12/10/08
12/8/08
12/3/08
11/27/08
Shelf Check #300
It takes two to vilify 'Tango' -- book ban brouhahas picking up speed--Children's Book Examiner
11/25/08
11/21/08
11/20/08
Perfect Weeding Music: Your Mix CD Wanted
My library owns a wedding music CD with "PERFECT WEEDING MUSIC" on the spine (the publisher's typo, not a cataloguer's). When I mentioned this on Twitter, user surferrosa (Nanette Donohue) suggested a "perfect weeding"-themed CD swap for lib ppl and quickly put the below on swap-bot (see the post on swap-bot for more info):
Perfect Weeding Music: A Swap For Library Ppl
Swap Coordinator: user435 (contact)
Swap categories: Music
Number of people in swap: 1
Location: International
Last day to signup/drop: December 10, 2008
Date items must be sent by: December 31, 2008
Number of swap partners: 2
Description:
The idea for this swap came from a post to Twitter:
elloyd74 Typo on wedding music CD, I kid you not: "Perfect Weeding Music."
I thought...what an awesome topic for a CD swap for library people!
The deal: Create a mix CD featuring songs that you would consider "perfect weeding music." Songs that inspire folks to dig into their library's collection and get rid of the old, the outdated, the stuff that looks gross, smells bad, and is so dusty that you wonder if it's been touched in decades.
Each participant will send out two CDs (and each participant will receive two CDs in return). Items must be mailed by December 31, 2008.
Please feel free to publicize this swap on your blog, your Facebook page, your Twitter stream--the more the merrier!
If you have any questions, please e-mail nanette.donohue@gmail.com.
Happy swapping!
11/19/08
Carol Burnett as Librarian on The Lucy Show
Hadn't seen this in a while, and gives me a chance to try embedding a YouTube video at a specific start time:
11/10/08
11/7/08
11/6/08
Shelf Check #293
(Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" on YouTube if you're unfamiliar--or just in the mood)
11/4/08
11/3/08
11/2/08
10/31/08
10/29/08
10/16/08
10/10/08
10/9/08
Issue 1: a story about publishing? copyright? one's good name?
--just want to point to a fascinating publishing story non-poets might not read about elsewhere. Editors Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter [I don't know them or know if those names are real, but assume they are] have just announced and e-published Issue 1, an almost 4,000-page journal of poetry, available as a downloadable .pdf. It includes "new work" by almost 4,000 poets, none of whom submitted any work, were contacted about the journal, or agreed to have their work in the journal. It includes work "by" me, work "by" my partner, work "by" Emily Dickinson. The poems aren't by the poets they're attributed to; they aren't even mash-ups or parodies of the work of those poets. They were created algorithmically with Erika, a, for lack of a better term, "poem machine." A poem in Issue 1 has no relation whatsoever to the poet who "wrote" it--or didn't until now.
I personally think Issue 1 is a scream--hey, it's the only poem I've published in 2008; damn right it goes on the cv and on the grant applications--but many "contributors" are, perhaps understandably, upset (like, lawsuit-threatening upset). Wait--I just wrote that "the poems aren't by the poets they're attributed to." But--are they? Who's to say that the poets "Emily Lloyd," "Teresa Ballard," "K. Silem Mohammad," and "Emily Dickinson" published in Issue 1 are me, my partner, this K. Silem Mohammad, and the first Emily Dickinson that comes to mind when one thinks of poetry? Like Erika, "Emily Lloyd" is a made-up poet., is she not? I'm not fond of her work, but I certainly don't question her right to write and publish.
Some interesting posts and discussions have been sparked by the publication of Issue 1, among them:
"How to Make a Poet Cry on the Interweb Using Search Technologies" (Jack Morgan at the seeqpod blog)
Ron Silliman's post (121 comments strong so far)
K. Silem Mohammad's post
post at Harriet, the Poetry Foundation's blog
Issue 1's page at Goodreads (11 reviews so far)
10/6/08
10/1/08
Shelf Check #280
Judge Orders Woman to Return Two Library Books or Go To Jail (BoingBoing)
City Won't Seek Jail for It's Perfectly Normal Protester (ALA)
"Imperfectly Abnormal": initial letter written by JoAn Karkos to her local newspaper, the Sun Journal
Ten Most Challenged Books of 2007 (ALA)
9/27/08
Shelf Check #279
Sarah Palin, Librarians, and the Wasilla Library Book Banning Controversy
(continually updated, from Library Journal)
Read other Shelf Check strips tagged "banned books"
9/26/08
9/24/08
9/23/08
9/22/08
Shelf Check #273
The Transparent Library: When Worlds Collide
--Michael Casey & Michael Stephens, LJ 9/15/08
9/20/08
9/18/08
9/16/08
9/12/08
Shelf Check #268
![\Shelf Check 268\](http://www.toondoo.com//public/p/o/e/poesygalore/toons/cool-cartoon-354615.png "\Shelf Check 268\")
Note: why at 80? "Sendak said that the idea of a gay man writing children books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s." I think he's right [might add 40s and 50s], and don't think this cartoon is all that funny. But when my reaction to the story was "Let the wild rumpus begin!", my partner said, "You have to put that in a strip," so here it is.
9/11/08
9/9/08
Shelf Check #266
(2-part; forgive the break)
Note: While I don't and won't block comments, I'm not too interested in getting into a comment war over what may or may not have happened. I've read many articles/fact-checking sites, etc., and this is what *I* (and Jan) have come to believe happened between Sarah Palin and Wasilla library director Mary Ellen [Emmons] Baker. I put in the "apparently" because this info is based on what Anne Kilkenny has stated, not something I saw with my own eyes. I will say that I think it is wrong-minded and silly to say there's no issue here because "no books were banned." I don't even really think the story is about banned books (nor have I used my "bannedbooks" tag on this strip), and it's a shame discussion is getting mired in faux banned-book lists, etc. I think the story is about power and control. Banned books fall under that banner--the desire to have control over what is made available to the public. But this attitude seems to me to be just as (or even more) dangerous brought into institutions other than libraries, and I do not expect that Palin did stop or will stop, if elected, at libraries. For reference: link to Kilkenny letter; link to "Palin: Library censorship inquiries 'Rhetorical', an article that first ran in the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman on 12/18/96.
9/8/08
9/7/08
9/6/08
9/3/08
9/2/08
8/28/08
Shelf Check #258
Lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin dies at 87 (San Francisco Chronicle)
Lesbian pioneers wed at San Francisco City Hall (6/17/07, CNN)
(Below photos from the Chronicle. Del on right in first, on left in second. What a beautiful woman. My heart is heavy.)
