A Day in the Life of a Librarian

Here’s a glimpse into the day in the life of a reference and teen services librarian at a suburban library district.

8:15 am: Get into work a few minutes early since traffic didn’t snarl up nor did I hit construction. Spent the first 15 minutes of my Monday planning out what I hoped to accomplish for the week.

8:30 am: Edit, format, and print a list of remade classics/fairy tales to put into the teen reader advisory binders I have been updating.

9:00 am: Reviewed my budget allocation for collection development and then began marking up Booklist for titles I wanted to purchase. This issue had a focus on science fiction and dystopian novels, which I made note of to copy for my own files for future RA. The library opens at 9 am, but I’m off desk for now. I notice a typo in one of the award lists I put together and printed a couple of weeks ago. I make the change, and I put printing them again on my agenda for later. I’ll keep the mistake laden ones in the event the perfect ones run out later; I’d rather hand write the correction later on than waste all of the paper.

9:30 am: My boss trained me on purchasing through Baker & Taylor.

11:00 am: I fiddled around in B&T, looking at the site’s features since I’d never used it before.

11:15 am: I head up to the public service area and begin to refill the teen displays (this month’s display is mysteries, and we have another display of new titles that’s always up). I also put books back onto the face-out displays at the end of almost every row of books on the shelves. I went to the reference desk and saw I had a few extra minutes, so I went back to the teen section and just did a little straightening up.

11:30 am: First shift on the reference desk. I helped a patron find a book on drawing mythical creatures, then a book on origami. I helped another patron find a book about Cisco systems, and I placed holds on a couple of titles for a patron who called the library. Then a patron from a system outside ours asked for help locating materials on government grants for home improvement, and I pulled aside a few titles for her. Another patron brought me a lost library card, and when I called the patron, I got no answer and no machine. Boo. I helped a regular patron spell “honest.” As a librarian, I am also a de facto spell checker — seriously! I’ve never spelled so much for other people, and my spelling skills leave a bit to be desired.

12:30 pm: Lunch! I sadly forgot my meal today in the midst of Monday morning madness at home, so I enjoyed a diet coke and got through about 30 pages of Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

1:15 pm: I’m back on the desk. This time, I juggle starting a book order for teen fiction, as well. This time, I helped a woman find out all of the bike paths throughout Illinois and directed her to the department of transportation’s website and capital office — the state has a fantastic resource with maps of every bike path. I helped a patron on the phone who was using our genealogy database (with which I’m unfamiliar) and wanted to locate newspapers within it. There was some luck, but I directed her to the library of congress’s digital newspaper project (the joy of having worked on that project leads me to show it off whenever I can!). I had an older patron ask for help with her email, but I wasn’t able to help too much since she had no idea what she did wrong, and a search through her email was inconclusive. She was grateful anyway because I sat down with her and tried to help her to the best of my ability. And the patron with the missing library card came back for it!

2:30 pm: I have some more practice on Inter Library Loan and put a request in for a title that a patron called in with earlier. Fielded a number of computer related requests, including adding money to patron printing accounts and helping an out-of-town patron grab a few minutes of computer access.

3:00 pm: My shift on desk is over. I head down to my cube and put my nose to the grindstone on putting together a purchase order of teen fiction. Since I so intelligently passed on VOYA before writing down titles of interest, I pulled it up within the system and read through reviews again.

3:45 pm: I’ve been emailing back and forth with my boss about a ton of questions relating to teen services, so now I’m taking a few minutes to reread and get my mind wrapped around a couple of projects.

4:30 pm: After reading reviews, I’ve put together a list of about 45 books for one library and 30 for another to purchase. Many are from our state award lists, but many are ones that either we needed for a series we had, had great reviews in the journals, or sounded like they’d be of interest to our patrons. I had a couple of patron requests, too. I printed the lists and made sure there was a good mix of material, noting that I should make a concerted effort to locate more boy-friendly books in the next few months (are there none out there recently?!). I spent the previous hour looking for boy books, including investing some time with good Googling, GuysRead.com and then the Guy Lit Wire blog. Frustrating!

