Haiku you do?

silence, isolation
fragile eggshell edge away
snow squall brews like tea

The snow! The Snow!

. . . (Despite the tags for this post, that is a real

picture of the falling snow in the parking lot.)

This just struck me as funny

While searching for a list of Large Print magazines, I bumped into a resource that had this notation: "Magazines in Special Media is a descriptive listing of periodicals available to blind and physically handicapped persons throughout the country in these formats:

audiocassette
digital audio
digital braille
digital text
large print
press braille "

I clicked down to the list of digital braille (mostly because it was before the large print list and caught my eye). As I was scanning titles on my way down to the Large Print list, I stumbled over one that made me laugh for a couple of reasons:

Playboy: Entertainment for Men
PBY1
monthly
digital braille, press braille

I know. I'm juvenile.
That's all.

May I help you? Pretty Please?

Geoffrey House, M.D., drug abusing television show character, update of Sherlock Holmes, and Uber-diagnostic magician says, "People lie." When he's trying to help them and needs information relating to the personal world of their medical history, relevant actions and symptoms he doesn't always (usually?) believe them for that reason.

When patrons come in certain that such and such an item isn't on the shelf where it claims to be, I will look up the item record to see when the item last moved. If it was recently enough that we should still have it in the collection, I'll ask if I may go check the shelf and see if it was misshelved. (Because they just told me it wasn't there, and why do I doubt them!)

Another variation on the theme happened when a patron came in and told me that we don't have a book she used to come in and use. "Why can't you buy a real book that people use instead of all the novels that aren't real. I don't see why my tax dollars are going to buy stupid novels when the book I need isn't here." The book in question was Court Rules. She wanted me to get the web address for Court Rules so that she could find the information she wanted. (And didn't I know that if everything went to the Internet, we wouldn't need libraries any more because who needs to pay for a nice building if everything is online?)

Well, I gave the patron the web address and she took it out, reminding me that at this rate it wouldn't be long before we don't need libraries any more, think about it!

I decided to look on the catalog, just for my own edification. WE HAVE THE BOOK!!! I expected the larger branch might have it and the patron didn't want to go there, and as it is reference it wouldn't want to come here, but we actually have the book! If only I had looked anyway. If only she had asked if we had it instead of rebuking me for not having the book, I could have found it. And of course, she was gone from the building and gone from the parking lot when I checked out there, just in case.

Like House says: People lie.

Dewey or Don't 'ee?: The Promised Longer Post

I have mixed feelings about the Dewey Decimal System. I think it’s okay as a cataloging system. I don’t feel cranky nor apologetic about its biases, but I recognize they exist. I don’t have it memorized, nor do I feel the need to do so. My theoretical joy at the exactness of an item’s Dewey number extending six or seven or eight decimals places to the right is tempered by the difficulty of having to visually sort through all those numerals at the shelf.

In spite of that, just from the frequency of wandering down to the stacks to pick up a book, there are some numbers that stick in my head. But even there, my mental labels are not necessarily the real Dewey labels:

004, 005—computer books, PCs and some software [official Dewey, Data processing & computer science, 005 Computer programming, programs & data](The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is a general knowledge organization tool that is continuously revised to keep pace with knowledge. The system was conceived by Melvil Dewey in 1873 and first published in 1876. The DDC is published by OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. OCLC owns all
copyright rights in the Dewey Decimal Classification, and licenses the system for a
variety of uses.)
200, 220, 290-99—religion (primarily Christian), Bible, Comparative religion [Religion, Bible, Other religions]

364.something—True crime [Criminology]
398.2—folk and fairy tales [Folklore]

423—Dictionaries [English dictionaries]
428—Learning English [English standard usage]
438—Learning German [German standard usage]
448—Learning French [French standard usage]
458—Learning Italian [Italian standard usage]
468—Learning Spanish [Spanish standard usage]

500s—Science [Science]

