The SurRural Librarian

You’ve got to drop everything right now and watch this video. I simply cannot believe this is for real, it’s got to be some kind of new, viral campaign for Google.

“Put it on microfilme & file it, Dundee!”

What did they do to that puppy? My kids would cry.

from BoingBoing:

Matt sez, “When I was in fifth grade, Mississippi Public Broadcasting decided to introduce a series of short films to educate children on how to use the library. For some godforsaken reason, the people at MPB decided that the best way to do this would be through a post-apocalyptic science fiction serial with children roaming the blasted earth in a… bookmobile…

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/24/postapocalyptic-book.html

Librarians Escape Being Turned into Teachers in FL District

That’s the headline I just received in my inbox via the SLJ Extra Helping.

What?!

Man, I work my tail off so everyone in my building thinks of me as a teacher. What are they thinking with a headline like this? I’m sure my classroom teachers would just love it.

Here’s what they’re really talking about if you’re curious. Librarians being moved to classroom teaching positions, and school libraries loosing their librarians.  Why they couldn’t have written a better headline is beyond me.

I try to not refer to things I read on LM_Net here or in daily conversation, I get too riled. But this one, I can’t pass up.

There was a thread this weekend in support of librarians who read on the job.

I almost fell off my chair when I saw so many responses from librarians who do this! I can’t imagine having the time. If I have one minute free, I’m planning with teachers - usually while standing in the hallway in between classes. Most of the librarians I know are so completely over-booked that they don’t even bother to subscribe to that listserv.

What I want most to respond to is the idea that those of us who do not read on the job do not keep up with our collections.

Ahem.

Like many school librarians I know, I believe reading the books I buy for the students to be a MAJOR part of my job. Of course, this part always takes place outside of school. Of course if there was a SSR period that I was around for I’d love to pop in and read with the kids, but I’m usually teaching other classes. Of course modeling is great, but when I can chat with the students about the books they’ve read, that’s great modeling too - they know I’ve read it, they don’t have to see me read it. When I booktalk a book, I’ve always read it, the kids know it, expect it and always follow up with me after they’re read books they know I’ve read. We talk about books - we’re librarians!

I simply cannot imagine what they’re thinking. How unapproachable is someone reading a book? How expendable?

Read them at home people. Here’s my evening reading routine - picture books, LM_Net, RSS feeds (blogs & professional journal alerts), YA novel, done. Turn off the TV. We’re teachers, we’ve got great hours. We’ve got the time to read outside of the library and still have a life.

I love this from Clay Shirky’s reply to Michael Gorman’s silly Web 2.0 lambasting:

“Academic libraries, which in earlier days provided a service, have outsourced themselves as bouncers to publishers like Reed-Elsevier; their principal job, in the digital realm, is to prevent interested readers from gaining access to scholarly material.”

I guess the principal job of the school librarian is to prevent interested party-goers from dancing to recorded music. (See this month’s School Library Journal copyright column. I’d link to it but their site is down!)

(update: here’s the link to the SLJ copyright column. Always a mind-blowing read.)

I’ve been using my Amazon Wishlist to keep track of student requests. I linked it to our school’s website and lo and behold, three families have bought books from it for the school library in the past month. Woo hoo! Not only is it a treat to get books in the mail I didn’t know where coming, and get new books after my book budget is all spent, it’s also super having the families involved in supporting reading.

I put an acknowledgment bookplate in each and I promise their child will be the first to get their hands on it. I suggest parents donate books to honor their child’s birthday,  holidays or TV Turnoff week. And I send a thank you note home. It’s a pretty easy and satisfying way to promote the library.

I wasn’t planning on mentioning the Higher Power of Lucky broohaha. What more is there to say? Puh-lease.

But when my favorite Saturday radio show had a good laugh at librarians’ expense yesterday, I did just want to hide under the rug. For every rant about the “stereotypes” of librarians just not fitting anymore, there’s a ridiculous librarian out there making a bad name for us all.

Fortunately, a little sunshine was brought to my day by Neil Gamain with this lovely & helpful post on his blog…

An Absence of Scrota — your guide to quality literature…

I’ve decided that librarians who would decline to have a Newbery book in their libraries because they don’t like the word scrotum are probably not real librarians (whom I still love unconditionally). I think they’re rogue librarians who have gone over to the dark side.
…
Helpfully, over at http://www.gelfmagazine.com/gelflog/archives/youth_literature_is_filled_with_scrotums.php you will find a list of books for the young, probably already in the libraries, with scrota (or even scrotums) in them. This is probably provided for rogue librarians who now need to hunt these books down and remove them, scrotums and all.

What a nice surprise. A positive article on a hipster librarian in my tiny local newspaper. I hope I get to meet this librarian some day soon. Nice job!

Coolest place in town? The library

And that reminds me, the podcast of VPR’s Switchboard on libraries is available here, featuring three Vermont librarians. I called in toward the end of the show, to follow up on the caller who said that there was no open source software being developed in the US. (I don’t think he really meant to say that.)

Looking for a good Das Rheingold Debut Day gift for your favorite librarian?

Then get yourself over to Café Press for Librarians.

Hey, I’ll catalog for food.

This week’s This American Life starts with a great piece on the High Strung’s 2005 Library Tour in Michigan. This summer the band is on a national tour, playing loud rock in libraries.

These guys sound loud, like MC5 loud. Listening to that kind of distortion in a small space must be incredible. I love Alex Blumberg’s discriptions of the audiences, ten year olds covering their ears with their jaws hanging. Awesome.

Don’t miss the kids’ comments at the end of the piece on how the concerts made them feel differently about the library. I have to admit, I was really surprised. It’s great that this is the first concert alot of these kids are attending.

My favorite part was the band members’ description of why the library is cool. I wonder, are libraries seeing lots of touring bands coming in to shave and check their email?

Now if I could just convince the Boredoms to tour school libraries. hmmmm…

You can listen here if you missed the broadcast.