After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away

An argument could be made for this fact; sometimes it is when you pick up a certain book to read that determines the impact it makes on you while reading. Not to dismiss the thought that a well-written book has impact regardless of when read, but often titles resonate with certain points in a reader's life and/or something that is happening when the book is selected. On the way to lunch this afternoon, I selected a book off of my shelf hoping I could read it through during my break. The book in question was After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away by Joyce Carol Oates.

I did not finish the book at lunch, however the following personal aside explains the introduction. My mother has been in the hospital since last Saturday. Her condition is not the result of a car accident, as is the case with Jenna in After the Wreck, but several factors have contributed in her being delirious (both meds and fever) various times throughout the week. Listening to her periods of lucidity interspersed with the medicated ramblings, I found myself wondering what she was thinking. How did her conversation make sense to her? In After the Wreck, the book opens with Jenna describing the car accident that took her mother's life and left her in serious condition. Oates describes Jenna's drug induced state as being "in the blue." It is a period of time when Jenna flies painlessly with the sea gulls and how she is often in that other place, viewing herself as a different person watching family and friends visit in the hospital. Reading the very poignant words presented by Oates touched me deeply as I continued through the hospital recovery time experienced by Jenna.

I have not yet completed this book, but at this point Jenna has shunned her father (he left her mother for another woman and lives in California with his new family) and moved in with her favorite aunt. Beginning a new school year, having to make new friends, being disfigured from the accident, and mourning the death of her mother, fifteen-year-old Jenna is having difficulty adjusting to the earth-shattering changes that have taken place in her life. Book reviews on Amazon hint at things to come, but I plan on finishing the book before exploring them further. Jenna is an intriguing and complex character, written with feeling, not pity. I look forward to continuing the journey.

Update: 12/6/06

I finished reading After the Wreck at lunch today. Oates deftly penned Jenna's depression, including bout's of self-destructivve behavior and her slow road to recovery, with a definite realistic edge. I was impressed with the depiction of Jenna's aunt and uncle, they were supportive and loving without being reduced to silly caricatures of concern. Also interesting was Jenna's "puppy" love for Crow, a charcter who befriended her but was found to be less than the perfect hero she had hoped to find. The ending was satisfactorily upbeat and without specific happily-ever-after-cookie-cutter endings.

Tags: Joyce Carol Oates, After the Wreck, I Picked Myself Up, Spread My Wings, and Flew Away, Juvenile literature, YA Literature

Bowing to pressure

A young adult (adolescent) literature professor assigned "The Book Thief" to her students as required readinig at the beginning of the term. She was very excited about the book and I put the library copy of the title on closed reserve for her class in case students had a hard time finding it for purchase. That in itself was an interesting scenario as she began our conversation about the book saying, "it's a great book, since you get all the good books I'm sure you already have it in our collection." No pressure and no where to go with that one; if I have purchased it I look bloody brilliant. Came out smelling like a rose since we had it in the collection. One of her students works in the library (reserves desk) and several others call the resource center home. If I had a quarter for every one of them who has asked me how I liked the book ....

So this afternoon, as I prepare to head out over the river and through the woods to Pennsylvania, I have checked "The Book Thief" out from reserves and will be reading it, time permitting and between cooking and shopping, over the holiday weekend. Yes, I have bowed to student peer pressure.

Happy Turkey Day and the beginning of the Christmas shopping mania. I will be blissfully without a computer until Monday of next week because vacation from work is also vacation from computers. This is a perfect time to wean myself away from blog statistics and veiws. Right?

Tags: The Book Thief, Reading peer pressure, Young adult literature

Post 200: Shameless self promotion

Today I moved, a conservative estimate, 60 shelves of children's books in the juvenile stacks. After underestimating the amount of room necessary to have at least 6 inches of space at the end of each shelf, I shifted the first 1/4 of the collection another two sections to the right. About half way through the move I decided to take a break and check mail from last Friday (I was in Columbus for a meeting) and meandered down to the director's office. Inside my box I found a large, padded, mailing envelope. I didn't think much of it until the boss said, "Now that you are published, will you still talk to the rest of us?"

