All I can say is wow.  This is possibly the most comprehensive collection of beautiful library photographs I’ve come across.  I need to start saving my money to go and visit…

http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78

Warning: it takes forever to load since it’s all pictures– totally worth waiting for.

Thank you kindly, New York.  This week your media and cultural outlets unwittingly showed their enthusiasm for my Fall 2008 information literacy program, which I’m the early stages of plotting with the aid of some major lettuce.  Without revealing too much of my huggermugger master plan, I’ll tell you only that the program involves visual literacy, graphic information, and technology.

Imagine my glee when I opened the May 12th issue of The New Yorker to discover a fantastic story on the use of digital retouching in the fashion industry.  Unfortunately, the web article omits the before and after shots of a reclining nude model.  That’s too bad, since it would be most useful to project the photos during visual literacy instruction, as part of a discussion that connects cutting-edge technical processes in the art of image making with the long-standing social criticism of Jean Killbourne. 

And

Today’s NYT  has a review of an exciting new exhibit at the MET.  Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy examines the parellels between the trasnformative costume design seen in graphic fiction, haute couture, and sportswear.  We’re not talking about the girl in my English class that wore an ill fitting Superman t-shirt every day of Junior year.  Superheroes is thought provoking and clever, both within the contexts of historical idealizations of the human body and in current interpretations of metamorphosis.  Curated by Andrew Bolton, the show is open to the public until September 1.  

Please publish more leads in the field of visual literacy (web, print, moving image, photo, etc) throughout the summer. 

Signed,

Librarian About Town (though not your town)

Image source: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/superheroes/index.asp

And Tango Makes Three, the illustrated book about gay penguins that adopt an unhatched egg, tops ALA’s list of 10 Most Challenged Books of 2007.  This is the second year on top for this New York love story.  Reasons for the challenge include: 

Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

Question: At what age is it appropriate to discuss the lifestyles of flightless birds with children?

In the Fall, the Guardian reported the breakup of the actual same-sex penguin couple on which the book was inspired.  Looks to me like the one on the right may have been letting himself go.  Squids are only low-calorie when you don’t eat them fried. Just a theory.

Image source: www.nytimes.com/…/13/books/19books-child2.html

The Internet Archive fought the Law, and the Internet Archive won.  Story and links to the court documents on the WIRED blog. 

The State Library of Iowa received money to create a series of trendy posters that advertise public library services using clever juxtaposition and cheeky slogans, such as: 

We think your question deserves more than, “Uh, I think that might be, like in aisle four?” 

Generally the posters have high visual impact, and a nicely unified concept.  I like them.  You’ll also find that the images and copy have universal appeal, meaning that libraries anywhere in the world may print the PDFs for local displays. 

Sounds great right?  Then why I am I hung-up on the poster that promotes Helpful Staff?  If I search myself (a reference habit), I’m sensitive to the following statement: 

Our highly trained staff can help you find exactly what you need…fast. 

I get it.  It’s a marketing ploy.  The User Experience Librarian would be allover that kind of hip PR.  Yet, I cannot shake the feeling that it’s false advertising.  One of the most important services that librarians skillfully provide necessitates guiding people through the complexities of the research process.  Certainly, in an academic environment, fast research is hack research, often leading to irrelevant or weak information gathering, which ultimately wastes more time. 

Last week, one of my students approached me with a need to discover a particular statistic relating to wireless and mobile devices.  The question was not easy.  After 5 minutes she gave up on me; however, I persisted and found the info about 30 seconds after she walked out.  My unsuccessful patron-librarian interaction made me feel like a failure, reminding me of a phrase that I once heard: the emo library moment. 

Emo Library Moment: You don’t have what you want, after much trial you finally discover it it, and it doesn’t matter anyway. 

Posters never show us those moments.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a short blurb with fun comments about an obstructionist device called the Deluxe Yacker Tracker.  Appropriating the design of a traffic signal, this noise-control invention flashes yellow as a warning and red (siren is optional) when volume levels exceed 15 decibels.

