Sarah Palin,, Librarians, and Libraries

I try not to get too political here on our family-friendly blog, because I don't want to start any virtual fist-fights -- BUT I do want to tell you about a couple of library-related Sarah Palin issues that are bugging me.

The first one is merely an annoyance, and it's this: I can't count how many times I've heard Palin's look (the glasses, the bun) described as a "sexy librarian" look. First, this plays into all kinds of stereotypes about what librarians look like. Second, putting the two words together -- sexy librarian -- is redundant. The basic precept of librarianship -- access to knowledge -- is super-sexy. ;)

The other Sarah Palin/library issue that's been bugging me is much more than an annoyance -- it's a bit frightening. Apparently, as a mayor, she approached the town's librarian to find out how to ban books (insert gasp of horror). Then, it seems, she fired the librarian when said librarian didn't offer support for Palin's campaign to ban certain books that had "inappropriate language." Then, after a show of support from the locals, the librarian got her job back. Read about it in a TIME magazine article here. The American Library Association promotes the Freedom to Read and I wholeheartedly embrace their statement on the issue -- which is just another reason I can't support the McCain/Palin ticket.

Just some random pics

I survived the first week of school -- I think it's going to be a good one. I'm taking two classes:

• Instruction and Assistance Systems: How to teach people to do research and use the library
  
• Cataloging and Classification I: How information is organized (Mostly how books are organized in the library -- it's more complicated than you might think. Sort of like learning a new language, or like music theory, or algebra. Lots of rules . . . )
  

And I'm doing a practicum for credit at the Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences library this semester, working at their reference desk 8 hours a week and preparing library guides for students in the various majors that the library serves.

My parents always used to take pictures of us on the first day of school and my mom requested one for this year (maybe my last year of school as a full-time student!), so here's my first day of class.

Also, Mike and I made a very delicious Thai Chicken Pizza last Sunday with a new crust recipe (thanks, Erica) and it turned out beautifully.

And here's a random shot of the compact shelving on the 5West deck of the main stacks in the library where I work:
Books, books, and books as far as the eye can see. I think this is what heaven will be like, except not so dark, musty and scary.

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
-Jorge Luis Borges

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Tomorrow is the first day of my 22nd consecutive year of formal education, and perhaps my last "first day of school" as a full-time student. So, my last summer vacation is over and it was a fabulous one. Mike and I had a visit from his parents and brother, visited my family in Idaho/Utah, and spent weekends in Nauvoo and Chicago. I also took two classes in June-July and worked 20 hours a week all summer, so it wasn't a "real" summer vacation like the summer vacations of my past, but it was thoroughly enjoyable.

Besides a few travels, class, and work, I spent most of the rest of my summer reading. My whole life I've been a voracious reader, but for the seven years that I was getting a bachelor's and then a master's degree in English literature, I did very little reading "for fun" because I was reading so much literature for my classes. Since starting library school, I have found much more time for pleasure reading. For your information, here is my summer reading list -- all the books that I have read since I finished school the first week of May.

1. Gilbert, Liz Eat, Pray, Love
2. Pollan, Michael The Omnivore’s Dilemma
3. Russo, Richard Bridge of Sighs
4. Meyer, Stephenie The Host
5. Lewis, C.S. The Magician’s Nephew
6. --- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
7. Goldman, William The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
8. Gregory, Philippa The Other Boleyn Girl
9. Campbell, Beverly Eve and the Choice Made in Eden
10. Ariely, Dan Predictably Irrational
11. Andrews, Julie Home: A Memoir of My Early Years
12. Tan, Amy The Bonesetter’s Daughter
13. Lewis, C.S. The Horse and His Boy
14. Binchy, Maeve The Glass Lake
15. Lewis, C.S. Prince Caspian
16. Wilde, Oscar “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “An Ideal Husband”
17. Brooks, Geraldine People of the Book
18. Krug, Steve Don’t Make Me Think!
19. Horan, Nancy Loving Frank
20. Lewis, C.S. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
21. Sittenfeld, Curtis Prep
22. Meyer, Stephenie Breaking Dawn
23. Lewis, C.S. The Silver Chair
24. Weinberger, David Everything is Miscellaneous
25. Schwarz, Christina Drowning Ruth
26. Lewis, C.S. The Last Battle
27. Grimwood, Ken Replay
28. Roberts, Cokie Founding Mothers
29. Guiliano, Mireille French Women Don’t Get Fat
30. Rinaldi, Ann A Break With Charity: A Story about the Salem Witch Trials
31. Powell, Julie Julie and Julia
32. Lee, Min Jin Free Food for Millionaires
33. Diaz, Junot The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

If you want my reviews of any of these books, post a comment and I'll tell you what I thought. I'm trying to decide if I have a top five, but I don't think I can really compose a ranking list so, you get them in the order that I read them.