Hooray! It was my very own personal copy, actually copies, of my peer reviewed journal article! I had almost forgotten about it, the article was accepted for publication in May of 2005 after all, but the envelope contained two copies of the journal itself and an interesting bonus, several copies of just my article bound alone. It's odd seeing my name in print, beyond what we do in the library. I find it even stranger that I will be able to search a database and find my article. Yes, I am a bit giddy, maybe even disproportionately so, about the whole concept.

I was glad it came today because I really did not want my milestone post #200 to be my Thanksgiving horoscope from blogthings.

Tags: Publishing in a library journal, First article published, Academic Library, Academic Librarian

An oversight corrected

I use Technorati help tags on this blog, "ping" them when I post, and obviously have a Technorati account enabling me to do the tagging and pinging. I have laid claim to this blog, but do not pay much attention to it's ranking. Blissfully secure of my anonymity in the blogosphere I did not see the need because, quite frankly, my frequently mentioned statcounter addiction keeps me abreast of looks, views, pages, and so on and so forth. So I blather on here on a daily basis detailing whatever strikes my fancy and hope anyone who comes across my musings may find something on interest.

Today curiousity compelled me to look at my Technorati stats and I found two blog links. Huh, imagine that. I also noticed a fellow blogger who comments every once in a while has me listed on her blog links as well. Obviously, it's past time for me to return the favor. Below are the three blogs in question, two are children's literature related and the third library science and technology. I am also going to add them to my sidebar blogroll.

• Proper Noun.net
• Kids Lit Info
• Nirak.net

Thanks for the blogging plug! It is appreciated.

Tags: Blog links, Technorati stats, Using technorati stats, Proper Noun.net, Kids Lit Information, Nirak.net

198 and counting

After getting one hundred posts under my hypothetical belt several months ago, I determined it would be interesting to look at the second hundred and see how thing had changed. I cut my teeth on blogging through this personal effort and have since created three job related blogs, one collaborative blog, and continue to work with a professional organization for two others. Shouldn't that be enough?

I just spent a few minutes looking back through my first 197 posts and noticed, beyond being extremely fickle, things changed around post 53 when I found something worth blogging about consistently. Consider this trip down memory lane:

• 5/9/06: Hit the wall
• 6/6/06: To blog or not to blog
• 6/12/06: ALA: Libraries Build Communities
• 7/13/06: Advance Reader Copies
• 7/31/06: That last ALA conference session

I was questioning this blog every few weeks before the ALA conference in New Orleans. The post from July 31 is the turning point; it is when I changed the format of the blog somewhat and decided to blog what I know ... libraries, children's literature, library technology, and pretty much whatever else I decided would be interesting (hence the post yesterday on the Monkees). So with this post, I am now two from two hundred. I am tempted to find two more things to blog about this weekend, besides how much I could care less about the "big game" this afternoon.

Tags: Hypothetically Speaking, Blog retrospective, Blogging with purpose

Hey, hey they were The Monkees

Surfing channels early this evening I found, and had to watch, The Monkees! The longer I watched, the worse it got. In all honestly I was never the biggest fan of Improv comedy, but the show was pretty awful (an appropriate oxymoron). I remember many of the tunes from the show because they were catchy, some written by the likes of Neil Diamond. As I child I know I had some of their music, dare I mention it, on 45's. Songs that come to mind are The Last Train to Clarksville, I'm a Believer, Steppin Stone, and the TV show themesong Hey, Hey We're the Monkees.As the episode finished I strained tired eyes to catch the year because what I do not remember is if I saw these first run or as Saturday morning reruns. I had my doubts since several sources note the original show ran from 1965 - 1968. However, The Monkees -Wikipedia mentions a resurgence of the show on Saturday morning television in the 70's as well as a second wave of their music in the 80's. If The Monkees were running on Saturday morning television with School House Rock, I was there; "Conjunction Junction, What's your Function?" and "I'm Just a Bill". After the credits ran, this same television station showed The Partridge Family. I sang along to the theme song and changed the channel.

