Mondays

I'm sitting on the couch with my feet up, sinking further into the cushions. I'm surprised that I have the energy to type with how tired I am tonight. I'm feeling the exhaustion of a long productive day. My Mondays have become busy. And today was one of the busier ones.

Back in March I started volunteering with our main city library. My mother had found an ad in the local paper requesting volunteers and I contacted them about working on Mondays. On my day off, I go in at noon and work until 5. On my work Mondays I go in after work until close. I may only work one night a week but the volunteer position has made a marked difference in my stress levels. I'm feeling far more relaxed than I have in months. The librarians seem to like the work I do and I'm even starting to contribute some ideas of my own. I feel like I make a difference and I love the fact that I'm working in a library. The only downside is the busyness.

I worked my regular nine hours at my day job and then headed over the library right after work. The library is preparing for a major book sale and I've been working for many weeks to get things ready. Tonight I shifted at least four full book trucks worth of books. I also went through the children's collection to pull out certain subjects. I handled stacks and stacks of books. I left feeling exhausted, a little dizzy, and hungry (I hadn't had dinner). And proud.

So the exhaustion I feel is a good thing. My time on the couch seems like a reward for a job well done. I feel more proud of the 2 hours and 45 minutes I spent at the library, then I do for the nine hours I worked at my day job. I feel like I contributed more. And for me that is making all the difference. It may be another night away from home during the week but this type of busyness is right up my alley.

Poetry Friday

It's Friday and we are sitting on the edge of a snow storm. Nothing major but after the winter we've had, even the slightest snow feels like a betrayal. I have no reason to complain though. It's been the best January ever. Warm and dry. I've been in heaven.

Even with the nice weather I've been hibernating. I go home and make tea and curl up on the sofa to read. I have a stack of books at home from the library that I'm planning to get through this weekend. I can't seem to leave the library without at least a dozen. I'm reading at a frantic rate. It's been a blissful winter so far.

And today I stumbled on a poem that makes me smile. I figured I would share. It's right up my alley for obvious reasons.

My First Memory (of Librarians)
by Nikki Giovanni

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky wood floor
A line of green shades--banker's lightes--down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply too short
                For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books--another world--just waiting
At my fingertips.

Library Longing

I went to an author's reading last night at one of the newly remodeled local libraries in town. I went early so I could wander at my leisure and check out the new structure of the library. I walked in and instantly started for the nonfiction section. It's become my favorite section lately. And I did what I always do. I wandered down each of the rows touching the spines and seeing what caught my eye. I picked up a couple of books that interested me. I know they have a card catalog on the computer but I prefer a serendipitous way of finding books.

During all of this time, I hardly saw another person. I wandered alone looking at books. And I was struck by how happy I was. I was at peace and contented. I couldn't think of a single place I would rather be or a single thing that I should be doing. And this morning I realized what that means. I was in my element. I was exactly where I should be. It doesn't have to be that library, or even one in this city. But I'm fated to be in a library. It is where I am the happiest. And that was a beautiful thing.

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

I've finally managed to do it. I broke a bookcase. I knew it was just a matter of time. I'm nice to my books, hard on my cases.

I have five bookcases in my library: one for books I still have to read, one and a half for fiction, one and a half for nonfiction, and one for children's books. My children's book bookcase decided that it had had enough this past week. The second shelf, which holds picture books, broke and dropped its contents to the floor. Jeff was watching TV on Friday when he heard a loud crash and the cat come running down the stairs. He went upstairs to find my books all over the floor.

Here you can see where the shelf had been

He piled my books up on the bed we have in the library and called me. So now I have to go out and find a new bookcase. My idea is that this next one will be a quality case. Something that will move with me from house to house. Something I can show off. Not the cheap plyboard ones I bought from Target years ago. They've held up, but my bookcases have to be strong. I finally pushed one to the breaking point. Who knows how long the others will last. Particularly with this load.

A Perfect Night

If it seems like I've been distant from the internet lately, it's because I have. I haven't been on Facebook in days. Haven't checked email since we got back in town. And really haven't been online most of the day except for my brief lunch breaks. Work is ganging up on me and I haven't had a ton of time to spare.

So last night after working late again, I had planned to go home, make up a salad, and sit on the couch mindlessly watching TV. Jeff had other ideas. As I brought out my salad fixings he meekly suggested going out. And of course I couldn't pass that up. We headed over to one of the local sports bars and found a table outside on the patio. It was beautiful yesterday but we had the patio completely to ourselves. It was heaven. I ordered a beer and their amazingly tasty (and possibly good for me) taco salad. Then Jeff made me an offer I simply couldn't refuse. His deal was that we would go to the library as long as I walked around the nearby lake with him. Okay so I get to go to my favorite place in the world, and I get to go on a beautiful walk. Sign me up!!!

