“lo hicimos, we did it!”

For those of you without toddlers, the title of this post comes from a song on the popular children’s television show Dora the Explorer.  Every episode Dora and her best friend Boots have a destination to reach.  They use The Map to find their way.  The song is a wrap-up of what it took to reach their destination and a celebration, complete with dancing. As we wrapped up the first annual Access Services Conference (fantastic by the way) I was overwhelmed with the need to dance around and sing this song.  I did manage to get a high five (something I never do) from a co-organizer.  It just felt like such a major accomplishment that needed to be celebrated.  Although we did not have The Map to guide us through the conference organizing process, we did have the Electronic Resources and Libraries Conference to look up to and emulate.   The whole experience was exciting, and terrifying all at the same time.  I am proud of the conference we offered and hope that next year will be even better.

I will say that I have never been more nervous and anxious in my life.  I was physically shaking a couple of times.  Speaking in front of crowds is never easy but wanting everything to be perfect is incredibly toxic.  It’s quite apparent that I need to work on my public speaking.  Overall, this whole process has taught me to go outside my comfort zone and when I do that, I will be proud of my accomplishments.

The bottom line: We did it, we did it, we did it, yeah lo hicimos, we did it!

“print is dead”

This is an actual quote from a humorous moment in last week’s Flash Forward.  The joke was, I am paraphrasing, what could a librarian, a journalist, and a copy clerk (I think) possibly have to be so upset about that they would all commit suicide together.  The punchline: “because print is dead?”.  Now, I had to rewind it (thank you tivo) so that my husband would get the full effect of the joke.  But, the funny thing is, print is not dead.  Did I find it humorous, yes, but also concerned that this is the conception.  When circulation stats are continuously going up and ebooks are rejected left and right (purely opinion based on my experience at the circ desk and articles on e-book reader trials), you have to wonder who is feeding this lie.  I ran across an article in Academia detailing why print is not dead.  Are Old Media Dead, by Walt Crawford is an interestingly long read about several media that have been targeted for “death” but are still alive and kicking.  Most interesting is the fact that Mr. Crawford lays out what my suspicion has been all along: print will never die.  That is what I take from it, at least.

BTW, I am really enjoying Flash Forward.

Update: while driving home after writing this post, I heard a story on NPR about a boarding school in Massachusetts eliminating books and going digital.  It’s an interesting listen.  I could be wrong about print never dying, but I sure hope I am not.

Star Wars: The Musical

Okay, now that I have your attention.  This was my husband’s brilliant idea while I was watching Glee the other night.  New favorite show by the way.  At the moment, I thought he was just being silly and making fun of the show but later realized that he is an evil genius.  How great would a Star Wars musical be?  I am sure some other evil genius like Joss Whedon has already claimed this idea and that is fine.  No Googling here.  For all I know, it is in production right now.  If not, perhaps someone will stumble upon this awesome idea and decide to make it a reality.  All you would need is catchy tunes.  It wouldn’t even cost that much to put on. You can buy the costumes at any Walmart these days.  Here is what you need: 1 song about how Luke is a young man on a quest to find himself and save a young princess, 1 song about being captured and held prisoner by an evil man who blows up your home planet, 1 song about how you are too awesome for this bunch of losers and that you are the best smuggler/pilot around and all the women want you, 1 song about how you were once a nice man with children until you were turned to the dark side, and one song about using The Force, and there you go.  Instant hit.  Hey Mr. Lucas, get on that. I don’t really like Star Wars but I would absolutely see this musical.

It Still Counts…Right?

Last week a colleague and I presented at the 2009 Georgia Council of Media Organizations Convention to an audience of one.  This did not include the two sweet colleagues who humored us with their presence.   Although I was somewhat disappointed, I can at least put it on my CV.  We were exploring current trends in circulating non-traditional items.  I thought we had a decent presentation, somewhat dry, but decent.  Too bad no one got to see it.  This just goes to show that even kick-ass titles don’t always attract a crowd.  I choose to believe that circulation folks just didn’t attend this year.  If they did, then they would have been at my session. Right?  Well, this presentation has sparked an interested in a bigger, longer, study that I just might have the energy to explore, after the Access Services Conference.

“Here Comes the Dead”

In honor of the Library’s purchase of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the new film Zombieland, I thought I would offer a link from Newsarama.com on the great moments in zombie history.  I have to add that I have never been a zombie fan.  I enjoy vampires but zombies really freak me out.  Zombieland looks like a fun movie though.  Perhaps I need to start with number 1 on the list and educate myself beforehand.  It’s just the barefoot thing that always turns me off.  Plus, the whole eating brains thing, gross.

