All Good Things Must End

Ok, so I have been gone for a while. I have been busy with non internet-y things, like family, vacation and holidays. But really, I love the internet and nothing can keep me away for long. The truth is I have been thinking. Thinking about this blog and that someone has been reporting my doings to others. Now, I don't do a lot that is report-worthy, but I would really rather not even worry about it.

So my thought is to start another blog somewhere else in blog land. If you are interested in continuing to follow me, shoot me an email or leave a comment and I will give you the new address when I get around to starting it. Probably in the next week or so.

It should be interesting, as we are having a re-org at SPL and I will be moving to a new branch. This new branch is very busy with lots of interesting things going on. A lot of other people will be moving too and things will be hopping for a little while. I will talk about those exciting issues, daily library life and about volunteering/mentoring stuff. Less about family and personal life--which I am sure bored everyone to tears anyway. It is hard to completely leave it out, so I won't try, but less with the life updates and more with the library and teen stuff.

Ok, I am off to cook a duck. TTYS

The September Project

Silver in San Francisco just reminded me about the September Project.

In 2004, we began the September Project to break the silence following September 11, and to invite all people into libraries to consider topics of patriotism, democracy, and citizenship. Initially, events focused on September 11 and largely took place on September 11. As the project evolved, events spread throughout the month of September and focused on issues of freedom and democracy.

This is the 5th year and The Seattle Public Library has participated all five years. I like what the the SPL website says:

The Seattle Public Library, a co-founder of The September Project, believes that public libraries - the largest, most accessible, and most democratic
institutions in the country - are the appropriate hosts for these events and a
natural venue to discuss these issues.

How will the library be participating? This says it better than I can:

"Seattle Public Library is hosting an exciting and provocative suite of events taking place in Central Library, Capitol Hill Branch Library, and Green Lake Branch Library. Events include a three-part, three-neighborhood discussion with Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer and their book The True Patriot; a film screening and discussion of The Corporal's Diary; a public talk by veteran British war correspondent Robert Fisk; and, in collaboration with Intiman Theatre, a dramatic reading from Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men."

Ah, a blog full of quotes. Guess I am not feeling loquacious today. But I am proud of my library!

The Seattle Bicyclist Saga Continues

Upon further investigation, it seems that the city agrees with me that more education is needed. I haven't found a timeline yet for when they will start implementing it. I am impressed that hey are covering all the avenues of education that I could think of, and have a few more that I didn't. The Seattle Bicycle Master Plan is readily available for perusal on the web, although it is interesting trying to find specific information. The headings help somewhat and the map is great, although it isn't easy to manipulate.

I found out about an article in the paper today from the MyBallard Blog about a biker that fell over the short wall on the ballard bridge and into traffic last year. He sustained terrible injuries, including the loss of an arm and some brain damage. He is suing the city.

The sad thing is that the article devolves into a distorted recounting of the Critical Mass incident last Friday. I don't really see any connection between the two stories, other than the fact that they both involve bicycles. Many of the statements in the article aren't followed up on, either. Not impressed with the reporting.

While I feel terribly sorry for the man, I don't think that he is going to win his suit. The city already has a plan to place a separate pedestrian and bike bridge to the west of the existing Ballard Bridge (not sure how that is going to work...). They can't go back in time and change how it was done originally. He had an accident and got hurt. We all take the risk, whether we are in our car, on a bike or walking.

Seattle isn't the only city having some biker/driver relations problems; Portland also had an altercation in early July. The "funny" thing about this incident was that the driver was an avid biker and lecturing a rider that had blown through a stop light when the rider assaulted him. And the rider was a city employee of 31 years! And drunk!

Finally Trying Feevy

I am trying out Feevy, which my internet-friend Silver uses on his blog. I thought it might liven things up a bit over. Instead of just links to other's blogs, it shows the most recently updated blogs and a blurb of what they are posting about.

The website itself doesn't tell you much about how it works, and I haven't been able to get it to upload real pictures instead of the head cut-outs, but otherwise it is fabulous and, luckily, easy to use.

