When I was in grade nine, one of the big projects for my art class was to find a painting — I think it had to be by one of the Group of Seven — and reproduce it with a graph scale. I chose Northern Lights, by Tom Thompson (below) which I found in an art book from the public library.

And time went by, and I eventually finished the project (pencil crayon on sketch paper, slightly skewed) and handed it in, and that was that. Except, and there’s always an “except”, it had taken longer than I projected time allotment to finish the darn thing, and my library book — my big, expensive-looking library book — was now overdue.

And it was overdue, and then very overdue, and then crazy overdue. And it wouldn’t have been so bad if I had been able to get it back to the library within the first week or two of it being past time. The fine would have been reasonable, but more to the point, the shame would be somewhat mitigated by the fact of its being so barely overdue. I mean, everyone is a few days late with a library book sometimes, right?

But it didn’t work that way. I didn’t get it back within a reasonable amount of time, and the phone calls from the library kept coming, and the book lay on my bedroom floor thinking nasty thoughts at me. After a time the thought of actually bringing the book back just made me writhe. What would they think of me, Book Thief, who had it out for so many extra months? How big would my fine be? Would the librarian glare? Would they restrict my card? I was mortified that I still had this book, but I was even more mortified at the thought of returning it.

(I did eventually return in; the fine was about $14 and the librarian was very nice. And it all would have turned out all right in the end, except for the fact that forgetting to bring library books is not, shall we say, a rare occurrence for me.)

Fast-forward nine years, and my copy of War and Peace is currently overdue. I know it’s overdue. It’s sitting right there on my desk, waiting patiently to be returned, should I ever get my butt in gear to actually do so. I do plan on returning it, but I feel I must at least make my case for why it’s overdue: I simply had no idea of the due date.

I realize that this is a bit of a cop-out. I am a grown woman. I am able to look up due dates online. I know how to look at a calendar and figure out what day it is. And yet I can’t keep a date in my head — and especially not for this particular loan, which was quite a bit longer than usual, perhaps because War and Peace is a giant chunkster of a book, or perhaps because they figured nobody else would want it in the meantime. I don’t know. So the first indication I had that a deadline was near or missed was that annoying computer voice on the telephone telling me that I blew it again.

What is the deal?

When I was in university, the library would automatically email you two days before an item became due. This is a fantastic system, my friends. Even if you can’t keep your loans straight, it can, and two days is more than enough warning for a return or renewal.

Is there a reason that the public library can’t do this? They certainly jump on it the moment you cross the line to overdue territory. If they can phone me then, why not two days before? Why can’t I attach an email address to my library card, so that I can be sent the same sort of message in text form? Is the technology not there? Are they just trying to get more fine money? Or does it not matter, because everyone else on the planet is so much more diligent about these things?

Tell me. Does anybody”s public library offer this kind of service? Librarians, have you any yeas or nays? I want to know!*

*so I can wave it in my own library’s face, obviously.

Post from: She Reads Books

Things I Hate About Libraries

Worthy points, however i have in the last 5 years begun buying new books in order to support the authors, they don’t see a penny off of secondhand sales, and i want them to stay in the business of writing! think of it as voting with your dollars, or tipping a musician.

Another chimed in,

the one great tragedy of the used book is that the author will never receive recompense for it. Sure, the book was bought once, but to never buy a new book? I hope you write your favorite authors so they at least know they’re being read.

Since my answer to both was rather incoherent at the time, let me now explain why I think it’s also important to not support authors directly. (Not that it’s a bad thing to do — but it’s not the only thing to do. This post probably should have been titled something like Why It’s Important that Non-Author-Supporting Literary Outlets Exist, but that’s a little unwieldy. You’ll just have to deal with it.)

There are two main literary establishments that don’t really support authors directly: libraries and used bookstores. Both of these are essential in a literate culture, even though they don’t pay royalties. Why? I’ll tell you:

Libraries and used bookstores keep reading accessible. Earlier in the spring I had a $50 gift card to spend at a big-box bookstore. That $50 only bought three new novels, and I still had to pony up some change to cover the tax. It’s not so bad, really — I had fifty bucks, I got to blow it on books, and all was well. But what if I only had, say, $10? You can’t even buy a mass market paperback with that these days: most of the ones I see are $10.99 or $11.99, plus tax. Having literary havens established where books are cheap (used bookstores) and/or free (libraries) ensures that those who can’t afford to purchase many/any new books can keep reading.

