I Like Big......

Did you think I was going to say butts?

Ha!  It says 'big books'!!
Can I get a t-shirt with this on it?

A Couple of Weeks Off

I hate to say it, but I have to take a break from reading. I've got too much on my plate. I graduate in 4 weeks and I've got 2 papers and 1 group project, Thanksgiving, and bookfair. There just isn't enough time. I am crazy anxious and reading is not going well anyway. I'm too worked up to sit still and read. All the books don't seem like they can hold my attention because I am so worried about other stuff.

That is no way to read.

I love reading and if I try to hard to squeeze in reading, it makes it unenjoyable.

So until then, I might be a little quiet so that I can focus and get my shit done.

I will be back by December 7th at the latest, the day my last assignment is due.

Please excuse me while I cogitate copiously.

Scholastic Book Fair

My book fair starts Tuesday!!

I got it all set up today at school and so totally should have taken a picture. It is gorgeous. I'll take one Tues. am before the kids come in and wreck it.

There's been a lot of discussion in my school district about whose job it is to run the book fair. Some of the older and lazier librarians refuse to put on the fair since it is not in their job description. It requires extra time, lost of heavy lifting and usually the closing of the library for a week.

I'm totally cool with it and you want to know why? Because it freaking makes the kids happy.

Scholastic also gives us half the profit in new Scholastic books. Who could say no to that? Definitely not me.

The most exciting part of the book fair is that the new Diary of a Wimpy Kid - The Third Wheel comes out on Tuesday. Easiest way to start a riot in an elementary school library is to start displaying the new Wimpy Kid book. My trusty UPS man will deliver boxes full of the new book first thing Tues. am.

Do you have goosebumps? I do.

Bram Stoker's Birthday

It seems as if every book website and blog is saying something about Bram Stoker's 165th birthday, so I thought I'd chime in as well.

To start my story you have to remember way back to 1992 and this movie.

It was a really big deal when Bram Stoker's Dracula was turned into a movie starring Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, and Gary Oldman. It was HUGE. I was a junior in high school and everyone went to see it.
I can't remember what I thought of the movie when I saw it the first time except that it made me want to  read the book. It was the very first time I read a gothic Victorian novel and I've been in love ever since.
Yes it was confusing, but it was also mesmerizing. The diary format made it easier to read for a first time gothic novel reader. I have read almost every other gothic novel since. So while the movie has faded in my memory the book never will.
I recently stumbled across this book, The Forgotten Writings of Bram Stoker, which will be released on Christmas Eve this year. The link will take you to the table of contents and a sample.
It's already in my shopping cart.

Happy Birthday Mr. Stoker.

This was on my list for November and I did indeed read it.

It was freaking awesome.

So cute, so innocent, so romantic. It was very Jane Austeny with all the groups of young people who needed to marry, some for money, and some just for love. There were mix-ups and traded partners and accepted and denied marriage proposals. Oh and don't forget the big fancy castle that crumbles into the sea. Everything in the end is summed up perfectly and everyone lives happily ever after.
It was a perfect Sunday afternoon read. I would even read it again, and again.

Highly enjoyable.

I have to also say that I tried Claudine and Colette. There must be something lost in translation because it just seems to be missing something. There is too much dialogue and the phrasing seems off. There isn't enough description and just in the first few pages there are too many characters.
This one will be going right back on the shelf until I can read it in the original French. (And yes I can read French, I just have a hard time speaking French),

On to the next one.

Cloud Atlas Finished

So I finished the book last night.... it was good, but it didn't have a tidy ending like I wanted. It just kind of leaves off and makes you think. Since I read it on my Kindle I couldn't flip back and forth between the stories to help me interpret things. It's way too hard on a Kindle. There was some cool stuff happening that was a little stressful for me while reading it. Just when the story gets good it always switches to another story which is frustrating and then when the story comes back around I had forgotten some of the characters which was also frustrating. It was making me very anxious.

I did find one very useful line in the book,

"Books don't offer real escape, but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw."

Ohhh I love that. It describes almost perfectly why I read. That quote is why I will love this book forever, because I know someone else out there knows what it's like in my mind.

In summary a great book, but read it in print so you can hop back and forth easily.
I want to go back and re-read this reading whole stories at a time, and not jumping back and forth. It definitely needs a second reading for full understanding.

I'll see the movie when it's on Amazon.

Library Science Degree?

Today I was required to write a formal essay summing up my entire learning experience in graduate school. In December I will graduate (if this essay doesn't piss them off to much) with a master's degree in library and information science. As summed up below I feel it was a waste of time and money. I can't be the only one to think so. Here I try and summarize the reasons why and why I will probably not use my degree.

Let me know what you think.

It is difficult to sum up my entire learning experience at SIRLS in one essay. I find it strange that one is required to do so for graduation. Sure I’ve learned a few things, found a few databases I’ve never heard of before, read a few books, and written a few papers, but I really don’t think that adequately measures what I have learned. For the past 3 years I’ve worked at an elementary school library. First as an assistant with a certified teacher-librarian in the library every-other day, then as an assistant with a certified teacher-librarian once a week, and then this year as an “assistant” with no one to assist. I run a 25,000-volume library for 650 students and 100 faculty members. Since this has coincided almost entirely with my time at SIRLS I would have to say that I have learned more about library science working, than I have learned in my classes at SIRLS.

I am not a believer in the fact that library science is in fact a science. I am also not a believer that it should be a profession since it does not protect the health and or safety of its clients. We are not doctors, lawyers, or architects. Most of the classes at SIRLS seem to focus on the information element of library science and try and convince us students that we are gatekeepers to a difficult and highly scientific cache of information. I really don’t find it to be so.