4:45 pm: As in starting my day, I spend the last 10-15 minutes reflecting on what I got done, followed by what I hoped to accomplish tomorrow. Today was thick with purchasing teen fiction, and tomorrow will be thick will purchasing for the adult 800s area — I recently weeded quite a bit there, and I need to beef up our general writing area before schools gets back in session. I also plan on breaking down a budget into monthly allocations, as well as working a bit more on some RA and reprinting the handouts with the mistake (sigh!).

5:00 pm: I head home.

6:00 pm: I came home to an ARC of “Beautiful Creatures,” sent from the Little Brown publishers. Woo hoo!

Second quarter round up

Like the last quarter, I thought it would be fun to do a recap of what I’ve read from April 1 through June 30. In that time, a lot of my life changed, so my number is a little lower than I wished. My grand total this quarter? 30. That’s down from 50 first quarter, but makes for 80 so far in 2009. That means my “lofty” goal of 120 will be no problem!

My entire list of second quarter reads can be found here. Some highlights include:

• Genesis by Bernard Beckett, reviewed here. This dystopian novel kept me asking what was going on, but it was totally worth it in the end. It was a very quick and engaging read.
• Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas, reviewed here. A novel in verse that looks at life in an abusive household from a girl who is seen as furniture in the family. Powerful read and the verse was well crafted and utilized.
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman. This is a very emotional tale that concentrates on the life of the main character, told from the past and the present. It was a very short and quick read, but it was definitely one of the best written I’ve read in a while. The writing and style is spot on.
• Honolulu by Alan Brennart. I loved Brennart’s Moloka’i and the same can be said for his newest. It’s a life story of a girl who leaves Korea during the world war in order to become a picture bride. Of course, her life doesn’t go as she dreamed, and Brennart elucidates what happens to her dreams as they’re derailed or changed completely. This was like a flower opening bit by bit and in the end, the full bloom is well worth the wait.
• The Oxford Project by Stephen G Bloom and Peter Feldstein, with my full review available here. I loved this oversized book, complete with pictures and life stories of ordinary folks in Oxford, IA. Some are heart warming and some are downright depressing, which is why this is such a great read. It’s real and raw.

Certainly, my range of reading this quarter wasn’t what I hoped, but now that my routine is settling in, I’m excited to have a strong third quarter. I’ve really taken an interest in audio books because of my daily commutes, so I have made it my goal to try to listen to some more classics. That’s not to say I haven’t read them — and in fact, as I was looking up what to read, I was shocked how many of these “classics” I HAVE read — but I would love to bone up some more.

Moreover, I am making it a goal to read more genre fiction, particularly in teen fiction. With the responsibility for teen stuff at work, I want to make sure I’m reading more widely so I can be a better reader advisor.

And of course, there has been a deluge of GREAT non-fiction published lately.I’ve got my hands full.

Keep your eyes peeled. I’ve got some fodder for blogging here again, and as I’m settling into my new life, I’m finding the desire to bring this blog back to snuff.

Feathered by Laura Kasischke

You can’t watch a morning talk show, watch the news, or read a magazine without coming across the horror stories: teen girls, away on their dream spring break, gone missing or coming home having been through traumatic experiences because of letting their guards down or drinking too much. Feathered by Laura Kasischke is a cautionary tale but is wrapped in incredible layers, imagery, and symbolism.

Three high school girls, Anne, Michelle, and Terri, hop a plane from their Chicagoland suburban home to their first spring break alone in Cancun, Mexico. All three expect to have a fun break, and all are acutely aware of what can happen being alone in a foreign country on spring break. Michelle’s mother repeats the warnings prior to the trip and as she drops the girls off at the airport; while Terri soon develops an itch about something going wrong, Anne and Michelle are confident that their intelligence and common sense will keep them safe. Interspersed in these cautionary conversations are Michelle’s mother’s stories about visiting the historical ruins of the Mayans, and all of the girls develop an interest in seeing the mythical Chichen Itza when not enjoying their time on the beach surrounded by hordes of other young students.

As a reader anticipates, something indeed goes terribly wrong. Anne and Michelle’s trip to Chichen Itza changes the tone of the entire trip. Although three girls boarded the plane in Chicago, only two will come back to their safety in suburbia. Will it be Terri who quickly turns to partying on the beach and meeting strange boys? Will it be Michelle, born of artificial insemination and thus in search of a father figure in her life? Or will it be Anne, the one who came up with the idea to go to Mexico?

