The Bad Bits of Summer

There are similarities between childbirth and the Summer Reading Program. Sometimes my sister says to me, "Aren't these the cutest kids you've ever seen? Don't you think I should have one or two more?" And then I say, "Remember how last time you were pregnant you told me that if you said you wanted another baby I should hit you in the face with a shovel?" And then SHE says, "No." Similarly, I always forget how truly terrible the first week of the Summer Reading Program is. I know in my brain that it will be bad, but until I'm at work with, no kidding (I counted at the busiest point), twenty-one people crowding around the main reference desk and three people holding on the phone, I don't really recall what the beginning of summer is like at the library.

Today the Summer Reading craziness was followed by hanging out at the DMV for an hour, so it's a good thing that I had morning glory muffins to greet me at home. The muffins are very similar to garden harvest bread, except that they're more likely to kill you, being full of delicious fat. They're particularly hazardous to your health if you happen to have made them with really old coconut which may have gone rancid. Try not to do that.

Oooh, It's a Big, Long Rant

I've recently developed a laissez faire attitude at work. Circulation staff still unclear on magazine procedures? Oh, well. Events staff still ignore the lovely pictures I draw them to illustrate meeting room set ups? Doesn't matter. Guy who wears the bike helmet still sings Celine Dion songs and discourses on the future of hover boards? I just let it be. It's the unfortunate side effect of having less than six weeks left as an employee. I discovered today, though, that there's one thing I cannot let be. I can never let it be. I will fight it to the end of time. Censorial patrons will never be okay with me.

I got a materials complaint this week from a parent who picked up a book her daughter checked out of the teen collection. The mother skimmed part of the book and discovered a chapter in which teens engage in underage drinking and strip poker. She would like us to throw away the book because the "whole thing is trash." Yeah, I saw that and I wanted to punch something. Possibly someone.

I read part of the book today and it's pretty mild. There's no profanity and no sex and no violence and no adult themes. It's pretty much a fluffy, plotless book that in no way glorifies either of the behaviors the mother objects to. If this is the kind of book she wants us to throw away, she needs to step away from my teen collection right. now. because if she doesn't she's going to find far more scandalous content than underage drinking and her head will explode and the number of complaints she'll have to file will deforest the entire northern hemisphere.

I don't endorse underage drinking or teens playing strip poker, but it's ridiculous to expect a library to be a collection of completely sanitized reads, and underage drinking just strikes me as one of the least offensive scenarios to encounter in teen fiction. Does this mother send her child to public school? Because if that child's school was anything like mine, she can watch some real live underage drinking in the girls' bathroom any old time she wants. And then inhale some second-hand pot and hear about the cheerleaders' sexual exploits from the previous weekend.

If I were a parent, there are things in literature that I would want to steer my children away from at certain ages (or at least be sure to talk to them about), but I hate the attitude that I don't agree with something I read so the book in which I read it has no value for me OR FOR ANYONE ELSE.

Allowing someone to read about an objectionable behavior is not the same as encouraging it. In fact the opposite is often true. Literature is a safe place for teens to experiment with risky behavior and its consequences. I loved teen pregnancy books as a middle schooler and all these years later, still no illegitimate children.

I Feel Old

When our teen volunteers get together, I make them introduce themselves, because otherwise they mostly completely ignore one another (and because even with introductions, I mix up the names of the best friends). So, today as part of introductions, I made them line themselves up by age (tricky, see? they have to talk to one another to figure out the correct order). As I was explaining to them how to arrange themselves (it's surprising how "youngest to oldest" was not clear to them), I said, Okay, for example, if you were born in, um, when were you all born? And you know what they said? 1996! If I'd been a promiscuous high schooler, I could be their mother! AND they're the same age as my oldest niece. And even though she's my oldest niece, she's a baby. But she's old enough to be one of my teen volunteers.

I made the teens play 'N Sync Uno. They'd never heard of 'N Sync.

A Common Language is No Guarantee

From today:

Woman: Do you have any videos on body repair?

MBC: Body repair?

Woman: Yes, body repair videos.

MBC: So, like, information about how the body heals itself?

She was not impressed with this guess, because clearly what she meant was AUTObody repair.


From a few months ago:

Man: Where are all the people?

MBC: The people?

Man: Yeah, I thought there would be more people.

MBC (in head): There are people all around us. It is a Friday morning so there are fewer people than normal, but we've got people . . .

Man: I looked on the shelf and a saw some people but not the people I want.

MBC: Do you need an issue of People magazine?

Man (as if this is soooo evident): Yes, but I can't find the one I want.

