't think I would have enjoyed it enough if I had read it before being that age, living similar experiences, etc, myself.
Plus, I have to respectfully disagree with a man who wrote what is most possibly the most boring piece of fiction I've ever read not directly for a class.

Did this make any sense, or should I just go back to staring at the spreadsheet and thinking about yarn?

*And, hell, I don't even know if we could, or if it would count for the kid. Public libraries aren't part of the school district in most cases, including YOURS, you mook.

More DOPA-ness.

from Save Your Space:

Once again, thank you for signing the SAVE YOUR SPACE petition and protecting your rights to access and express yourself on the Internet.
We are excited to announce that the National Coalition Against Censorship has agreed to co-sponsor the petition. Their coalition is supported by more than 30 organizations including the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. We will broadcast a press release on Monday, but we really need to have 10,000 signatures by this Sunday evening (August 20). Currently, we have less than 3,000.
Some organizations are interested in helping us, but they need to see that people really care about this issue. Otherwise they don't want to waste their time. We've been told the following statement by lobbying organizations and even senior executives of social networking sites.
"No one cares about what people under 18 think, because they can't vote and they're not adults."
We don't have an advertising, marketing or lobbying budget, so we need you to spread the news via WORD OF MOUTH.
In the next few days, we'll provide you with some great tools to help promote the petition including contests where people can win prizes, merchandise and even earn a spot on our SAVE YOUR SPACE Wall of Fame.

Petition's here, folks!

We have eaten all the cake.

This letter is in the most recent School Library Journal:

I felt since I have subscribed to SLJ for the past 19 years I should provide an explanation for canceling my school's subscription. Your edition highlighting books for students with alternative sexual preferences (January 2006) was indicative of the disregard you display for elementary school libraries and your blatant political agenda. Because my position as an elementary school librarian requires that I spend public funds with care, respecting the beliefs and tastes of the community I serve (in other words, it is not my job to impose my beliefs or politics on the people who pay my salary), I can no longer justify the very considerable cost of your magazine.

So, because of one issue, this junior high library will no longer have access to one of the highly and widely regarded review sources for childrens books.
Because of one fucking issue.
Here I'm going to set aside my gut reaction.* I may pick it up later. I just hate the idea that having ONE ISSUE of a magazine with a cover story about gay teen lit, which is a significant trend like any other significant trend in books for youth (ha! you thought I'd say kid's books, didn't ya?), means you've got a "political agenda" that shouldn't be imposed on her community. Because, of course, every single one of those junior high kids is as straight as the day is long. And they all hate fags.
Because, you know, I get annoyed, too, when I pick up a journal and every book reviewed is one that I know my crew wouldn’t pick up. Or when Booklist pulls their “This book has YA appeal for all those YAs out there interested in veterinary science” crap. But I still read them, because there are plenty of librarians with crews out there who like the stuff mine doesn’t. I don’t dictate the whole fucking world of collection development, and clearly this woman thinks she can.
And isn’t it a bit hypocritical to stop an entire magazine, and publicly (her name, by the way, is Sandra Keraghan, and her school is Jerling Junior High), because you respect what you feel are your community’s beliefs based on one issue? One issue that, if memory serves me correctly, wasn’t even entirely dedicated to the cover story?
***
When I like or dislike a book or series, that’s my opinion. I’m very aware of the fact that, to some people, my opinion counts as more because of my job, but I also take great care to not gush about something unless I’m as sure as possible that the patron I’m gushing to will feel the same way. Or is comfortable enough to disagree with me.
The other day, one of my regulars told me he read Cut My Hair on my recommendation, but didn’t like it. This just about broke my heart, but I don’t think any less of either of us for it.
I got into a big argument, kind of, with my YA lit professor in library school over the terms “high fantasy” and “low fantasy”. Basically, my argument was that thinking I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than read any more Tolkien didn’t make me less smart, or not as good a reader as people who know all the mythology and shit of Middle Earth. Isn’t that what we all paid Peter Jackson for?
I just don’t think this is talked about enough by those of us who recommend things to people who are younger than we are. How much are we just forcing our tastes and beliefs, whether those beliefs are that public funds should not be spent on So Hard To Say (which is adorable, incidentally), that the Gossip Girls are the sole reason teen girls are obsessed with appearances and brandnames, that smart kids will love the latest Printz winner because it’s literary, or that anyone who doesn’t think Douglas Adams is funny has no soul? I don’t like Sarah Dessen, but I still buy her books.
Does every book librarians, teachers, and other adults love have a Catcher Cult**? How do we avoid the cultishness of our favorite books, anyway?
--Or maybe I'm just cranky because the parents that gave up rules when they started living like freaky beatniks are here "parenting" their son, who is screaming. Why are high ceilings so valued in libraries, again?--

*Which really is probably your gut reaction, too. If you're offended by the idea that gay teens deserve everything straight teens take for granted, than what on earth do you see of value in anything I have to say?...Or, I heart preaching to the choir.
**Dude, read King Dork. Reading it doesn’t mean you’re smart or cool or whatever, but, if you think I’m worth reading, you’ll probably be a fan. Unless you aren’t. And that’s cool, too—just c’mon back and I’ll recommend something else you should read.

