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Shelves and Kindles hold books; librarians choose and suggest.\u00a0 Life is good.\u00a0 [Right, Ace?]<\/p><\/div>\r\n
Do you love murder mysteries?<\/strong>\u00a0 Liking them is okay, but loving them is better.\u00a0 Do you think about search strategies and the nature and quality of information?\u00a0 <\/span>Examples; A Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. <\/b>\u00a0Classic.\u00a0 <\/span>The Li Du Trilogy by Elsa Hart.<\/b>\u00a0 Imperial Librarian in 18thC., southwestern China.\u00a0 <\/span>Joe Pickett series by C.J. Box.<\/b>\u00a0 Wyoming Game Warden, Joe,\u00a0 and Town Librarian and wife, Marybeth team up to search. <\/span><\/p>\r\n Do you wonder what ‘helps’ library users use,<\/strong> e.g. collections, connections, reference works, librarians, to find and get what they need?\u00a0 Do you think autodidacts should be library users? Do you think we should all be autodidacts?\u00a0 Examples;\u00a0 \u2018<\/span>Elmore\u2019s Legs’ by Alec Wilkerson<\/b> is a<\/span>\u00a0profile of Gregg Sutter, the researcher<\/a> for Elmore Leonard, the mystery writer, emphasis on \u2018writer.\u2019\u00a0 <\/span>The Unruly Pleasures of the Mid-Manhattan Library by Ada Calhoun<\/b> is an article \/ valentine to the many nearby libraries and librarians that she uses<\/a> and loves.\u00a0 <\/span>Believing is Seeing by Errol Morris, [esp. Chapter on Crimean War photos]<\/b> reports his<\/span> investigations into the hidden truths behind a series of documentary photographs,… [then]\u00a0 into the nature of truth in photography.\u00a0 <\/span>The Road to Ubar by Nicholas Clapp<\/b> is a<\/span> great search in and out of libraries to find the lost city of <\/span>Ubar in Southern Arabia.\u00a0 <\/span>Clear Pond, The Reconstruction of\u00a0 Life by Roger Mitchell <\/b>is \u2018<\/span>an archeological investigation\u2019 into the life and times of one Israel Johnson, an early 19th-century millwright and settler of the Adirondacks.\u2019\u00a0 Maybe only a librarian could love this.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Do you wonder what goes on in a library?\u00a0<\/strong> Examples;\u00a0 <\/span>The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles<\/b> is based on the true story of the heroic librarians at the American Library in Paris during World War II.\u00a0 <\/span>What You Are Looking For Is In The Library\u00a0 by Michiko Ayoama<\/b> \u00a0A \u2018humongous, enigmatic Librarian\u2019 gives each of five users a reading list with one \u2018outlandish\u2019 book. [Goodreads<\/strong>.]\u00a0 The title was too good to ignore.\u00a0 Even though the librarian sounds more like a \u2018philosophical counselor\u2019’<\/a> [new to me and interesting], they both try to \u2018find the right book at the right time\u2019, so I included it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Do you wonder what people choose to read and why?<\/strong> Do you surreptitiously check titles being read by others at lunch or on the bus or on shelves of disarray?<\/span> Examples;\u00a0 <\/span>So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson<\/b>.\u00a0 So many reasons, too.\u00a0 <\/span>\u2018By the Book\u2019 is a NYT weekly interview with an author<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/b>Useful, fun-to-read, hard-to-find info, e.g. \u2018What books are on your nightstand?\u2019 and \u2018What are you going to read next?\u2019 <\/span>Carlos Lozada\u2019s NYT column, \u2018I Read These Books So That You Don\u2019t Have To\u2019<\/b> is a great primer on ways of reading and a bibliography<\/a> of what and why he reads what he does. If only information junkies think good newspapers\u00a0 are must reads, then consider librarians fellow devourers, who re ready for the day’s questions. The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams<\/strong> is in my ‘to read’ pile and looks promising.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Schaumburg Township District Library<\/a> — early days, good times, aging well.\u00a0 [Painting by Norma Simone.\u00a0 Photo by Charlie.]<\/p><\/div>\r\n \u00a0Do you wonder where information comes from and\/or where it may be going<\/strong>? Information spreads or may be dormant, but it is never dead.