635—gardening [Garden crops]
635.9333—Roses [Roses]

636.7—Dogs [Animal Husbandry, Dogs]
636.8—Cats [Animal Husbandry, Cats]
641--Cooking [Food and Drink]
658—Management [General Management]

700—Arts [The Arts]
759—Historical artists [(Arts) Historical, geographic & persons treatment]

800--Various Literature, poetry, plays [Literature]

912--Atlases [Atlases, maps, charts & plans]
914-19--Travel [Geography and Travel, specific locations]

920--Biographies of groups [Biography, genealogy & insignia]
921--Biographies of individuals [Optional number]

930--Ancient History [History of the Ancient World]
940--European History [History of Europe]
970--American History [History of North America]
980--Latin American History [History of South America]

Admittedly, a very incomplete knowledge in my head. But I can find the others.

A couple days ago, a patron came in and said, "I found this book in your catalog and wrote down the number, but I guess I didn't get enough of it, because when I went there, I couldn't find the book. It's about Caribbean culture." She showed me here paper: Caribbean 641.5

I went back to the catalog with her and started to type in "Caribbean Cookery."

"No," she said, I don't want a Caribbean cookbook. I did a keyword search for Caribbean and about seven thousand titles showed up and I was going through them. At about page four I found one that caught my eye. It was about Caribbean culture."

"But 641 would be a cookbook...," I said.

"No, it wasn't a cookbook. I just searched on Caribbean."

"Okay, well, I'll try this." Then I keyword searched Caribbean and limited it to just books we own in the building. Seventy-nine titles claimed to be in the list.

"Oh, that's a lot better than seven thousand," she said. "I can find it from here."

So I went back to the desk.

Ten minutes later:

"It was a cookbook after all. But it had pictures and talked about the culture. Thank you," she said.


Even when I know what I know,
I can let it go
If a patron tells me so.

I have a longer post, but first, this Quiz result!

Thanks to a colleague for the quiz location. I parodied the cover from a book on Amazon.

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Re reading the Greats, and not.

Nearly everyone has something they learned or thought wrong as a child that they later discovered was mistaken. One of the things I had mistaken included the idea that boys and girls had different left and right arms. (When my mom was teaching me left from right, she'd be facing me, and we'd have opposite right arms and left arms. She never realized I didn't get it. Imagine my surprise when I got to 1st grade and saw while saying "The Pledge" that the girls placed their same hand over their hearts as I did mine.

The teacher explained when I asked her that every one's right and left are the same.)

Another idea I had wrong was the belief that one could only read a book once. Because then you'd read it. Other things were like that--if you thought didn't like a vegetable or some food, you'd have to try it, but once you tried it, you didn't have to eat it again. Or movies: once you'd seen a movie, then you'd seen it. You could remember it, talk about enjoying it, but you didn't go back. (Although one could play songs over and over and over again, which I did--which nearly drove my father to violence...)

One summer when I was reading through books like a paper shredder. Not that I tore or shredded them really, but I was just zooming through the pages and moving on. I played the same album while I read a book, and then I'd change the music when the book was over. I didn't really think much about it until I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I enjoyed that book so much that it colored the album I was listening to. To this day, that music makes me think of reading Tom Sawyer. And when I was finished, I completely stopped and breathed a sigh: I had finished Tom Sawyer, and it was great and I could never read it again, because I had read it now.

There were so many things to see and to read (and still are, for all that) that I didn't even realize until years later that one could see a movie a second time or more if it was really good, and one could read a book a second or third time or more. What fun! What a surprise for me!

Since that discovery, I've read a number of books more than once, and a couple books as regularly as annually or bi-annually. But I've never re-read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I know I could. I've known I could for many years now. But that first reading was so perfect, so intensely sweet and irreproducible that if I did re-read the book, like a river, it wouldn't be the same book any more. Although concerning books I had been mistaken about not being able to read more than once, this one experience of reading I'm saving as the perfect one.