Public Library cartoon

It seems that many librarians and techies think that libraries and the web cannot co-exist, that the two are mutually exclusive, that libraries will not survive the 21st century, that librarians are irrelevant. Well, I got news for ya'. The two are not mutually exclusive, but complementary. As long as people need to find information, they will need information specialists (like librarians). And as more and more information becomes available, via the web, and as it becomes less organized in a linear fashion (thanks to the web-like nature of the web), information specialists will be needed to organize information and to make it accessible to the masses.

My Backpack

My royal blue JanSport backpack and I have been together for a long, long time. In fact, our relationship is one of the longest-term relationships of my life. I got the backpack way back in 1996 (or thereabouts). The bag survived the teenage angst of high school; four years of lugging around literature anthologies in college; three years of graduate school and teaching, carrying gradebooks, freshman essays, and the collected works of May Swenson; and now it's carried me halfway through another degree, this one in Library and Information Science. Alas, the backpack begins to show the wear and tear of its long life and five shiny safety pins hold together a bottom corner. Michael suggests replacing the backpack, but I believe the backpack and I can finish our journey through higher education together. We can make it through just two more semesters . . .

Chicago: August 7-8

For Christmas 2007 I gave Michael two tickets to one of our favorite NPR shows, Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me; the show is taped live in Chicago on Thursday nights. Mike was finally able to cash in his Christmas present last week (talk about delayed gratification!) and we went to the show on Thursday, August 7th. It was all we ever dreamed of -- funny, clever, lots of dirty jokes that they edit out for the radio broadcast . . . etc.

Last week's major joke was the Paris Hilton campaign ad that Funny or Die produced in response to McCain's attack ad against Obama (starting line: "He's the biggest celebrity in the world."). Great stuff.

We spent two days in Chicago, and besides the radio show we also:

• Went to the Museum of Science and Industry.
• Walked around Grant and Millennium Parks.
• Ate some awesome Chicago pizza. Nom nom!
• Went on the Chicago Architecture Foundation's river tour -- a major highlight of the trip.
• And spent time on Chicago's trains and buses finding our way around town. We're smitten with Chicago -- it's such a fun city!

We took way too many photos to post in this little blog, so check out our slideshow of Chicago fun.

Nauvoo, July 25-26

This is Mike blogging about the trip Melissa and I took to Nauvoo, IL last weekend. Going into this trip, we were really excited because, although we've visited Nauvoo a few times since moving to Illinois, we still had not seen the LDS pageant in Nauvoo. Here's a recap of our trip.


On our way to Nauvoo, we crossed the Mississippi River at the Illinois-Iowa border and saw that the flood waters still have not completely receded. In this photo, you can see that the water comes all the way up to the road. Actually, the water covers this road over one stretch. To keep the road open, workers have piled gravel on top of the road to keep the road surface above water.


Once we passed the flood zone, we got into Nauvoo for the festivities. We saw people dancing in costume to bagpipe music. I've been considering wearing a kilt to beat the heat. Melissa tells me that skirts are even cooler than shorts.



This was our view from where we sat for the pageant. The temple is such an inspirational sight! My favorite part of the pageant was the triumphant finale when the temple was lit with floodlights, and we heard President Hinckley's voice over the speakers declaring that the Nauvoo Temple facing west and the Salt Lake City Temple facing east stand as monuments to our pioneer heritage. (That's a very loose paraphrase, by the way.)

One of the major highlights of our trip, for me, was our discovery of the Nauvoo Land and Records Office. This is kind of like a family history research center where you can find information about who rented and owned land in Old Nauvoo and where those land holdings are located. The Land and Records Office also has records about who performed ordinances in the original Nauvoo Temple in 1846. Melissa was very patient with me while I looked up information on some of my ancestors and saved those files onto a CD. This was a very exciting discovery for me!


This is me in front of what was the home of George Laub, one of my ancestors who lived in Old Nauvoo.