D.C.

I went to DC to see Boy-child Saturday.  Actually, I went Friday night because they don't have the Saturday morning flight to National any more :(

Of course I had to take advantage of the trip to pop into Fibre Space.  Such a fabulous store.

We had lunch at Lyon Hall in Arlington.  It was yummy.

Boy-child humored me and we went to the Folger Shakespeare Library which was FABULOUS.

I don't know why I'd never been before.

It's cherry blossom time right now.

Now I'm back home with my newly acquired Miss Babs Yowza in Zinfandel.   

 

I would say I wish we had Miss Babs available here in Minnesota, but I think it's a good thing we don't.  The sock yarns are wonderful.  I have high hopes for the Yowza.

Lazy Days of Summer

Although it's not technically summer for a couple of days it feels like summer...

Don't know if I ever mentioned it but I've been looking for a card catalog off and on since I moved. Finally found one on Craig's List last week so I drove to Wisconsin to pick it up yesterday.

It's my new TV stand:

To celebrate we had a movie night with the grandkids.  We watched Ponyo, which is very Miyazaki.  Popcorn is a favorite with everyone.

I was asked recently what I was knitting besides the blankie.   I have two pair of socks going (for Christmas gifts)

The mink stole is 25% done:

And for the record, the blankie is at 100% of the target width.  Got a ways to go in the other direction though.

Remember when no one had air conditioning and we used to go to the movies to cool off in the summer?  And sleep in the basement?

LFL

The Girls now have not only a house, but a Little Free Library too.

Made by The Best Uncle Ever:

Aren't they adorable?

Little Free Library

As was to be expected, Little Free Libraries in Edina are ... fancier than they are in the city.

Cataloging News

Did you hear that many libraries are abandoning the Dewey Decimal system for Netflix categories? The Cronk of Higher Education writes about it here.

Dewey Decimal Category	Netflix Category
000 – Computer science, information & general works	Sci-Fi & Fantasy
100 – Philosophy and psychology	Special Interest
200 – Religion	Faith & Spirituality
300 – Social sciences	Gay & Lesbian
400 – Language	Foreign
500 – Science (including mathematics)	Sci-Fi & Fantasy
600 – Technology	Documentary
700 – Arts and recreation	Music & Musicals
800 – Literature	Romantic Comedy
900 – History, geography, and biography	Cerebral Drama

Maybe Google will clean up their meta-data and start using the Netflix system too (better than nuthin').

Plagiarism

This is circulating around Librarian circles - I was going to actually write something today but I'm easily distracted and this is fabulous.

Librarians Do Lady Gaga

Tomes and Talismans

Holy Cow! I don't even know what to say this is so delightfully tacky!

There's an article in The New Yorker about it here.

Week of Mondays

Although there was no Monday this week, it was a week of Mondays. Every day. By Friday I had to leave early; after finishing a project I found this list of Subject Headings and was laughing hysterically in my office. When The Boss looked at the list she told me it wasn't really that funny and I should go home because I had obviously gone over the edge.

I stand by the fact that the list is hilarious. How many people look for books under these subject headings, do you think?

• Amicable numbers
• Drooling (may subdivide geographically)
• Garbage can models of decision making
• Grudges (fishes)
• Postmortem photography
• Television in birth control
• Urine dance

Also, it's interesting to note some of the subheadings and number of records at the Library of Congress for: Bush, George W. (George Walker), 1946-

--Correspondence (1 record)
--Military leadership (4 records)
--Poetry (1 record)
--Public appearances (2 records)
--Public opinion (2 records)
--Ethics (16 records)
--Juvenile literature (25 records! hmm)

Students are back at the U, Boy-child is in a new school, work is busy, busy, busy.

Girl-child has finally found her perfect schedule. I think that electronic registration has good and bad elements; we probably didn't switch classes much because the process was so cumbersome. Students can now see what's offered, what's open and change their classes in less than five minutes. Girl-child fine tuned over the summer and then this week dumped the film-study prof who reminded her of Woody Allen.

Remember when people liked Woody Allen and thought he was funny?

Of course, modern living has its drawbacks too. After watching the bus race past her without even pretending to stop the other night (and she wasn't the only one waiting for the bus either) some creep stopped his car and asked her if she wanted a ride. Wow. She even said later, "I didn't know that really happened!"

There has been a lot of crime on and near campus in the past few weeks. I feel bad for the small town kids who don't have the skills that city kids have.

Anyway, on a brighter note, I've been knitting a bit. Boy-child wanted a hat, so I found this one. Looks quite plain from the side:

But has some nice shaping at the top:
I also unveiled my latest sock-monkey last night. He's been done for a while but was waiting for the birthday to be celebrated in order to come out of hiding.

On a rather sad note, all of the knit tags we have placed around town have disappeared except for one. My original tag and its answer were taken down recently when the handrail was painted. I've knit a new tag but haven't been able to put it up yet.

We have the post outside of Borealis knits to inspire us, though. I think they did a beautiful job:

A Sports Whine, a Yarn Shop and a Library

Can someone please tell me when we will stop hearing about Brett Favre? I don't follow sports, but it feels like the news has been discussing the fact that he is retired and will not be coming out of retirement for a long, long time. If he is retired and not coming back to play doesn't that mean it is not news? Nothing happening doesn't usually qualify as news.

Sports confuse me.

In other sports news, swimmers' butts are, aparently, under scrutiny. Wow. Careers in prostitution, politics and sports become more and more similar every year.

On a brighter note, this is Dearborn Station in Chicago, home of Loopy Yarns. Loopy is a fantastic shop and it will be offering some classes this summer with Franklin Habit. I am trying to decide about going to one of them...
And this is the Harold Washington Library in Chicago, which I adore. It's the Library station on the El.