The Rage Solution

I almost threw a giant fit at work today. I don't know if it's the fact that winter refuses to release the city, and consequently my heart, from its grip, or if I'm turning into a short-timer, or if we just have really rude and belligerent patrons (I vote for that one), but I have had ZERO patience at work the last few days and all our patrons enrage me. After four hours on the reference desk today, I was about to lose it, so I searched my brain for something that would calm me. What makes anyone in any situation feel happy? I asked myself.

Baby hippos.

Yep, Kirsten recently introduced me to zooborns. When Madame E(6) was a baby, she liked the words hoopter woopter. No matter what she was doing, if we said hoopter woopter to her, she stopped and laughed, even if she'd been crying earlier. Baby leopards have the same effect on me. Rage and misanthropy are no match for photos of baby jungle cats or a sifaka with a fuzzy monkey mother. I sat at the desk and I looked at leopards today and I wished I had a baby leopard to keep at the desk. I would settle it near my chair and pat it if I was angry and when it got bigger, I'd let it eat the people who bothered me. Love me the leopards.

Lit Rock

Teen Tech Week (an ALA initiative to connect teens and technology at the library) is next week (don't ask me about it; I have a super bad attitude about the whole thing), and this year's theme is Press Play @ Your Library. At our library, one of our teen activities next week is a scavenger hunt that requires the teens to find cards around the library. The clues leading the teens to the different areas of the library where they can find the cards are song clips, which I've been selecting and compiling into an MP3 file. One of the songs I'm using is called "Free Percy" and it's about one of the Harry Potter books. It's a ridiculous song and yet it's REALLY catchy. If you listen to it long enough (and if you're trying to select the clip that will best lead teenagers to the Harry Potter books in your teen collection, you'll listen for quite a long time), it really grows on you. It's also long and somewhat hard to understand without reading the lyrics, but you should link over here and listen. I take no responsibility for the inevitable implantation of the song in your head for the rest of your life, which I think has happened to me. Everything I've done for the last 36 hours has been performed to an inner soundtrack of "Hey, Jo, let Percy go . . . "

Legitimate Work

These are all tasks I performed at work today, for which I was paid, that were directly related to my job and completely legitimate activities for me to be engaged in while on the clock. This should sufficiently demonstrate that being a librarian is way better than being, for example, an accountant. If you had any doubts.

1. Browsed around on Instructables, a DIY website. I particularly like the projects using recycled water bottles and the office supplies trebuchet. I was looking for teen summer reading projects (which I will schedule so that I'm available to participate in the ones I really like and will schedule the ones that I think might be hard or unpleasant for the time when I'm kickin' it in Florence), but I think the craft we'll be doing this summer that I'm most pleased about is diskette notebooks, which is not from Instructables.

2. Watched YouTube videos of songs with the word magazine in the lyrics. I think "Shiny Magazine" by Jet was the best.

3. Ripped apart a cell phone with my bare hands (I used my bare hands after almost sending a screwdriver through my wrist and deciding that I needed a new strategy for dismantling electronics). Must get my hands on a tiny screwdriver so that I can destroy computers next week. I don't really care for Teen Tech Week, but I appreciate the excuse it gives me to destroy stuff.

Staff Training Day

Yesterday was our annual staff training day. It's held on a holiday each year, because it's the only time the entire staff can gather. The best part about staff training day (especially now that our lunch isn't catered by the good caterers due to budget cuts) is that our HR risk manager brings these 10 minute videos on topics like harassment, workplace violence (that was a good one), and customer service (we watch that one but we don't absorb). This year we watched five HR videos and my favorite was entitled Dealing with Difficult Citizens, starring city employees from several locations in California. It should not surprise you that the city employees of California are not particularly inspiring actors, even with Arnold as their governor. Still, the city requires us to watch them and I paid special attention so that we could all learn to be better city employees. I took notes. Here they are:

• No Horse Play
• Be Sober (seriously, it was printed in big letters across the screen while an office worker in California feigned drunkenness; there was also a section about being moral in which a mailman hit on someone while the voice-over instructed us about locations where it's illegal to have intimate relations)
• Bright Colors, Not Good
• Don't Be Moody
• No Running in City Facilities
  

After watching the HR videos, we also watched this video. It's pretty amusing (try to ignore the cheesiness at the end) and the acting's a step up from the HR video instruction.