Tags: 70's Television, The Monkees, The Partridge Family, School House Rock

Tote that barge, er ... book shelf

The quest to create more room in the juvenile stacks continues. Today's episode includes a late and somewhat dim bulb of brilliance. When I began this project adequately armed with bookends, a wide library truck/cart, and slightly ratty clothes (dust & crawling on the floor), I intentionally left two empty sections at the end of the run. My reasoning was sound in theory, it's always a good idea to leave a little bit of room just in case, but less than stellar in practice. Yesterday, after moving about a quarter of the collection I stopped to survey the titles yet to be moved. Much to my dismay the number of books remaining far outweighed, so to speak, the amount of room left within the designated area of the stacks. I did a quick back shift and created almost another entire section (five shelves), but still only had five empty areas for three quarters of the collection. Doubts crept in as to if it would be enough space to finish the task as planned. Especially when an entire section is needed at the beginning to expand the Newbery section from one to two. I decided to sleep on it and then ask for a second opinion the next morning. This morning it was painfully obvious to me, and to my second opinionated friend, I needed to either back up what I'd done two sections, condense some of what I had already moved, or do both. Since I need to do this right, not fast, I'll do both and still hope to meet a deadline of before Christmas break.

As I was moving books around, I noticed duplicates and triplicates of several older/classic titles such as Mary Poppins, Winnie the Pooh, and Anne of Green Gables. It was a simple matter to move them along with the other books, but a small persistent voice kept repeating something my boss said to me last week. "Have you considered weeding the juvenile collection?" My gut reaction was an emphatic NO! The books are small, they don't take up that much room, there is historical value in many of the titles, and I do not want too. I settled on the truth of "no" and added the quick opinion that I did not feel it was something to be taken lightly and would take it under consideration. The first reaction is one I'm standing by, but I do wonder if it's a mistake not to weed juvenile books with the same cold (yes, cold) thoroughness I use to weed curriculum textbooks.

Generally speaking, it is recommended K-12 curriculum textbooks only be held for five years because it is necessary to have updated materials that mirror what students and student teachers will find in a classroom. In my case, I have a few 1999 titles with the remainder of the collection 2000 forward. Unless I am building a historical textbook collection, older editions of curriculum textbooks are just old. The same can not be said for old juvenile books; hence my hesitation to weed with such narrow boundaries.

Print runs for children's books make it difficult to replace older editions. I was pulling books for a professor today who is using the Anita Silvey title 100 Best books for children. Luckily the book includes older and a few newer titles, but I found we are missing about a half dozen books on the list. I used worldcat and amazon to get isbn's, but a couple of them were out of print in basically every format. If I eliminate the third copy of Mary Poppins, will it be replaceable at a later date? Oddly enough, I just placed an order for second copies of the Harry Potter series. We have had so many individual titles missing, lost, lost and paid, and overdue that when book six came out the decision to place the series on general seven day reserve was made so we would have a copy while they are still available. Now, the newer editions will be placed on general reserve and the beat up copies returned to the circulating collection. Is a second copy of this series that much different than four copies of Winnie the Pooh?

Until I am comfortable making that decision, I will continue to move the collection and make room for new books. Where there's a will there's a way, but not until Monday. Tomorrow is a trip to Columbus for a meeting.

Tags: Children's literature collections, Shelf shifting juvenile books, Weeding juvenile books, Weeding library collections

What did you do today?

I get that question a lot, what does a librarian do all day? It depends on the librarian, type of library, and the job said librarian holds within the library. Working in an academic library resource center, I wear many hats and today the lovely hat continued to be moving children's books within the juvenile stacks. Last week my students moved those thirty years worth of practicums. Now it is my turn to shelf shift the entire juvenile collection and make room within the stacks to place the newest purchases. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have a budget enabling me to buy a relatively large selection of children's books. But dang, moving the whole collection is tedious and dusty work. Good thing I'm so anal about organization at work because as I move I'm able to straighten and make things look pretty. About a quarter of the way finished, this afternoon I determined I may have left too much empty shelving at the end. I'm going to get a second opinion on that, but will probably be shifting some more before moving on.

The news of a student being released from her job responsibilities, yes fired, has gone over amazingly well with my remaining student workers. No one has asked me why. No one has questioned the decision. No one really seems to care. Interestingly enough, a new hire from this term brought in a friend this evening who is looking for work. I haven't even posted the openings yet and may have a new hire. Between graduation, student teaching, and the firing I find myself three students less for next term. Hiring in the spring is best since there are fewer students taking the lab class and the responsibilities towards that end are less. Not that we have a smaller amount of people in the center, simply that the things they want are generally different.

