Checkmate!

There's a giant chess set in the library. No, really. Coach B and I moved the reference section out of the way and set up a giant papier-mache chess set, made by Ms. K's art class, right in the center of the library. It's blue and white, of course, and the finials represent all the different things in which Out-of-Door students can participate: there are basketballs, baseballs, a pink-and-white volleyball, drama masks, a pencil, a paintbrush, musical notes, and naturally, Thor's hammer.

Yesterday there were not one but two chess matches in here. Students asked permission first and moved the pieces very carefully, and played actual chess games. So it's not just public art - it's interactive public art! After the break the pieces will be moved to the tops of the tall book stacks, plus we will have a new display in the glass case by the desk - small works of art by our own students, with art supplies and art books too. As you know, I start teaching the art history class in January, and since it's my display case I get to use it to advertise my wares, so to speak. Hey, we started the year with a lacrosse exhibit - I'm just being fair, right?

Two down, four to go!

Let's see - I had a faint cold feeling at the back of my neck today, so that can mean only one thing: MATH EXAM. And boy, was it. The entire gym, er, Thunderdome, was filled with long tables, three students to a table, plus pencils, calculators and scratch paper. Alas, no lucky trolls or other apotropaica. (Look it up. We have the whole Oxford English Dictionary in print, although I suppose strictly speaking that's not English.)

Math was this morning, followed by science in the afternoon. That seems either to be a sensible packaging of like topics together, or a diabolical plan to menace the non-logical. Whatever! It's 2:45 now, so the bulk of you are done. Tomorrow, English and foreign languages. Friday is reserved for history, plus any extra topics left hanging around, so allegedly we're done by noon, and then the joy begins. Winter break! I can almost taste it. Bet you can, too. After that double helping of exams, of course.

Zero hour

It's exam week. This morning I announced that as promised, the library would be open at 7 a.m. Given that it's Monday I didn't expect too much patronage this morning, and I was right: one customer, for the copy machine only.

I also announced that there would be enforced silence, in order to let studiers study. There's been some trouble with that, so I fear that tomorrow there will have to be some sad detention-bound faces in the crowd. If you'd police yourselves, I wouldn't have to do it. But because you don't, I have the grim task of meting out divine justice, so to speak. Today I also got to eat lunch standing up in Mrs. B's office because apparently there was a soccer game in here last week. I admire high-spiritedness, but only from afar.

Looking for the art history class?

As you know, in addition to being your librarian, I'm also the resident (sole!) art historian. This week I have had the pleasure of meeting many of the students who plan to enroll in the art history class. Some of you inquired about the nature of the course and perhaps thought better of your initial decision, but many decided that the notion of homework and tests wasn't that hard swallow and signed up. The next step is to get the textbook. I didn't put it on Classbook because it's $15 cheaper, or even more, on Amazon. So click here, order your book, and put it under your pillow till January. Get a jump-start with a little osmosis, yeah? More to follow - stay tuned.

Yes you can!

This week I have been pleased to field a number of requests about book borrowing during the winter break. In almost every case, the answer to whatever you're asking is yes. How often does that happen? See if these apply to you:

Can I reserve a book to read over break? Yes!
Can I check things out right now to read over break? Yes!
If it's due during break, can I still keep it? Yes!
Can I renew it if I need more time to read it? Yes!

See? I'm in the wish-fulfillment business. Best part of my job.

Exam week hours

The people have spoken! The consensus seems to be that people would prefer to be in the library earlier rather than later, which makes a certain amount of logical sense: more study time BEFORE the exam, not after. There might be some general exhaustion at the end of the day, too, that sends people right home instead of back to the tables. So from Dec. 15-18 we will be open from 7 a.m. to 4:30, and on Dec. 19 from 7 a.m. to noon. Good luck!

That time of the year . . .

You can feel it in the air - it's the last stretch before final exams later this month. Today is the 3rd, and exam period begins the 17th. I hear from some of my favorite students (you know who you are!) that they would very much appreciate it if the library were open extended hours during exam time. I'm thinking it over. There are only so many hours in the day, and I'm here for quite a few of them already. However, exams are serious and I can certainly appreciate that. So, my question to you, reading public, is this: morning or afternoon? I'm not a morning person, really, but I could be convinced to open up at 7 instead of 7:30. Or, I can keep the library open till about 5:30 if you'd rather. The general impression I got was that morning was preferable, but I thought I would put it to the people and let the masses decide.

Happy Thanksgiving!

By this time tomorrow I will be about forty-five minutes away from Cincinnati. (I hope - holiday travel is notorious for terrible delays.) It is not the town of my birth, but it's close enough. I'm actually from Dayton, specifically from south Dayton - Centerville, to be exact, and if that doesn't have Mayberry connotations I don't know what would. Dayton is actually a nicer place than people probably imagine, or at least it was until GM laid off about 400 workers this week, but it seems to be the default city that authors use to refer to a place that is almost but not quite the middle of nowhere, bigger than the oft-cited Peoria but certainly not Chicago, or even Kansas City . PJ O'Rourke did it, Vonnegut did it too (and PJ, you should know better - you're from Toledo!)

