I love Halloween around here

That's "The dread pirate Roberts," aka Westley (or Charlie), Mr. "Jasper" Potato Head, and Calvin/Erick and Hobbes.

If you look closely, you'll see that the frown on my face is due to a severe headache. That silverware is okay going in, but it's a killer coming out.

Too good to be true

Not only is there a new TV series called The Librarians, but the main character's name is Frances. And she's even the boss. I have to say that the resemblance stops there, though I could probably do a pretty good imitation if pressed. The Australian Library and Information Association has launched a blog to serve as a professional forum about the show (and perhaps do some damage control).



Once again, thanks to American Libraries Direct for the tip.

Checking out for a bit

Just wanted to note that posts will be sporadic for a bit while I trot off to a couple of conferences. Tomorrow morning, at some ridiculous hour, I'll fly to Reno for the Treasure Mountain Research Retreat, followed by the American Association of School Librarians national conference. [*skips the predictable jokes about school librarians in casino-land...*] Then next week I'll drive down the road to Springfield for the Illinois School Library Media Association conference.

Still prepping for the seminar I'm giving at that last one. I've spent more time than I really planned exploring tween-ish virtual worlds and found this pretty searing critique of Zwinktopia. Lots of dress-up, but in a hyper-consumerish, semi-sexualized way. Makes me nostalgic for paper dolls, even big-eyed ones.

Risk often pays off

Before and after:



Well done, everyone. Teen Read Week has come to an end and now we're moving on to a Halloween theme. A clean board is now open for your posting pleasure. Scary-book rating forms and glue sticks provided.

Getting a degree in evil

Watching our seniors go through the college application process isn't a ton of fun. I wonder if any of them have considered the Axis Institute for World Domination ("Some people are born evil - others get their degree in it"). This institution of ill-repute is actually the front for a book called Evil Genius, by Catherine Jinks (Fiction J564e). It's the story of Cadel Piggott, a boy genius who just doesn't fit in. He finds his way to the Axis Institute and interesting things start to happen. Check out a bit of the curriculum:



I was afraid the book would be little more than a thin plot driven by a gimmick, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by its depth. Thank goodness there's going to be a sequel.

Those most excellent library pencils

Here it is, the full story of how those short library pencils are born.



Kudos to the staff of the Williams College Libraries, to filmmaker Nick Baker, and to the fine folks at the Prelinger Archives (and to American Libraries Direct for the alert).

Internet generation

I stole the title of today's post from Katherine's Gargoyle blog posting. It was timely for me because I'm working on a presentation for next month's Illinois School Library Media Association conference. I'm supposed to talk about "unexpected consequences," the stuff that happens online that wasn't necessarily intended or imagined. So I've spent some time lately talking to students about the services they use and how their lives have changed because of this or that web application. Karen gave me some good insight into how she uses deviantART.com to get ideas for her own artwork. Shara shared what she knows about how social activists are using social networking tools to organize themselves and to get the word out about their views and events. Jeremy told me that "Facebook is the new rolodex." That pithy quote will definitely make an appearance on one of my slides.

I've also been poking around in spaces I don't usually frequent. Like Gaia Online, Twitter, and Justin.tv. Gaia, an "avatar-based persistent social world," is very popular around here. Twitter, a short message system that you use to report what you are doing in real time, is not very popular around here - at least not yet. And Justin.tv, a platform for videostreaming your life, who knows? From what I can see, an awful lot of people who broadcast are either sleeping or sitting in front of their computers. Give me Law and Order any time.

So what Web 2.0 app has changed the way you live? Do tell.

Chair buddies

Last year I did a little series of earbud buddy photos. It looks like this year's meme might be chair buddies. A couple of weeks ago I shot Alex and Allen. Today we have Stephanie and Andrew -



And Elenita and Ashley (with Ashley looking over Charley's shoulder) -



I guess it's also a good thing I don't work in one of those schools that bans hugging.

It's always risky

...when you put markers and public writing space in front of teenagers. We were (sort of) prepared for the consequences when Natalie put up a display for this year's Teen Read Week, which has the theme "LOL @ your library." We have a nice display of humorous books inside the library. On the board in the hall outside the library, the banner reads "What makes you LOL?" - thus, the writing space and markers. Within ten minutes, we got the predictable scatological contribution. I countered by posting a little "Be nice, don't make the librarian sad" note next to it. And it worked. As you can see, there are lots of good submissions now.



My personal favorite is the one that reads: "Adults that use Internet abbreviations."

Book mashups

Mashups don't have to be just about web apps. How about a little manga Shakespeare? Our copy of Romeo and Juliet, illustrated by Sonia Leong, arrived today. The setting is modern Japan. The police tape in this scene is a nice touch, I think.



That's Prince "See what a scourge is laid upon your hate" Escalus speaking.

One of those "how cool is that" moments

Friend Lisa alerted me to today's Generator Blog entry on eLouai's Harry Potter Doll Maker. Only two days after my entry on other Generator Blog goodness.

'Scuse me while I go make a tricked out Professor McGonagall.

Playing with generators

Every once in a while, I like to drop in on the Generator Blog and see what's new.

I made a mini-me over at DoppelMe, which is a little pale because I didn't want to register just to have more colorful choices (it is Friday afternoon, after all).


I customized a librarian's fantasy keyboard at the Glass Giant.


And I wrote on a back-to-school chalkboard, also from the Glass Giant.


What I really wanted to do was make another Jib Jab movie (the last one was exceedingly popular), using their new "Math Camp Massacre" theme. But this is a G-rated blog, so I resisted. I'll leave it up to your imaginations.

Bunches of new books

Well, my stint on jury duty (at least the sitting-around-and-waiting part of jury duty) is reaping rewards right now. While waiting to be called, I caught up on my backlog of review reading in Booklist and spent a lot of money for the library. Today we had a crate of those new arrivals. Here's a random stack:



I like the juxtaposition of some of these. Among them, English queens, Hollywood movie-making, righteous gentiles during the Holocaust, the history of cigarette smoking in America, and Book 2 of the Obernewtyn Chronicles. It's odd - Books 1, 3, and 4 have been here awhile, but those last two are fairly useless without number 2. Hope no one was biting their nails waiting.

Banning books (with a dose of contrarian thinking)

Natalie put up a nice display for Banned Books Week:



Here's an entry from my favorite new library cartoon, Shelf Check:

A couple of pertinent items from LISNews -
A warning that airport screeners might be watching what you read.
And a question:

Completely a hypo. This question in no way implies that banning books is good. But if you were king (or queen) of the universe and could wave a wand and a book would blink out of existence. What books would you get rid of and why?

Hmm. All those books that aren't really books? The TV show/movie/cartoon-derived "books"? What are your thoughts? And no, calculus textbooks don't count, sorry.