Cat in the morning, a new role model

Hopefully, you've already seen this. If not, here is a really charming illustration of how cat owners all over the world wake up in the morning. And many thanks to Karen Swanson for sharing this with me!

I know - cute, but what has it got to do with libraries, right? Well, librarians, and perhaps especially academic ones, are not unlike a cat in the morning. We want things. We want to integrate library instruction into our university's curricula so that our graduating students really are information literate, we want to expand our services, get funding for new programs and databases, collaborate with our colleagues in other departments, or we just want to remind the communities we serve that we exist, that we can help, that we are valuable.

But with one thing and another, it can be all too easy to stop meowing sometimes. And while I'd never openly advocate for the baseball bat approach (every analogy breaks down at some point), I'd like to think that I could learn from my own cat's approach to mornings, and become a bit more persistent and persuasive. Harriet always gets her breakfast, after all.

History of LOLCats

The fact that there are some library uses for LOLCats is my excuse for posting this here. Enjoy!

Have you read a banned book today?

In addition to Read What You Want Week, I am also celebrating Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week runs from September 29 to October 6, and is near and dear to the heart of many a librarian. I should at this point speak eloquently and passionately to the importance of intellectual freedom, but others have covered this topic better than I can. Instead, I present to you the lighter side of book banning, brought to you from The Onion:

Nation's Teens Disappointed by Banned Books

If you want a more serious take on book banning, I recommend the following
ALA Banned Books Week - a feast of banned books information and ideas.
The Forbidden Library - a long list of banned and challenged books.
And Tango Makes Three - This was the most challenged book of 2006.

Read What You Want Week

I am making up "Read What You Want Week" to help keep myself sane and happy. With work, and the reading that I do for work, I sometimes feel guilty about 'frivolous' reading (defined loosely as anything with a plot not involving librarians) . So I'm reading what I want this week - YA and children's literature, fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, non-work-related blogs - the Pullman libraries and the web are my oysters. Though since I'm reading what I want, perhaps I'll say that the libraries are my dark chocolate truffles, instead.

While working with classes or with students at the reference desk, I find myself talking quite a lot about finding quality information and taking time to evaluate what's good and worthwhile and what isn't. So this essay serves as a refreshing reminder to me that another duty of someone who loves books is to encourage people to read anything they want.

So, I present to you Peter Dickinson's In Defense of Rubbish.

Ahoy, avast, and shiver me timbers

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. If you, like me, wish there were more appropriate times to say things like "Arrrr!" and "Avast, me hearties," now is your chance to release your inner pirate.

If you would like some help talking like a pirate, you can try this handy guide from Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket on YouTube. There's also a longer video tutorial, How to Talk Like a Pirate, by Graham Stark and Paul Saunders.

What does a librarian pirate sound like? In my case, it sounds something like this:

• "Ahoy! I see ye be lookin' downcast searchin' for articles. Have ye tried ProQuest?"
• "Avast, me hearties! This be how ye find databases t'use for yer research."
• "Ye be looking fer microfilm? Arrrr! It be in that direction."

Now, if ye be lookin' for some pirate literature, here be some books ye can read online that won't cost ye a single piece of eight, thanks t' Project Gutenberg.

• Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates; fiction, fact & fancy concerning the buccaneers & marooners of the Spanish main
• The Pirates of Malabar, and an Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago
• The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers
• Captain Scraggs: or, The Green-Pea Pirates
  

What if your library looked like this?

This is the winning design for the soon-to-be built National Library in Prague. According to this Building Design article, the building is to be a symbol of democracy in the Czech Republic, and also to serve as a sign that modern architecture is happening in Eastern Europe, too. I find it oddly adorable, in a polka-dotted slug type of way, but if I lived in Prague, which is architecturally rich and bears the impressive nickname, "Golden City of Spires," I might be worried.

More images can be found here.

Check out a laptop!

Working at the Holland & Terrell Library is great, but right now I'm extremely jealous of the Owen Science Library because they've started something fabulous. Have you ever been in a library and wished that you had a laptop to work on? Wouldn't it be great if a laptop was something you could check out? Well, now you can. The Owen Science Library has six laptops available to check out for in-building use.

The laptops come stacked with all kinds of goodies. Here is a list of what's on the laptops (from the laptop FAQ page): Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, selected IM packages, SciFinderScholar, and Pharos (to enable printing at the Owen Library’s public printers).

They've done a great job putting together useful information about the pilot project (including maps of wireless access points in the building), which you can find here: http://wiki.wsu.edu/wsuwiki/Owen_laptop_pilot