Another Link-Worthy Blog

An aquaintance of mine is thick in her journey through secondary education and she is learning about all the things we want to know--green living, alternative sources of energy--and has started a blog. I quote:

I promise to bring you the latest in Alternative Energy technology as I learn it, as well as many sarcastic political jabs.

So, stop by Green Expressions and give it a look-see.

Hands Up, Mouths Closed!

We got home yesterday. The Boy was still in one piece when I picked him up from camp. In fact, his A1C was a 7 (which in diabetes speak is excellent) and he was so active that they were able to have him change his carb serving size to 20 instead of 15. Yes, I know, still mumbo jumbo to you.

Since we have gotten back...well, he must be eating sugar out of the jar, because his numbers have been high. I also think he must not have gotten much sleep, cause he is a cranky boy! Or maybe it is the teenage cooties. Right now he owes me about $50 for the cell phone bill and of course he has no money, so I have put him to work. Or I would, if he would just finish a job. It is more work for me to have to chase him around and make him finish everything. :P

Guess I will have 2 cell phones soon if it doesn't improve.

He had a great time at camp, though. He was really inspired by the other campers and the counselors. I was impressed by his attitude. They were all really cool people there, very friendly and positive. I am so glad he went.

I rode my bike for the second time today. It was supposed to happen last Thursday, but I woke up feeling yucky, so I didn't. Today's ride was nice in the cool air. I love riding through Fremont and looking at the calm water of the canal. The water is just barely rippled and otherwise reflects like a green mirror. The ride was smooth but I definitely got a work out. It's about time.

Ooh, my sis has a blog over here. You should check it out! Good writing, interesting local content.

Libraryland Update

School visits are done and aside from getting ready to be gone for 2 weeks, my work days have settled down a bit. I'd better enjoy it, because when I get back I will be thrown into a frenzy of programs.

These will include computer classes (html and css for myspace and other sites, blogging and data hosting sites), a gaming tournament for ages 8-18 and zine drop-in days providing space and resources for zine enthusiasts. We will also have a book binding class, but that isn't until August and will require little work from me, although I hope to be able to learn a little something there.

During the ALA conference, I will be blogging on our SPL-ALA blog, so I might not blog here as often (as if my postings are usually something you can set your watch by...), but that is a little way off and I have posted a link to the page under my favorite blog links to the right.

Some of you may have heard that Deborah Jacobs will be leaving her post as City Librarian at SPL to work for the Gates Foundation. If you have any input as to what traits we should look for in a new City Librarian, go here and follow the links to make sure your voice is heard.

Non-Library related: The garden is moving along well. I planted strawberry plants and put down stepping stones and pea gravel to avoid the lake that forms in the walkway when I water.

Dr. T is coming home on Thursday! I am so excited to see him--it has been about 3 weeks since I visited him in Spokane.

Push to Select

My Extras review got posted on the new Push to Talk blog at The Seattle Public Library. I hope to have more going up there soon. Make sure to check out the blog and tell me what you think of the layout and content.

Right now, I am cold! So very cold. And now it is warm in here, and I am still cold... The heat wasn't on this morning when I came to work. I had heard a rumor that one had to "reset" the boiler, but I wasn't expecting to be the only one of authority here today, so I didn't think to find out how such "reset"ing was done. So I called around until I found someone that could help. And now the heat is on, but I fear it is too late for my poor circulation and that I shall be dying of hypothermia any minute.

There are a lot of cute young dads with toddlers that come in here. I am sure they are all married, or close enough, so I don't flirt with the dads (unprofessional any-who) but I can flirt with their cute little kids! I have to practice somehow.