Used bookstores support the local economy. (Well, locally-owned ones do, anyway.) I like going to the handful of used bookstores in walking distance and knowing that I’m spending money in my own community. When I buy books in a local shop, I’m supporting my neighbours as well as my reading habits.

Libraries and used bookstores  are essential in fostering a literate/literary society. This definitely touches on the whole accessibility thing again; books should not be a privilege of the educated or moneyed elite. But it’s more than that: used bookstores and libraries, by making books accessible, are better able to foster literacy than the big all-new chain stores.

Used bookstores and libraries let to try out new authors risk-free. Sometimes we all want to try a new author or series, but aren’t sure if the books will be good enough to justify new-book prices. A used bookstore or a library lets readers try out new authors with very little financial risk or outlay — but doesn’t obligate them to continue to buy that author’s books at discounted prices. All of us have a few authors whose books we love so much that we will buy anything they ever write, and probably in hardback to boot. Being able to widely sample authors at a low cost will allow more authors to become those super favourites — perhaps authors whose books wouldn’t otherwise get picked up in a big box bookstore.

Libraries and used bookstores make good use of resources. Remember the three Rs? There’s nothing that libraries do better than reuse books.

Used bookstores and libraries support authors in ways other than with royalties. Both establishments help to maintain a generally literate culture, and more readers means more books bought and read at all levels of the literary food chain. Libraries and used bookstores encourage readers to try new authors whenever they can. They also provide venues for readings, signings, and other aspects of the book promitional machine.

Should you buy new books if you can? Absolutely. But if you can’t, don’t get your knickers in a knot over it. Libraries and used bookstores may not pay royalties, but they support a culture of literacy — and, indirectly, authors — in several very important ways.

Post from: She Reads Books

Don’t Support Authors

Now, when I was a wee bairn in grade nine, I informed her in no uncertain terms that the YA collection she had was… inadequate. I believe my exact words were “after a while, you realise that all YA books are the same”, and I soon moved on to the science fiction and classics sections. In the intervening years, however, I’ve come to realise that there’s lots of really, really good young adult fiction out there, whatever my earlier impressions might have been. And after avoiding said genre like the plague, I am now coming around and highly enjoying most of what I’ve read.

So here’s the thing: I’ve promised her a list of books that she should buy for the library before she goes — a retirement bequeathal, if you will. I want to put together a list of some really kick-butt YA (in any genre), but I need some help.

Here’s the list I’ve come up with off the top of my head, in no particular order:

• An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)
• Looking for Alaska (John Green)
• Paper Towns (John Green)
• The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
• The Book of Lost Things (John Connolly)
• Zoe’s Tale (John Scalzi)
• The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud)
• The Golem’s Eye (Jonathan Stroud)
• Ptolemy’s Gate (Jonathan Stroud)
• The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)
• The Bromeliad (Terry Pratchett)
• When We Were Romans (Matthew Kneale)

What am I missing? I’m not terribly well-read in terms of YA, and so I will eagerly add your suggestions to the list — leave them in the comments for me, or contact me more directly. I’m going to try to send it to her by the end of the week.

(Note: you’re of course free to suggest other types of books than straight YA — but that’s where I want to concentrate, since I remember the YA collection being particularly uninspiring.)

What’s the best YA being written right now?

Post from: She Reads Books

Pimp my High School Library

National Library Week, eh? Well, it’s not coming up anytime soon in my part of the world — our library week is in October.

I was going to begin this post with a small admission:

Here’s a confession: I almost never use my public library. I think I’ve used the public library system about five or six times in the last, I dunno, six or seven or eight years.

… but then I went to the library yesterday, which throws off the whole count.  Talk about inconsistent, self.

I went to the public library quite often as a small child, and as a middle-schooler, and sort of fell off after that. Once I got to highschool, I found that the school library could adequately take care of all my book needs (and indeed, I once earned the school’s “Avid Reader” award because someone noticed how often I was checking books out).  And once I got to university, well, sheesh. Our library system is the fouth-largest in North America* and I have not once been unable to get a book I needed from the school system. So really, the public library system didn’t enter my mind for years. I got all my books from the university libraries, and did most of my studying there too.

* Actual numbers, from Wikipedia: The collections include more than 10 million bound volumes, 5.4 million microfilms, 70,000 serial titles and 1 million maps, films, graphics and sound recordings. Yup… that’s a lot of books.