From an email I got today:

URGENT Action Needed: The ALA Washington Office has learned that the US
House of Representatives may try to expedite passage of H.R. 5319, the
Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), TOMORROW, July 26th. The bill is
moving forward as is, with no changes to the original language.

PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE'S OFFICE TODAY and ask that he/she
oppose HR 5319. The Capitol Switchboard number is: 202-224-3121.

To find out who your Representative in the House is, go here.

To learn more about DOPA, please go here.

We all know my representative won't do shit, but maybe someone else's could?
Also, is this Teens Have No Rights Week or what?

New Orleans, Where Even the Urban Outfitters Employees Are Friendly and Helpful: ALA 2006 bk 4

(Seriously, the friendliest, most helpful, and least hipstersnobby UO employee I’ve ever seen. Sidebar: I always wonder what UO employees have to be so hipstersnobby about. I mean, if they’re so hip, what are they doing working for a giant chain whose sole purpose, most days, seems to be taking DIY and thrift culture and charging an arm and a leg for it? Not, of course, that I don’t shop there; I clearance rack hop anywhere. Sidebar 2: Why is it so damn hard for me to find a straight, short-not-mini, basic black nonpencil, no ruffles, skirt?)

I love in the 2nd Scott Pilgrim when the free newsweekly is held up and one of the sidebars is “Comic Books Aren’t for Kids Anymore”.
Neil Gaiman talked about the graphic novel thing on his blog. Plenty of librarians argued with this, on both listservs I’m on.
Frankly, I do think that his complaint that one could be left with the impression that librarians are only interested in manga has some merit (don't hurt me, please). But I think that has more to do with the audience questions than anything else. Our crews want manga, so we ask other librarians, and maybe some of the indie and/or realistic stuff falls by the wayside because you just can’t cover everything in the amount of time given. Even with that, I thought it was a great and informative program. But then, I don’t need a primer; I just like some help keeping up.
I remain totally fascinated with the idea of boy-love manga (no one is surprised by my attraction to the boy-on-boy). However, realistic stuff (ie/eg not fantasy) doesn’t tend to circ with my crew, and I’m way too cheap to buy it on my own dime. Someday…
My favorite inside-Jessy’s-head Simpsons reference came at the graphic novel program. A mother of a teenager* was talking about some boy-love book in her daughter’s room and how she asked who was the boy and who was the girl.
“Girls, Lisa. Boys kiss girls.”

By Teens For Teens
My library doesn’t have a teen advisory board. When I made moves to start one, I got a big fat “meh” from my crew.
Unfortunately, most of these “by teen for teen” conference programs that I’ve been to have been all about the TAB. I’m constantly working on ideas for getting feedback/ideas from area teens, not just my regulars, in some sort of casual way.
The best part of this program was the Neighborhood Story Project people. Ashley Nelson is seriously one of the best speakers I’ve ever seen. I really need to read her book, and so does everyone else.
I think what really struck me about the NSP thing was the respect everyone involved clearly has for each other. It’s not, as was so often the case in my high school and I suspect lots of places, white adults with missionary complexes (and sometimes religious funding, making them kinda actual missionaries) coming into the ghetto to help the poor children there. It’s teachers and other adults using their talents and skills to start something somewhere. And that’s awesome, and something I think everyone should aspire to.

So that’s ALA. I know I left some bits out, but this was the general gist.
Jesus, storytime’s loud.



*Someday, somewhere, I will have a conversation with a group of my professional peers and we will actually talk about our actual teenage patrons, not anyone’s children. I can’t help but feel that somehow, somewhere in this “my son/daughter…” method of librarianship, there’s an undercurrent of “You haven’t raised a kid, so you don’t know how to librarian to them.” Or maybe it’s just time for me to move back to someplace where single, childless, and not uncomfortable with either thing girls aren’t such a rarity so I don’t feel like the only boyfriendless, no-kid-having-and-not-caring 27yrold in town.

