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10 Books on Books

In my recent blog survey, someone mentioned that one of their favourite parts of this blog is my book recommendations. 

Having just finished “The Logogryph: A Bibliography of Imaginary Books” by Thomas Wharton (which was beyond excellent – I'd give it my highest recommendation, especially for book lovers!), here's a list that was my submission to the FIMS book zine in Winter 2006.

But first, a small taste of “The Logogryph”:

It is believed that within the city there are at present over five hundred optometrists and sixty-five thousand librarians. Eighteen of the latter, usually the most capricious and heterodox, are chosen yearly as anti-censors, whose duty it is to ensure that no book is ever banned or prevented from reaching any reader.  There is also a body of officials whose function is to ensure that any disturbing or scandalous volumes are distributed at random through the city, in order that the wrong reader may come upon them by accident, and so complicate and deepen her reading life with matter she may otherwise never have encountered.

(God, he's a good writer!)

Ten Great Books About Books
(And Language and Writing and Libraries)

1. Salamander – Thomas Wharton
A fantastic (in both senses of the word) tale about an 18th Century book binder and printer who is commissioned by a Hungarian count to create an infinite book.

2. Skipped Parts – Tim Sandlin
Two bookish young teenagers attempt to discover what authors write about in the “skipped parts” of their books.  Set in the shadow of the Kennedy assassination, Sandlin has been called the J.D. Salinger of his generation.

3. Ella Minnow Pea – Mark Dunn
A meditation on censorship set on a fictional island where letters are slowly being banned from the alphabet.  The author incorporates this device in a series of letters between the novel's characters as they increasingly struggle to communicate within these limitations.  If you like this, you'd also probably enjoy Christian Bok's “Eunoia“, a Griffith Prize winning poetry collection with each chapter written using only one vowel (and if you follow that Eunoia link, you'll find many other “gimmick” book suggestions.)

4. The Book on the Bookshelf – Henry Petroski
The author uses the development of the innocuous bookshelf to trace the development of books and libraries.

5. A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes and the Eternal Passion for Books – Nicholas Basbanes
Basbanes has a whole series of books on different aspects of book culture from rare books to bibliophiles to the power of books to change the world.

6. The Professor & The Madman – Simon Winchester
An amazing history of the creation of the Oxford English dictionary.

7. The Proud Highway – Hunter S. Thompson
Probably one of the most revealing glimpses into the lengths someone will go to to become a writer, this collection of Hunter S. Thompson's early letters show the writer he will become in a way that even his early works don't. 

8. HappinessTM – Will Ferguson
A hilarious comic novel that (accurately) pokes fun at the behind-the-scenes of the publishing world via the story of a guru who writes a self-help book that actually works!  The first work of fiction by one of Canada's greatest non-fiction writers.

9. First Chapter: The Canadian Writers Project – Don Denton
Portraits of great and emerging Canadian writers along with their answers to either the question “Why did you become a writer?” or “What would you tell your younger self now?”

10. Revolting Librarians Redux – Jessamyn West (ed.)
Great look at activist/alternative librarianship in a series of essays as well as lists, poetry, comics and more. 

Posted 12 February 2007 § List § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

The End of the post-9/11 Era?

Reason magazine recently declared the “end of the post-9/11 era” citing a story linking Zsa Zsa Gabor with Anna Nicole Smith after the latter's death. 

Hard to argue with that.  The whole media frenzy around the Anna Nicole Smith death the other day shows that we're truly back to the way things were on September 10, 2001.  Therefore, I would encourage you to tell everyone you know that's it's over – no more saying “it's a different world now” or talk of terrorists and “threats to our liberty.”  No more of any of this (a person can dream, right?) 

So why does the death of a Marilyn Monroe-wannabe signify the end of the “post 9/11 era?”  ThinkProgress reports that “NBC’s Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3
minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522%
more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse — 708% more
references to Anna Nicole than Iraq.” 