Holy Catalogers Batman!

Well, my previous post about cataloging sure sparked a fire.  I have had more visitors to this blog in the last week than I could have possibly imagined.  Every comment has been positive and I have received a vast quantity of resources to keep me busy for a long time.  It’s incredible that what is essentially a rant turned out to be my most popular post.  I just hope no one was offended by it.  I really do believe that everyone should take cataloging in library school.  It should be a requirement so know-it-alls like me couldn’t get out of  it.

Speaking of Batman.  Dragon Con is this weekend in Atlanta, GA.  It is our local version of ComicCon.  I will not be able to make the whole thing but am hoping I can arrange babysitting for Saturday to at least experience it.  I am sure I can get some good pictures to post.  Maybe, just maybe, I can get a new super cool Pez dispenser.  Ooh, or a Punisher tattoo.  I doubt they are doing tattoos but hey, a fan girl can dream can’t she?

If I Could Do Library School Over Again

I would take cataloging.  What was I thinking?  I’ll tell you.  I was thinking that I was never going to need cataloging, that’s what.  Boy was I wrong.   The cataloging of film is a tricky, tricky thing.  In this library, it is inconsistant, and often unexplainable.  Current cataloging standards are too restrictive and unwilling to bend.  At least I think they are.  I wouldn’t really know.  I only have what I am told and I am not 100% sure they really know either.  All I know is when a film is remade, it is a completely different item.  It is not another edition, it is a totally different thing and deserves it’s own record and call number.  I just wish I had the knowledge base and documentation to back it up.  Until then, it is just me against the cataloger.  I am totally the loser in this fight.  Off to find a continuing education course…

Message Board Madness

I have no idea how anyone keeps up on a forum.  I recently joined the PopCandy Forum community but have only posted a couple of times.  It seems rediculous that there are already folks with hundreds of posts being that the forum was just created a week ago.  I have made it all the way to 227 posts on a message board that I have frequented for almost 2 years.  Perhaps I just do not have enough to say.  Or maybe I am not as good at throwing my opinions on others, although the people I know may say otherwise.  Isn’t it interesting that all these people with jobs can keep up with message boards like they are earning an commission on the number of posts they have?  I am starting to think that I just can’t keep up.  Don’t even get me started on Twitter.  I have an account that I never use.  I don’t think anyone wants to know what I had for dinner or that my daughter pooed in the tub (oh yeah), other than my Facebook friends, of course.

A Popular Reading Re-Vamp

Back in my public library days (long, long, ago), I was responsible for ordering and managing the Baker and Taylor books.  I really enjoyed it because it was a rare opportunity to order books that I knew would be popular and enjoyed by the patrons at my library.  Most of the time we would have holds for books we didn’t even own yet.  Well, I find myself doing something similar now that I have made it my mission to update our Popular Reading collection, brought to us by McNaughton.  The process so far has been slow but I have managed to move the collection to a better space in the library.  This space, coined “The Corner” is just that, a corner of the library near the Circ desk.  We are using the space as a destination for leisure.  It includes popular reading, DVDs, and a book swap.  It also has comfortable seating for just lounging around.  Our institution is a research institution that, in the past, has not valued leisure materials.  In fact, we do not have a budget for such things.  We get the materials here and there but are overall very popular.  My mission is to get the McNaughton collection very up to date.

In the midsts of collaborating with other Librarians about this collection, I was turned on to a certain book series.  Charlaine Harris has written 9 books with Sookie Stackhouse as the main character, maybe more.  I read all nine in a few weeks time.  They are “fantasy mystery” and have vampires and such.  So much fun and totally outside my usual reading, although I have also picked up the 4th volume in the Buffy Season 8 comic last night.  Must be something about vampires.  I haven’t read this much in years.   I just found out that Charlaine Harris is going to be on a panel at ALA and I am going to miss it.  Boo. (no pun intended)

I Guess Fluffy Was a Democrat

I had the pleasure of receiving one of the worst damaged books ever today.  Poor guy, his friend’s dog destroyed the thing.  As irritated as I get about damaged books, this one made me giggle, after I closed my mouth.  Thought I would share a few visuals.

The title of the book? Should the United States Privatize Social Security? by Henry J. Aaron.  Ha.