The Difference 55 Years Makes

This week I spent a large part of one day with teenagers. I started out at a charter school (I have some things to say about charter schools) teaching a class of seniors about researching with databases (a topic that I cannot figure out how to make interesting and therefore do not try) and ended the day wrangling a group of teen volunteers. Today I spent some quality time with my elderly computer class. Here's the difference between our teen volunteers and our elderly computer class:

1. The elderly do not crawl under tables or pull themselves across floors using only their elbows.
2. The elderly do not giggle like hyenas at everything they or their friends say.
3. The elderly do not whisper that they will tell all the secrets they know about the person sitting next to them if that person will not do as they say.
4. The elderly do not develop violent (vocal) crushes on one another.
4. When I tell the elderly that all cell phones must be turned off before we begin, they do not move. They don't bring cell phones to the library. They bring giant handbags and all the handouts I've ever given them and brand new laptops that they can't figure out how to turn on.
5. When I tell teen volunteers that all electronic devices must be turned off before we begin, they have many gadgets to shove into their pockets.
6. After a computer class, the elderly tell me how smart and helpful and wonderful I am. They tell me that they're so disappointed that I'm leaving the library and that no one else will be able to teach them the mysteries of copying and pasting as well as I just did here in this room tonight.
7. After a teen volunteer experience, the teens ask me why I didn't bring them treats.

My Special Day

I skipped work today. February is a hard, hard month. Winter has gone on for sooo long by February that I'm short-tempered and worn down, and in anticipation of this, I asked for today off about six weeks ago. Good thing, too, because by Saturday night (yeah, I had to work on Saturday), every time someone spoke to me in the library, I had to bite my tongue to resist saying any of the following:

• If you're so smart, why are you asking me for help?
• No, I don't think it's surprising that your girlfriend left you.
• Well, then, please start parenting your children while you're in the library, so I don't have to.
• If I have to tell you one more time to get off that cell phone, I will rip these shelves apart with my bare hands and smash both you and the phone with my improvised weaponry.
• It's true that no one except for me has vocally complained about the volume of your music, but you're wrong in your statement that you're not bothering anyone. You're bothering me very much.

But today I stayed hooome. I stayed home and made red pepper, kale, and white bean pasta. I baked cream cheese brownies. I snuck my recycling over to the neighboring complex, because they have recycling bins and we don't. We hate the planet. I read What I Saw and How I Lied, the YA National Book Award winner. (I'm not sure how I feel about it.) I watched it snow out the window and felt smug that I picked such a fantastic day to stay home.

Let's hope that this lazy day will fortify me for tomorrow's very long work day in which I will teach uninterested high schoolers how to search databases, enable teenage boys in their video game obsession, and develop a new computer class series. At least I'll have brownies to carry in my pocket, in case the going gets tough.

Back to the Romance Genre

Every 2-3 months at work we complete a genre study as part of our readers' advisory training. At staff meeting we review the characteristics, trends, subgenres, and appeal factors of science fiction or westerns or fantasy and then we're required to read and review a couple of books from the genre we're studying. Right now we're in the middle of a romance genre study. I read Outlander for my first romance, because it's well-regarded within the genre, and it was a good read, although LONG and very steamy and containing one scene in which the hero beats his wife when she disobeys him and even though I know that as the reader I'm supposed to feel okay about that because the setting is the Highlands in the 18th century and the hero was raised being beaten by his father, I'm actually a very 21st century reader and I'm not okay with the protagonists of my books being beaten by their lovers. Ever.

Anyway, yesterday I went looking for a second romance to read. A prolific romance writer had been recommended to me, so I turned to my good friend Novelist (check to see if your library has access to it, because it's a looooovely reading recommendation database and if you live in Utah, your library absolutely does have access) and discovered that my author of choice had written a romance about a shy librarian finding love. Well who doesn't want to read about that? While I was at it, I decided to see if there were other romances featuring librarians and yes, yes, there are. I took home two of the many librarian romance options.

There are a number of portrayals of librarians in the popular media that I can get behind--Katherine Hepburn in Desk Set, that guy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the husband from The Time Traveler's Wife (and have you seen that he's being portrayed by Eric Bana in the movie? woo hoo!)--and many quite unfortunate portrayals--George's wife in It's a Wonderful Life, that librarian in that one Star Wars movie, Noah Wyle in The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (I get where they were going with that one, but . . . ).


My two romances are completely unacceptable in their portrayals of librarians. They were clearly written by people who have never met or loved librarians. And after reading the first chapter of one book, I realized that no librarian could ever fall for the hero. Librarians are very discerning. It's clear that I'm going to have to start writing romances and appropriately represent my people.

In the meantime, I do need to find another romance to read. Any suggestions?