This, on a day that included “the sixth downing of a US helicopter in the past three weeks, allegations that a deputy Iraqi health minister was aiding a Shiite militia in its attacks against U.S. troops, and the death of four Marines.”  That's not even touching the recent story that the US Military shipped $12 billion in cash (link to a Daily Show clip, ie. worth watching) to Iraq and somehow managed to lose track of it.  <Dr. Evil voice> Twelve BILL-ion!</Dr. Evil>

Larry King summed it up: “The death of Anna Nicole Smith is the number one story around the world tonight.”   Yes, it is Larry.  Yes, it is.  (That first link might be disturbing for some people.  I know it is for me.)

Posted 10 February 2007 § Main Page § Politics § PopCulture § Video ‡ Comments (7) ° Tagged:

Friday Fun Link – Africa vs. Star Wars On The Web (Feb 9, 2007)

Sometimes an idea for the day’s FFL pops right in your in-box on a
Friday morning. Here’s something fellow Librarian Activist editor,
David Jackson, sent me today.

“I Bless The Rains Down in Africa” is an article from music web site Pitchfork,
comparing the presence of information about Africa with information
about the Star Wars universe on the Internet. Perhaps not surprisingly,
Africa doesn’t fare very well. As author Chris Dahlen points out, “This
is partly because sci-fi nerds in the Western world have better net
access than most Africans. People also seem more drawn to the relative
simplicity of pop culture than to the complexities of real life. Pop
culture gives us a world we can understand, and problems we can solve.”

If you don’t read the complete article, I’ll pull one thing that might be of interest. GlobalVoicesOnline.org
is a blog aggregator that “gathers online news and opinion from the
global blogosphere. With a staff of almost 20 editors and more than 100
contributors, it’s a major resource for world news at a time when fewer
and fewer [North] American newspapers collect the stuff on their own.
Global Voices collects “bridge bloggers,” or bloggers who can talk
about their region to a worldwide audience…A great bridge blogger is
hard to find, and the countries that need the most representation have
the least access to the internet.”

Posted 09 February 2007 § FridayFunLink § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Freedom to Read Week Event at FIMS – Monday February 19, 2007

See below for a call for readers and audience members for a Freedom to Read Week event forwarded by the esteemed Michelle Lake.

I organized the event last year and on a personal note, I think it's a great experience to participate in something like this – to learn more about freedom of expression issues, to see how an event similar to what happens in libraries all the time is run, and just to have a social evening out with your classmates.  (They may surprise you – one of my quieter classmates got up and read the “Fuck” section of a dictionary of slang, getting a great response from the assembled crowd.)

Moments like that made last year's event a blast but my one disappointment was that only one professor read at our event (and I think maybe only one other one was in the audience.)  As someone said afterwards, “Professors should set an example for students by attending events like this.  If they don't, it's no wonder that students are apathetic.”  So if I can make a personal challenge to any professors reading this, I'd encourage you to contact Michelle and get involved!

—

Hi Everyone,

On Monday, February 19th, at 5pm,
myself, several other MLIS students (and hopefully you!) will be
participating, cheering on and taking in a Freedom to Read Event at the
Grad Club!

What we want to do:
Read from Banned Books and other materials! Share Ideas about Censorship! Have Ourselves a Good Controversial Time!

What I need from you:

Volunteers to Read…it’s not an ‘Event’ if it’s just me & the
microphone (actually that’s pretty terrifying, please come and
contribute!)

I have a list of banned books or you can be a bit
creative and choose your own material (psst…Whatever you want to read,
that is your Right folks).

Spread the word!
Get other students out; this event is open to Everyone! If you have a Monday night class, come before, get something to eat, listen to some readings.

How to get involved:

If you want to read, email me back (mlake3@uwo.ca) and/or come to our
little meeting Monday, February 12 @ 10am in the Grad Lounge (4th
floor, NCB). Let me know if you want to read ahead of time, so we can
avoid overlap and make an preliminary schedule.

Why we are doing this (aka why should you care?):
Here is a brief list of books that have been banned or challenged in Canada:

• The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Greasy, Grimy, Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Children by Josepha Sherman and T.K.F. Weisskopf
• Asha’s Mums by Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse
•  The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Goosebumps and Fearstreet by R.L. Stine
• Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

For more information, please visit the Freedom to Read website.

