Quote: W. C. Fields

In honor of the venue of the upcoming ACRL conference, I'll quote W. C. Fields on his proposed epitaph:

"Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia."

Libres Interdits

One of the major problems that public libraries face is what to do about children's books that are controversial. Keep them on the open shelf? Put them in a special section? Withdraw them?

I have a solution.

Buy the book in a foreign language. The book cannot be objectionable if the child cannot understand it. And the child who wishes to read it will have to learn the language in which the book is written. This encourages the child to learn another language.

It's in the Cards

At what point do reviews become sales pitches for the educational industrial complex? Since you often base your buy/don't buy on reviews, this is relevant.

Unintentionally or not, Choice may be the most tempting example through its wielding of cards. It is much more convenient to send your faculty cards rather than review magazines, and much easier for them to send back cards with instructions to buy an item. I know of no other review journal that uses cards.

I suspect that books that are not reviewed by Choice (the cruelest cut), or not reviewed favorably, have a lesser chance of being purchased by an academic library.

Lost: "Librarian at Play"

Google Blog Search can't locate Librarian at Play as a blog title, but messages from the blog do display in the search results. So I have craftily put LaP in a post's title and in its message. Take that GBS (not George Bernard Shaw).

Books That Weed Themselves

For those who didn't know there was a part 1, this is part 2 of my commentary on HarperCollins' decision to put a cap of 26 e-book checkouts for libraries.

From the optimist's viewpoint, this is a Good Thing.

Librarians will no longer have to weed books. They'll disappear automatically after 26 checkouts.

Nor will librarians need be concerned about building a collection for posterity; the only place an old capped title will hang on is through the publisher. And when the publisher goes out of business or loses interest, the title is good and gone, unavailable from that guardian of culture, the library.

What's Real

I recently heard the story of a man who for St. Patrick's day gave his girl a ring with a jewel. She objected upon discovering that the gem was not real, but a sham rock.

This put me in mind of a library reception where I was offered some bubbly. I said I didn't go for champagne, I wanted real pain.

Hot/Cold Enough for You?

You're building is either too hot or too cold. What weather is to the outside of the library, heating and cooling is to the inside. And about as controllable. 

Countdown

HarperCollins' decision to put a cap of 26 checkouts on its e-books has drawn the ire of librarians.

Perhaps at each checkout the e-reader could convey a message to the circulation person: "25 to go"; "24 to go," etc. As the end approaches the warnings could become more urgent: "Watch it, there are only 8 to go"; "Time is running out, only 5 to go." The tone could become threatening: "After 2 more checkouts, it's repossession!" Or scolding: "1 to go; aren't you sorry you didn't buy multiple copies?"

What's next on the publisher's plate? Maybe a plan to retrieve hard copies after 26 checkouts.

Location, Location, Location

In cyberspace no one knows you're a dog--nor which dog pound you're in. According to a blog I read, a library conference is to be held in Portland. But which Portland the blog didn't specify. When the world is your audience, be specific enough to get yourself in trouble.

More in limbo than blogs are newspaper and university sites that fail to indicate the name of the country or state in which they are. I've spent annoyed effort in trying to peg a location. The organization may know where it's at, but I don't.

Quote: Ashleigh Brillant

"My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating."

If this is not a challenge for librarians evaluating what they find online, it is for critical thinking. And the internet is chockablock with agreeable but suspect facts.

As a contrast to the above quote, consider John Adams' "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

Read 'em and Reap

Sequels to classic titles such as Gone with the Wind (The Wind Done Gone) may be published to make money, but they may also attract new readers to their source material. Maybe librarians should encourage reading of the classics by this approach. Here are ideas for some sequel titles of American works.