But I left Dayton at 18 to go to school in Cincinnati, and I stayed there through college, a crummy corporate job, then grad school, then my first three years teaching. I met and married my husband in Cincinnati. So, in essence, it's where I really became a grownup. It's a far cooler place than people envision: everyone calls Sarasota the cultural coast, but every time I walk into any grocery store, fabric store, restaurant, shopping mall or preserved 19th century building in the Queen City I'm reminded how varied, cosmopolitan and steeped in history it really is. I'm like Marco Polo up there: I leave room in my luggage for all the exotic spices and luxury fabrics I want to smuggle back here every year.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year: I have this dandy new job, Mr. Librarian is also gainfully employed as a professional artiste, my little boy is the paragon of little-boyness, my parents are well and happy . . . and I have somewhere great to visit. After which, of course, I return here to the palm trees and brand-new pink stucco termite-free condos.

FACULTY WIN TURKEY BOWL, 13-12

You heard it here first, folks: it was faculty against the seniors in a flag football match for the privilege of a dress-down day. And who's wearing jeans tomorrow? That's right: THE GROWNUPS.

This was the exciting conclusion to a day full of surprises. This is my first year here at Out-of-Door, thus my first Turkey Bowl, and the thing I witnessed today that impressed me more than anything else was the degree to which the students seem happy to humiliate themselves in the name of sportsmanship. I saw the Dougherty Authority wearing screaming pink T-shirts (and matching headbands, in some cases); One Love sporting Rasta caps with faux dreadlocks (and if you've never seen that on a freckled Irish lass of about sixteen, you really haven't lived); a team of brides and grooms in tuxedo T-shirts and white plastic tiaras; and a whole squad of Gaffinators in superhero blue with red capes. "I can't believe I'm getting paid to sit here and watch this," I said to my boss on my way out to the field. He pointed out that it is a teacher's salary, after all, but hey - some things are priceless, aren't they?

Including the right to wear blue jeans behind the desk, while I watch the troops roll in wearing their corduroy trousers with belts and collared shirts!

Need info on that other Turkey Bowl? Click here.

News you can use

This morning I had the pleasure of working with Mr. S's journalism class. To give the students a taste of real-world journalism, the class puts out a newspaper every month. With every issue, they sharpen their skills - they're working their way into being real-life, hard-boiled newsmen who eat tacks for breakfast and wash them down with vinegar. Or something like that. Mr. S. kindly asked if I would draw upon my previous experiences in the media and say something useful, so I tried. Once upon a time I was copy editor, then copy chief, then editor-in-chief of my college newspaper, The News Record. At the time it was published three times a week and had a circulation of well into the thousands. Because we were self-funded we received no material support from the university and it gave us a rather broad freedom. That being said, however, all journalists are supposed to enjoy broad freedoms, as are in fact all Americans living under the protection of the Bill of Rights. There has been some exciting debate on campus lately, fueled in part by some opposing viewpoints on the opinion page, and that's perhaps the best lesson of all: that the things we think and write and share with others affect the people around us. Words have worth. Pick the good ones!

Turkey Bowl

Clearly we're one step closer to Thanksgiving Break, because Monday is Turkey Bowl Day here at Out-of-Door. All the teams are thinking up names, making the T-shirts, planning their strategy. I've never been a huge sports fan (surprise!) but I have to admit the energy is exciting, even infectious, and the tradition of team names is particularly enchanting. I'd list them here but I don't want to ruin the surprise. I was trying to explain Turkey Bowl to my husband last night, and it went something like this:
"Hey! Monday is Turkey Bowl at school! Everyone's talking about it! It's an annual tradition where all the classes get together on the quad and-"
"Bowl with turkeys?" finished Mr. Librarian.
"No," I said, "but that would be pretty great, too."
In fact, there actually is a scene in a Christopher Moore novel where stockboys at an LA grocery store bowl in the aisles with frozen turkeys after hours, but I don't see us recreating that any time soon, alas.

There are all kinds of myths and notions about the turkey, some of them substantiated, some of them not. Everyone seems to agree they're not too bright, but they sure are pretty. More so when roasted to a crackling bronze and surrounded by a wreath of fresh parsley, with apologies to vegetarians everywhere. Apparently a number of Native American tribes believed eating turkey would make you weak or cowardly, because the birds themselves were thought to be so. So, turkey is actually . . . chicken.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Is this Florida, or what?