I hope to hear from you soon! (I think I've hit my exclamation mark limit) : )

~ Michelle Lake

Posted 09 February 2007 § Library § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Public Humiliation (aka the Public Library Game)

Here's a goofy idea I had for a fun (yet embarrassing) entry…

I've been going to public libraries since I was a kid.  I've visited libraries across country like they were tourist attractions (which I guess means that they are – at least for me!).  I've just finished my Master of Library Science degree.  And now I'm going to attempt to recite the top level categories for the Dewey Decimal System (which I probably also just defined wrong – is that what they're called?  Yikes!) from memory: 

Drag your mouse over the white space below to highlight my guesses and the correct answers.  But make sure you try it yourself first and post your score (or even better, your answers.).  No cheating!

000 – Computers,  Books &  Supernatural (Computer science, information and general works.  Close enough – Correct!)
100 – Philosophy (Philosophy and psychology – half a point!)
200 – Religion  (Correct!)
300 – Natural Sciences (Social Sciences)
400 – Applied Science (Language)
500 – Medicine (Science – I'm going to give myself a half-point for this one)
600 – Fine Arts (Technology – I always wondered why they had a section for computers and another for technology?  In fact, you often find computer books in both spots.  I think it's because computers were something so new but which became so pervasive, they needed the space that the 000's provided.)
700 – Sports & Leisure (Arts & Recreation – another half point)
800 – Literature (Correct!)
900 – History, Travel (History and Geography.  Although a proper cataloguer would disagree, let's say close enough – correct!)

Wow, I suck.  What did I get – 5.5/10? I had the right idea on most of them but sometimes had the numbers off by a section or two.  Others, I was way out to lunch.  This will sound like an excuse but I think I would've gotten a few of them if I though it through and visualized the library a bit better rather than going fairly quickly and relying on my gut instinct.  Maybe not though – I would've sworn I had the right answer for the 600's but was way off – hence the size of the comment that goes with it.)

Oh, and the proper term is classes although categories is probably acceptable – at least if I'm reading 025.431 – The Dewey Blog correctly. 

Next time, I'll try to name all 100 sub-classes to redeem myself!

Posted 09 February 2007 § Humour § Library § LibrarySchool § List § Main Page § Meme ‡ Comments (4) °

"Blogs, they're what old people do now."

“Blogs, they're what old people do now…E-mail is the same way. The youngest generation of Internet users don't bother with blogs or e-mail, preferring social sites such as MySpace and instant messaging to stay in touch.”
– Librarian.net's Jessamyn West, profiled in the “Everybody's Interesting” column of Valley News

…although to be fair, the article does go on to say:

“West is part of a group of young, technologically sophisticated
librarians who exchange information about their work through blog
postings, and, more conventionally, at library conferences. They have
taken it upon themselves to dream about “Library 2.0,” what libraries
will look like and how libraries will function now that information is
both easier to come by and harder to sift.”

On a different note, I've done a couple posts over on LibrarianActivist.org about Steve Jobs' recent announcement that Apple would sell DRM-free music via iTunes if the big music labels would agree to do so.  Is this the beginning of the end for DRM-enforced music?  I hope so!  (And if you don't have LA in your feed-reader, why not add it?)

Posted 08 February 2007 § Blog § Internet § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Is This A Gift For The Baby or the Parents?

Now, we just need:
“My Grandpa Thompson is a Gas Man”
“Help! My Grandma Thompson is Stealing Me (again)”
“How come my Grandpa Hammond has as many teeth as I do?”
“I think my Grandma Hammond slipped some homemade wine in my bottle!”
…and we're good to go!

Thanks to Meshell for the tip!

Posted 08 February 2007 § Baby § Humour § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °

Nursing Truths (in the "RN" sense, not the "baby juice" sense)

Nurses, rightfully so, have one of the highest trust/respect ratings of any profession in society.  But like any profession, they're not immune to frustrations with their patients

Here's a humourous look at some of them via a forwarded e-mail my mom (a nurse) sent to Shea (also a nurse):

NURSING – Can you relate?

1.Don't tell me you have abdominal pain as you eat doritos in my triage
booth. Go home.

