I will be leaving in a bit to go to the RT conference. I'm taking my laptop with me, so hopefully I will get a couple of moments to blog. I'm not guaranteeing anything though. Worse case scenario I will be back Monday afternoon and will hopefully have lots of juicy book gossip to share. Until then, be good! :-)

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Since I've already mentioned The Krafty Librarian once today, I might as well give her another shout out. Yesterday Krafty mentioned an article from The Village Voice that you should definitely check out. The article discusses the impact bloggers have had on readers and the publishing world, mentioning notable blogs like Bookslut and Beatrice.

As a librarian I can't help but wonder if lit bloggers could become a replacement or surrogate reader advisor for patrons who are not having their needs met at their own public library. I hate to say this, but maybe some of these bloggers are a bit more authoritative and/or trustworthy in the patrons mind than their local librarian. Anyone who has ever worked a reference desk has gotten a reader advisory question for a genre that they are completely unfamiliar with. Sure we have tools available to us to help answer the question, but if we are being honest with ourselves are we doing as good a job as a person who reads books in that genre? Probably not. And while it use to be that librarians and book store clerks were the go to people when they needed help finding a good book to read, maybe we aren't anymore. If this is true, how do we adjust our services to meet our patrons needs? I know it definitely calls for us all to be more proactive, but in what way? And yes, those of you in my reader advisory class will be asked this question the next time we meet. Be prepared. :-)

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The Krafty Librarian posted yesterday about a conversation we had been having concerning blog etiquette, so I thought I should address it here too. Krafty went so far as to give her readers a top ten list of blogging etiquette rules, but I am mainly concerned with rule number one: citing your sources.

It is only natural as we surf our way around the blogosphere to read interesting items on other blogs that we too want to blog about. Unfortunately, bloggers sometimes cross the line between sharing/commenting and poaching. It's a line that shouldn't and doesn't need to be crossed. Krafty and I were discussing it yesterday as an issue of professionalism, but for me it is more than that. Not only is it unprofessional (and rude) to not give a shout out to the person who got you blogging about a certain topic, but it is a disservice to your blog readers as you are essentially cutting them out of a portion of the conversation. One of the great things about blogs is the fact that a topic of conversation can start on one blog, move to another person's blog, then another's, and then another's. If readers don't know how the conversation originated, they will lose out on the insight and thoughts of other readers and bloggers. And in the end it is the readers who suffer for it, not the bloggers. So do your readers a favor. If you blog about something you've read on another blog, give that blogger a shout out.

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Take a look at this article, Novelists beg Oprah: Help us, please! and then come back. Read it? Good. Time to rant.

I'm so angry I don't even know where to begin. Actually, I do. Let me begin by saying that I think Oprah is a lovely person who has done a lot of good over the years. Personally, I don't think her book club was one of them. I know that some would consider that heresy what with me being a librarian and all, but that's how I feel. I've had a love/hate relationship with Oprah's book club (both modern and classic) ever since she started one in 1996. As someone who has worked in libraries in either a paraprofessional or professional position, I saw the number of people who came through the door to get the latest Oprah pick. Great, right? I mean, who isn't happy to see patrons who rarely grace our libraries with their presence walk through the door. So thank you, Oprah, for getting people off their booties and in to their local libraries and book stores. But wait, just wait. I saw other things as well.

I saw my library being forced to purchase multiple copies of books that our patrons had not been previously interested in, books our trained collection development people did not think would be right for our collection/patronage. I saw our fiction collection being driven by not what the majority of our patrons would be interested in reading, but by what one woman thought they should be reading. I saw many of these patrons return these chosen titles a little confused, not quite sure what all the fuss was about but still trusting in Oprah. I also saw many of these patrons leave my library empty handed, only willing to return once the great O had revealed what the golden book was. I wasn't happy with what I saw, but I wasn't angry (yet). I rationalized to myself that people were coming through the doors, and that was enough. Maybe in the future they would lift their heads up, look around, and see that the library had other great books to offer them for their reading enjoyment.

But then Oprah crossed a line and lost me. In a snit because one author didn't want to be an Oprah pick, she ended her club by saying, "It has become harder and harder to find books on a monthly basis that I feel absolutely compelled to share." Hmmm...... What could I possibly say to that? The words "Bite me, Oprah" come to mind. You can't find one book on a monthly basis that you feel compelled to share? That's weird. I have no problem finding books on a weekly basis that I feel compelled to share. Maybe you just weren't looking hard enough.

And now we have this letter from a group of literary authors with their hands out to Oprah. You can read the letter in its entirety here. Reading it got me even more stirred up. What offends me as a librarian and as a reader is this statement:

When you established The Oprah Winfrey Book Club in 1996, you did something very bold, something that no one else has done. You declared that every person -- anyone who could turn on a TV set -- could be part of the literary world and enjoy it. You declared that anyone could like good books.

Really? Everyone could like good books, not just the crap they had been reading before they had Oprah's wisdom to guide them? Hallelujah! Saved from the misery of reading of all the garbage out there. It's about time someone approached Oprah and got her to right this wacky, wacky world. To the authors that signed this letter, shame on you. Shame on you for making a judgment against what readers are reading today instead of literary fiction. Everyone has their own personal reading taste. I'm sorry that literary fiction is in a bit of a slump right now, but you aren't the only genre out there experiencing this problem. Reading tastes are cyclical. What one person enjoys reading today they may not want to read three months from now.