Winter

My mom complained that last week I didn't post enough and that my posts were insufficient to meet her blog reading needs. Here's what I have to say about that: It is the winter. I wake up every day in the dark. I scrape the ice off my car in the cold. I go to work and deal with the patrons and explain to folks with head injuries why their computers won't function properly (because they're being operated by people with head injuries) and explain to folks without evaluative skills why we're not going to put special stickers on our movies to warn unsuspecting parents of the content (because the MPAA already puts those pretty little PG-13 ratings on there for us). It's a rough season. I can only do so much.

...People hit 
the sauce in a big way all winter.
Amidst blizzards they wrestle
unsuccessfully with the dark comedy
of their lives, laughter trapped
in their frigid gizzards.  Meanwhile,
the mercury just plummets,
like a migrating duck blasted
out of the sky by some hunter
in a cap with fur earflaps.

-Amy Gerstler, from "A Severe Lack of Holiday Spirit"

The Rising Generation

Not to be trash talking about our teen advisory group, but I do spend a large portion of our meetings biting my tongue and hoping that the boys' deep and abiding and obsessive love of video games is just a normal teenage phase and not an indicator that they're going to turn into the guys who hang out on the library sofas reading graphic novels all day and exchanging cheat codes when they're 40. They can be special. I hope they date someday.

So, today My Cute Single Co-Worker brought me a teen group application.

MCSC-W: I didn't talk to her, but she seems normal.

MBC: Then she might not fit in.

MCSC-W: Yeah, she probably won't last.

MBC: Wait. She listed runes as one of her interests on her application.

MCSC-W: Oh, so she'll be fine.

This book is the teen librarian's best friend.

We're doing library tours for the boys in a local group home all this week. Phineas Gage is one of the books I use to teach them about the nonfiction collection. They always love the story of Phineas and the huge rod that flew threw his brain (don't worry; he lived).

They especially like this picture from the book.


Introducing reluctant readers to this book is one of the fastest ways to convince them that they want a library card. And if that doesn't work, we tell them about the free Internet.

Tomorrow: Why my family's Christmas traditions are better than your family's traditions.

The Library Patrons Amuse Me This Week

From a conversation with a male patron who loves Sylvia Browne books:

Patron: Do you have that Stephenie Meyer book, The Host?

Me: Yes. Let me see what the waiting list looks like right now.

Patron: Because she writes those Twilight books about dumb stuff like Vampires. But The Host is about ALIENS.

* * * *

From a phone conversation with an elderly woman:

Patron: Do you have any recommendations for something to read out loud at Thanksgiving?

Me: What kind of book were you thinking of?

Patron: I want something for my son to read at Thanksgiving. He's been ensnared by a young lady, so he's spending Thanksgiving with her in California, and I need a book they can read together so they'll be busy and won't have time to get intimate. I was thinking of [something I would never read], but it could be something else. But not something with romance in it. Nothing to give them ideas.

Me: How old is your son?

Patron: 22

Me (out loud): Okay, let me just put you on hold for a minute, so I can consult with my co-worker.

Me (in head): !?! Okay, let me just put you on hold for a minute, so I can cackle with my co-worker and ask her for help, because I can't seriously consider books for your request until I stop laughing and feeling sorry for your adult son.

When Authors are NOT My Friends

So, there's a local author who's very keen for me to purchase her teen fiction book for the library. Her book with no professional reviews, released by a publisher I've never heard of, unavailable for me to purchase through our vendor (or even through Amazon or one of our normal local publishing houses) that appears to be a heavy-handed moral lesson disguised as an adventure story.

Her family members have been by the library three times in the last week to gush about the book and leave promotional material with me. I got the materials the first time. I was annoyed the second time. I wanted to burn down her house (and all the copies of her book) the third time. Today I actually spoke to her, when she came into the library herself. She left me a copy of the book and told me all about it, and ended by saying that she wouldn't GIVE me a copy for the library, because then we wouldn't appreciate it, and also because this is her experiment in how to work with libraries. Well, let me tell ya, this is NOT the way to work with libraries.

Here's how to work with libraries:

1. Write a GOOD book.
2. Donate it to the library.
3. Thank the library if they add it to the collection (maybe with brownies).

I also have a book on my desk from a local author with a big warning in the front, noting that the book is for war time use only and includes a chapter on Potato Gun Napalm Gas Weapons.

Why doesn't someone cool like Khaled Hosseini come by the library to tell me about his books? I'd totally buy them.