• The sequel to Moby Dick would become Moby Dick: The Revenge.
• The Great Gatsby would become The Greater Gatsby, that sequel could spawn The Greatest Gatsby, and that could climax in The Ultimate Greatest Gatsby.
• "Greasy Lake" would slide into "Greasier Lake."
• Catch 22 would be upped to Catch 23.
• Our Town would grow into Our Megalopolis.
• To attract today's tech savvy student, The Scarlet Letter would have as its sequel The Scarlet Email. For Whom the Bell Tolls would be For Whom the iPhone Rings.
• For those who enjoy Stephen King, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would become The Adventures of Huckleberry Fiend, and To Kill a Mockingbird would become To Kill and Kill and Kill a Mockingbird.
• For the science fiction fan "The Things They Carried" would be "The Things to Come They Carried."
• The comic book fan would find for Of Mice and Men the sequel Of Mice and Supermen.
• As for the stories of Edgar Allan Poe--you don't need sequels, students check them out regardless.

Echo Chamber

Imagine one library using another as a benchmark, while at the same time the second library uses the first in the same way. This is like the mirror scene of Duck Soup where Harpo tries to convince Groucho he is looking into a full-length mirror by mimicking his actions.

A mirror benchmark is less likely to ensure excellence than imitation.

Riffing on Just in Case, Just in Time

As with many people, when I hear a thing I distort it to my understanding, shaping the information in forms that the speaker may not have intended nor dreamt of. One of my somewhat cryptic notes from a library teleconference has the 8 words: "'Just in case collection'" vs. "'just in time'."

My interpretation: not being all things to all people, a collection is a librarian's selection based on likelihood of title usage (just in case). When a dawdling student needs a resource for a due assignment, the collection is converted into a "just in time," provided that heorshe is able to adapt hisorher requirements to what is in the "just in case" collection. If the student finds nothing of use the collection proves to be neither just in time nor just in case.

Check It Out. Not!

For most students and faculty reference books are persona non grata. Not only may they be imposingly large or multivolumed, with dense blocks of text, they are prisoners of the library itself. Students frequently lose interest in a book when they learn it is not readily able to be checked out. As a solution, either many a reference title should be dissolved into the circulating collection, or they should (with a few exceptions) be fundamentally borrowable.

Librarian+Blog=

A variety of portmanteau words may be made from the words "librarian" and "blog." Take, f''rinstance,  "blogarian." A Google search reveals the word has been recognized. Its superficial kinship with "vulgarian" may not affect its popularity. One can also excise a few letters from the middle of "librarian" and replace them with "blog." The results of this operation is "liblogarian," or "liblogian," or least trippingly "libroglarian."

PN3451: Wanted Dead or Alive

In the context of the Old West poster, the word "wanted" is an oxymoron; you don't want the perpetrator, but rather wish him away. The classification number PN3451 seems something of a scofflaw, an antinomian. In the classification schedule it represents "Prose--Prose. Prose fiction--History--Comprehensive works--American and English." It is the final level, "American and English," that is questionable. I have found the following records under this call number: (a) books about American and English literature; (b) books about foreign literature; (c) books written in German, French, Italian, etc.

If the terms "American and English" refer to the language, then "b" and "c" do not belong in this classification; if they refer to the nationality of the authors of the titles "c" is suspect.

Many Are Culled, But Few Are--

Library books are culled, weeded, de-selected, removed. Why so many synonyms for a single and perhaps straightforward process? Librarians may feel uncomfortable about moving books from their collection so cast for euphemisms that make this action more tolerable. Then, too, they might have before them the spectre of Nicholas Baker.

The Disorderly Librarian

Like the shoemaker and his children, are librarians, those paragons of order, neglectful of this virtue when out of the public eye? Consider the tops of their desks in their private offices. Are they without clutter, with stacked archipelagos of papers neatly alphabetized or chronologized and symmetrically arranged? Or are they magnets for congeries of chaos, papers and other material higgledy-piggledy--ads, unchecked-out books from the collection, memos that have outlived their usefulness, doodled notes, book orders of indeterminate age, freebies from conferences, bookmarks, various containers, 3-ring notebooks, unwrapped cd's and dvd's, office gear, personal keepsakes, eating amenities and the crumbly aftermath of hasty meals, what is that doing there's, and so that's where that's been's?