On Monday I must have gotten as confused as the ALA. Here I was writing about Band Books, and the whole time I should have been writing about "Banned" Books, which is what the ALA prattles on about. "Banned" Books are those books that are widely available everywhere in the country that the ALA gets so excited about. Anyway, sorry for the confusion, on both our parts. What's sad about the ALA "Banned" Books Week is the lengths they go to in order to make themselves more important than they actually are. It's nice that they care about books one week a year, because it gives us a respite from hearing how gaming is going to save libraries, but it's not like we're in any danger of censorship in any meaningful sense. As a comparison, think about the stupid suicide book in Australia. It seems that book was actually censored, and that kind of thing just doesn't happen in America. To defend the presence of some stupid kid's book in a classroom against some rube in ...
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I'm very excited that ALA is now celebrating Band Books Week, or "BBW" as they sometimes like to call it.The little scamps! I love bands, especially big beautiful bands, and I thought I'd do my part by offering a selection of Band Books for your reading pleasure. Reader's advisory is usually left to other portions of LJ, but in the spirit of Band Books Week, I hope you don't mind. Let's begin with a Band Book I'm sure will be a hit with librarians, The Resistance Band Workout Book. One thing I think we can say for sure about most librarians: they could use some exercise. Another thing we can say about most of them: they don't have much money. Putting those two facts together makes the Resistance Band Workout Book the perfect exercise plan for librarians. $12 for the book, and another $10 for a resistance band, and librarians can give up their sedentary ways on the cheap. Of course they could just stop eating so much chocolate and make an effort to move occasionally, but this ...
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For some reason I thought Canadians were about as tolerant as it was possible to be. If you drive through Canada with a big bumper sticker saying "Canadians are Stupid Perverts," the worst that will happen is that someone will say you should have one in French as well, so as not to offend the Quebecois. Everyone is so nice, and other than their misplaced faith in socialism and Tim Horton's about the only strong opinion ever expressed is that it's a shame more Americans don't realize how many famous show biz people are actually Canadian. Thus, I was surprised by this story, where we find out the Vancouver Public Library has actually banned a group from speaking. Some group called Exit International wanted to give a public talk telling people how to commit suicide, and the library director was afraid that if anyone did commit suicide the library could be held liable. According to the criminologist in need of a haircut pictured with the article, it's not illegal to talk about ...
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When is a library not a library? No, that's not quite the question I want to ask. When does the word library become absolutely meaningless? There are probably lots of times, but the latest example I've seen is the discussion over the new Goucher College "Athenaneum." A kind reader sent me an article, so you can read a bit about it here, but for subscribers the Chronicle of Higher Education article on the topic has a lot more information. It seems that Goucher College needed a new library, but the president decided that a library wasn't worth raising money for.. The library wasn't "dynamic" enough. "Even renovated, it would still be an old-school library,'' he says. 'It was always going to be a renovated problem.'" He might be right. Students don't need books or a place to study. They just need places to drink and hook up, from what I read. You don't need a multimillion dollar renovated library for that. And old gymnasium and a keg of beer and you're set! ...
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Just what is going on in Philadelphia? The Library Link of the Day yesterday was to this article from Philly. The Philadelphia Free Library has announced that it's going to close all of its branches on October 2 if the city doesn't get more money from the state. The system has something like 50 branches. I actually like the way they frame the closing, since they start listing all the services that people aren't going to get. In some ways it's a good strategy to put the value of the library directly to the citizens of Philadelphia. But it seems clear that the libraries aren't the problem, since the mayor of Philly has targeted lots of other city services to go under his "doomsday budget." From the article: "Besides closing libraries, the Nutter administration's so-called Plan C doomsday budget includes eliminating court-system funding, shutting down all recreation centers and laying off up to 3,000 workers, including police and firefighters." From the outside, one ...
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A lot of librarians these days want libraries to change, to adapt, to add new services. The frustrated trendsetters (or frusties) want libraries to become part of every trend that comes along. Though the frusties get all worked up that every library isn't blogging or tweeting, it seems to me that a lot of libraries have in fact been adapting and adding plenty of services. Sure, they might be a few years behind the curve, but only the clouded frusty mindset could expect every organization to change everything all the time without creating chaos and lowering librarian morale even more. The question is, what to give up? Writing a blog or feeding Twitter or hosting Dance Dance Revolution parties take time and money. Instead of changing, libraries have just been adding, and I'm trying to figure out what they've stopped doing. Many of the frusties would probably be happy to give up buying books, like they're now doing in Massachusetts prep schools. Books are a pain. You have to buy them. ...
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