Friday, July 20, 2007

Harry Potter and the Tiring Weekend

This is it. Tonight is the release of the final book of Rowling's series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The bookstores will be madcrazy with kids and families grabbing up copies right at midnight. And libraries, you might ask? Hudson Regional library is holding an all-nighter party. Other branches in the Pasco County system are waiting until Saturday morning to do our own. Centennial Park included. We're going to be holding games and contests, serving chocolate wands and pumpkin juice, and holding a door prize giveaway of three copies of the book itself. Oh. And I'll be going as Hagrid. Poor mum spent three weeks sewing the costume. We'll be posting pics as soon as available. What does this all mean? Well, for one thing, we're gonna hafta find a new fantasy series to geek out over... ;)

Thursday, July 5, 2007

Helpful hint to all library patrons

And by patrons, I mean those who come to the libraries (patron is a formal term for library user).

Ahem. The helpful hint: Please, it would really help just even a little bit if you could remember to bring your bleeping library card to the bleeping library.

I mean, you've planned on coming to the library. You should think that having the library card on you would be useful at some point, correct?

More and more, you need your library card with you, not just for checking out books but also taking care of so many other things at the library. Logging onto computers now uses a time reservation system that requires you to have a library barcode number. Placing books on hold, or on request, that needs your library card. ILL requests? Oh yeah, library card needed. Getting into the bathrooms? Well, that still requires the door key, but in the future well you never know.

I keep getting amazed how people keep forgetting to bring their library cards with them. Libraries nowadays try to make it even easier, giving out keychain versions of the library card so people can have them handy, after all no one goes outside without their house and car keys right?

One of my staffers noted that people who forget their library cards tend to also forget their driver's licenses. So to all highway patrollers and county sheriffs out there, when you pull someone over please ask for their library cards. If they don't have their library cards you can be certain they won't have their driver's IDs either...

Sunday, July 1, 2007

So why the obsession over books with blue covers?

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pirate. Oh, wait. Librarian.

When I got my first full-time job with Broward County Libraries, I got my first full contact with the reading public. And immediately ran into patrons who kept asking for books where:
  • They didn't know the title.
  • They didn't know the author.
  • They didn't know the subject.
  • All they knew was that their friends were reading it. Oh, and that the cover of the book was blue (and NO, it wasn't the used car price guide!).
It wasn't always blue for the color, more like 90 percent of the time. Anyway, everyone was looking for books with blue covers.
And it drove us insane.
Eventually I added this meme of there being a blue-covered book out there as part of my convoluted website. And as things shifted over to blogging, I created this blogsite as a place to discuss/rant regarding issues of librarianship and hunting down mythic books. Oh, and *SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT* promoting my Cafepress and book sites.

So. To all twelve readers of this site: please keep an eye out for a Book with a Blue Cover. Odds are it's about a man who meets a woman during a war. I think. Or it's going to have Voynich script in it. Or...