Feathered is a predictable story. Any reader with a little knowledge about the world knows precisely what could and might happen on this trip; however, Kasischke does a marvelous job of twisting the predictable. The plot is simplistic, fast-moving, and relatable.

What Kasischke does that it worth delving into, though, is layering the story. First, the story is told through two different narrators: Anne and Michelle. Though there are three girls on the trip, we never hear Terri’s perspective; more interestingly, Anne’s perspective is told through first person and in the past tense. Michelle’s perspective is told in limited third person and is told in the present tense. Although I would have loved to hear Terri’s perspective and debated with myself during and for a couple days after finishing the story, I think I’m satisfied in not hearing her side.

Perhaps most stunning to me was Kasischke’s use of imagery and symbolism throughout. The story draws upon the idea of the past and the present, juxtaposing modern Mexican resort life and the historical ruins of the indigenous. Within even that there is the drawing upon ideas of the phoenix and feathers to describe and symbolize girlhood, exposure, and rebirth.

Though the storyline is rather simplistic, this book is smart. Kasischke initially disappointed me, as I finished the book thinking that it was a predictable story, despite some of the twists. I wanted there to be more, and I thought that the entire story was given away within the first few pages — I mean, come on, three girls who are in high school going to Cancun alone and one of them has a bad feeling about it? We’ve heard it. I stepped away for a bit, then reopened the book, drawing the ties between the symbols and images, and I unearthed something entirely different within the multiple layers. This book just yearns for a good discussion.

Indeed, this book is a cautionary tale, but it’s much more than the cautionary tale you will hear from your parents or from the news. It goes deeper, and it’s rooted well into history. Target age readers will not have trouble understanding these lessons, either, particularly as they let this story sit and begin to think about what the point of certain aspects of the plot were. Feathered does not have a superfluous detail.

If anything bothered me at all throughout the book, it was some poor editing. It seems to me that copy editors are pushing these books out too quickly and overlooking the grammatical details. I found the overuse of commas tiresome and frustrating, as they really and truly slowed the story down. I was also hoping to hear more from Terri in the story; however, I think there is ample opportunity for Kasischke to tell the story from Terri’s perspective.

I would love to see this book get some sort of nod from ALA this year. It is well-deserving because it is quite deceitful in its simplicity. It is a great book group book, as it begs to be discussed. I’m looking forward to seeing what Kasischke does after Feathered, as her writing is intelligent and refreshing.

Reading’s still all the rage

I’m always skeptical when I hear about how the internet has changed people’s reading habits for the worse. Report after report claim that our attention spans have shrunk and that we no longer indulge in a good book.

The NEH, though, suggests that 84% of internet users are still reading books (with credit to library hero Stephen Abram for the report dissection). I’m constantly excited and pleased to see people engaging with great book-related websites, including LibraryThing, Good Reads, and Shelfari, among others.  Not only that, but there are hordes of book blogs, and as someone who loves reading other people’s reviews, I’m constantly surprised just how much these people can read in a week (let alone a month).

Although the report doesn’t speak specifically to non-fiction reading, I suspect that reading non-fiction is also high. Unlike literary or popular fiction, though, I think non-fiction often gets the wrap as not reading, since many readers read part of, and not necessarily all of, a non-fiction work (or they simply don’t see reading a book on how to crochet scarves as being reading in the same sense reading, say, Crime and Punishment is, even though all reading is reading).

Perhaps my favorite sign of people reading is the vast number of reading challenges in any given year. Google “reading challenges 2009″ and you will not believe the number of interesting, book-driven reading challenges. And it’s not just for hard cover books, either, as some of the challenges are specific to reading ebooks, listening to audio books, and other means of acquiring literary exposure.

Personally, I’m a Good Reads addict. I’m sad to say I’ve never done a book group outside my college’s literary society, but that’s something I certainly plan to seek out when we’ve settled in our new home town. As for challenges, I plan on participating in the 2009 classics challenge, wherein I plan to read 5 ‘classic’ novels between April 1 and December 31 (I’m a bit late to the game, but it’s better late than never, right?). I’m formulating my official list, which I’ll blog when I’ve got it, but so far, I’ve already finished my “bonus” book, The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dumus.

Are you participating in any challenges that are “officially” sanctioned by someone on the web? Are you participating in in-person or online book groups and discussions?