It has cool lights:
The combination of glass and brick, along with some sculpture at the top:
A detail:
Kind of a random combination of rant and photos today, but there you are.

Jackhammer Thursday

It's Thursday and that means Plant Pathology Library. Normally Plant Pathology is a silent cave, particularly in the summer, but this summer we have super-special construction so the silence alternates with jackhammering. Three hours. Every Thursday.

To entertain myself, and with the hope I don't lose my mind, I read American Libraries Direct on Plant Path days, I mean, why not? It's not like I can concentrate on anything.

And before I start, could I just mention that the North Koreans have slam-dunked Hillary Clinton - this just in from the wire services:

North Korea's Foreign Ministry lashing out at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in unusually personal terms for "vulgar remarks" that it said demonstrated "she is by no means intelligent."

Right. Consider the source.

And here are this week's favorite tid-bits from the library world:

Who knew that drinking beer could be such a literary endeavor? I usually curl up with a good book when I have a beer in the evening, but this beats all! This in from Brews and Books:

Avery Mephistopheles - Mephostophiles, by Faust.

Rogue Shakespeare Stout - The bard himself, William Shakespeare.

Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. The Fezziwigs are the owners of the warehouse business Scrooge worked at as a lad.

Baltimore-Washington Beer Works’ The Raven - The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe. The Raven is brewed in Poe’s native Baltimore, and a nod to the author’s most famous work.

Sweetwater The Grapes of Cask - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

Bad Habits’ The Hops of Wrath - The Grapes of Wrath again, natch.

Mattingly 1984 Golden Ale - 1984, by George Orwell.

Lost Abbey Inferno - Dante’s Inferno.

Grand Rapids A Clockwork Orange and Watch City Clockwork Orange - Both (a cream ale and an orange-flavored wit) are named after Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange.

Philadelphia Brewing Company Walt Wit - Walt Whitman, transcendentalist and (unfortunately) prohibitionist.

Shipyard Longfellow Winter Ale - Henry W. Longfellow. Fun fact - HWL was born at the current site of the Shipyard Brewery!

Rock Bottom Catcher in the Rye - Catcher in the Rye, by J. D. Salinger.

Bell’s Oberon - A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare. Oberon (or Auberon) is the King of faeries in Shakespeare’s play.

New Holland’s The Poet - While it isn’t entirely clear from the description, the label for The Poet suggests it is another brew named for Poe’s The Raven.

New Holland’s Mad Hatter - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

O’Hanlon’s Thomas Hardy’s Ale - English author and naturalist Thomas Hardy.

East End Ugly American - Eugene Burdick and William Lederer’s The Ugly American.

Cisco Whale’s Tale Pale Ale - Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville. Though it isn’t obvious (other than the spelling of the word “tale” in the name), the brewery higher-ups have confirmed that the beer is named for Melville’s eponymous whale.

I'll have to get cracking since I've tried very few of the beers listed.

Also, and this is not a joke, did you hear about Kindle erasing the Orwell books? I was never very enthusiastic about Kindle but this will keep me away for a long, long time.

A very long time.

And although I know I'm old and a librarian and I knit and I'm oh-so-boring, I am able to enjoy the wild side vicariously. I can also appreciate creative fund raising. Take a look at this new 18-month calendar of tattooed librarians.

Maybe I should get a tattoo?

On Libraries

“I don’t believe in colleges and universities,” Ray Bradbury, 88, said.

“I believe in libraries.”

Everyone loves libraries and librarians.

As I gear up to attend my second American Libraries Association Conference in Chicago next month, I can't help but reminisce on how fun it was to be in Washington, D.C. two years ago for the same. It's wonderful to be able to attend a professional conference. It's wonderful to be able to tell people what you do for a living without being accosted with travel horror stories and complaints about air fares. It's wonderful to find out what's happening in other places, because the field of librarianship is so wide and so deep that you just never know what you're going to stumble upon when you go to such a conference.

And would you believe - what timing - a book club discussion at St Kate's this fall is going to center around Persepolis. Loved that book. The discussion is open to students, faculty, staff, and alumnae.

(Thanks, Susan)

Around Town

I started a new volunteer "job" yesterday afternoon at a public library. I'll be helping people with GED, ESL and Citizenship test preparation, as well as other assorted stuff. Yesterday I helped a woman study the vital signs section of the nursing assistant test. I haven't done any volunteer work for a long time and it feels good to be back into it.

In the meantime, I dug up some photos from the files again. This is a photo of the clock at the old courthouse taken from the Central Library downtown. I took it when I went for my initial "interview" for volunteering. The early morning light gave it a dreamy look, I think:

And P pointed this out when we were walking through Dinkytown one afternoon - the backside of those cute little shops can be quite messy:


I started a new sock monkey too, for Girl-child this time. I'll try to take some photos tonight, depending on how far I get with it.

Boy-child did not make much progress over the weekend and everyone's pretty angry with him right now, so let's hope that this week brings progress.

File Photos

Haven't done much today so I thought I'd dig up some photos from the files.

Here is an example of the importance of detail. And of proof-reading. Especially the title/cover of the journal. Seriously:
I love old books. They paid attention to detail back then. And they made them to last, even if their best intentions didn't always work:
Sets are pretty too, I think:
But variety is always nice:
I just fixed this one up a little bit - it was quite abused by bad tape. It has some lovely details:
These are from Walter Library during finals week. I was sitting around waiting for someone who never showed up. This building was awful when I was an undergraduate at the U. They've fixed it up since then, and it is wonderful now - back to its original splendor:

Perspective is everything.