Bullet Point: Sam Colt Revised

God created mankind, but the library makes them equal.

The phrase to which I've given a twist--"God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal"--is portrayed as a frontier adage, but all I've found suggests it's a modern invention.

Wanted/ Not Wanted

What is the difference between an interrogation and a library job interview?

In one there is a threat of torture behind the questions. The other is called an interrogation.

ACRL 2013: Hot Chocolate

For once the room chosen for Battledecks* could accommodate the numbers who showed up to watch the competitive melee. In past library conferences the rooms for the activity have always attracted more than there were seats so that the overflow have had to lean or sit against the wall or wherever creative space usage led them.

The Conference Center was saving on ventilation or perhaps there was a wish to change the room into a sauna, while the number of endotherms added to the tropical climate. Those who brought along chocolate bars soon had the opportunity to drink them as hot chocolate.

*For this game the contestants, in isolation from each other, see a series of miscellaneous slides to which they must ad lib a narrative thread within a limited time. The slides are not chosen for their mundanity.

Meting Punishment

Hollywood makes movies about police and their work, business people and their work, and even teachers and their work, but it doesn't make movies about librarians and what they do, and that goes octuple-squared for librarian meetings. Such drama and clashes that exist are the equivalent of "The Rape of the Lock" without the satire. The subjects and the working-out of solutions are no 12 Angry Men, and come closer to No Exit. Maybe that's why the meetings are so enjoyable.

ACRL 2013: Fast Food

The drive from Missouri to Indiana took longer than I suspected. I was in the hotel room by 3:30 Wednesday, so even with picking up my badge I'd be able to squeeze into the first keynote at 4. But then an alarming discovery. The room clock showed 4:30. Like an expert three-card Monte player, Indiana's time shift from Central to Eastern had fooled me.

There turned out to be a silver lining. Not able to attend the keynote, I waited for the Exhibition Hall's 5:45 opening. Snackables were many and lines short. More people came in later. There is gloating satisfaction, perhaps with a taint of perversity, in seeing people in a long line that you have managed to avoid by a preemptive arrival. I figured they were just out from the end of the keynote and its associative ACRL housekeeping announcements.

Although this will dismay the organization, the non-Aesopian moral is that if attendees want short lines and first dibs on food, trade in the keynote for an on-time arrival at the Exhibit Hall opening.

Exchanging Vowels

Harvard has created what it calls a "labrary", its way of describing what a library will look like in the future. Apparently it is a descendant of the word "laboratory". Other substitute vowels don't form  neologisms so eloquently. Nothing fits "lebrary," barring an attempt at a construction in French (as in "Monsieur Le Brary"). On the other hand, going by the Oxford English Dictionary the "lob" part in an hypothesized "lobrary" has numerous meanings; for example, when "lob" signifies a "country bumpkin" it suggests a "lobrary" is a collection of reading material dealing with rural matters. An oversize, sprawling collection of items with simple words and lots of pictures fits a "lubbary" (from "lubber" as defined by the OED: a "big, clumsy, stupid fellow").

Book 'em, Danno

Perhaps with enthusiasm, perhaps with trepidation, you pick up a book to read, but as you go along you realize the book is not for you. A decision must be made: should the reading continue, or be given up? It is almost as though there's a fear that somewhere lurked a cadre of reader police waiting to arrest whoever balks at finishing a book.

Very different is the student assigned to read a book. He or she may find deceitful or ethically-challenged means to get around not only not finishing a book, but not starting it. They enlist the internet or maybe Masterplots and its ilk.

But it is the voluntary, reading-for-pleasure persons who feel the mystic obligation to slog on to the final page. Some who won't think twice about slipping aconite into a spouse's coffee will be nudged by guilt to finish a mammoth volume they hate from the get go.

Reading is the single form where this compunction dominates. People switch away from a television program, walk out of a movie, ruthlessly turn off a music CD, surf sporting events, nod during a speech, or daydream as a story is related.

There is a workaround for those who want to proclaim that they finish any book they start. They can follow the example of Forrest J Ackerman. The collector of a vast library of science fiction and fantasy books would tell listeners, “I've read every last word in every book in my collection,” then add “When I get a new book I turn to the last page--and read the last word!”

3D Libraries

Soon you will not be able to tell a library from a shop class. Slowly becoming home to 3D printers, libraries aren't so much a natural fit for them as other places offer a rounder hole for this square  technology peg. However, should 3D printing become popular and profitable enough, established places will accommodate themselves or new niches will crop up, luring away the audience that libraries fostered.

We All Scream

An imposing number of Americans are disconnected from libraries. The cause? Maybe there's too much passive marketing.
  
Sure, libraries do outreach, but it's through the traditional bookmobile. Rather, they should follow the ice cream truck model. As the vehicle goes through a neighborhood it plays a jingle through loudspeakers that will entice the attention of the underserved. A line from the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" can be adjusted from "come and take a look" to "come and take a book." Decorating the truck's outside can be book spines sporting bar codes that enable the contents to be downloaded into smart phones. It's done on the walls of subway stations, so how much more appropriate for a bookmobile.

And you wouldn't have to go inside to borrow a book.

Publisher's Progress (by John Bunion)

As I walked through the Wilderness of this World I came to a Place to lie down to sleep; and as I slept meseemeth to dream the following Dream. A large Publisher was coming down a slippy Slope whose Bottom is the Slough of Despond when He met a little, laden Library struggling up.
Publisher: Let Me assist You.
Library: Oh, thank You.
The Publisher proceeded to reach deep into the Pockets of the Library.
Library: What are You doing?
Publisher: I am lightening your Burden.
Library: How is that?
Publisher: I am removing your heavy Coins. Also your pound Notes. They weigh less, but every little Bit helps.
Library: What of my Bookes and the Rest that I carry?
Publisher: There is a Limit to my Charity.