2. If you come to the ER by ambulance, the first thing I will ask you is
how you are getting home. No, we don't have people on staff to drive you
home, and don't tell me you don't want to “bother” one of your family
members at this hour. You had no problem bothering 911 for the back pain
you've had for 3 months.

3. You don't get to pick your own IV site. This will irritate me and I
will probably miss your IV on purpose and start your site in the place I
wanted to initially to prove a point.

4. “Butterfly” is not an IV size, this word signals me to put in a
larger bore needle.

5. Nausea is not a reason to come to the ER. If you are not in severe
pain, are not vomiting, or pooping your pants in front of me, your butt
goes back to the waiting room.

6. How can you have the worst migraine of your life, but be able to yell
at me about the wait after you just put down a magazine you were reading?
Go home.

7. Don't ever say things like, “I usually get 4 mg of Dilaudid”.
Requesting your med and dosage will prompt me to squirt out half of the
med before I inject, then I lie about the dose.

8. If you are allergic to Tylenol, Toradol, and Motrin, I have already
assumed you are a drug seeker.

9. If you came to the ER having a family doctor appointment that same
day, I will make sure you are still in the department well past the time
of your original appointment.

10. I don't care if you are neighbors with the GI specialist. Unless he
drove you to the ER himself, you can't be that friendly.

11. Just because, “my doctor sent me here”, does not mean you get right
back to a treatment room. This tells me you are a pain in the ass, and
he's pawning you off.

12. The louder you moan/whine, the bigger size IV needle you get.

13. Foley catheters cure pseudo-seizures. They also cure intoxicated
persons.

14. If you are on more than 2 medicines at home, bring a list. Don't say, “you know, the little white pill”. I am not a pharmacist.
 
15. RN is not synonymous with waiter/waitress. This isn't MacDonald's, you can't have it your way. Similarly, if you want a pillow, two blankets,
and the lights dimmed, go to the Ramada, jackass!

16. Don't bitch about missing breakfast when I'm on the ninth hour of my
shift and haven't peed yet.

17. What gives you the right to complain about your sore throat for a
week while I have diarrhea from the antibiotics I've been taking for
pneumonia?

18. Broken toes are not an emergency. We'll make you feel stupid by
putting a little piece of tape down there and kicking you out. Again, go
home.

19. I am currently inventing a trapdoor system in triage to be triggered
when you say the word “toothache”.

20. Cover you mouth when you cough/belch. This is just common courtesy.
When you neglect to do this, I am tempted to bust butt in your room, then
close the door.

21. If you tell me you have fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome,
know that I'm rolling my eyes and thinking you're a loser.

22. If you list Haldol, geodon, Xanax, and trazadone as allergies, don't
tell me you have no psych history.

23. Never sign in with chest pain because you were too embarrassed to
write “penile sores” or “foul smelling discharge”. This will piss me off
that I bumped you ahead of other people and I'll make your visit horrific.

24. Although you've been in the ER four times this week, you cannot list
the ER doc as your family physician.

25. Do not talk to me while I'm trying to listen to your lungs.

26. Don't tell me you have no money for medicine while you have a carton
of cigarettes in your purse (next to your cell phone), and each of your
seven children are playing their own PSP's.

27. Gravida 7 at age 22 means you are a slut.

28. ONE complaint/ailment per visit, PLEASE!

29. Just because you have a phone and know how to call 911, we are not
impressed by your arrival on an ambulance stretcher. You had better be
sick. If you came escorted via EMS for multiple complaints that started
more than a week ago, and your entire family followed the ambulance to
the hospital, you will be labeled a pussy. Prepare to be treated like
one, and enjoy the waiting area with your family.

30. If you have one of the following 4 ailments, don't waste my time, see
your doctor in the morning: (1) a migraine (2) the flu (3) a stomach virus
(4) a stuffy nose.

31. Don't ask us how long it will be. We don't know. I don't know what's
coming through my door 30 seconds from now, so I sure as hell don't know
when you're getting a room. Plus, why are you now so happy to leave the
ER, when in the beginning you were just so happy to be here and were
begging for our help?!?!?!