I also began working on spending some money! Wooo-hooo. One of the best parts of this job is making decisions on what to purchase, further developing the collection (something that necessitates the need for all the aforementioned shelf shifting). I have listings of DVD's, books, materials kits, paper, toner, laminating film and all that jazz. I will need to go through the newest edition of Booklist and School Library Journal for my children's book purchase listing, but that's a fun job.

In my spare time, after providing reference and help with an assortment of class projects, I even managed to post somewhat intelligently to one of my professional blogs. I did also finish a juvenile book at lunch and can not for the life of me remember the title. More about the mystery book tomorrow. After lunch I did a quick check of my bloglines account and read a very interesting post on Argh Ink by Jennifer Crusie; Clue Cake, Anonymity, and Other Unprofessional Behavior. I look forward to reading her personal blog on Argh Ink, as well as her collaborative effort with Bob Mayer on the Crusie Mayer blog. (Note to the two people who read this blog, if you enjoy either of these authors or want to learn more about being a published author, check out those links). In this post, Jenny brilliantly discusses her frustration with anonymous bloggers taking authors to task in what may be construed as an effort to be more popular and drive readership to their blogs. Food for thought, check it out. Unfortunately, she's also chosen to utilize Blogger's comment moderation feature for this post, comments are accepted but will not show up until she decides if they should. I understand why she felt the need to take that step, but miss reading her loyal reader's comments. They are always an enlightened group.

And no, I'm not mentioning the post in an inane effort to drive more people to this blog.

Please.

I write this for me and it freaks me out the tiniest bit when I look at the stat counter for this site and see people are reading. Happy news, I've weaned myself off of looking at the stupid counter six and eight times a day. My hopeless stat obsessed self is now down to morning, lunch, and once in the evening. That's half what it used to be.

Now it's time for the finale of Dancing with the Stars. I'm SO hoping Emmitt wins. "Can't touch this!"

Tags: Academic Library, Academic library daily grind, Working in an Academic library, Collection weeding, Shifting the collection

Trilogies, a perfect set of three?

Having recently completed the final book in Nora Robert's newest trilogy, The Circle Trilogy, I found myself going back through some of her other trilogy/series. Most of are paperbacks; some with her current publisher Jove, and the older ones were Harlequin and/or Silhouette. Were I'm concerned, Nora Roberts could put her name on a cereal box and I'd buy it to read, same with Jayne Ann Krentz (or any of her other names) and Jennifer Crusie. Though the latter does not "do" trilogies, I did just buy her newest novella Hot Toy in a Christmas anthology Santa Baby. Anyway, after I finish a trilogy by a particular author I find myself compelled to go back through and read my favorite titles contained other trilogies they have published. I've noticed recently that most often, though not always, the book I am drawn to is the middle of the series. Consider these Nora Roberts titles:

• The Circle Trilogy
  Morrigan's Cross (2006), Dance of the Gods (2006), Valley of Silence (2006)
• In The Garden Trilogy
  Blue Dahlia (2004), Black Rose (2005), Red Lily (2005)
• Key Trilogy
  Key of Light (2003), Key of Knowledge (2003) , Key of Valor (2004)
• Three Sisters Trilogy
  Dance Upon the Air (2001), Heaven and Earth (2001), Face the Fire (2002)
• The Irish Trilogy
  Jewels of the Sun(1999), Tears of the Moon (2000), and Heart of the Sea (2000)
• Dream Trilogy
  Daring to Dream (1996), Holding the Dream (1997), Finding the Dream (1997)
• The Stars of Mithra
  Hidden Star ( 1997), Captive Star (1997), Secret Star ( 1998)
• The Concannon Sisters
  Born in Fire (1994), Born in Ice (1995), Born in Shame (1996)

... and these Jayne Ann Krentz titles:

• Eclipse Bay
  Eclipse Bay (2001), Dawn in Eclipse Bay (2001), Summer in Eclipse Bay (2002)
• The Curtain
  Amaryllis (1996), Zinnia (1997), Orchid (1998)

There are obviously more linked books than these, but they are nice sampling of what I mean. So I wonder, what is it about the magic number three? And, why do I usually like the middle book in the series. Keep in mind I am not an author and have no training either in the craft or as a reviewer of this genre of book. But it is my theory nonetheless. Here goes; I think the first book is "burdened" by setting up all three titles as well as having it's own story; the last book has to wrap everything up and stand alone; and this leaves the middle book free of obligations to do anything but tell a story. Obviously the theory is not without its flaws, in some instances I liked the first or last title best. And I haven't even touched on the magic of three within a single title like in The Three Fates or Montanna Sky. Regardless, I will be finishing Key of Valor this evening for the fifth or sixth time and will be saving my new Crusie for the weekend.