I got dibs on Jigglypuff—ALA 2006 bk 3

I believe I’ve mentioned before my crew’s lack of interest in DDR. But I still want to have a gaming program, right? Here’s the new plan:
Super Smash Brothers.*
The weekend after all the freshmen orientations, so I can tell every 9th grader in town in just a few fell swoops. Of course, this plan hinges on the school librarian giving me more than a week’s notice for the orientations. Let’s all knock on some wood, shall we?
Thanks to all the gaming discussion people for helping me out with this one. I’m sure I’ll be bothering you guys for help more and more. And I mean that in the least annoying possible way. And the least grammatically correct, apparently.

Stephen Abram’s millennials thing was interesting and didn’t irritate me the way most generational discussions do. Mainly because it didn’t make value judgments, or act like trends in demographics mean EVERYONE born between certain years thinks and acts the same. The powerpoint is here and the handout is here.
The two hottest things I got from the program: Hennepin County has a catalog search box on their MySpace (and they’re offering the code to add a search box to your MySpace—how cool is that!?) and some libraries have text message reference.
Also, I was amused that, after 2 librarians whose questions for Abram were “…but I read this other thing that said that millennials were born after 3:15 PM June 7 1983…”, I bust up there like, “Hennepin County has the catalog on their MySpace? How do I do that?”

Sitting in the audience of the Quick Picks committee was totally fun, even if I was late because no one was exactly sure when Brent Hartinger was signing. I’d been saying to myself that I wanted to be comfortable with my job and what I’m doing librarian-wise, and then I’d look into committee work, and I think I’m ready to investigate. And I think we all know I can’t keep a secret well enough to be on the Printz or Best Book committees.
And I learned all about this book called Fuck This Book, which consists of photos of “fuck” stickers in humorous places. There’s a website, which is of course blocked by our new filter. Though I would find it HILARIOUS if it wasn’t. This is a great book. I totally wish I could buy a copy for school visits (b/c this kind of thing is great for getting teens to realize that libraries aren’t all storytimes and old people), but I like to think I’ve got better sense than that. The high school secretaries already hate me, and I suspect that the high school librarian already thinks I’m without a moral compass.



*I mentioned this to Lawyer Chris yesterday at Melissa’s dad’s picnic and, I swear, it was like Christmas morning. So don’t think I’m not relying on you to help me with this program, Chris. Also, I’m linking to you b/c I think you need to blog the story about Pikachu and the bully.

wooo, MLS

*ring, ring*
--Information desk, how can I help you?
--A little chick goes, "Cheep cheep." How do you spell that?
--C-H-E-E-P
--Thank you.

Luna was transgendered; Mike’s a lesbian: ALA 2006 bk 2

Dude, what is it with every librarian on the planet but me and Feed, anyway?
Actually, I suspect I know, but that’s a whole post unto itself. For a book with a 2004 copyright, it came up in conversation quite a bit at the 2006 conference. I feel like I could, in fact, discuss the programs I went to by describing how and why Feed came up at many of them. But I won’t. I’ll also attempt to contain myself when I start talking about the Neighborhood Story Project.

Alex Awards Program
I went to this last year and it was really cool, so I figured I’d repeat. And I totally got rewarded for not trying anything new, because Neil Gaiman was there. I’m also terrified now, because A. Lee Martinez (Gil’s All-Fright Diner, which is one of those books I swore I ordered, several times, and yet we don’t have it) was introduced with biographical information from his MySpace page.
Here follows A Little Jessy Professional Nightmare:
“Jessy enjoys picking junk up off the ground, thrift stores, clearance racks, public transportation. Drunkdialing AudioBlogger. "I Saw You" personal ads, and making an ass out of herself. She wants to meet a round little fellow who seems to be passed out from drinking too much milk.”
And, yes, I know that the easy answer is to not have any personal information on the internet that I wouldn’t want used to introduce me to a bunch of librarians. But where’s the fun in that? I also kind of can’t believe the intro’s writer. If I were writing presenter’s biographical information for my sister, I wouldn’t say, “Lara’s heroes are people who stand up for something…Oh, also Nick Lachey,” to a bunch of teachers.
I also noted that I should really read As Simple As Snow. I wondered a bit at Galloway’s slightly awkward (I thought) discussion of his “goth” characters (you know how sometimes you can hear quote-bunnies?) with Neil Gaiman sitting next to him, but, well, I don’t know if I could discuss anything with Neil Gaiman sitting next to me. I do, however, know that I wouldn’t read a passage from a fellow panelist’s work as part of my talk, like Galloway did at the YALSA President’s Program. But then, I was unimpressed by Postcards from No Man’s Land. Oh, and for an Iowa graduate, I was impressed at his lack of Poet Voice.