House of Dance by Beth Kephart

Rosie has been raising herself — mom’s been busy with her window washing job and romance with the married boss and dad stepped out of their life without reason (though he remembers to send Rosie $20 each week). To top it off, summer’s cresting, and Rosie’s neighbor and her best friend are not around to keep her company.

But Rosie’s a strong girl. She’ll figure it out.

That is, until she gets the news from her mother that her grandfather is dying of cancer, and it’s her job to go entertain him every day. Her mom, being too busy with Mr. Paul, doesn’t have the time to do it, and since Rosie has a summer before her, why not?

House of Dance is a beautiful, poetic account of relationships among people. Rosie and her grandfather, Rosie and her mother, Teresa (grandfather’s foreign nurse) and Rosie, and Rosie herself. Throughout the story, we watch Rosie come to learn about why her mother has avoided spending time with her father and why her mother has decided to engage in such an illicit relationship with Mr. Paul.

The story is fluid and infused by a dance of intricate language usage and imagery. We watch Rosie grow up, and it’s done in ways that aren’t your typical coming of age story. Rosie knows her life isn’t peachy or perfect, and through learning about her family history through a relationship with a dying grandparent, she grows closer to each of them and brings each of them closer to one another. Rosie also discovers her passions — music and dance — and she brings those two passions together in the end of the story.

Aside from the beautiful writing, I was blown away by the end of the story. It was pitch perfect. I became more and more nervous as I rounded home page in the book and the pages became fewer and fewer. So much of what was being worked up to still needed to be covered, and for me, there was the worry of the inevitable ending. But Kephart did something unexpected, refreshing, and satisfying.

This was a great book to begin national poetry month with, even though it’s not technically poetry. I felt throughout that Kephart just had a way with words and images and I connected with that as a reader. She has enough story to make the language play excusable, rather than using the language as a way to offer a half-pitched story.

This book is appealing to anyone who likes stories about growing up, maturity, family relationships, or dance/music/discovering one’s passion. Although Rosie is not quite Frankie Landau-Banks, I think readers who dig E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks will dig Rosie as a character. The story’s not as action-packed nor as boy-filled, but the characters are both strong females learning about themselves. The book has a great pace, and it is the language that does a lot of the scene setting and story telling. It’s modern, relatable, and sweet.

I dig the cover art a lot. And to be entirely honest, that’s why I picked the book up. I’m glad I did. I’m also excited to dig into Kephart’s other books, which fall into so many different genres and styles. She’s got other young adult books, adult books, and even some non-fiction. If she’s this talented in YA fiction, I’m excited to see what she can do elsewhere.

First quarter round up

Although the first quarter of 2009 technically ends at midnight, I’m pretty confident that I won’t be able to finish another book today. Taking a page from Janssen’s book, I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about some of the highlights from my massive amounts of reading in the last three months.

First, if you remember back to my first post about reading goals, I decided this year that I would reach 120 books since I had reached a total of 103 for 2008. Well, I’m very much on my way to blowing that record away. Just how much did I read in the first three months of 2009? [...drumroll please]…

I’ve read 50 books. A nice, fat, round 50 books between January and March.

I’ve covered most genres, adult, young adult, fiction and non-fiction. I’ve intentionally left off the children’s books I’ve read [since those can be read in a few minutes and require little investment]. Rather than list all 50 titles here, you can check out my entire quarter one reading list via my GoodReads account. Instead of the roster, I thought I’d rave about my top ten reads from these last three months. In no particular order:

• Rebecca / Daphne Du Maurier: Part mystery, part romance, and a whole lot of lies. Definitely has ‘classic’ written on it, but it’s a classic that is often overlooked.
• The Adoration of Jenna Fox / Mary E. Pearson: Rather than blow the plot, I’ll say that it deals with ethics and science, and it is hyper relevant to today’s society
• Ten Cents a Dance / Christine Fletcher: Historical fiction set in 1940s Chicago, where a girl chooses to go from the meat packing plant to taxi dancing. Incredible book that I think anyone can enjoy. It does not get too bogged into the larger history but rather focuses in on one particular slice of WWII life.
• Hate That Cat & Love That Dog / Sharon Creech: Meta-poetry written by a middle schooler. Very cute, very funny, and it could definitely turn those not interested in poetry into poetry enjoyers.
• Ten Little Indians / Sherman Alexie: Funny, painful, raw. Short stories that will make you want to laugh, cringe, and cry at once. Alexie is a master story teller.
• Out of the Pocket / Bill Konigsberg: A lesson in being comfortable with who you are. My entire review is located here, and as an added bonus, Bill Konigsberg blogged my review, too!
• Wintergirls / Laurie Halse Anderson: A book that so accurately captures not only the effects of an eating disorder, but also the deterioration of one’s mental state while dealing with that and depression. My entire review is here.
• The Gollywhopper Games / Jody Feldman: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a new generation. It’s fast, funny, and a new spin on the classic story.
• American Born Chinese / Gene Luen Yang: A graphic novel in three parts about being a teenager who is Chinese in America and the consequences of that heritage. There is a unique twist in the end that makes a great exclamation to the story.
• Those Who Save Us / Jenna Blum: This is another WWII story, but this time it is set in America. A daughter hungry for tenure and for a strong academic project unravels her lineage and the role that her parents played in the war in Germany.

I’m excited about how much I read and how many unique things were in the mix. However, I’m really gearing up for a more diverse quarter 2, as it begins with National Poetry Month. As a poet [aside: I really hate that title, but I am using it only to indicate interest and participation in the art] I find April the ideal time to dig into poetry. I’ve got in mind the desire to read a number of books written in verse, as well as compilations of poetry. I have in my basket a few adult fictional titles and have on my personal shelf some non-fiction to read [second aside: anyone else have a genre they buy rather than check out? I don't buy many books anymore, but those I do buy are primarily non-fiction]. And perhaps what I’m most excited about in the next quarter is the release of the final installment of the Jessica Darling series, Perfect Fifths, on April 14.

Anything I absolutely, positively must read in the next three months? Is there anything you’re looking forward to?

Unveiling my little [massive] project

As you may or may not know, I’m in the midst of a job search for the perfect entry-level librarian job. I’m fairly flexible, since I’m interested in so many different aspects of the field, have experience in many, and I am not entirely set on a specific location (though certainly, I have preferences). I’m young so I know this is really my opportunity to go somewhere totally new and experience it.

And as we all know, the market for all jobs is weak, and librarianship is no different. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent searching and applying, and while I’m positive about things eventually falling into place, one thing that really frustrates me is how one can search for positions.

There are some wonderful library-related job resources out there — ALA’s JobList, LISJobs.com, LibraryJoblines, the iSchool Jobweb, and so forth. Almost every state association has some sort of job bank, as well. And then there are the libraries that post their openings only on their website or the city in which the library is located posts it on their website.

All of that’s to say is that it’s a little bit of everywhere.

Even when you’re able to pull together a nice list of regular stops in your daily hunting rotation, sometimes it’s not easy to search through them. I’m a bit of an odd searcher, maybe, in that there are days I am interested only in certain types of jobs or jobs in a certain area of the country or jobs in a specific state. While I know how to run a good database query, sometimes it’s not sufficient for my needs [boy, I'm a needy one when it comes to how I want my information!].

So to resolve this, I’ve decided to develop a huge “database” of library job sites through delicious. In doing so, I’ve taken the effort to tag the links with as much useful information as possible, as well as leave some type of description for each link. Some descriptions aren’t particularly insightful, but others are useful as to locating the actual employment information that can sometimes be buried within another page.

As I type this, I’ve reached 300 unique links, among which are links to specific library websites, city websites, giant general databases, smaller state-based search engines, and others. Likewise, the primary links right now are to public libraries. That is to say, it’s clearly not comprehensive yet. But it’s a start. I hope to continue building this and hope to recruit a few other people with the passion I have for pooling resources like this together.

Clearly, I know there are websites out there — and I point specifically to my alma mater’s jobweb — that offer many different links to jobs. I’ve found, though, there are a number that are a little out of date, dead links, not comprehensive (for example — in a list of links to jobs in the 50 states Nevada is missing), or generally not searchable in the way that I like to approach my job search.

I’m influenced here by Dave Weinberger and many of the ideas he hashes out in Everything is Miscellaneous as well as Small Pieces, Loosely Joined. I’m a believer in the use of tagging. Since the job search is primarily — if not entirely — web based now, why can’t we give as many entrances into this information as possible? Why be limited?