In case you've been under a rock or something this week, we're having a cold spell. Actually, I kind of like it. First of all, as you know it's been a while since I've had to be dressed like a grownup five days a week and this is giving me a chance to wear all the nice woolens I saved from my previous life up North - major wardrobe expansion. Second, it's perfect weather for settling in with a book, of course! A book, some hot chocolate, crackling fire, a cat for company . . . I don't need the glamorous life, just give me good literature. Apparently I'm not alone, either: my circulation statistics are way up.

Speaking of books, unless you've been under the aforementioned rock, you know that Twilight is being released as a film this Friday. If you need a fix before then, see me at the desk. I've got it up front for now because it's circulating so fast I'm afraid it will start smoking. Don't know what all the fuss is about? Stop any random girl on the street between ages 11-17 and ask her what she thinks of Robert Pattinson. And then take two steps backwards, place your index fingers in your ears, and prepare to resuscitate her from hyperventilation.

Lollipops are candy, too

I'm very pleased to say that I have noticed a significant drop in the amount of in-library eating I'm seeing these days, with one exception: lollipops. Or suckers, whatever you want to call them - you know, candy on the end of a stick? I've heard a variety of entertaining, albeit specious, arguments that somehow lollipops should be exempt from the library ban, but they're not. "But it's in my mouth!" I hear that a lot. Except it isn't. It's in your hand, then it's on the floor, then it's dropped on the pages of a book, then it's stuck behind The American Civil War Almanac.

I'm not sure why a group of young people would want to walk around looking like Telly Savalas, drooly little white sticks poking out of the corners of their mouths, but evidently they do. I'm not going to judge you on your choice of cuisine, but I can make you consume it somewhere else, so keep those suckers outside!

My evil plan is working

Today I installed a display of musical instruments from around the world: we have a berimbau, a full set of Turkish nais, a kalimba from Africa, and the reigning favorite - an oud, way up on the top of the cabinet. So far two people have requested to play it, and several more stood transfixed, staring up at it. So, my evil plan is working. People are coming into the library and learning new things.

This is Halloween

I'm seeing some great costumes from the circ desk, both inside and outside the library. Alex just left, waddling around in his inflatable Sumo wrestler suit. A whole herd of cats went by, some fairies, a troupe of rednecks complete with rebel-flag tattoos, there's an inflatable elephant standing on its head somewhere, two angels, Laura as a gypsy, several cowgirls, all four Ninja Turtles, and my favorites: Nick and Taylor as the Mario Brothers, followed by Maria as Sarah Palin, a close second. (Nice suit - very authentic!)

There was some discussion at lunch among the faculty about whether we were more or less effective in our Halloween getups: Mr. N, who came as Sweat (and was accompanied by Miss E and Mrs. F as Tears and Blood, respectively) said he actually felt better sans tie, and I volunteered I felt more benevolent and terrible as the harvest goddess herself. But what about the students? Can actual learning happen when the head is under a halo, a cowboy hat, or a witch's peak?

The Greek philosopher in me says yes, not so much book-learning as perhaps a firsthand experience of what our ancient predecessors knew all along: sometimes you have to give Apollo a day off and let Dionysos take over. Furthermore, we do learn by doing. I forgot my sheaf of wheat today, one of Demeter's attributes. I kicked myself, but look at it this way - at least I knew enough to understand what I'd left out.

Math test

Today I got a really great request: some information about the Mayan system of performing mathematical calculations. It's well-known that Mayan reckoning of time is some of the most accurate in the history of the world - how did they do it? Turns out they used a vigesimal, or base-20, system. Euro-Westerners use a decimal, or base-10 system. The Mayans also had the concept of zero long before anyone in this part of the world even thought of it. Among the Maya, who inhabited parts of Mexico and areas of Central America between about 1000-1675, zero was represented by the sign of a shell, 1 was represented by a dot, and 5 a stick or line, grouped together with the horizontal lines below and the dots arranged horizontally above. To create larger numbers another group was simply placed vertically atop the previous group, and this upper group of signs increased by the power of 20, allowing for much larger numbers. I don't get to do much math, or much investigation into ancient hieroglyphic either - in my mind, I was Indiana Librarian today.

Switcheroo

If you visit me at the circulation desk you will notice that I appear to be drowning in a sea of VHS tapes. I am, actually. I am trying to totally renovate our collection of video materials: get rid of what's just collecting dust, replace the old favorites with DVD versions, get new and exciting things for the future. Surely though, as I take things out of the collection and donate them or let people choose things to take home I will be criticized for appearing to just let go of a valuable resource. Believe me, I agonize over every title that I take out of the collection - what if I weed this thing someone was about to love? - but here's my criterion: if no one has checked it out it the last ten years, it goes. That's pretty generous, I think. If you really desperately want to hang on to a VHS copy of Shane, let me know and you can hoard it yourself. Otherwise, please understand that growth sometimes involves sacrifice, and the future looks bright (and easy to store on disk!)