Then back in December, I had a harrowing exam experience of which the end result was that I ended up spending several hours at a public library close to campus. And it was all delight, and I remembered, hey, I used to love the public library. And maybe I can again (actually, it would be an expedient thing, since I am graduating this term).

So to answer the question of how often I use the library, I would have to say: not very. Not very often, but slowly ramping up. Right now I use it most as study space, when I can’t be productive at home. And when I eventually lose my borrowing privileges at school (assuming that I don’t fork out for an alumni card, which, probably, I won’t) I’m sure that I’ll start borrowing more/at all as well.

Did your library habits change as you went through school?

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Library Week

Except.

I got to the exam centre well ahead of time, and sat down to review some notes and wait around until we could begin. After a while I realized that I hadn’t spotted any of my classmates the whole time. Kind of unusual, but it was a big place, and so I didn’t think too much of it.

Except.

Finally it’s two o’clock, and we can go into the exam room. I go in — but where is ENG331? Nowhere in sight; the room is rapidly filling with engineers. I go out. Maybe I’m in the wrong room. Was it 200, or 320? I go up to the next floor, now conscious that I’m bordering on not-on-time. Room 320 is filled with a geography class. 300 and 310 are full on history majors, 330 is religion. No English anywhere.

I go back down to the main lobby. Is it room 100? No: that’s another engineering class. I run out of the building: can I spot a payphone? I can’t. I go back up to the 300s and try again — no dice. Back outdoors, and I see a payphone two blocks down. I sprint, phone home, and get my brother to check my exam schedule. Firefox loads and loads and loads. Finally I get confirmation: room 320. Room 320! I run back to the exam centre.

It’s now ten past two, at least. I’m late, but I can still get in. Back to room 320 — but it’s still full of geographers. I ask the supervising prof if he knows where my exam is. He doesn’t, but suggests I try 310. I am referred to 310′s supervising TA, who has a full exam schedule. He finds ENG331:  room 320.

Tomorrow.

Of course it is.

But it didn’t turn out too badly, for all that (true, it’s the stuff of bad pre-exam dreams, but I found out that I had the wrong day before my exam took place, rather than after — a blessing, that). After stumbling out of 310 and taking a few minutes to get my breathing back under control and not cry, I took myself to a nearby library, one to which I’d never been.

My friends, the library was lovely! Head and shoulders above my local library, to be sure, and close enough to campus that I can probably frequent it fairly easily. There’s a huge science fiction & fantasy collection there, as well as a more than respectable children’s lit section, and it’s all air and light. I picked up a copy of Scalzi’s Old Man’s War, which also is delighful.

But I’m not reading it right now. I have an exam tomorrow, you know.

Post from: She Reads Books

Just Call Me Numbskull

Post from: She Reads Books

Deadly Sins of Bookdoom

I have a number of early library memories, although I’d be pretty hard-pressed to figure out which one was actually the earliest. We used to go to the kids’ program quite a lot during the summers when I was small, and so most of my early memories centre around that. Here are some images that come to mind:

1) Sitting in a big circle, singing the “Keep Moving!” song with the children’s librarian (you know the one: One finger, one thumb, one arm, one leg, a nod of the head, a sound that goes phbbbth, stand up, sit down, keep moving…)

2) Going to the county library when we visited my grandparents in Florida, and checking out all of the Bernstein Bears books. And then finishing perhaps three of them — even at seven, my eyes were bigger than my, um, literary stomach. If you’ll accept that image.

3) Running up and down the long ramp to get to the children’s section.

4) Going home from the library and being caught in a huge rain storm. We went to the local community school and my mother banged on doors until a custodian came and gave us some garbage bags to wear the rest of the way home.

5) Winning a giant, bus-shelter sized poster for the Matilda movie in some sort of draw — it stood in the back of the closet for years before we finally got rid of it.

Most of all, I remember the way that the library — particularly the children’s section — used to look. Our local library recently underwent extensive renovations, and the children’s area that I remember has been more or less obliterated. And the new look is nice, I suppose … but it’s not what I grew up with, and doesn’t really stand the nostalgia test.

Ho hum.