Audiobook Preconference
There was a contest to be in an audiobook! You had to audition and everything. I kinda screwed it up, which I think I wouldn’t’ve done if I had actually practiced out loud, but it was really fun nonetheless. The woman I sat next to thought so as well. Apparently, we were so excited by the prospect of being in an audiobook that somehow her ALA badge (which you need for pretty much EVERYTHING) wound up in my purse. Which I discovered hours and hours later, right before I discovered that her business card only listed her school number. Oops. Hopefully, she got to the exhibit hall lost ‘n’ found. Let that be a lesson to everyone that obsessively checking for your badge at every turn isn’t just me being insane and paranoid!
There were also interesting panels, like Bruce Coville, Listening Library, etc. talking about producing audiobooks and a couple of the kids from Full Cast Audio talking about being audiobook actors, and actually doing some audiobook rehearsing in front of us, which was super cool. Clips of audiobooks played (I tried to time my bathroom break to coincide with the clip from Feed, but no dice) that totally inspired me to make a mixcd to take on class visits this fall (what song should I “accidentally” add? “I Hate Music”? “Nic Fit”? Dub Narcotic’s “Fuck Shit Up”? [joking—I would never ever do that]). The woman I was behind in the lunch line is currently working on the audio version of Traveling Pants #4 and I tried to pump her for spoilers, but, again, no dice. I’m still terribly excited about reading this one.
Tamora Pierce does this great “I’m a terrible speaker” fake-out at the beginning of her talk, and it totally sounds like Delores Umbridge does in my head.
The awesomest thing from the preconference was the discovery that New York Public Library worked with Listening Library to get audiobook clips on their website. I’m really excited about biting this idea for my library, maybe even on the MySpace page. Kind of like how Ned Vizzini put an excerpt of It's Kind of a Funny Story on its own MySpace.
Some libraries (school ones, I think) shelve their audiobooks right next to the print version. I’m still thinking of the pros and cons of this idea for the teenhole, but I kind of like it. I mean, we’ve got the hardback and paperback copies together, why not the audio as well? My crew don’t go and look at the audiobook section as a rule, so it just might work. I wonder if I could do a test run?
Cool toys from the precon: audiobooks on memory cards and these Playaway things that my library (the one I use, not the one I work for) has and I keep meaning to investigate.
Upcoming in part 3: committees I audienced at, Printz speeches, graphic novels, and more rambly “goodness”.

Yay us; or ALA 2006 bk 1

So, I was in New Orleans for a week. I've never been anywhere where palm trees grow naturally before.

FAQ answers:

• No, I didn’t spend that much time on Bourbon Street. Do I strike you as the sort of girl who would enter a bar called the Frat House, or the sort of girl who would pick a sign up off the street instructing Frat House patrons that dress codes were to be strictly adhered to?
  
• Where I was (downtown-ish and the French Quarter) there was very little damage. There were still signs, like how all the street signs are bent and how, instead of Sporadic City Stench, sometimes I’d get a whiff of mildew. Or how many bright blue tarps I saw instead of roofs as my plane was taking off.
  
• Yes, I went to Café du Monde. I didn’t think that my beloved funnel cake could be improved upon (unless, of course, it’s by Kennywood and involves ice cream and strawberries). I was wrong. I was also wrong to wear a black shirt around all that powdered sugar. And I don’t know if it was just because I had been drinking crappy-pot-in-my-hotel-room coffee all week, but—damn. Best Cup of Coffee I’ve Had In Forever. Like, the kind of revelatory coffee experience your first cup is, or your first espresso. Or when you first realize that beans from different countries taste different. And now I sound like a junkie.
  
  
• Yup, everyone was pretty psyched to see us. In addition to the usual New Orleans tourist shirts (“Don’t Make Me Poison Your Food” and a lot about being drunk) and the Katrina black humor stuff (my favorites being the ones referring to the hurricane as a blow job), there were also “Librarians Do It By the Book” tshirts all over the place.

Mostly, I did a lot of librarianing, with some blatant fanboyishness thrown in for good measure. Everyone will be pleased to know that I didn’t embarrass myself in front of Sara Ryan, despite my giant Straight Girl Crush. Hopefully I’ll be equally lucky if I’m ever in the same room as Beth from The Gossip. Hopefully I will also actually have the balls to speak to her, since I didn’t with Sara Ryan.