After dinner we headed over to the library and walked the lake. It's not a huge lake and we took our time in the walking. Jeff and I tend to get distracted by interesting bugs, pretty flowers, birds or animals of any sort...well pretty much everything. It was just nice to be out. I'm working on walking on rough terrain to strengthen my ankle even more. I'm still not 100% but I'm getting better. After the walk we went to our own different sections of the library. I picked up the second book in the Bone series by Jeff Smith. I've been loving this graphic novel series but have been taking my time reading them. The series follow Fone Bone and his cousins Phoney and Smiley who, after being kicked out of Boneville, find themselves being chased by rat creatures, saved by a dragon, and befriended by a young girl and her ultra tough grandmother. The characters are all unique and the plot has me both intrigued and confused. I need to pick up the pace with this series.

I picked up a graphic novel called Wonderland written and illustrated by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew. This is the first in a series of graphic novels following the exploits of Wonderland's characters without Alice. This one followed Mary Ann, the housemaid for the White Rabbit and her adventures with the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Spades. I'll be curious to pick up the next book. I love take-offs on Alice in Wonderland and these are inventive and downright beautiful. The story is a wonderful reinvention of the world and is very much in the spirit of the original book. The book's artwork is stunning, a great mix of detailed and surreal landscapes with well created characters. I'd seen the artwork before and had been meaning to check out the book.

I also picked up a biography of Edward Gorey and a book on the making of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder version). After the library Jeff and I stopped for ice cream and I went home to read. I finished the two graphic novels and started the "making of" book. I'll be through it before the weekend is up. As I sat on the couch last night, surrounded by books and finishing up my ice cream, all I could think was that last night was a perfect night. I feel completely refreshed today. It's amazing what unplugging does for me.

National Library Week

Two of my great loves comes together in this one image. I love libraries. And I love Neil Gaiman. How perfect that he happens to be the Honorary Chair for the National Library Week? So get out to the library (quick, before the week ends) and pick up one of Neil's books. I'll bet you'll fall in love with both as well.

Something a Little Lighter

After yesterday I feel like I need to post something a little lighter. Something that will make me incredibly happy rather than angry. Something to cleanse your palate after my diatribe yesterday. So I bring you a library.

Yes, what you see is a lending library. A village in Somerset England lost both their mobile library and their phone box in the past year. So they contacted the telecom company and asked for the box back. Not the mechanisms, just the box. And they turned it into a lending library.

The phone box houses about 100 books and they are constantly changing. Lending is done on the honor system. Patrons select books to read and bring in books they have already read. So far they claim that the system is working really well. And they get a library that's a bit of an oddity and a showcase. Along with the recycling of an old part, I think it's a brilliant idea. Now if only it didn't remind me of a Tardis every time I looked at it. :-)

Read the whole article here.

Geek The Library

The library system has long needed a good PR campaign. Libraries for some reason are still seen as dusty, musty buildings filled with books and librarians who wander around shushing. If you've been in a library recently, that is simply not the case. Most libraries nowadays are becoming community hang-outs, game centers, movie rental places, and internet cafes. Oh and they still house books. And slowly the library's image is changing.

OCLC is looking to change that image a bit faster with its new Geek the Library campaign. As a self-described geek I was interested in the name. Geek can have multiple meanings but OCLC appears to be creating their own definition for this. Geek in this sense is to have a strong interest in and/or be knowledgable about a particular subject. It is about the subjects we are passionate about. (the original definition of geek was a circus performer, a wild man who bit the heads of live chickens. Fun fact) The website is a mixture of information and community forum. People are encourage to write in about their passions and share how they got interested in their subject. They are also encouraged to say how the library has helped them learn more. There are links to facebook, youtube, and myspace for people to link to and for people to spread the word about libraries.

There is information and event ideas to show the public how valuable a library can be to their community. There is a section about all the different roles a library plays. And suggestions about how to get better funding for libraries and improve services. The site is simple but interesting. It is highlighted with people's faces and what they geek. There are wallpaper images available for download and customizable gear for sale. (although when I tried them today the download links didn't work)

The focus is on making this a grassroots movement to improve libraries and the funding sources. People forget that during times of economic crisis the number of people using the library goes way up, and the amount of budget available to the library goes down. This is OCLC's way of helping out. I'm a huge fan of any library initiative and excited that this one is very grassroots. They are capitalizing on the current social networks and creating one of their own. It is a wonderful program that I hope does well. Then again I always want to see libraries and library programs do well. I geek libraries....along with a host of other subjects. What do you geek?