. . . what is your quest?

I don't know how many of you have used Questia in the past, but the library does subscribe to it and today I worked very hard getting every student and teacher his or her own password to use it! Questia is a full-text source - books and articles! - a very valuable resource for researchers, writers - anyone wanting more and better information than Wikiwhatever can provide. I'll be doing a more formal introduction to the delights of Questia later on, but feel free to stop by the desk and ask me all about it!

Great new stuff in the DVD section

This week I added four of my very favorite titles to our DVD collection: Pyramid, Roman City, Castle and Cathedral. These are all video adaptations of the books by David Macaulay, in which he illustrates the construction of all of these through his wonderful drawings and clear explanations. He uses a fictional setting to describe real techniques: the Roman city, for example, never existed but is a kind of composite of what Roman provincial towns were like and how they were built. I have shown these every year in my art history classes and can't wait to do so here. If you want a sneak preview, though, they are ready and waiting for you to watch them.

THERE IS STILL REALLY NO EATING IN THE LIBRARY

In the last two weeks I have found myself repeating over and over again that there is no eating in the library. Is it OK to eat apples? No. Is it OK to eat after school but not during? No. Is it OK if I'm at a table and not looking at the books? NO. And here's why:

There you are, eating your granola bar or whatever at the table. Crumbs fall from your hand onto the carpet. Someone opens the door and a bug crawls in. Attracted to the granola crumbs, it crawls a little further, scarfs them up, and goes looking for another snack. And finds one in the glue bindings of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Music, which it proceeds to eat and thus refreshed goes searching for a mate. They reproduce, and now you're eating in a library full of bugs everywhere.

Stop eating in the library, or I'll tell the bugs where you live.

Everywhere a sign

As part of my overall plan to improve the way the library works, I have started making new (and I hope better) signs to mark the bookshelves. This may seem like a small thing, but not being able to find the right shelf holding the book you want is a really big deal when you're between classes and in a hurry. Now we have signs that have directional arrows pointing to the side of the bookcase in which the books are organized. For example, on the bookcase nearest the easy chairs, the biography side is clearly marked with an arrow and the word "biography," and the other side, which has fiction, has its own arrow and the alphabetic span of books in that area.

I'm all for wandering around the stacks, of course, but sometimes you just really want that copy of Robin Lane Fox's biography of Alexander the Great and don't have time to wait. Now you don't have to.

Electronic resources

I am very, very, very happy to say that today I got two requests from different students to show them how to use the electronic resources we have here at the Savidge/Bowers Library. If you're wondering the same thing but are too shy to ask, here's some help. You can just click here to go to the library's databases page, or you can go to the school's site first,then go to "academics," then select the link for "library," and then you can click on the icon for the database you want. I recommend the Gale Student Resource Center Gold collection, by the way. I further recommend choosing only full-text articles, because otherwise you're just frustrating yourself. If you don't check that box it returns everything out there, including stuff we don't have, and there you are wanting something you know exists but can't access. Terrible! So pick the full-text option and then you can read or print to your heart's content.

If that doesn't get you where you need to be, come see me. That's my job, remember?

Holy shift!

Today is Breast Cancer Awareness Day, and in addition to my pink ribbon I am wearing jeans. A $5 donation buys the giver the chance to wear denim to work and I took it! I dedicated today to physical labor: I shifted too-tightly-packed books onto empty shelves to make room for new titles and to give me a chance to clear out ten years' worth of dust. You deserve a clean working environment and so do I. Next week, new shelf labels to tell you where I put stuff, whee!

Help me help you

I hear through the grapevine that not everyone knows I'm here to help you. Oh sure, everybody comes to me to unjam the copier, refill the stapler, save their homework to flash drive and print from my computer - I even gave out a Band-Aid today. But what I'm really best at is finding the information you want. Need to look up a passage from the Aeneid in the original Latin? I got it, with the English right next to it. Want a subject to analyze for your math-class graphing problem paper? I can do that too. What about the history of the Protestant movement? I have all the answers you need.

All you have to do is ask. But I can't read your mind - you gotta come up to the desk!

Banned Books List

It's here - Banned Books week! I have gotten several very gratifying requests all day, including one from a student who actually checked one out with the intention of reading it. I have also gotten several requests for the list itself, too. There is a display of all the banned books right on top of the reference stacks; all ya gotta do is look. Still, if it's the raw info you're after, here you are (and thanks for reading the blog, by the way!):

1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle
8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

We don't have #1, #7 or #9. One and 9 are for an age group far below the Upper School: And Tango Makes Three is for very small children, and It's Perfectly Normal explains the changes your body goes through at puberty, and by seventh grade you're probably already there. That leaves #7. TTYL is a novel in text-message format. I don't object to the content - I just think the literary form itself is too ephemeral to have proven itself just yet. If it's still banned next year, then I'll buy it, but for right now it seems like a flash in the pan. And yet people were bothered enough by it to ban it!