In several of my classes that involved searching and databases I was taught that databases are the be-all-end-all of information. Most of the information that I was looking for could have been found much easier with a simple Google search without the need for an expensive subscription to a database or aggregator. I think most professors are so tied up in the academic world that they forget that the majority of information seeking does not require the use of a database. For a thesis or a doctorate degree, or anything else in the high and mighty world of academia, sure you need databases, but for most regular people Google works just fine. I just frustrates me to no end how it seemed during most of time at SIRLS that the professors were desperately trying to hold on to the ideals and force us to accept that this profession is an exclusive club. It’s not. Information is so pervasive that almost anyone, with the appropriate books and web sites could find anything that they wanted. It doesn’t take 2 years and 36 course work hours.

As I proceeded through the program I was more and more frustrated and disappointed in the program that I had selected. I conducted interviews with librarians at my local library, spoke with teachers in my school district and read all the industry news on the ALA web site.  This is a dying profession and by profession I mean job market. I found out that with my degree I would be able to secure another $10-12 an hour job in a ‘real’ library at either the public or academic level. Then after working for maybe 8-12 years I would know enough to be elevated to an actual librarian position with an enviable salary of $35-40,000, but only after one of the many librarians ahead of me had either died or retired at the age of 70. When I started I was under the impression that after I graduated with a master’s degree I would be considered a librarian. But after applying for many jobs the past few years and following hiring in my community I found that just wasn’t so. Apparently all my years running an architectural firm and two family businesses as well as running an elementary school library do not qualify me to do anything but shelve books and work check-in and check-out software even with a master’s degree in library science. Needless to say I feel that my time has been wasted as well as my $36,000.

I am really curious to know if you get many Final Reflection essays with content like this. I have found the whole experience with graduate school a disappointment. The online learning system is spotty at best. Working on group projects was a nightmare of missed emails and botched attempts at coordination, which strangely enough still resulted in ‘A’ grades. I don’t feel the experience was worth the money I had to spend. Online courses should cost a fraction of the price of real degrees that require face-to-face interaction. I feel I will have just written a check for $36,000 in exchange for a piece of paper that entitles me to nothing.

Now I don’t know what the future holds. I might stumble across the perfect job that will actually make my time at SIRLS worthwhile, but that might be years in the future when the economy has picked back up again. Maybe I’m too close and too frustrated to see the value of the education I received. Maybe with time and space and a good job I’ll change my thinking. Overall I think everything that I learned at SIRLS I could have learned by just picking up the textbook list and reading along.

What made me most disappointed in the program is the lack of classes that focus on reading, literacy, and books.  When I was first looking through the course catalog it seemed as if there were plenty of classes that coincided with my interests, but as I signed up for these classes they were inevitably cancelled due to lack of interest. Or like what happened last semester, I was really looking forward to the Multicultural Children’s Literature class, only to find out that I would be required to volunteer 30 hours in a culturally diverse library. While an interesting idea, it hardly seems possible to a mother of three who works full time and runs a few businesses, as well as already working in a culturally diverse library. I was informed that my time working in my library would not count. I could not take the class.

To me literacy and reading are the bread and butter of libraries. It seems odd that these are topics are not found in the SIRLS curriculum. There are so many required classes on multiculturalism, ethics, organization and technology but where is the requirement for literacy? Where is a class that teaches teaching skills? I spend more time instructing and teaching as a librarian than explaining the Dewey decimal system of the Library of Congress cataloging system. These are skills that would extremely valuable to any librarian. I just wish there had been more options for me. This is why I think I chose the wrong program.

I love libraries, but more importantly I love books. They are my life. I am never without a book and I tell everyone I know about all the great books I read.  I will continue to be a huge supporter of libraries in the future, but I think I was confused when I chose Library Science as a graduate program. I think I should have chosen English Literature or Publishing instead, but hindsight is 20/20. The greatest thrill I get out of my job as a librarian is when a child comes in and tells me that they loved the book that I directed them too. I love it when I see a child who comes to library every week and never checks out a book. I usually find them in the first month or two of school. I go up to them and ask the why they aren’t checking out anything and then have a conversation with them about the things that they are interested in and find them the prefect book. What I see next is a changed child. They will come to me every week after that with requests for new books and new interests and will be a converted library user ever after. That gives me goose bumps. I make a real difference in these kids’ lives by opening up their world to books and imagination and possibilities. That is not taught at SIRLS. Maybe it can’t be taught at all, but is something that has to be experienced first hand. That is what I want to do with my graduate degree, keep helping children to see what books can do and be for them.

What I have learned at SIRLS is that I don’t need a graduate degree to do that. I can stay right where I am and work at the bottom level of the library job chain and make the most difference. If I was making $100,000 a year managing a library I would not have the impact I do now. If I was making $50,000 a year as a children’s librarian in a public library I would not have the daily interaction that I do now with kids. I know all 650 of my student’s names. I know what they like to read. I know what their reading levels are. I know their income levels and their ability to pay for lost books or not. I can give hugs and dispense caring words along with the books. I just wish I had known this before I decided to go to graduate school.

Book Tattoos

Now I will admit that I have a tattoo. It's a little tiny thing on my right shoulder that I designed with a circle template while in architecture school.
I've always wanted another one, but have yet to be inspired. If I could find a book that spoke to me as deeply as these people I would run out and get a new one, but I haven't found that book... yet.

From Flavorwire today check this out.

But here is my favorite image.
Do you know this book?