As long as these talented ladies keep writing, I'm a happy camper.

(Sigh, should it take four times for a post to publish? I think not!)

Tags: Romance novel trilogies, Nora Roberts, Jayne Ann Krentz, Jayne Castle, Romance novels, Romantic fiction, Great reads!

The Taker

As many of my book related posts begin, today at lunch I finished The Taker, by J.M. Steele. Hyperion Books for Children, the link provided with J.M. Steele, notes the name is a pseudonym for "two New York entertainment industry professionals, neither of whom aced the SAT’s."

The Taker is the story of Carly, a high school junior, who suffers from test anxiety, has taken the SAT and earned a less than stellar score. Pressured by her parents to score well and attend a good school, her father is an alumnus of Princeton, Carly is at a loss how to handle the outside pressures and retake the test. Out of the blue, Carly receives a text message on her cell phone from "the Taker" who, for a price, will take the test for her and guarantees she gets a better score. He does not want money, but will ask for payment of another kind to be named later, and informs Carly she has to get a tutor and maintain that she is studying for the SAT so no one will be suspicious when her scores increase. Carly agrees to "the taker's" terms, setting in motion a chain of events that accurately reflect teenage life.

Carly has typical teenage problems with popularity which are exemplified by demands from her BMOC lacrosse playing boyfriend, the necessity of working with a nerdy SAT tutor, issues with a smarmy instructor conducting her SAT study course, and the fact that one of her best friends is working on an expose for the school newspaper regarding the increase in SAT test scores happening in their town. Steele's depiction of teenage life is on target. Carly is a popular girl who is a bit selfish, but not without redeeming qualities. It would be easy for secondary characters such as Carly's boyfriend Brad and her tutor Ronald to be clichés; this is not the case as each character is an individual with some depth, such as it is.

The story moves along quickly, but the resolution of the SAT cheating ring and subsequent revelation of "the Taker's" identity are somewhat anticlimactic, almost too easy. I would like to have seen repercussions of some sort for Carly's plan to cheat on the SAT, even though she reconsiders and takes the test herself. Any teenager planning to take the SAT will understand Carly's dilemma and the pressures related to taking a test that has the ability to change the rest of your life, all of which ring true in this book.

Tags: J.M. Steele, The Taker, Young adult fiction, SAT, YA Literature

Too much, and yet nothing to blog

I have hit the wall, metaphorically speaking, more than once during my quest to meet the challenge of writing everyday; posting on this blog. I can honestly say some days the topics were stretched too thin, some days there were topics that maybe should not have been put on the blog for God and everyone to see, some days I actually sounded a bit intelligent, some days I was a blithering idiot, and some days I forgot the mandate from my high school English teacher that "one sentence does not a paragraph make." She would be happy to see this paragraph at least has three sentences. Today? There is an over abundance of topics bouncing rampant around my brain that I actually have too much to blog about. Not only am I unsure where to begin, but also unsure what to include.

My week started with such hope. I had five blank days on my work calendar; a feat unheard of for the second week in November. They were a vision of beauty and a joy to behold.

I should have known better . . .

First a quick phone call on Monday and a meeting scheduled for next week moved up to Thursday of this week (today). I felt woefully unprepared, so I shuffled the piles on my desk to compose a detailed outline, sent it to the boss for an official "OK,” printed copies for library participants, and emailed the revisions to be disbursed amongst the larger committee. Crisis averted and resulting meeting painless.

One of the more challenging, and rewarding, aspects of my job is managing ten student workers and two GA's. I have management experience and am not unused to the trials, tribulations, and yes joys of work, scheduling and conflict. I hire good people, provide them with training, and give them the opportunity to do the job they were hired to do. Most of the time this philosophy works splendidly. When it does not, employees are warned, disciplined, and if necessary, fired. It is very rare a student is fired. As a result, the group is together for several years and often form a bond, they work as a team. As such, it is often both wonderful (no tattling and whining) and frustrating (if I don't know what's going on, I can't do anything about it) when they are reluctant to bring problems to my attention. Generally speaking and dependant on the student involved, problems are brought directly to me. Other times, they feel more comfortable expressing issues to the GA's who handles it, brings it to my attention, or does both. Because students feel a sense of camaraderie, it is challenging for them to tell the difference between ratting out a friend and bringing issues to me that I need to know. Today was one of those days; do what’s right, let me deal with the consequences, and make sure no one feels guilty for doing the right thing.