Greatest books

Just to see how we're doing, I did a little digging in our OPAC. (That's our online catalog, what used to be the card catalog when it was still on, you know, cards.) Do we have the 100 Greatest Books Allegedly Ever Written? Actually, we're doing pretty well - we had all but about 10 of them and considering the physical size of the library that's fairly impressive. Naturally some personal favorites didn't make the list, but then again there were some titles that brought a smile to my face, forgotten old friends I should revisit one of these days. I spent the afternoon shopping around to fill in what gaps we do have, and that led me to wondering . . . is your favorite book in here? What is it? This is your library - make it so. If there's a book you're dying to read and haven't had a chance, let me know. I may not have much power, but I can do that - just ask!

Bite into a book!

Teen Read Week is on the horizon, and in this, my inaugural year as a real live librarian, we get to celebrate Books with Bite. The American Library Association gets to pick the theme, of course, and it's like they read my mind, for as you will soon see for your own selves, I absolutely loooove Halloween. I love everything about it: the costumes, the candy, the cooler weather, the vague suggestion of prankishness, even its connection to the celebration of seasonal change and harvest holidays.

As soon as my groovy graphics are done, I'll be putting up the book display. Vampire fiction is an obvious choice and we're pretty well-stocked at the Savidge-Bowers library, but how about books about food and cooking? Bite into that with your vampire teeth!

Falling forward

Things are happening: the cobwebs are being swept away, shelves are being shifted, posters are being hung. It sounds like spring cleaning, but it's not. It's autumn, my favorite time of year. Autumn for me is rife with possibilities and sweet rewards. The new school year starts in autumn, with new clothes, new classes, new friends. There are new books to read, crisp juicy apples to eat, and a breath of coolness in the air that makes you reach for a sweater. I love fall. I know everyone sees it as just the season that precedes winter, the metaphorical death of the year, but for me fall is always the start of something lovely.

I even like the candy corn.

Explore the forbidden in the library

This year, we celebrate Banned Books Week from September 27-October 4. I announced this to the faculty a couple of weeks ago and someone said, "Do they still ban books?" Sadly yes, now more than ever, though her optimism touched me. Each year a top 10 list of the most-challenged books is compiled. In 2007 alone, more than 400 books were subject to some form of challenge or censorship in our nation's libraries.

It is both inspiring and terrifying that people give this much accord to books. As much as people ignore and demean literature these days, they certainly give it a lot of attention when it says things with which they do not agree. In books are contained ideas and when ideas themselves are suppressed, oppression is the rule of the day. First you can't read that, then you can't say that, then you can't think that . . . where does it stop?

In a school library this is a particularly ponderous situation for the librarian, at least on the surface: it's my job to choose books and materials from the hundreds of offerings out there, and I have to decide what's suitable or not based on audience, budget, relevance, and other factors. What might be appropriate for one child may not be appropriate for another, but that's really up to that particular child's parents, at least while he's a minor. Taking a book out of the library at one individual's suggestion makes it impossible for anyone else to access it, and this means that one person's voice speaks for all of us. And that's pretty much what censorship is, one of the ugliest things on earth. Want to know more about your rights? Try the American Library Association.

Quiet, please

Today should have been quieter than usual, with the seniors away to meet their kindergarten buddies at the Lower School and the freshman on an all-day field trip, and yet it wasn't. It was the loudest day of the past six weeks.

The juniors are noisy. Well, many juniors are noisy - I hate lumping all of you together like that, but there it is. Perhaps you could start policing yourselves. The strangest part is that the very noisiest among you seem to have the least sense of it. Here, let me help you: if you are talking more than six inches away from someone, and that someone does not have to strain to hear you, you are talking too loudly.

This is not a totalitarian regime and I do not get any particular joy out of shouting or silencing people. But it is a library, and many people are here to study quietly and when you disturb them I am going to be a pain about it. You can talk anywhere, but quiet studiers need to be in the library, so they win.

Project Gutenberg

Among the many things I overhear in the library are requests to photocopy multiple pages from a friend's book, because:
a) the photocopying student lost, forgot, or never obtained his own copy
b) the homework is due tomorrow.

This is very sad, for a whole lot of reasons. Helpless trees have to suffer and die a needless death, and it means wasting electricity on copies, plus the gas it cost to ship the copy paper itself. Stop the madness, people! There's an easier way, and it's totally free.

Project Gutenberg is a website devoted to digitizing and making available the literature of the world for free, in easy-to-download formats. Sometimes multiple editions of the same work or multiple translations are available, and you may not get the exact one you want, but reading any version is better than not reading it at all, especially when that essay is due. Anything that is old enough to be in the public domain will likely appear there, such as Beowulf, the Iliad, or Romeo and Juliet. Your favorite novel may not be there, but that won't help you get the A in AP English - this will. Try it.