Post from: She Reads Books

BTT: Libraries

You might be wondering what a music librarian does, actually. I guess this because I was asked that very question last Saturday night, driving with A on the way to see a play. Here is what I do, as a choral music librarian:

At the beginning of term, I find all of the repertoire our conductor wants us to sing. This may involve using music from our own library, purchasing new music, or borrowing or renting copies from other choirs. Once I have the music, each copy is given a unique number, as is each choristers. The copies are then matched, and a folder is assembled for each chorister, containing all of the pieces for the year.

While this assembling is going on, I am also on the lookout for music that is falling apart. Choral music can take quite a beating over the years, especially when it comes to smaller pieces (the bulk of our holdings, in fact) which are stapled rather than bound. If a copy is falling apart, I repair it using surgical tape. Regular tape will dry and become useless, and also cannot be removed without causing damage to the thing it’s trying to hold together. Surgical tape does not have these problems, and we order it in bulk. Sometimes a piece is beyond repair, and some creative re-numbering happens after I make the trip to the recycling bin.

Once the folders are finished, they are distributed to choristers. I keep track of who has paid their fee for the term, because choristers can’t keep their music between rehearsals until they have paid their music deposit for the year. Once a chorister has paid, he or she is allowed to keep the music — and I can stop carting it around.

Around this time of year, we also get requests from other choirs who wish to borrow some of our music. If we have the wanted piece, I make sure that no in-house groups need it, and negotiate for its safe lending and return.

During our season, after everything is distributed, I am responsible for making any repairs that become necessary. I also provide extra copies of the music to choristers who have forgotten their folders, pencils to those who have none, and such like. I also badger our conductor about setting the repertoire for next term, so that I have time to redo all of the above.

After our final (well, only) concert of each term, I collect all of the music that has been returned. That music is put in order, and the copies are checked against a master list of choristers and their numbers. Once a chorister has returned all of his music, he is able to have his music deposit refunded to him. If music is lost forever, I withhold the fee, do some more creative renumbering, and update the catalogue to reflect the new number of copies we own. I don’t purchase a replacement copy as, generally speaking, the music store makes you buy a minimum of five copies of any particular piece. After all of the music is collected, collated, and accounted for, it is re-shelved. This end-of-term process can take about five hours, all told, depending on how many pieces we sang.

Then it all begins again.

Also, I catalogue — in fact, this has been the bulk of my work as a music librarian since last summer. Our library had vastly outgrown its space, an incredibly small and very fire-hazardous room. Accordingly, it had to be moved to a better location, and so my friend L and I were hired to facilitate that. We boxed up the entire library, moved it between floors, and then began the job of cataloguing and shelving.

You have no idea how much work that was.

To put it in perspective, our library holds about 1,000 individual titles. The last time I ran a sum-check, those 1,000 pieces were made up of roughly 34,000 copies. When we started the job, we found that the catalogue hadn’t been updated in fifteen years — and the catalogue as it existed was handwritten on index cards.

Oh boy.

So, we went to it. The first half of the job was boxing everything up for the move, getting rid of any garbage or illegal photocopies that had found their way into the piles, badgering facilities to please please take away our empty boxes, bagging up archival material for removal to the university archives, and dragging piles of flattened cardboard boxes across campus because we had to find our own moving containers. The second half was the un-packing, and cataloguing, and sorting, and counting, and shelving, and re-shelving … and that took, by far, the longest amount of time. It’s still not done, in fact — although everything is done except for our small holdings, pieces of which we have ten copies or fewer. The job stopped when school began again, and now that I’m out for the summer, I’ll be finishing it off.

That’s what I was doing today — cataloguing, stamping, numbering, counting, ordering, and shelving — for about six hours. It’s tedious work, and it involves heavy lifting, and lots of standing because the library table is a weird height for the chair, and on days like today it involves screaming grade nines attending a workshop in the room right under me (the music library is housed in the loft of this room, and so it’s open on one side to what’s down below).

I love it.

There’s something eminently satisfying about a cataloguing job well done. When the music is in order, and in the box, and the box is in order … it’s just lovely. And, believe me, very satisfying.

Music librarianship: now you know.

Post from: She Reads Books

Music Librarianship

Instead, I am cataloguing, over at LibraryThing.

I love cataloguing.

It just appeals to me all over. I like putting things in order. I like comparing my library with those of others. I like organizing and tagging books, and hunting down their correct covers and edition information. I like seeing the number of books I’ve done go up on my profile. I like finding the books I share with only one other person on LibraryThing, and keeping track of other library-ish statistics. I like handling all of the books, and using ISBN numbers, and being the only person in the house who knows more or less where every book lives. I like looking at my Author Gallery.