ALA Anaheim: Escape from Disneyland

Like going down on the Titanic, one way to end your Anaheim trip is a visit to nearby Disneyland Park. At least aboard the ship there wasn't the hordes of baby strollers that roll over your toes and bring pedestrians traffic to a molasses-in-January slowness. If there is such an affliction as stroller trauma, this is the place to catch it.

Once in the park you may be forgiven for thinking that its founder, Walt Disney, should have been named "Wait" Disney, since waiting is the one certain thing that you will do when you visit either Disneyland or California Adventure. Lines are long and slow for rides that are short and quick.

The more the merrier is doubtlessly true at Disneyland, if you're a stockholder. But when you are one among the crowds you begin asking, why did I come here? and end with, when can I get out of here? On the other hand, space may be so constricted that you won't have breathing room to ask.

On the bright side, if you are not a children's librarian and forget what a child looks like, you are in luck, for they are everywhere and at every age.

ALA Anaheim: Rather Short

Among the minor distinctions of Dan Rather's talk was its brevity when compared with other speakers. Allotted an hour, after 45 minutes he was done with his prepared remarks as well as those shied at him during the q and a, when he left the stage for the ordeal of facing fans lined-up for his book-signing. As an audience member I felt as though I had paid for a pound of butter but got three-quarters instead. Since he didn't talk any faster than other speakers, his words had a higher unit price without being better.

ALA Anaheim: Where's Anaheim?

“The city of Anaheim is easily accessible, within 5-10 minutes of the convention center”--American Libraries (May/June 2012, p. 76)

An innocent statement? Hah!

The convention center is in Anaheim, so accessibility is not an issue.

Just to walk a few blocks from the center absorbs more than 10 minutes.

There are parts of the city of Anaheim that are not easily accessible, whatever the transportation.

If "the city of Anaheim" is its downtown, to reach it by car in 10 minutes would require breaking speed limits and running traffic lights.

ALA Anaheim: Say It with Flowers

    It is almost de rigueur for any conference speaker to devote a few words acknowledging their audience of librarians. The words are neither unflattering nor insincere.  To speak of librarians is equivalent to judging the merits of mom and apple pie. As much media makes plain, the public has a consensus of good will toward them. 
     However librarians might enjoy the plaudits they receive from celebrity speakers, when it comes to considering their own, the view is far from appreciative. Think of the Far Side cartoon where one part of a panel shows flowers and has the caption "How we see flowers"; and the other shows these flowers with grotesque physiognomies, the caption being "how flowers see themselves".

ALA Anaheim: Don't Go Away

After librarians have made the effort to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to reach the conference, one of their ambitions seems then to be to put in an equal effort to depart the same in order to see the nearby sights. This temptation is recognized and formalized by tours offered through the convention center. Nevertheless, odds are that once the librarian decides she has to get away, and spends hours deliberating which tour is most appealing, she will find that it has been canceled. Tour offerings are as substantial as mirages.
  
If it's going to be canceled anyway, a tour should be offered to really off-beat locales--say Barsoom or Oz or Arkham. Nothing compares with being able to boast of the places you would have gone to, if only there'd been a tour.

ALA Anaheim: Now Hear This

An audience is split into two types of people--those who microphone and those who don’t. Those who don't have as much to say as those who do; while those who do have as little to say as those who don't. Phenomenally, the better a speaker is known, the longer the microphone queue and (sometimes) the longer the questions or comments.

The microphone stand comes in all heights--except that of the questioner. Some questioners provide autobiographies (some are so long that you wonder who the featured speaker is) while others have decided that they are in a debate and are taking the opposing side.

ALA Anaheim: The Late Show

Some speakers deliberately (it seems) begin a program late out of fear it will otherwise run short and as a result they'll be implicitly accused by an audience that it's not getting its money’s worth. Talking to the end also suggests that the speaker had so much more to say but ran out of time. Such a talk has one of two effects on the audience. People observe either, "The subject was getting warmed up, and the speaker just couldn't cram everything in"; or, "At long last that's over."

ALA Anaheim: Exit Strategy

At every session an observer will find that the most coveted place to sit is at the end of a row. It's a position of least effort, though it is hardly a formidable inconvenience to slide to the middle. Body bulk in itself doesn't explain it, for many practitioners were not waist-challenged. Presumably the sitter wants an unimpeded exit strategy should she wish to depart early. Among the reasons for this: the subject or speaker isn't what she hoped, a prior engagement, fatigue, unfathomable eccentricity.

Being at the end corks up the row. People who come in later will have to brush past the end-sitter to get to a seat. It's a dissuader and mild hindrance to those who might otherwise choose that row. On the other hand, some of these later comers might be the ones who'd have wanted to preempt that end seat.

ALA Anaheim: The Throne Room

Though the science fiction and fantasy session featured three speakers, I suspect that many in the audience had come especially to see the last--author of Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin. With few unfilled chairs, It was sro--or maybe HBO. Who'd have thought that there were that many subscribers? Maybe the fact that this was a library conference meant that readers added to the viewers.

ALA Anaheim: Votes for Women (Carnegie 2)

Maybe the winners of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Non-fiction were foreordained. The fiction winner was about a woman's extramarital affair. The non-fiction was a biography of Catherine the Great, a powerful woman who was not unacquainted with a large number of lovers.

While the winners were determined by librarians, who are in a profession where the majority are women, it seems unlikely that the protagonist of either book was seen as a role model.