If we had the Yacker Tracker in my library, our staff would be in constant violation.  While I hesitate to sanction the use of the descriptor stentorian, I confess that I am a loud librarian.  Deal with it. 

In a recent survey, I learned that 19% of patrons are “dissatisfied-to-very dissatisfied” with the noise in my library.  More than a few students used the open ended question as an opportunity to gripe about loudness, of which I am a frequent contributor.  Our library purposely offers itself as a social space, after all!

Here’s what students are saying:

The library is a place for studying, not for socializing, including staff. It would be nice to study for finals or midterms without hearing what a worker at the library likes to drink on the weekend. I study in the very back where it states it is “quiet study area”, and I still can hear the staff being very loud which is frustrating! Also students are very loud as well! This library is the best, just bring down the noise levels and it will be perfect!

And this:

Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!

One more:

Less noise…I would love seeing more of the workers… Maybe over dinner?  This is assuming the men in the library are excluded.

Anne Trubek’s article in GOOD calls attention to the rising hotness of the hypermodern market.  Hypermodern collectors buy first editions of literature published within the last 20 years expecting that the works will become classics.  First runs of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex and Raymond Carver’s Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? are among the most popular titles. 

Trubek shares clever ideas for trolling to find the next, big, smashing novel.  McSweeney’s is cited as a press on which to keep an eye for breakout authors.  When she refers to the Providence-born Cormac McCarthy as the “darling of the hypermodern posse,” Trubek confides that collectors bank on him because “he is male, writes in difficult prose, attends few book signings (making signed copies scarcer), and once published in small print runs.”  It’s upsetting that female-authored novels barely graze the list of hypermodern demand.  Is it that women are underrepresented as collectors or that female writers are still relegated to the claustrophobia of genre categorization?  At least the brilliant Kelly Link holds her own, and with the support of a small press no less.   

…is something we’ve all said after seeing the movie version of a beloved book (I’ll even go so far as to say the book Beloved). Entertainment Weekly put together a list of the 23 most disappointing movies adapted from books. I don’t know why 23, because I just thought of another one (Beloved), and can rattle off six (keeping the random numbers) more quite quickly. Also, I disagree with a few of their choices, but nonetheless, it’s fun to look through.

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20196409,00.html

And my quick six (in no particular order):

1. Farenheit 451

2. Beloved (I didn’t like that book either, but the movie was appallingly bad– I’m not scared of you, Oprah)

3. All Quiet on the Western Front (1979)

4. East of Eden

5. Breakfast of Champions

6. The Queen of the Damned

And eight movies that I thought were better than the books they were based on:

1. Under the Tuscan Sun

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

3. The Mosquito Coast

4. About a Boy

5. Clueless

6. Breakfast at Tiffany’s

7. The Notebook (ok, I didn’t read the book, but this movie is shockingly good)

8. Fight Club

At last, my cause has come along.  My lonely days are over and life is like a song.

Feedburner recently reported that they track around 60 million RSS subscribers. Even if we bump that number to 70 million RSS users (counting people that use RSS with other applications or platforms) this would still convert to a meager 5.4% of the Internet users around the world, as of today. RSSDay.org 

 

 

• Oh…hot ALA news: IRS publically thanks librarians for the roles they play during tax time.  Maybe this turn of events will somehow reverse my need to refile.
• TIME Magazine’s May 5 cover disturbes me in my sleep.  Does anybody else remember the 1985 Cher movie called Mask…
• The mayor of Bridgeport, CT wants to slash a quarter of funding for its public libraries.  This is the same city that brought you a used *ahem* Pre-Owned bookmobile from Seattle.  Now, it cannot even buy gas for the thing. 
• The hilarious Joe Roch, better known as my therapist, has a new pop culture blog, better known as POP/TRASH/POP.
• HYPATIA: The Journal of Feminist Philosophy dedicated its entire April-June issue to war topics from female perspectives.  You cannot read this interdisciplinary publication online, but if you have it in your academic library, I highly recommend it.