Since librarianship is a field of collaboration, I made this account open to everyone and I am trying to spread the word. I’ve squatted a Twitter account, but I don’t know if it’ll be as useful as I like for spreading the word. Rather, I suspect it might be able to talk for itself, particularly if I can get a couple of people on board to help out.

So, click HERE to locate my library job links project. Tell me what you think and let me know if you want to help out. More importantly, SHARE it. While it certainly begins as a way for me to wrap my head around the vast potential opportunities, I think that it’s only right to make this process as efficient to myself and others as possible.

And if you’re interested, I’m hoping to get a similar project kickstarted for library blogs. While certainly there are great resources out there with links to library-related or library-created blogs, I want something more searchable, dynamic, and more inclusive (down to people’s personal blogs of their own experiences). Collaboration and resource sharing - it’s what I’m all about.

Let me know if you’re on to help. Or if you find this useful.

Libraries as the third place

Ever had those moments when you think about your collective experience and education and you see how it all fits together so perfectly? I had a moment like that when I was in my final semester of school. That moment made me understand how important and vital a role that the public library can and should play in a community. Don’t get me wrong, as I’d obviously had that thought before or else I’d never have entered the field, but it was a culmination of all my reading and projects that made me really want to advocate the idea that libraries are a third place in the American culture and landscape.

As our social scripts and ideas are challenged and transformed thanks to the economy or to the fact we no longer have the one-income one-mortgage standard by which to judge our life’s success, we really do need to find that third place. That third place becomes the opportunity to learn, grow, and understand one another, while simultaneously serving as a place to let loose and be our public selves.

Let’s step back from the larger idea for a second and build up to it.

In undergrad, I took a course in public history and memory. While we did our fair share of listening to and participating in lectures and reading, the crux of the course was the creation of a digital exhibit. We broke into teams and chose from a number of cultural institutions in eastern Iowa where we had the opportunity to explore a collection and build our story. I had the opportunity to work with a partner at the State Historical Society of Iowa (SHSI) in Iowa City. We were told early on that the SHSI had an interesting collection of historical home photos. Since eastern Iowa is home to so many beautiful original Victorian homes, this was an exciting prospect. When we met with the curator at the SHSI, we were further told that the photos seemed to be showcasing the porches of these homes.

That’s when the idea clicked.

My partner and I explored the idea of how, as a culture in America, we’ve moved from having grand, welcoming porches to a society of back porches. There’s been a shift from the porch as a welcome mat to neighbors and the community to the back patio, hidden away behind fences. Of course, this coincides with other societal changes, including the automobile invasion and suburbia. The link a couple lines up takes you to the project and showcases our digital exhibit — how we’ve shifted, what it means, and what impact it has on our American culture.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and I have the opportunity to pick out a book to read and give a report on in my Knowledge Management course. Although there were many interesting choices from which to choose, I went with Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place. Sparing the slideshow, the book focuses on how we have no third place in America. We have a problem of acreage, schedules and privacy that thrive as we have only two real “places” we see daily: work and home. When we seek relaxation, we tend to find ourselves indulging in places of consumption — restaurants, shopping, malls, and so forth — where we find our stress decreases because these are informal places outside the settings of home and work.

However, the problem is that in order to be truly happy and fulfilled, we should have a tripod of life experiences: the domestic, the productive, and the social. We get the first at home, the second at work, and the third — well, as much as we tell ourselves that shopping is a social activity because we may indulge in it with friends, it’s not social — is absent.

The third place, Oldenburg argues, is a neutral space that is a leveller bringing together people from all walks of life. The goals of the third place are accessibility, accommodation, and conversation. They’re places of low profile that invite playfulness and become a home away from home. The third place brings a level of novelty into our daily lives because of the loose structure and fluidity which are catalysts for collective creativity. Likewise, the third place brings perspective, as it allows for a reality check for all — where else can the plumber and the high-power attorney interact on an equal ground about topics without the status of their profession intermingling in the process? Oldenburg adds, too, that the third place is a spiritual tonic allowing people joy, vivacity and relief, as well as friends by the set: people with whom we can interact in a different way than we do our co-workers or with those we know intimately enough to invite into our homes (the sacred and private space).