32. If you are well enough to complain about the wait, then you are well
enough to go home.

33. We know how many times you've been to an ER. We can usually tell if
you are faking it in the first 5 seconds of talking to you. Do not lie to
us. If you lie about one thing, we will assume you are lying about
everything. You don't want that.

34. If you are a female between 16 and 42 and our last period was between
28-35 days ago, please don't waste our time if you are here for abdominal
pain and vaginal bleeding. Guess what?!?!?! You got your period, AGAIN!
By the way, pregnancy tests cost anywhere from 5-15 dollars at a
pharmacy. An ER visit costs at least a few hundred. If you haven't
gotten your period in 2 months, don't come in at 2 AM. Pharmacies are
now open 24 hours per day!

35. Do not bring your entire posse with you. One person at the bedside is
all that you need. It is really difficult to get around 7 people in the
event that you are really sick.
 
36. Every time I ask you a question, I learn more about what is wrong
with you. I don't care if I have asked you what day it is four different
times. Each time I ask, its for a reason. Just answer the question,
regardless of if you may have answered it before.

37. If you want something, be nice. I will go out of my way to piss off
rude people.

38. Keep the following numbers in mind. At any given time a nurse has 4
patients (some ERs its 5-8). One doctor may have up to 15.

39. There is a law about a nursing assignment in the ER. Of the four
patients, one of them will actually be sick, one of them will be whining
constantly, one of them will be homeless, or drunk, (or both), and one of
them will be the delightful patient who gets the warm blanket and
pillow. Please, don't be the whiner.
 
40. If you see someone pushing a large red cart down a hallway, and bells are going off, don't ask for a cup of coffee. Someone is dying, you
inconsiderate asshole. Sit down, shut up, and let us work.

41. If you can bitch about the blood pressure cuff squeezing too tight,
or the IV hurting, you are not in that much pain. Go home.

42. If you have any sort of stomach pain/ailment and you ask for
something to eat, you are not sick. Go home.

43. Related to Rule #42, just because you haven't eaten all day doesn't
mean I should have to run around to try and find you something to eat.
You got to the ER at 2 PM, what the hell did you do all morning, and at
lunch
time? You could have had something to eat, no one was stopping you! If
this is the case, I will not feel sorry for you, I will think you are
stupid for not eating something all day long, ESPECIALLY if you are
diabetic and prone to complaining about your “sugar” which is probably so
out of whack it wouldn't matter how much/little you've eaten…

44. Do not talk shit about the other members of the staff that I work
with. The doctor that you hate? I work with him everyday, and I know
that he knows what he is doing. I trust him a whole lot more than I
trust you. I am not here to be your friend, and neither is he/she. I
will tell him everything you said, and we will laugh about it. If you
want a buddy, go somewhere else.

45. If you are homeless, don't ask for a bus token or cab voucher to get
home, it just confuses us. You're homeless, remember?

46. PLEASE don't tell us how to do our job. Do we go to your place of
business and tell you how to do your job?

47. Don't come to the hospital (apparently asking for help) and then
become pissed off with what we're doing. Ya, we may have to start an IV,
or draw
blood, yup, you may have to pee in a cup, you may have to go through a
nasty test. You're at the hospital, we have to try and find out what's
wrong with you. If nothing shows up on the tests, we send you home, done. If you refuse the tests, you'll just wait longer, and if you get violent
(and if we feel the tests are necessary) you'll be sedated until we can
get the necessary specimens/x-rays/CT scans, etc.
 
48. Related to Rule 47, don't pull at IV lines, monitor wires, your
wonderfully fashionable ER gown, or fight with the staff. You came to us,
remember? If you do these things, please keep in mind we have many ways
to restrain you.

49. Don't bring in a show and tell. If you have to fish it out of the
toilet, it's really not necessary to bring it in, we'll take your word
for it. If you did fish something out of the toilet, you may not use my pen!

50. If you want to AMA, just go. Don't make a federal case out of it.
Don't shout expletives as you leave, don't throw things, spill things,
or attempt to hurt any staff. Just go. Again, if you can be that pissed
off, you must not be sick, so we don't really want to look after you anyways. Hope you enjoyed!!!