Ijust plain enjoy it all.

It’s my goal to catalogue every single book that we own. That’s a lot of books; I’ve already done just over 1,400 and there are at least that many left to do. Probably closer to 2,000 (my best guess). We’re book people, you see.

And this has been enough of a break — back I go!

(As of publication, the number of catalogued books stands at 1,430. We’ll see how much further I can get by the end of the day).

Post from: She Reads Books

Sunday Salon: Happily Cataloguing

Here are some things that I think are important to the WBE:

• text (what the words say)
• font (how easy it is to read)
• the book’s physicality (size, weight, hard- or soft-cover, etc)
• illustrations (or lack thereof)
• pages (how they feel to the fingers)
• cover art (gorgeous, good, neutral, bad, or awful)
• indexes and extras (glossary, author biography, recommended reading, bibliography, and, especially for non-fiction, a good index)
• publication info (I write a lot of essays and therefore a lot of Works Cited pages — you’d be surprised at how many books don’t include information like the city of publication)
• where, when, how, and why the book was read

The biggest part of how much a book is liked has to do with its text. Stellar prose can overcome a lot of problems with the book itself, like bad/distracting illustrations, strange typesetting, or a poor index. If you think of a book as a person, then the text is the soul; the extra bits are just body.

Right now I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel, Red Rabbit, and the only thing on the back cover is a big ol’ picture of Tom Clancy. That drives me crazy. I don’t care how famous you are and how many people will buy the book just because you wrote it, the back cover still needs to have more on it than your face. The book survives in my esteem because the text — the soul — is good.

The body, however, is also important. I don’t like fiction to be illustrated, unless it’s something like a children’s book. I find it interferes with my conception of the characters, and distracts in a negative way. The distraction of the illustrations will have an impact on my impression of a book. So, too, the other factors mentioned.

Something I’ve been thinking a lot is the last bullet point: where, when, how, and why the book was read. Are you reading it because you’re bored? Because it’s on a required reading list? Because you’ve always wanted to read it? Because a friend gave it to you and so you feel as if you have to read it? Because it was the first thing you grabbed in the morning? These things matter. They will affect your reading experience.

Where are you reading? In bed? On the train? In the library? On the couch? On the john? At work? In the tub? Do you read by sunlight, lamp-light, or candlelight? Do you have a special reading corner?

When are you reading? Is it night or day? Are you reading for long periods at a time, or snatching the odd paragraph when you can? Do you have specific times set aside for reading? Do you read as soon as you get up, or right before you go to bed? These also make a difference.

How have you read this book? Quickly or slowly? Furtively or brazenly? Interestedly or indifferently? Analytically or absentmindedly? Angrily or joyfully?

Right now I am also reading Nabokov’s Lolita. I read it on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3:10 and 4:00 pm, in a small non-loaning library on campus. The room is almost exactly what I want in a library: cozy, with book-lined shelves built into the stone walls, large windows, leather couches and chairs, a fireplace, and near-complete silence. I sit either in one of the window chairs with my feet up on the ledge, or on a couch, most likely curled in the corner. Sometimes I nap a bit as well as read. When I come in, I retrieve Lolita from its accustomed spot on the shelf; when I go out, I leave it behind on a table or chair as requested by library staff (who, it seems, are universally opposed to the idea of patrons shelving material).

I’m sure that the setting and the time restriction will have an affect on how I read and process this book. It’s an utterly peaceful environment, perhaps the better for a not-always-peaceful book. My time with the book is limited to my hour-break between classes — it’s enough for a few chapters at a time, certainly, but days go by between readings and it will take me weeks to finish. Surely I will relate to the novel differently than if I read it all in one go, or even over a few days instead of a few weeks.

This all is part of why I am extremely dubious about eBooks and appliances like the Amazon Kindle and Sony Reader. Regardless of the legal issues as to whether or not you own the electronic texts you buy — click here to read more about that, it’s fascinating — I can’t comprehend the appeal of books read only as naked texts. Whatever their other merits, eBooks all look and feel the same. What about the inherent tactile experience of reading a book? Haven’t books always been about more than just the text they contain?

An electronic copy of a text is like a soul with no body. Around here, that’s what we would call a ghost.

Post from: She Reads Books

The Whole Book Experience