I also bought my very own copy of Geography Club (and had it signed!), so expect me to be forcing that on all of my friends soon. Like, at Stacey et al’s housewarming party this weekend. I’d also have kickass Brent Hartinger temporary tattoos, but there was a summer reading mixup while I was gone (actually, back when I approved a form I shouldn’t’ve) and we were running dangerously low on prizes.
I also got some good gifties for some folks, and will be guest-blogging in Claudia’s Room sometime soon re: meeting ANM.
Lots of ARCs too, of course. I’m really trying to keep track of what I read with LibraryThing. And I’m chomping at the bit for my package containing, among other things, New Moon and Vampirates. Snurk.

More pictures are at my flickr account (see the badge thing over there?) and more actual conference detail is forthcoming.

quick list (ongoing) of sites our new filter filters

Runescape
Viz
Gurl
DeviantArt
Go Fug Yourself
Yahoo Messenger
AOL Messenger
MSN Messenger (these 3 are linked from our website, incidentally, b/c we have IM reference)
Cheatcodes
Pamie
GamePro
Rave Clothing Store
Hot Topic

Just for fun, I copied this from the filtering company:

Access to web sites that have been identified as providing inappropriate content will be blocked. This determination is based upon various content categories by the Indiana Public Libraries. If you have a question regarding the filtering policy, please see your local technology contact.


Blocked Categories
Adults Only: Material labeled by its author or publisher as being strictly for adults. (Examples: "Adults only", "You must be 18 to visit this site", "Registration is allowed only for people 18 or older", "You must be of legal drinking age to visit this site").
Alcohol: Advocating or promoting the recreational use of alcoholic beverages.
Chat: Online chat rooms, a service that allow short messages to be sent to others immediately in real time, and the download of chat software that enables the online posting and receiving of real-time messages.
Hate/Discrimination: Advocating discrimination against others based on race, religion, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation.
Drugs: Advocating or promoting recreational use of any controlled substance. (Also see Illegal)
Web Page Hosting: Sites where home page space is offered for free. These sites historically have done nothing to prevent capricious abuse of their services by users who post offensive content under multiple pseudonyms, making them difficult to track. Individual pages that have been reviewed by N2H2 on such sites are removed from this category, but filed under other categories as necessary.
Gambling: Gambling services, or information relevant primarily to gambling.
Tasteless/Gross: Bodily functions. Tasteless humor. Graphic medical photos. Some extreme forms of body modification (cutting, branding, genital piercing).
Illegal: Advocating, promoting, or giving advice on carrying out acts widely considered illegal. This includes lock-picking, bomb-making, fraud, breaching computer security ("hacking"), phone service theft ("phreaking"), pirated software archives, or evading law enforcement.
P2P/Loophole: A loophole that can be exploited to access pages which would otherwise be filtered out from your service.
Lingerie: Models in lingerie (except those that qualify for Nudity).
Profanity: Crude, vulgar, or obscene language or gestures.
Nudity: Bare or visible genitalia, pubic hair, buttocks, female breasts, etc. (See also Lingerie and Sex)
Personals: Personal advertisements, including information about mail-order brides, dating services, escort services, or pen pals.
Pornography: Material intended to be sexually arousing or erotic. (See also Sex and Nudity)
School Cheating Information: Any site that promotes plagiarism or similar cheating among students (such as by offering term papers, exam keys, etc.)
Murder/Suicide: Information on committing murder or suicide.
Sex: Images or descriptions of sexual activity. Any sexual merchandise. Sexual fetishism. (See also Nudity)
Tobacco: Advocating or promoting the recreational use of tobacco.
Violence: Graphic images or written descriptions of wanton violence or grave injury (mutilation, maiming, dismemberment, etc.) Includes graphically violent games.
Visual Search Engine: Block search engine results based on key words.
Weapons: Information about buying, making, modifying, or using weapons such as guns, knives, swords, or ammunitions.


Exception Categories
Education: Material under another category (such as Sex, Nudity, Violence) that has educational value (such as classic literature, sex education, etc.)
For Kids: Sites that are designed specifically for kids.
History: Material that falls under another category (such as Sex or Violence) that is non-fictional and historically significant.
Medical: Material under another category (such as Nudity or Tasteless/Gross) that relates to the study or practice of medicine.
Moderated: A "Message/Bulletin Board" or "Chat" site that prevents offensive material from being posted.
Text Only: Material under another category that is strictly verbal (i.e. text or spoken word). This can be used, for example, to distinguish written erotica from graphical "Porn" sites.