P.S. Here's a thought for the day… If you save one life, they call you a hero. If you
save hundreds of lives, they call you a nurse.

(Here's one from the archives – Jason's career vs. Shea's career.)

Posted 06 February 2007 § Humour § Jobs § List § Main Page § Shea ‡ Comments (0) °

The OPAC – A Question (Mark)

For many library users, the OPAC is the source of connection to their library – how they find books, movies, CD's, etc.  And it's a well-known issue in libraryland that OPAC's frequently aren't all they should be, something that's increasingly in the spotlight because of how much better Web 2.0 sites like Amazon and LibraryThing seem to be at finding/browsing/cataloguing information – even though librarians are the “information professionals.”

Here's an example I came across tonight:

Search Results at RPL
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” = 0 hits
(not sure if they use cookies to track sessions so that link might be expired by the time you try it)

“Who Killed the Electric Car” = 2 hits
(one result for two copies at Central, another much more detailed entry for a copy at Sherwood Village – which is another issue I won't get into)

But what's the title for both entries in the RPL catalogue when you search for the title without a question mark?  “Who Killed the Electric Car?”  (with the question mark reflecting the full, actual title of the work.)

So if you're a patron searching for the film with the proper, full name and get 0 hits, you're very likely to not refine your search.  In fact, the only reason I did was because I saw this film listed in RPL's “DVD's On Order” and knew other films on that list were in the catalogue already so this one should be too.

Somebody with expertise in cataloguing can maybe explain this – I suspect it's something to do with “?” being some sort of a reserved character in the Dynix software, similar to how Google apparently prefers dashes to underscores in its index, a seemingly simple distinction that can make a great difference in your PageRank. 

Anyhow, this isn't a criticism of the RPL since it's symptomatic of problems in many library OPAC's across the country.  In fact, one thing I have loved about RPL since getting back (and of course, a blog-entry list is pending on that very topic) is their extensive DVD collection on a wide-range of topics, non-fiction and fiction, and not just the National Film Board documentaries from the 1970's and German art films from the 1980's that are the bulk of so many other library's video collections. 

One of the recurring battles in libraries is “give people what they  do want” versus “give people what they should want”.  RPL does a good job of doing both but definitely goes further towards “what people do want” in a way that many libraries don't which is great.  For example, one new feature since I returned in that they now have extensive collections of TV show DVD's – you can get complete seasons of everything from Seinfeld to Alias to Corner Gas. 

They even go further than that to reach people.  Looking at their list of movies on order, one that caught my eye was “The Butterfly Effect 2” That's the direct-to-video sequel to an Ashton Kutcher film that didn't do great business or get great reviews the first time around (though the original is apparently a bit of a cult classic – currently a 7.7 rating on IMDB.) 

And just to bring it full circle, who was one of the stars of the Butterfly Effect 2?  That's right, Indian Head's biggest fan Dustin Milligan!   (Light bulb!  Maybe RPL's media specialist librarian didn't order this film after all.  I'm guessing a patron, maybe 13, maybe female, really wanted to see this film and special ordered it.  But what is cool is that RPL did order the film – some libraries wouldn't.  And even though I just posted it yesterday, why not take the opportunity to use this screen grab of young Mr. Milligan sporting a very cool t-shirt? )

Posted 05 February 2007 § Library § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (14) °

Web 2.0 – The Machine Is Us/ing Us

A cultural anthropology professor has put together a very engaging presentation on what exactly “Web 2.0” is all about. 

(via Digg)

[2007-02-05 – I love MetaFilter but man, sometimes they can be harsh.  The majority are ripping this video a new one in a thread that was just posted.  I sometimes forget that people – especially young, Net-savvy types – are supposed to be jaded and cynicial about everything.  Although I agree that “We'l need to rethink love” line in this clip might be a bit over-the-top. But then again, how many people do you know who met online via a dating site or other methods? How many of you stalk follow with interest the lives of people you know via Facebook?]

Posted 04 February 2007 § Internet § Main Page § Video ‡ Comments (0) °