Add in search committee responsibilities and a binder with over 20 vitae's to review and evaluate.

Round out those things with the every day necessity of weeding, shelf shifting, working on web design, writing juvenile book reviews, and just running the resource center.

I'm ready for the weekend.

Ooooh, oooh, I'm a happy girl

It's a good day. I have my very own copy of the newest J.D. Robb, aka Nora Robert's, book Born in Death (which I will savor regardless of the lackluster review by Publishers Weekly posted on Amazon), my very own copy of the new Sugarland CD, Enjoy the Ride, and a small bag of Ghiradelli caramel filled chocolate squares.

The chocolate is fleeting, but was a tasty snack while watching Dancing with the Stars.

Recent purchases, graphic novels

Since I talked about graphic novels in the previous post, I was compelled to check the new book shelf this morning and see what the most recent additions to the juvenile collection, graphic novels, were.

The three pictured here were added in the last two book orders. I've just returned from the circulation desk after checking them out to "me" and adding them to my shelf of books to read. It was interesting to see two of the three, Sardine and Missouri Boy, are published by the same entity, First Second (:01). The Time Warp Trio book is a HarperTrophy publication. Even more intriguing is they are all three in color and bound with heavy stock as opposed to a cheaper paperback.

Here are the three titles:

• Missouri Boy, by Leland Myrick
• Time Warp Trio, Nightmare on Joe's Street, by Jon Scieszka
• Sardine in Outer Space, by Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar

Update: later that same afternoon ...
The graphic novel bulletin board is finished. It was interesting to see how many of the novels I had chosen to highlight were checked out.

Tags: Children's literature, Juvenile graphic novels, Graphic novels & academic libraries

Graphic Novels

Relax, I mean graphic in design and not graphic in content. As I type that sentence I am reminded of the looks I received from student workers when they heard me asking children's literature professors if they wanted me to buy graphic novels. Once I explained it as an expanding genre in children and young adult literature, they were humorously relieved. One of the speakers at the conference on Friday discussed graphic novel collection. I enjoyed the session for several reasons, not just because I won a couple of novels in a raffle. The presenter discussed publishers of graphic novels, the graphic novel reader base in his library, how to publicize the collection, and some history behind the current trend towards graphic novel collections in public libraries. This is where the difference between public library collections and academic library collections became obvious.

Generally speaking, a public library will have their juvenile collection separated into different categories; picture books (fiction), middle readers (fiction), young adult (fiction), maybe biographies, graphic novels (fiction and non-fiction), and juvenile non-fiction. This allows for a very "browseable" collection, something the public desires. Public libraries are also responsible for purchasing titles that the general public wants to read, hence the increase in the graphic novel collections. After all, the collection is in reality their tax dollars at work.

Academic libraries are different; there are different sets of “limitations,” or collection development policies, placed on the collection. Then there is the space. Shelving a graphic novel collection within the juvenile literature is challenging as the collection encompasses fiction, non-fiction, juvenile, and young adult literature whose sole purpose is to support the college of education curriculum. Furthermore, as a research library we use library of congress and the literature is shelved accordingly. A book purchased for the juvenile collection is either juvenile or it part of the regular collection. A juvenile/young adult purchase may be placed in the recreational area, but this rare. There is no graphic novel section in the library.

So what does this mean? If graphic novels are not currently being taught in a literature class, my collection, if indeed I even have one, is minimal at best. The question of do we need graphic novels must be addressed. After conferring with children's literature professors about graphic novel purchases, I found out that one of them is requiring his students read a graphic novel. Since his class had been ordering graphic novels from other libraries, a need was not being met, and this lead to the creation of a small graphic novel collection including both juvenile and young adult selections.

Currently, the library collection includes 63 graphic novels with roughly half of them (31) considered juvenile. There are classics by Jeff Smith (Bone) and Neil Gaiman, but the juvenile titles are more difficult and include graphic interpretations of classics such as the Wizard of Oz, Call of the Wild, Tarzan, Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. To support this collection graphic novel bibliographies and history and criticism resources have been added to the resource center reference collection. While there are some who question the inclusion of graphic novels in an academic library, this genre deserves to be represented for the literature and art styles presented within.