\u00a0 Think spreading threads of thought that develop from creative searches of mass media, conventional publishing, scientific research, government documents, self publishing, social media, Internet storage, mergers, multiple formats, library connections, A.I., etc., and librarian search tools to help sort through it all.\u00a0 \u00a0Examples;\u00a0 <\/span>The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn by Philip J. Davis <\/b>does not mention<\/span> librarians, but should, as he notes that `not the truth, but the search for the truth; the process, the method, that is what matters’\u2019…\u00a0 <\/span>The Book Nobody Read: Chasing \u2018The Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus\u201d by Owen Gingrich<\/b> records finding some 600 Renaissance-era copies of \u201cDe Revolutionibus” all over the world, especially in eastern European libraries, noting how thoroughly the work was read in its time, and how word of its theories spread and evolved. <\/span>\u00a0Rolling Stone’s article, ‘Pizzagate, Anatomy of a Scandal’<\/strong>, is an early example of social media threads.\u00a0<\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n \u00a0Do you read the bibliography, [community of contributors] and maybe the notes [often spicy asides], with a peek at the index [sometimes wickedly written entries], before you read the book?<\/strong> \u00a0<\/span>Citing sources matters<\/strong>, especially with plagiarism increasingly in the news, misinformation everywhere and A.I. muddying even more these already murky waters.\u00a0 The Center for an Informed Public<\/a>, University of Washington, CIP, <\/strong><\/span>researches the way false, unverified and misleading information plays out in a variety of arenas. Its analyses of elections and the pandemic, in particular, have unleashed conservative furor<\/a>. It is just plain exciting and a godsend for librarians in the midst of change and a time of trouble.<\/p>\r\n Examples of citing sources;\u00a0 <\/span>A Pilgrimage to Eternity; from Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith by Timothy Egan. <\/b>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0a classic bibliography from \u2018a meticulous researcher and a skilled storyteller [WaPo<\/strong>].\u00a0 It reminds me of the liberal arts days that I loved. His newest book, <\/span>A Fever In the Heartland by Timothy Egan<\/b> is good, maybe even important to read, and has a many-paged, equally fine, if different section on sources.\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Letters to an American by Heather Cox Richardson<\/b> is a daily current events rundown [on Substack<\/strong>] with meticulously cited tech-savvy sources in the text and in endnotes,\u00a0 which is a\u00a0 major trust-builder.\u00a0 <\/span>Where\u2019d You Go, Bernadette? By Maria Semple<\/b> follows a teenager\u2019s search for information to help find her mother.\u00a0 The sources she finds and chooses to use propel the plot.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you have to be a librarian to notice this, but it might help, and I loved the book.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>S<\/span>ome Glad Morning, Poems By Babara Crooker<\/b> includes a page of \u2018NOTES\u2019, which I read as a page of \u2018INFLUENCES\u2019, a kind of recognition that we all stand on the shoulders of others.\u00a0 Two examples of her entries; <\/span>\u00a0\u201cI Can\u2019t Write a Poem About McDonald\u2019s\u201d is after a poem by Ron Wallace<\/b>, and<\/span>\u00a0 \u201cUseful\u201d is after a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye.<\/b>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\r\n Enough! you cry, if you’re still with me.\u00a0 Rest assured, there’s more to come.\u00a0 Groan.<\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GREAT NEWS! If you are among the many — and they are legions — thinking about becoming a librarian,\u00a0 \u00a0but you are still unsure, then, from this librarian to you,\u00a0 have fun with these food-for-thought, self-aware questions and books\u00a0 to … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/roseledgebooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PXL_20240221_021910764-420x315.jpg\")