A woman came in today that did not introduce herself but dropped hints that she used to be a librarian for this system. She asked me several pointed questions about selection, which I answered. She threw some blame at all the "bad librarians" there have been over the years (certainly not me! ;) and stormed that none of the books she ordered in 1965 were still in our collection. Eventually her tirade came around to her point, that it was bad that selection had been centralised and that we were only given nominal control over our collections in the branches. I sympathize with her, but I also feel that the money and hours dedicated to researching selections are better spent in outreach and patron services. I doubt we could have such rich teen programming--or teen services librarians at all--if librarians spent all their time doing selection. For the sake of quiet and sanity in the library, I nodded and smiled and said I understood and she blustered out the door.

Clouds and Mystery and Saddness

I must be a very possessive person. My (aaauuughgh!?!) new goal is to use the first word in this sentence as little as possible. Why, you may ask? Well, I just made a Tag Cloud of this blog and guess what the biggest word was? You guessed it.

I couldn't get the computer to save the cloud as a picture, so I will tell you that the next largest words were "library," "work" and "interview." Imagine that.

If you want to see how the tag cloud works, you can visit Stephen Abrams Blog. The only difference was that he had it tag the whole web page and I only had it tag the text (cut and paste). He ended up with a few codes from the html, etc, mucking things up.

Having a "ghost in the machine" day today. I am changing a bunch of books to series in the computer, but about 5 out of 50 of them are not showing up. At all. Their barcodes just don't work and there is no corresponding book in the catalog. It is like they were deleted, but they are not books that would normally be discarded. Pretty high circulations for those teen romances, you know?

Update: I just found out that Madeline L'Engle died yesterday at the age of 88. Link goes to the obit in the NY Times. She was one of my favorite authors growing up.

Long weekend

Had an all girl camping trip over the holiday weekend. No, no one died. Mothers worry, I guess, when we girls go camping without any men to mess up the making of our fires or the pitching of our tents. Don't worry, Mom, we remembered food and matches. Now leave us alone!

On the way out of the Olympic Forest, we stopped at Elwa Hot Springs. They were beautiful and delightfully uncrowded.

Elwa Hot Springs 009
Originally uploaded by Srcsmgrl

We came home on Sunday so as to get a little rest before work on Tuesday. I had a delightful time lunching with SJ. We met a previous tango buddy of mine randomly at Diva Espresso in Greenwood and spent a couple hours conversing on sci-fi books, the film industry and the many forms of dance. Then we went to 74th Street Alehouse and had a yummy lunch accompanied by a large Strongbow cider that made me fuzzy for about an hour. I think I talked a lot, really fast and probably did not let my friend get much of a word in for a while. Such are the dangers of high alcohol content beverages at the noon hour. Later I topped off the visit by pouring hot coffee all over my leg. I enjoyed hanging out with SJ and companion for a while--intelligent conversation! Not that my other friends aren't intelligent, we just tend to talk about everyday subjects, rather than Library theory and women of the bible.

Blog Day?

According to Stephen Abrams, today is "blog day." Opposed to being a day to blog, it is a day to recommend 5 blogs to others. I did this fairly recently and have not as of yet found any new ones that I would recommend. I do plan to look up something called the "hip Librarians" though and will report back.

All is well in Library land. Weeding graphic novels (I hate letting the cute little suckers go). Camping through Sunday, then lunch with I Asshole (one of my formerly mentioned favorite blogs) on Monday. I will post if I take any pretty pictures!

Web 2.0

Yesterday was staff day at SPL. It was very well done; kudos to the organizers. The Keynote speaker was Stephen Abrams, SirsiDynex's vice president of innovation. This guy is on top of Web 2.0, and he talks a lot about it in his blog. He challenged the library to meet our patron's technological expertise and begin using interactive and networking websites, including blogging, web casting, and even Myspace. The talk was very inspirational and the really cool thing is that my manager thinks (and I agree) that we should make a blog for our library while it is closed for renovations, then possibly expand it later with RSS feeds and community news. Keep the community active and interested while we are gone and after we are back.

I have a lot of ideas for this and am excited to get started. Unfortunately I am off work until Sunday, so someone else might beat me to it. I don't want to be greedy, but I really want to be involved from the ground floor. My coworkers are pretty excited about it too and I want to keep them interested.