Where else can we discuss hyperlocal issues openly without a pre-schedule forum, associate with community members, and have “fun with the lid kept on?” The third space is an outpost into the public domain. It quells loneliness simply by being a space where people interact without needing to make a purchase or make a million dollar proposal.

The third place, Oldenburg says, would also help us redefine our idea of streets and public places. Americans tend to associate dirty things with the words public and street when the truth is, those should be where we derive our pleasure and our fulfillment.

Besides some of the issues I had with Oldenburg’s overromanticism of Europe and blatant misogynist comments, the book is definitely worth the read. Anyone who has wondered about why we do things the way we do them would appreciate a fresh and, I think, optimistic vision of what America could become with the right collective mindset. And I think, too, we’re making these strides: we’ve got a third space in digital outlets, in the physical reemergence of pedestrian malls inside of major cities (look at places like Denver), and, where I really think we have untapped potential, the public library.

In the same class, I chose to explore the idea of a knowledge ecology and how it relates to the public library. Though it sounds complicated or unimaginable, it’s quite literally something we have set up already — the knowledge ecology suggests that rather than libraries being where people come to get information [which would only be one level of interaction], the library is where anyone and everyone can come, engage in information transfer, participate in programming, offer their own ideas and insights into library-driven events, and so forth. Rather than the library being “close stacked,” with the librarians at the helms of giving, the public library becomes entirely “open stacked,” with the librarian simply serving the role of trained facilitator. They get the conversation started, keep it going, throw out new ideas, and constantly seek feedback and ideas from the community. The community does quite the same as the librarian - it offers ideas, needs, wants, questions, and resources. Without engaging entirely with the community, the library serves more of the library’s needs rather than the community’s needs. Public libraries should strive to provide and facilitate services uniquely tailored to the people and place in which it’s at, regardless of what may be hot and happenin’ in the literature.

And by doing that, the library becomes a third place.

The more we reach out, the more we talk with the community (rather than TO the community), and the more we engage wholly in the place we are, the more we are able to become the quintessential third place. Look at the small colleges, as well as the major universities, that are moving to user-centered information commons — they’re becoming the third space. And public libraries can do it, too. Except besides focusing on the college student, it focuses on the entire community.

The bones are here. The ideas are here. The people with drive are here. Now it’s just a matter of getting that out there. I think in a recession particularly, the opportunity to remind people about how valuable the library is beyond just its features of free computers and internet can and will make a lasting impression. We want to be places people want to come, engage, and participate. I think there are opportunities to crowdsource projects in the library, and I think people would jump. Librarians should not feel confined behind the desk or the computer. They aren’t merely information centers. They connect.

Librarians should be in the community, seeing what their patrons are doing and seeking, and the library should emulate or expand upon those things. We need to be community servants beyond just the 8 hours at our place of employment. Getting our faces out there can only remind people that there are advocates for them, inviting them into a safe, fun, level, and evocative space . . . and for free [or darn near it].

Let’s get ourselves back into the middle of the community. Let’s become the third place. Now’s the time to become the community front porch. And we’re making strides toward it.

There’s much more that can be said to this effect, but, suffice to say, I think it’s vital we become not just the front porch but that we engage the community in the library’s ecosystem. In an ecosystem, nothing is central. Instead, an ecosystem cultivates and breathes through shared interactions and reactions. If we set it up as the front porch of a community, we become part of the breath of the community and we become that third space people desperately need to have in order to have a fulfilled, joyful, and amicable life.

If you’re so interested in reading my knowledge ecology paper, feel free to check it out here (.pdf download). It’s short, but by parsing out ideas from the special library/corporate world, public libraries have great opportunities to continue growing uniquely public experiences.

On my shelf

Janssen posted her lovely collection of titles she’s reading right now, so I thought I’d follow along with that one. This is, of course, just my library collection. And while I’m not on spring break, I have plenty of time to indulge.

Currently reading (as in, bookmarks holding my place right now):

The Truth About Forever

Tender Morsels

On the docket:

Suckerpunch

The Possibilities of Sainthood

Little Audrey

A Step from Heaven

Wicked Lovely

A Mango Shaped Space

Out of the Pocket

Matchit

Madapple

Fade

Newes from the Dead

Peeled

Honolulu

A Curse Dark as Gold

Wake

Book of a Thousand Days

Before I Die

The Wednesday Wars

Getting into Guinness

Just Listen

Does My Head Look Big in This?

