This and that

This year's RifRaf (book club) has had a boost by moving to Tuesdays and merging with the Tolkein Club. We're still a little heavy on the testosterone side of things (c'mon girls, come and keep me company!), but we're having a good time and many heated debates. In fact, there's so much witty repartee that I must remember to take a notepad so I can capture more of what comes out of the mouths of the Charlies and their buddies. Here's one I do remember: "There's a special circle of hell reserved for people who cheat on Choose Your Own Adventure books." So, so true. Some of us nearly came to blows during a discussion of one of my all-time favorite titles, Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Don't know if I was closer to tears or to murder during that one.

Tonight I'll be participating in an online "webinar" called Librarians and Truth Detection with two of my heroes, school library queen Joyce Valenza and professor and prolific author Howard Rheingold. Much nervousness. Note to self: remember you are speaking with a guy who hand-paints his shoes. What could be scary about that?



Photo by Joi Ito
CC BY 2.0

Cozy-itis

Laura and Erika enjoy one of the most popular books on our Banned Book Week display, Deal With It: A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl, from the creators of gurl.com.


A pile 'o freshmen ponder Book Club, from our favorite library comic, Unshelved.

Old and new geekiness

From my Twitter Feed:

What would Leonardo da Vinci's schematics for the iPhone have looked like? For a Mac? Maybe like this:


Now you can get them on t-shirts.

The next generation snuggie provides built-in privacy while lap-top-ing:



Thanks @mkeagle and @lbraun2000 :-)

I've had to turn on comment moderation because I've been unable to delete spam comments. I've followed every piece of advice on the help forums, but have been unable to restore the little trash cans that used to sit by each comment. And it is apparently impossible to contact a live human being at Blogger.com. So my apologies for sending comments through moderation, but please do keep them coming!

Banning books

Chad, Rustle, and Mooch are deeply confused:



(Pssssst - hands off Everyone Poops, or ain't no one gonna be happy)

Immortality

The Online Gargoyle has posted a great story about Aaron's manga donation to the library. Thanks, Danny and Aaron!

News of the weird

From Library Land -

Gail Borden Public Library Trustee Randolph "Randy" Hopp, already banned from the library except for board meetings, got into yet another physical altercation with a library staff member when he refused his required escort to the board meeting. Would someone tell me how this guy got elected?

My next item isn't really news of the weird, but more like news of the incredibly sad. Could it possibly be true that the Free Library of Philadelphia might have to close at the end of the business on October 2? Yes, if the state Legislature does not act on the city's budget request. Say it ain't so.
* Ooooh, oooh, update edit! It ain't so after all!*

And finally, in anticipation of Banned Books Week, I'm proud to note that the San Francisco Public Library does not ban anything. Except in one case, as noted in the local press:

"The library's collection development director, Laura Lent, says she can recall only one instance in the past decade in which the library opted to pull a book off the shelves as a result of patron insistence. And this patron happened to be the book's author. It was a fictional account of telepathic surveillance of the mind -- and the author felt the book's continued presence in the Main Branch would lead to the government invading his brain. We are not making this up."

I guess it was okay to relax the standards for this guy (though shouldn't he have seen it coming?)

15 minutes of fame

Well, in Library Land, anyway. Two current Uni students and one former student are featured in this School Library Journal article about NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. Charlie, Maia, and Kathleen amazed me with their dedication to the cause of pounding out a 50,000 word novel in a month.

We have a growing tradition of participating in NaNoWriMo around these parts. I see that I blogged about it in both 2008 and 2007. I look forward to finding out about this year's participants.

Serious about manga

The bulletin board in the hall now asks for input on the expanded manga collection - lists of favorites and suggestions for even more titles. It drew a big crowd during fifth period.

They were a little tentative at first.




Then the crowd got a little wild.




No complaints from this department :-)

Buffy vs. Edward

For all our Twilight fans (or anti-fans, more like):



This remix also appeals to me for its unabashed exercise of fair use rights, though the critique vocab is slathered on a bit thick for my tastes.

Out of the gate

The lovely new manga donated by Aaron Kelter is starting to hit the shelves. Julia put up a display, and several titles got checked out right away.



The Manga Club has moved into the library but won't be official until next week. Even so, "The Jacks" started meeting today.


Pssst, notice that for Manga Club and RifRaf (book club), you get to eat lunch in the library.

Change of the guard

This year we lost Natalie to student teaching (she's at Jefferson Middle School right now) and Julia has joined us. Aren't they cute?

The revolution has begun

Sign hanging in the hall today:



I love my job.