Cartalog

About two years ago I was in one of the fun local coffee houses in Des Moines Mars Cafe and noticed an incredible sculpture. It was a large Question Mark made out of paper that hung from the ceiling. As I got closer I noticed something about the paper. It was written on. But not just any writing, typing that listed title and author and subject. The entire sculpture was made out of old card catalog cards. And it was not the only one. The coffee house was doing a show of card catalog art.

I didn't buy any of the art at that time and am kicking myself a little bit for it. The question mark that I loved was already purchased but there were a number of other sculptures and paintings that would have looked wonderful in my library. If only I had known.

But today I found a site that fills me with just as much happiness. Cartalog is the brainchild of some people at the University of Iowa who were trying to think of what to do with their old card catalog cards. The card catalog, those old relics of the library, was removed in 2004 and the library was recycling all their old cards. This group grabbed up about a quarter of the cards and have been sending them out to people to create art with. The art is then archived in the university library. As a librarian this makes me incredibly happy. As an art lover, I'm in heaven.

So I spent some time this morning on the site just looking at the interesting art ideas that people have thought of using the cards. There is everything from painting, sculpture, poetry, and paper cuttings. All of it is interesting and all unique. The project closed in 2006 after the full 1 million cards salvaged had gone out. Not all of them have returned to the library in the form of art pieces but there is enough to make a very unique and beautiful collection. Plus they had some other examples of card catalog card artists. And I'll check those out too. Eventually, as a librarian, I will just have to own a piece.

Impossible Dream

I try really hard to pretend that I'm tech savvy. I'd like to think that I'm up on most of the newest applications. But I'm fighting Twitter, although it appears to have captured everyone else. (resistance is futile, as we geeks say) I have a tough enough time updating my Facebook status, I can't imagine trying to do that multiple times a day. But I have found a program that is taken up tons of my free time. I was planning to post something last night but I got carried away with LibraryThing.

LibraryThing is a website (partually free) that allows you to catalogue the books you read. You enter title or author and then select the book from the list. It keeps track of your library for you. You can review the book and add your own tags to better sort the types of books you read. It also allows you to see which other members have read the same books you have. I have one book that 40,000 other members have read and one book that has only one other member reader. The first 200 books you add are free. After that you need a membership. I bought the $25 lifetime membership and went to town. I'm currently at a little over 400 books. Here is a picture of LibraryThing. If you already are a member I'm CatB.

My goal (my impossible dream) is to add all the books I have ever read. I added my entire library last night but those are just the books I have on my shelves. That doesn't include the ones I've borrowed, checked out from the library, or given away. I have books I read as a child that I may not ever remember. I have stories that I read last week that may have escaped my mind. And I notice that as I get older my memory slips a bit when thinking about books. Stories and scenes blend together. It was actually a lot of fun to go through my library last night. I looked at books I hadn't paid attention to in years. I remember where I was when I read most of them. But I know that trying to remember it all is impossible. That's why I want to use this great site as a life list of books. I have a bit of start.

Inspirational Reading

For a week or two after I come back from Mondo I am always inspired. I tend to juggle more, write more, read more, and generally live better. Things work easier for me and I tend to be more relaxed. In short, Mondo makes me into a slightly better person. The kind I want to be daily but sometimes fall short of. 

So I decided this year to help that inspiration along so I headed out to the library yesterday to pick up some books. I picked up a self-help title that I've been thinking about for a while and finally decided to read. And then I stopped into the drawing section to see if they had anything good for teaching my poor hand to obey my brain. (There appears to be some sort of disconnect between the two. I can clearly see the idealized image in my mind but the hand can't produce). So I sorted through a ton of books on techniques but didn't find anything that was jumping out at me. 

Now I know they say that you should never choose books based on their cover, but they never say anything about weight. The first thing I remember when picking up Maira Kalman's The Principle of Uncertainty was how heavy it was. It felt like there were full oil paintings on each page. The book is hefty. It is no bigger than a standard hardcover but the pages feel like lead. I flipped through the first couple pages and was hooked. Kalman creates a visual and textual story by simply asking and answering questions (some shallow but most deep) and creating images to go along. She jumps from Spinoza to Einstein to Nietzsche to her family in the pages and somehow it seems to all tie together. 