Computer Classes

I’ve been teaching some new computer classes for the library. A couple of months ago I taught a basic blogging class. It mostly went fine except that I lost a few people as soon as I started tossing around crazy terms like blog and Internet. I discussed it with a co-worker afterwards and we agreed that we could use a Before the Basics class. It would be the class in which we explain that there’s this new-fangled technology called computers. Inside is a spirit, and if you don’t anger it, you can sometimes convince it to format information for you.

Tonight I taught another class in the series. It may have been the first computer class I've ever taught at the library that consisted entirely of people who had the prerequisite skills we specified for enrollment. Remarkable. The biggest problem with tonight's class was that I don't feel well, and after an hour of non-stop talking, I had developed Sexy Sick Person Voice. I like it. I might stay up tonight singing power ballads so I can keep it.

Maybe You Can Figure Out What He Was Talking About

Oh, the library patrons have been particularly trying lately. For a number of reasons--including one of my co-workers traveling to South America for three weeks with a group that had a run in with police dogs who sniffed out the craisins some members of their tour brought into the country and now have police records in Chile--I've been on the reference desk more than normal the last few weeks. Earlier this week I was on the desk with one of my favorite co-workers. She's really nice to patrons. Always. She's one of the few librarians my sister will ask for help, and my sister always points out that this particular co-worker is way nicer than I am. So the Good Librarian and I were on the reference desk and I heard GL having the following conversation with a patron. The conversation took place over the phone, so I only heard one side of it, but GL told me about it afterwards and this is pretty much how it went down:

Phone Man: I need you to look up a word for me.

The Good Librarian: Sure, I can help you with that.

Phone Man: It's a word with some letters at the beginning and then an A and a consonant after the A. Or there might be two As and then the consonant. So could you look for that word on your computer?

The Good Librarian: Well, you know, there's not really a way for me to look up a word that way. The computer would return too many results. It would be impossible to find what you want.

Phone Man: Well, just use your computer and try searching dot dot dot AA dot dot dot (. . . AA . . .) . [Here's a tip: NEVER tell a librarian how to go about finding information. You'll usually end up sounding like this.]

The Good Librarian is so nice that she actually went to Google and typed in . . . aa . . . to appease the guy on the phone. Here's what you get when you search that: Alcoholics Anonymous.

The Good Librarian finally got off the phone after apologizing profusely that she couldn't find the mystery word (and she probably actually felt bad that she couldn't find the word, because she's nice like that, whereas I only cared that it would make a good blog story), but not before the Phone Man asked her to give him a call if she found the word later.

Why I'm Not a Teacher

I'm not sure how I survived 12 years of public school. I've been visiting local schools to give a big The Library is Your Friend (most of the time, except when you bug us) presentation at staff meetings. As soon as I walk in the school buildings, I lose my will to live. I bring my boss with me when I present, just so I don't turn around and walk out before presenting. Also, to protect me from the roving bands of Mean Girls. I particularly dislike presenting when there are lots of middle-aged male coaches who get along with their arrogant adolescent jocks by being similarly obnoxious as adults in the meeting. They are not my people. And I don't like talking to the office staff. They think I'm a student. But I'm not! I escaped high school. Hallelujah.

Great Lines

Young adult librarians are always compiling lists of great first lines from ya literature for booktalks or displays. I was thinking about them this week, because I've been culling our short story entries from a teen activity we had recently, and there were some catchy lines in the stories our local middle schoolers and high schoolers submitted to us. This one, from an 8th grade boy, may be my favorite:

This was the woman [he] was going to marry, he was sure of it . . . “Hello. May I ask your name, hot lady?”

These are some of the first lines most recently posted on one of my professional list servs. I haven't read all of these books, but if you haven't read Speak yet, go do it NOW. And if you decide to read Feed, talk to me first.

I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while now--which is ridiculous, since he's been dead for ninety years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead, too, and then the age difference won't matter.
-The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

Things had been getting a little better until I got a letter from my dead sister. That more or less ruined my day.
–Dead Girls Don't Write Letters by Gail Giles

It's the first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.
–Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.
–Feed by M.T. Anderson

Better brace yourself, / loser. / Because you / are about to be dumped. / Big time.
–What my Girlfriend doesn't Know by Sonya Sones.

Toyo watched carefully as his uncle prepared to kill himself.
–Samurai Shortstop by Alan Gratz

My name is Francis Joseph Cassavant and I have just returned to Frenchtown in Monument and the war is over and I have no face.
-Heroes by Robert Cormier

The thing about a cavity search is this: it has nothing to do with the dentist.
-Born to Rock by Gordan Korman

All I want is a maple bar, but I don’t think these kids with the guns care about what I want.
-Inside Out by Terry Trueman