Tags: Children's literature, Juvenile graphic novels, Graphic novels & academic libraries

Post-conference blues & football

The last several days have been long-ish on driving and short on sleep. Not to whine, or maybe not to whine too much, it was an hour to the conference, overnight at the hotel, an all day conference followed by two hours home, several quick trips while home over the weekend, and then three hours back here this afternoon. All that an no football on the radio. No football on the computer, and obviously no football on the television. As usual, the Browns are on both the Cleveland and Columbus CBS stations.

Thursday afternoon I attended a preconference workshop on library marketing, aka market research. It was interesting, but very heavy on concepts of focus groups and follow-up surveys. I understand the marketing needs of both these functions. On the other hand, as someone who has lived through two LibQual survey endeavors, I also understand how futile the effort of getting the same group of people to respond on more than one occassion can become. I will look through my notes again and make more sense of the process. The conference was enjoyable and successful with a few irritations; more on that later.

I finished the last of the Nora Robert's Circle trilogy at the hotel Thursday evening. I was so engrossed with getting through the final battle I missed Grey's Anatomy! Two days until Born in Death. Yes, I am counting and planning how I will be able to read it Tuesday evening during Dancing with the Stars. It is all about priorities.

I also finished reading the children's book "Pish Posh." While it was well written, most of the characters were engaging, and it was interesting and flowed, I just did not care for the book. I feel the main character was a brat and had few redeeming qualitites, even at the culmination of the story. She was a product of her environment, but if I want to learn more about spoiled rich children, all I need to do is turn on the television.

Tags: Academic library conference, Pittsburgh Steelers

Waiting, reading & workshops

I'm waiting for a reading class to finish, they are in the library doing language arts textbook evaluations because I have finally convinced faculty it's easier to drag the kids to the books than drag the books to the kids, and doing some computer updates up before heading out to a pre-conference marketing workshop. (pause) Now that everyone has left, in addition to reshelving the curriculum books I had to drag chairs back to their homes and reset tables. While doing so, I'm reminded of a book I read some time ago, All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned In Kindergarten, by Robert Fulgham. I have the book at home somewhere and can not quote specifics, but I know for sure one of the things was "put things back where you found them."

It brought to mind a post I read yesterday on Read Roger, Ten Rules to Live By. He discussed "The Rights of the Reader" by Daniel Pennac andpointed readers to a downloadable PDF poster of these rights illustrated by Quentin Blake. Last night I picked up the third book of the new Nora Roberts trilogy, Valley of Silence, and used rule #2, the right to skip. Why? As many readers, I get invested with characters in a trilogy and want to know what happens. I am secure in the knowledge that Nora will provide either a happy ending or an ending to make me happy. This particular trilogy has a main character who is a vampire (not a fan of that), so I wanted to make sure his "after" was what I wanted for him. Note, I didn't say what might be right for the character, but what I wanted for the character. While not being a fan of the increasing vampire genre in romance fiction, Nora Roberts is a wonderful storyteller who draws me in regardless. Luckily, in this instance they ended up being one in the same. I was 95% sure they would be since the foreshadowing and the storyteller were indicating as much, but I didn't want to be disappointed.

No, reading the end of the book does not ruin the book. No matter how it ends, the journey to get there will be quality and I'll finish. That is unless, of course, I am looking at Pennac's rule #3, "The right not to finish a book." I have pretty much broken myself of the habit, but sometimes I just have to peek. As to Valley of Silence, Nora still has to finish off the bad guys, let good triumph over evil (yes!), and bring the story full circle. Something to look forward to later this evening.

Only another week until Born in Death hits the shelves. After reading the excerpt from Nora's web site, I'm chomping at the bit to have it in my hot little hands. I just finished re-reading Memories in Death for the umpteenth time and am more than ready for more of Eve and Roarke's story.

Tags: Valley of Silence, Nora Roberts, Born in Death, JD Robb, Read Roger

You just can't make this up ....

As seen this afternoon on the way back from lunch. Also overheard; three students warning anyone who would listen not to fall over the "hump."

And no, it is not in any way to be confused with a speed bump.