The book represents a years worth of columns that Kalman did. The images and text blend beautifully to tell a very personal story. Kalman does not shock us with things she reveals about herself but the images she presents of herself is incredibly personal. She offers the reader a view of her idioscyncrasies. She tell us the deep questions and problems of her life. She challenges us to think about answers to the unanswerable. And for me she makes me want to open up. I tend to be a closed person, almost secretive. This book makes me want to take my drawings, which are no where near as good as hers, and offer them to world. She inspires me to open myself and be a more creative and thought-filled person. And for that I'm thankful. 

My Christmas Present

When I was 20 I fell in love with this photograph. The subject is poet Charles Baudelaire and the photographer is Felix Nadar. The original photograph is owned by the musee d'Orsey in Paris. It was copied here without permission, for which I will probably get in trouble. But when I have the money, I'm going to the musee d'Orsey just to see this photo. I want to see it in the flesh. When I first saw it I realized that it represented so perfectly my idea of passion and madness and poetry and writing. Nadar captures it beautifully.

I mention this photograph because it is a perfect lead into what has to be the most exciting library news I've had in a long time. (yes there is exciting library news). A virtual European online library has been created. And it is currently beta testing. I read the BBC each morning and they mentioned that the site was having problems keeping up with users. So of course I had to add to the strain. http://www.europeana.eu/ for anyone interested.

This is currently a 2 million plus volume virtual library that contains some of the greatest treasures of Europe, including the photo displayed above. There are history museum that have contributed. Art museums that have digitalized photos and paintings. Libraries that have digitalized hundreds of thousands of books. Archives that have opened their doors virtually. For a librarian, this is as close to heaven as it gets. The National Libraries of almost all European nations have opened their doors to this project. The goal is to digitize 10 million items for the public to access from anywhere in the world.

The site has been up and running since November 20th. The project is run out of the National Library of the Netherlands. Virtual libraries are an increasing phenomenon and with good reason. So many people are turning to the internet to get information. They might as well make it good information. For an archivist this is a chance to get delicate works out there for use, while still maintaining the integrity of the original. Speaking for librarians, the goal of a book or artwork is to be used. This allows use from anywhere across the world. Geography is no longer a constraint to access to information. We have gone from closed privileged libraries, where books were literally chained to the shelves, to this virtual library where anyone, anywhere can access any information they need. Let's hope it gets used and gets increased funding. As for me, I'm in heaven.

(Sorry about the frequent postings but the office is slow today and this was just too good to pass up.)

A Room of One's Own

When I was sixteen I read a book called Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I had always written stories but this book inspired me in ways I haven't been inspired since. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone who wants to be a writer. Goldberg does not offer a lot of technical tips but her book provides the spark to get you to put pen to paper. At sixteen that spark was enough to get me serious about writing. 

And at sixteen I found a place of my own, both literally and figuratively. Writing is solitary work. I began to spend large quantities of time alone and those stories were my own launching pad. But I also found a literal place. Down in my parent's basement there is a room we call my dad's room. It is a small room tucked away in one of the corners where there are file cabinets no one has looked in and cobwebs so thick that you can't see through them. A lot of dad's stuff goes down there to be forgotten. Or the spiders carry them off. Seriously I think they're that big. 

I had always been scared of the basement but now I found reason to be down there. There was the desk down there. I set up an old typewriter on the desk and pulled up an old suitcase as a chair. And I wrote. I would sit balanced on that suitcase for hours working away. I wrote 120 pages of my first novel attempt down there on that typewriter. That work ethic followed me to college where I wrote constantly, filling notebook after notebook, often with just little poems and stories. And a second novel attempt.

After meeting Jeff, I wrote quite a bit less. In fact, with the exception of a stint working with a writing partner I pretty much stopped doing any real writing at all. The writing partner was good for me. He was motivation to keep churning out pages. I wanted to make sure I always had something new to bring to our weekly meetings. But after my writing partner left for a new city, my third novel attempt died. And I turned to reading rather than writing. 

But these past couple weeks I have been writing again. My notebooks go with me to work and are filled mostly with poems. I am attempting to write a poem a day. They are short but keep the creative juices flowing. Plus I can finish them in a sitting, something that makes me feel like I'm making progress.  

And now I have a room of my own again. This time it's a back bedroom. A while ago we had converted it into a library/guest room. All my books are now in one place. And today we added a desk. This is now my room. It is my place to go and write. To read and relax. And maybe actually get back to hard-core writing again. Or at least try my fourth novel attempt. As Virginia Woolf said everyone needs a room of one's own.