Also, I find it very offensive that this letter also appeals to Oprah to do it for the readers. The authors need your help Oprah, but really it's all about the readers. They're lost without you, and their literacy is at risk. Puh-leez. As I librarian, I don't care what people are reading as long as they are reading. This letter is offensive to me, to readers, and to authors outside of the literary fiction world.

My class is suppose to read literary fiction in a couple of weeks, and right now I'm so mad I could cancel that section and pick something else. I won't though. I recognize that all books, even ones I don't personally enjoy reading, have their merits and appeal to some segment of readers and as librarians it is my job and the job of my students to understand and respect that. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if authors could do that as well?

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I saw this article mentioned by The Krafty Librarian and thought it was an interesting read. I've never really thought about comparing Google and Wal-Mart, but there are a lot of striking similarities. Check it out: Why Google Is Like Wal-Mart.

While reading this article I stumbled across Quit Your Job to Blog, Blog, Blog and Vive les Blogs! The first article is about Jason Kottke's gamble of quitting his job to support himself via donations from his blog's readers. It sounds insane, but it may actually work. The second article is about the popularity of blogging with the French and how they are leading the way in blogging in Europe. Interestingly enough, statistics show that French is now the most common language in the blog world after English. Who knew? My first guess would have been Japanese and then maybe Spanish. A lot of the blog popularity in France can be attributed to French youth, with half of all school children blogging. Students there are actually being expelled for their blogging. I wonder how soon we will see some of this crop up in our own classrooms?

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But still pretty cool. I have the best friends. Today I got an email from one who got tickets to see Eminem and 50 Cent in August, and they asked me if I wanted to go. How nice of them was that? Way too nice for me, that's for ding dong sure. I'm still going to go of course. I won't feel like I deserve to go, but I'm not going to let that stop me! :-)

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For this week's class I'm having my students read something from the horror genre. To go along with this I've been reading Stephen King's The Dark Half, and I have to admit that it isn't going very well. I've had nightmares the past four nights, and generally only read about 10-15 pages before I put the book down and walk away only to return to the book about two minutes later because I have to know what happens next. My name is Kelly and I'm a schizophrenic reader. It's my fault really. I knew 20 pages in that the book was going to push all the right buttons and scare the bejesus out of me. I just should have picked another one of his works.

So far I've only heard from a couple of students who were scared silly by their books. At least I'm not alone. :-)

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I forgot to post this yesterday as I'm in newsletter hell. So before I forget, here are the first, second, and third place winners of the first Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award as announced at Anderson's Young Adult Literature Conference:

1st place - A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer
2nd place - The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
3rd place - Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The women who announced it (her name escapes me at the moment) noted that A Child Called "It" won in every high school. I thought it was a great list (especially since the award is in its first year), and must admit I'm a little surprised that Dave Pelzer's book won. I know our students love A Child Called "It," but if I had to place a bet I probably would have put my money on Cut or Stuck in Neutral.

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Tonight has been a long and emotional night. I've laughed, I've cried, and now I'm just plain worn out. Initially we were up by 36 votes. Things looked good, but they hadn't counted the absentee ballots. With all but one precinct's absentee votes counted, we were up by 21 votes. By the time the last precinct was added in we were down by 32.

To be so close and not win is worse than if it had been a landslide defeat. I guess the good news is that I won't have to go through this pain again until Spring 2006. What happens next? I have no idea.

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Today is a very short day for me at work as it is election day. I'm taking the majority of the day off to poll watch for my party, and I'm sure it is going to be a rip roaring good time. Things have been really ugly around here the past two months, and the ugliness heated up over the weekend with one candidate electing to sue another candidate for libel. The community I live in has been angry for too long, and I am ready for it to stop.

As a voter I've never felt so wanted in my entire life. Over the weekend I received ten pieces of campaign literature and a visit from an actual person. That never happens. Candidates rarely send information to us in the LG and we never get a drop by visit. Not that it was a welcomed or pleasant visit. I was reading my book for tomorrow night's class when someone pounded on my door. Not knocked, pounded. I thought it might be Jason screwing with me, so I half expected someone to shout out, "Police! Open up!" Imagine my surprise when a handful of campaign literature was shoved under my door. The person didn't even wait for me to answer it. I guess they had too many other doors to beat the crap out of.

On a side note, the library is once again asking for a tax increase. I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen, but I will post the results to my blog as soon as I know what they are.

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Besides being April Fools' Day, today marks my sixth anniversary here at the library. If you think it is really odd that my anniversary falls on April Fools' Day, I'm not alone. Joel is also celebrating his six year anniversary at the library, and my friend Jennie is celebrating her second anniversary at her library. According to Elegant Anniversary, iron or candy is the traditional sixth anniversary gift, while wood is the more modern gift. For a second anniversary the traditional gift is cotton while the modern gift is china. You know, just in case anyone was trying to figure out what kind of gifts to get us. :-)

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