STOP EATING IN THE LIBRARY

Today I visited a few of you to kindly request you not consume Goldfish crackers and SweeTarts in the library. It's not because I'm anti-food. (In fact, if you've met me in person, you'll notice I seem to like it pretty well!) And, actually, I do happen to think nothing makes a good book even better than a crisp juicy apple or a stack of cookies with a glass of milk. Alas, it is not to be in the library, at least not this one. Silverfish, pictured here, are attracted to sugary, starchy foods and once they're done eating that, they move on to paper, glue and book bindings. You may think your crumbs are microscopic, but a) the silverfish are pretty small so that's a meal to them; and b) I find whole pretzels, orange peels, and entire candies all over the place EVERY DAY.

I realize we have a lot of meetings in here, and muffins and such seem to be an integral part of them, so this may seem hypocritical. But those muffin-filled meetings are usually populated by adults who can find a trash can for the remains rather than shoving them behind the Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Trust me, there is no library in the world that has a "Yeah, it's totally OK to hang out and eat chips around the books" policy. Even hard-core specialty libraries with students who never seem to go home have rules about eating near the books.

But here's a hint: check the book out, take it home, and I will never know you read it while eating Froot Loops. In your Superman underwear.

What I overhear in the library

As much as try to change the myth, evidently there still persists the idea that the librarian is just the lady who checks the books out and says "shush." I didn't get three college degrees just to wave the barcode reader around, people - take a hint. I know some things, and the most important thing I know (at least where you're concerned) is how to get the information you want. Every day I hear groups of students talking about homework problems and they never know I'm right behind them, waiting to help. I'd never barge right in, of course, because eavesdropping is rude. In my case it's unavoidable because you're right in front of me, talking loudly enough for me to overhear, but I still like to maintain the pretense of your privacy.

Just this afternoon some students were apparently trying to make up some sort of set of rules, a new Magna Carta or Ten Commandments, that kind of thing. The king-daddy of them all is the Code of Hammurabi, which dates back to about 1750 BC and is full of all kinds of interesting aspects of Bronze Age Mesopotamian life, a document so interesting law students continue to study it today. But did anyone ask me the question that would get that answer? No. Because I'm just the lady who checks the books out and says "shush."

I overhear other things, too, by the way. Just yesterday at assembly we reiterated that "retard" is a hurtful, disrespectful thing to say and it's especially offensive to people who care about someone with a developmental disability: a brother, a son, a cousin, even just a friend. The R word popped out again today, but I am happy to report that one student did the right thing and corrected the other.

Wash your hands, OK?

This will be another short post, because your librarian is sick today. I don't know if it's from all the dust in the stacks, if my little boy is bringing exotic germs home from day care, or if all this exposure to adolescents is too much for my system to take, but whatever the case I am brought low and will be leaving early today. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and wash your hands frequently with soap. And if you can't do that, stop touching my phone!

Quoth the librarian . . .

It's here! The Edgar Allan Poe action figure with removable raven! It arrived this morning and I'm pretty sure some other unnamed foes were thinking of purloining it, but their tell-tale hearts gave them away. I swooped in and rescued it for the contest. Speaking of the contest, it's the Reference Question of the Fortnight Contest, of course, but I'm getting so many questions I may have to make it weekly. Maybe. Do let me interject this, though: I'm the one in charge of filling out the little slips that get folded and put in the basket for the drawing and if I decide your question's not worthy, it doesn't go in. Make it a good one. Last week someone gigglingly asked me what Spanish for "hello" was, in the hopes of upping the statistical chance of being drawn and while I don't want to quash the spirit of free inquiry, I'm not going to stuff the ballot box with dandruff just for the sake of bulk. Remember: the librarian is better than Google, but the very same quality of discernment that allows me to tell if you're still confused or need more help also allows me to figure out if you're kidding, OK?

Russian around

This morning I had a request for information on Russian poetry. (The best-loved Russian poet, by the way, in popular view seems to be Pushkin.) In response to this, I did a search of our electronic resources and found four articles and printed them out. After that, I found 19 books in our catalog as well and checked those out to the student. I flagged a few of the most important resources, tucked the articles in a book, and left a note on top of the stack for her to find during her lunch period. Naturally the gracious young lady was grateful, and I appreciate that, but I'll let you in on a little secret.

THAT'S MY JOB. No, really, it is. What does a librarian do? Why, sit around all day, occasionally say "shush," and check books in and out. Actually, no. Librarians organize and provide access to information. It's just that a lot of our day is spent shushing and checking, which sometimes gets in the way of what we really love to do, which is help people find the information they want. So this morning I might have gone a little overboard, but it's only because I was so happy and excited to receive the request. So ask away! Tomorrow it could be you walking away with 19 books, four articles and a note!

