Life in the stacks : the librarian's column

Journey

(“The journey                                           Life is composed of steps.


     of a thousand                                      [Fourteen stairs trod each
                                                                 day to the library. Do
                                                                 the students
                                                                 ever count them?]

                 miles must                              Tentative baby steps.

                      begin with                         Confident strides,
                                                                persistent plodding.

                              a single                     Skipping, running.

                                     step.")                Leaps

                                                                           of faith.

                                                             A limestone stoop
                                                             concaved by
                                                             countless feet.

                                                            The slow polishing of stone
                                                            by shoes and so(u)l(e)s,
                                                            with dreams and
                                                            burdens carried
                                                            and left behind.

Life in the stacks: the librarian's column

Bessie and The Orange

The Orange Prize for fiction is awarded annually to a novel written in English by a woman by an all-female panel of judges. The winner, to be announced in June, will receive £30,000 and a statue known as “Bessie.”
“Bessie.” It was the name of the statue that snapped my attention while reading the New York Times article announcing the Orange shortlist. I immediately searched the internet for more information and soon learned that “Bessie” is a small bronze bust of a woman, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. She is lovely. But I was a trifle disappointed. In my experience, Bessie is not only inextricably linked to writing, she is, most definitely, a cow. Let me explain.

My professor-husband is a writer; in my humble opinion, he is an extraordinary writer, but that’s another story. He advises his students to use “Bessies” in their writing, meaning use specific examples and descriptions. One can refer to the cow or even the cow in the back pasture. But it would be better to describe Bessie, a docile, brown eyed Holstein, white with black patches, who grazes in Uncle Joe’s pasture. The details – Bessies – breathe life into one’s writing.
Bessie has become a fixture in my husband’s classes. When exams include essays, she accompanies him to class. Bessie originally appeared as a small, brown plastic figurine that dispenses jelly beans. She now appears as a graceful, tan nativity-scene figure with ribbons around her neck, a gift from students.

Now, gentle readers, perhaps you can understand my twinge of disappointment on discovering that “Bessie” was a woman. I suppose that a cow-shaped award might be considered an insult, especially when given to a woman by a group of women. But I mean no disrespect. Bessies are a good thing. So cow or no, best wishes to the authors shortlisted for the Orange Prize. They are Rosie Alison for The very thought of you; Barbara Kingsolver for The lacuna; Attica Locke for Black water rising; Hilary Mantel for Wolf hall; Lorrie Moore for A gate at the stairs; and Monique Roffey for The white woman on the green bicycle. And to women writers everywhere, “Moo!!”

Life in the Stacks : the Librarian's column

Libraries are repositories of knowledge. Collections of wisdom and folly, rigorously tested facts and flights of fancy. In other words, libraries have lots and lots of… stuff. And Librarians, like professional packrats, gather and keep watch over the stuff. Not that we don’t have rigorous criteria for selecting the” best” stuff. We do. And we do maintain the stuff . . . er, collection, in a neat, tightly organized fashion; organization is one of our specialties. But once we acquire the stuff, we have to resist the urge – and sometimes our patrons’ urging - to save it forever.

Librarians have dubbed the cleaning-out process de-selection and weeding. There are complicated definitions that distinguish between these two terms, which, despite my best efforts, I never fully understood. Frankly, they both involve discarding old, under-used items, tattered items, outdated pieces, and extra copies to make room for new items that might fare better with the patrons.

My predecessor could not bear to break up a fifty-year collection of National Geographic magazines. I have no such qualms. We simply need the space.
A student saw me sorting a pile of journals.

“You can’t throw that away. It’s knowledge. And knowledge is valuable.” He told me that his own collection of National Geographic is ten years old; he has saved every issue since his grandfather gave him a subscription for his 7th birthday. The kid’s a collector. I pity his mother. And his future wife.

I assured the student that I wasn’t throwing out EVERYTHING and that the journals would be replaced with a CD-ROM. He seemed satisfied. I wish I were.
I said I had no qualms about this much-needed weeding. I lied. It makes me sad. Beautiful covers, interesting topics, a collection of brilliant authors: these journals contain knowledge and are much too valuable to be casually pitched into the recycling bin. Standard practice for school libraries is to keep the most-recent five years of a journal, but I played fast and loose with those guidelines; this was no casual cleaning exercise. Each issue was carefully considered. Unfortunately, issue after issue piqued my interest; I put aside a stash for my own reading. Articles about Monarchs and hummingbirds were set aside for my mother, the Dead Sea scrolls for my husband.

“Be picky,” said my inner librarian voice. And so I was – or tried to be. Issues recording landmarks in history, such as the first moon landing, were kept. As were articles by noteworthy authors-- Dr. Jane Goodall, former President Nixon. And, of course, I saved the issues considered collectors’ items. Other issues were given to various faculty members and students: Da Vinci and folk art to the art teacher; Old Iron Sides to the history teacher; James Madison to the student who loves American history and politics.

And on and on it went. Dusty pile after dusty pile. Several boxes of National Geographic have headed off for recycling; several more await their turn. The storage room looks cleaner, less crowded.

And then a student came to the library to search for pictures documenting Hurricane Katrina.
“When did Katrina hit?”
“I am not sure.”
“Run a quick Google search to find the date.”
“August, 2005.”
“Good job. Now let’s look through Time and Newsweek issues from August and September, 2005.”

Bingo! He headed off to art class a happy student. And I stopped to do the math. Following the generally accepted practice of saving the most recent five years of journals, those 2005 issues should have been tossed. Hm….

There’s a lesson there. There are good reasons for rules and guidelines. And I have formulated a new rule for myself. I will not toss out an entire year’s run of a journal without careful consideration. Articles documenting landmark moments in history are available online, but sometimes a patron needs to hold the journal in his hands, look at the photographs, and read and remember. Packrat tendencies, very carefully indulged, might be a good thing. After all, someone might need that journal someday.

The Edgar Awards

The Mystery Writers of America has announced the 2010 Edgar Awards.

Fiction:
The Last Child / John Hart
in the Shadow of Gotham / Stefanie Pintoff

Nonfiction:
The Lineup: the world's greatest crime writes tell the inside of their greatest detectives / edited by Otto Penzler

Columbine / Dave Callen

The title of 2010 Grand Master was awarded to Dorothy Gilman.