Graceling

Having more than 20 books out at any one time gives me lots of options for my mood. Since I can get through them quickly, I bring in 5-10 to return soon as I have them out. You have to love the library - it’s such a non-obligation in terms of choosing your reading.

What’s on YOUR shelf right now?

Taking a virtual road trip through food and politics

I’m a big fan of personal projects. We all have them — we say we’re going to to develop a web site dedicated to our favorite star or that we’re going to finally get around to making that digital scrapbook. Right now, I’m working on one myself that I’ll blog about soon; I want to make sure to give it a little more meat before showing it off.

That’s all to say that I wanted to talk about an awesome project a friend of mine from undergrad has been working on. Brian was [and, even as an alumni a few years out, still is] the web editor for our college’s newspaper, The Cornellian. So, needless to say, he’s a web savvy person. And he’s also a born and bred Iowan with incredible respect and fondness for the state.

So, over the last few years, Brian developed his own website to document some of the smaller, lesser known and off-the-beaten-path places in the great state of Iowa. Iowa Backroads is a project of showcasing a state that is too often merely considered flyover land for most people, even though there are places that get huge acclaim in major outlets (…and it’s worth mentioning that the Lincoln Cafe is indeed located in the same down as our alma mater, Cornell). Some of the cool places featured on Brian’s blog so far have included Mt. Vernon’s awesome Bijou Theatre, the world’s larged bull in Audubon, and the Amish Stringtown grocery store.

What strikes me as cool about the project is that it’s a living record. Many of these locations Brian documents are historical to their towns or are attractions to a particular town. In an era where rural states like Iowa are losing population at alarming rates and seeking to learn what and how they can maintain their young people, it’s refreshing to see these places can maintain themselves and these small towns can emerge as centers for local business and commerce. And these places don’t have to keep their businesses to the locals — Brian’s giving them exposure for people who may otherwise not understand that there is a lot of charm and life in the small state. He is, if you will, helping spread the word about the gems all over the state. I think beyond that, he’s helping promote the culture of appreciating local business. It’s a small part, much in the same way that spots for local culture in films like What Would Jesus Buy spread the word that rural life is not dead life, but instead, it is full of people and places with character and history hoping to keep their waning populations afloat. In fact, there was a wonderful post today courtesy of the Daily Yonder about a local Mexican restaurant in Denison, Iowa that made a great point about there still being a great multicultural population in small town Iowa.

Brian’s begun to work on another project at the same time he works on Iowa Backroads. He’s taking photographs of the county courthouses in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, as well as taking photographs of local post offices. And he doesn’t just limit it to Iowa, either. Brian has albums and entries in his Flickr and on his blog featuring sites in Illinois, South Dakota, and Minnesota, among others.

While he’s not quite sure where he’s going to go with these projects yet, they remind me a lot of what Stephen Bloom and Peter Feldstein did in their book The Oxford Project. I think that what is starting out as a one man project has the potential to get much more exposure — from a historical and digital collections standpoint, it seems to me there are a lot of opportunities to develop a historical portal.

There are two things that really stand out to me about Brian’s projects. The first is that it’s a nice comfort to remember a place that made me so happy and with which I have so many good memories. It gives me the opportunity to travel back to Iowa without ever leaving my seat or booking a ticket. Brian’s also done some minor marketing, sending postcards to some of his fans and to the places which he has spotlighted, letting us know about the site.

Second, and perhaps most importantly, it shows an initiative to not only think up a project but actually follow through on it. How many times have we all thought about how great it would be if we did _____ or we should do _____. It’s quite exciting to see someone do this on their own accord and know that they’re not only doing a cool project for himself and his friends, but also for the [digital] historical record.

I hope as more people dive into the digital world that more projects like this pop up. While state and local tourism boards can pour money into projects, I find that the personal approach to documenting what is cool about where they live or what they love is more real and authentic. I’m more inspired to print out a page from someone’s blog than I am to hop onto the state or local tourism website.

It’s also inspiring me to get on with getting on about my own [and much, much smaller] project. But while I continue to procrastinate on that, I’ll spend a few more hours in my virtual road trip. If nothing else, I’m building a repository of great places to set future stories or in which stories I read may themselves be set.