Short and sweet

That's me! But seriously folks . . . this post will be brief, because I am due at a meeting at 3:30 at Riverview High. My mission is to gather some information about competing in the Academic Olympics. Official sponsor Mr. Woods can't attend due to other obligations, and Coach Brewer tapped me to go in his place. Why?

Because in your midst, folks, is a former regional champion at both the high school and college level. That's right, we took it all the way to Kalamazoo before being edged out by Eastern Michigan University in 1995. My thirst for information has deep roots, y'know?

In closing, all you out there making a million copies of your college app: be gentle with my machine. It jams when overheated, so be sure to give her a chance to cool down every once in a while. We'll all be much happier. (There's probably a metaphor in there somewhere.)

What's plaguing you?

I love reference work - it's what I was born to do. This is no time for me to launch into my usual diatribe about how librarianship is not about reading, is not about shushing, is not about doing anything but inviting people to read . . . this is about what librarianship IS, particularly reference librarianship. I love reference work because it gives me a chance to solve a problem - someone needs information - and it allows me to be a kind of information detective. It's far more exhilarating than people imagine, and before your nerd detector starts beeping let me take a moment to remind you that Casanova was a librarian too, OK? In any case, today's reference flavor was Black Death (caramel sauce on the side!) I had at least four requests for material about infectious diseases that might be related to the plague, and I was never so happy to think about boils and pustules as I was today.

Happy Friday

I don't know about you, but I'm having a great day. This day is so great I wouldn't care if it were Monday - it's a great day! Today we announced the first winner of the Reference Question of the Fortnight Contest. Christian won a disco-ball air freshener for his locker or car and a ruler listing the world's greatest artists in chronological order for asking about the location of Sardinia.

After all that fanfare I ordered a bunch of new things for the library, including books in French and English and some more prizes for the contest. Gotta keep the momentum rolling, and people are catching on: today I helped people find information about infectious diseases, Biblical literature and Greco-Roman goddesses. Did I mention it was a great day?

Library litter

If you've been in the library after school this week, you've seen me in my after-school jeans in the stacks, shifting the reference books around, weeding out old materials and dusting the shelves. What I'm finding tells a mighty interesting tale: although Out-of-Door Academy students do break rules by eating in the library, they seem to be doing so with relatively healthy snacks. I did find several foil candy wrappers, but the majority of the offenses this week were orange peels, a banana skin and some granola bar wrappers.

You're hungry, I get it. I'd like to think you're so caught up in what you're reading you can't bear to go outside, but I suspect it's more akin to laziness. When you leave behind wrappers, crumbs, orange peels, latte cups, whatever, it attracts our friends from the animal kingdom and they sometimes enjoy a book buffet by dining on the paper and glue. And if they're really hungry and you're kind of sleepy . . . who knows what you'll find crawling in your hair?

So stop eating in the stacks. Just step outside, finish your snack, and get back to that delicious book. If it's circulating you can even take it with you and read it in the sunshine under a tree.

Behind the scenes

What's new? In the words of the B-52s, something big and lovely. It doesn't show to the outside world yet, but behind the scenes (and behind the desk) I am trying to bring about some exciting changes. Other than the nice new smell and the plant on my desk, I mean. Very soon I hope to be able to offer some really wonderful new online databases with great electronic sources, easily searchable and oh-so-useful for that term paper you're already thinking about.

This Friday I will be announcing the first winner of the reference question contest. I can't pick the best one because they've all been great, so I will have to leave it up to Fate and make it a drawing instead.

Finding my niche

As with any new venture, there's a period of settling in, meeting new people, getting the routine down. Here at Out-of-Door Academy there is an emphasis on excellence in academics, athletics and the arts, of course, but this being fall the athletic side of things is the most visible - right now I am watching the cheerleaders practice, saw a colleague bounding down the hall in shorts on her way to volleyball practice - and it leaves me feeling a little bewildered. Not the sporty type, you see. Don't get me wrong: I'm all for vigorous exercise in the fresh air, healthy sportsmanlike competition, and all that. I just don't like engaging in anything that involves me allowing missiles to be lobbed my direction at 30-plus miles an hour and that cuts me out of most extracurriculars.

Till now! Mr. Brewer announced today the school is looking into forming an Academic Olympics team. I helped my team make it to regional championships in both high school and college, and now, finally . . . here's a sport I can play! I hope there's a uniform. I mean, besides the regulation pocket protector.

Another year flies by

I awoke today with a strange feeling that today was somehow different. It ambushed me like a thief in the night - I'm 36 today. Literally old enough to be your mother, and because of that I am of course tired and so I will keep today's post short. The best gift of all is one I have for you: we are on the very brink of getting one of the best online sources of all - the Grove Dictionary of Art. I don't think it quite excuses me from doing nothing the rest of the year, but if my charge is, in the words of Mr. Mahler, to make us "world-class," then we are one step closer!

The view from my window

This morning they poured concrete slab for the new Arts Building just across the way, so the big plan to have the place up and ready for next fall seems to be within reach. This morning the library hosted the Parents' Association meeting, and we are getting ready for the Board of Trustees at 4 p.m., and all day long I have had people thank me and apologize for invading the space. The truth is . . . I like having company. If they'd let me I'd serve the coffee myself. Don't get me wrong, I had some things to do this morning that didn't happen, but really if given a choice between crawling around in the reference section dusting the encyclopedias or listening to a nice talk and meeting the parents . . . what would most people pick?

Right. The dust will be there tomorrow!

Library Olympics

I really need some new clothes! I have spent the better part of the day on the floor, in a skirt. My focus for the next few weeks will be weeding out-of-date materials from the collection, starting with reference, and shifting the books around to make room for new things. While I'm in there, I've been dusting - might as well do it now rather than later. (By the way, folks, I am finding a whole lot of candy wrappers wadded up and tucked behind the rows of books. Candy's forbidden in the library, of course, but even more forbidden is littering!) So there's your librarian: on the floor, trying to keep her knees out of sight, covered in dust and heaving around armloads of books like it's an Olympic event. Maybe it will be - 2012, here I come.

What's new in the library?

Other than the blog? Today I cataloged and labeled a whole bevy of new things to put out on the shelf tomorrow morning. I got your AP test prep books right here! Also, several volumes on Roman emperors, some new fiction, and the latest edition of the MLA handbook. Get 'em while they're hot.

And what's the librarian reading these days? To my delight, I found a collection of short stories by M.F.K. Fisher on the shelf. I have an abiding interest in the literature of food - I like to feed all my senses, you see, and in the interest of time I can feed several at once by reading about food - and Miss Fisher's prose has a delicious combination of lyricality and good humor that make it irresistible.

I did notice that although we allegedly have four titles by Kinky Friedman, none of them are on the shelf. Whoever took them without checking them out and is now holding them hostage . . . GIVE THEM BACK. Just leave them on the desk when I'm not looking and no one will be the wiser.

My evil plan is working!

This morning I announced the Reference Question of the Fortnight Contest and I am pleased to say that people seem to be getting into the spirit of it. The point of said contest is to encourage people to approach me with their questions instead of Google - it reinforces the purpose of libraries and librarians, and gives me a chance to show people what resources we have already, like science magazines, online databases, reference books and other materials. Google works sometimes, but:
a) it doesn't know or care if you're still confused
b) unless you really know how to do a targeted search, it gives you too many hits
c) not all the information it retrieves via the Web is really that worthwhile
d) you cannot win glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth by asking it your question

See? Ask me. Make me work for that paycheck. And of course, there's the Shakespeare nodders to consider, too.

A powerful discussion

Today the whole campus gathered together in the Thunderdome to start the discussion of Bryce Courtenay's Power of One. After a brief introduction by the AP lit students, the student body broke out into smaller discussion groups facilitated by faculty. Here in the Savidge-Bowers Library Ms. Evans and Mr. Newhams welcomed comments and input about the nature of thinking with the head as well as the heart and how that can affect one's entire life. Lurking in the background at the circulation desk I was able to observe the transformative nature of powerful literature.

People assume librarians do what we do, say it with me now, "....because I love to read." In fact, I do love to read, but in the three days I have been installed here as the librarian I haven't read more than a short article or two at my desk. Librarianship isn't really about reading, per se, - look it up anywhere and you'll see that the real definition is the organization and management of information, as sterile as that sounds - but if there's one thing that's true it is that our central mission is to promote and shepherd along a love of the written word. Today only reinforced the choice I made five years ago to become a librarian.

Contest!

New this year is the Reference Question of the Fortnight Contest. Any time you are in the library and ask an interesting, relevant question, you can enter to win a small, quirky prize and be the envy of your friends at morning assembly every other week. Here are some examples:
- How can I find more information about Florida plant species?
- What's the French word for trash can?
- How is coffee harvested?

Here are some things that don't count:
- Where's the bathroom?
- Can you help me make copies of this?
- What's a fortnight?

So, come on up to the circulation desk and ask away! You never know - you could be the one walking away with a big sparkly tricked-out bookmark or other weird swag.

Welcome back!

Welcome to the 2008-2009 school year, and welcome to the Savidge/Bowers Library Blog. Here you can find information related to library resources, activities, projects, books - just a little taste of what's new.

What's really new, of course, is the librarian. My name is Miss Mandel, and this is my first year at Out-of-Door Academy. I direct the library and teach art history as well. Please feel free to leave pleasant, relevant comments . . . especially on things you are reading!