love letters

How did I miss this?  There is an entire field known as "correspondence art."  It includes letters, cards, presses, epistles, stamps—the rubber kind, and philately to a degree.  Art through the mail, and creating art via the mail.  The act of posting is part of the artwork.  

There is a correspondence art Con this month, hosted in San Francisco.  I had no idea.  I have so many artists in my head: librarian, archivist, designer, and writer; and we are all together astounded.

The word play just makes it better.  Ex Postal Facto.

And there will be a full afternoon of lectures hosted by the San Francsico Public Library on Sunday, February 16.

today's reflection on bibliophilia

Jenny: Honestly, what is it about them that bothers you so much?
Giles: The smell.
Jenny: Computers don't smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know. Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a —it it has no texture, no context. It's...it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be... tangible.  It should be… smelly.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I, Robot... You, Jane.

let your mind soar

This is how my mind feels when I steep myself in a good library.

meet me in the stacks...

...with a stake.

Before there was Giles: The Open Education DataBase has started posting lists of Libraries and Librarians in Horror Movies.

Spell-binding.

what's in your underpants?

I have always thought that the word "underpants" was inherently funny. Drop "underpants" into a sentence, or drop your underpants in the middle of a conversation, and you've got comedy.

Puritanical freak-out parents fixing problems they don't have because they can't fix the problems they do, think not so much. The most banned book last year? The whimsical children's book Captain Underpants.

Makes me want to run out and buy a copy. And a costume.

NC School Board needs educating

Apparently, the Randolph County Board of Education in North Carolina is competing with the Texas School Board for "Most Stupid People Ironically In Charge of Educating Others."

They have not just removed Ralph Ellison's important work The Invisible Man from the curriculum, they have banned the book and removed it from the library. Basically, because one parent complained that it was hard and made her think about things that made her uncomfortable. Like the moral imperatives of a democracy. Thinking is hard. Facing previously unquestioned ideas can be uncomfortable. But that is also called "education."

From The Raw Story: North Carolina school board bans Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’:

Excerpts:

“I didn’t find any literary value,” board member Gary Mason said at the meeting. “I’m for not allowing it to be available.”

In 2010, Time magazine named the book one of the top 100 English-language novels of all time, calling it “the quintessential American picaresque of the 20th century.”

In his acceptance speech after winning the National Book Award for Fiction in 1953, Ellison described the book as his attempt to bring back “the mood of personal moral responsibility for democracy” common in 19th-century fiction.

“When I examined the rather rigid concepts of reality which informed a number of the works which impressed me and to which I owed a great deal, I was forced to conclude that for me and for so many hundreds of thousands of Americans, reality was simply far more mysterious and uncertain, and at the same time more exciting, and still, despite its raw violence and capriciousness, more promising,” Ellison said at the time.

The Uninvited

A couple of years ago I happen to catch an old movie on cable, or perhaps TiVo suggested it to me, and I have been enthralled with the story ever since.  The movie was The Uninvited, and the afternoon showing included half-hour episodes of pre- and post-commentary.  The film, released in 1944, was based on the popular and rare book also titled The Uninvited, written in 1941 by Dorothy Macardle (also published under the title Uneasy Freehold is most of Ireland and the United Kingdom).

Originally shorter and met with modest welcome, the book reached exceeding popularity with the soldiers during World War II, and the paperback versions and reprints were widely circulated, shared, devoured, and—ultimately—discarded.  It's terribly rare to find a copy these days, and it hs taken me two years to get my hands on a copy via a resourceful SFPL librarian who found a copy via Link Plus (others tried and failed) and I was able to, as a patron of the San Francisco Public Library, request and receive perhaps the sole library copy in California from the California State College, Sonoma.

It is a wonderfully haunting ghost story.  I love a good ghost story.  I don't like horror, at all, but for some reason I love a good ghost story. I have been taking the book with me on those rare, rare days with "free time" and curling up in the corner of Twin Peaks or a coffee shop and felt completely self-indulgent simply reading a novel for pleasure. However anticipating how scary the book would be, based on reviews of the era, I would not read the book at home, so the ghosts therein could not know where I lived and the liveliness of my surround crowds might prevent them from following me home.  Also, I have a hard enough time keeping evening television or movies from thoroughly overtaking my dreams so there is no way I was going to read this just before sleep.

The thing about Link Plus book loans is that check-out time is shorter, you are limited to only one renewal, volumes must be returned to the delivered branch, and must be returned by hand directly to a librarian or circulation clerk.  Leisure time for such reading continues to be limited, and I put off starting it, then only was only slowly making my way through it when it was time to renew, and even more suddenly it seemed, time to return.  I was less just less than a third of the way through it.  Late fees on such volumes are a dollar a day.

The book was due yesterday (attempts at online renewal failed), and I dutifully walked back to the lending branch hoping my librarian cred would grant me a reprieve. However, the Presidio branch is closed on Mondays.  I returned to today with PeeDee and made my plaintive plea for an extension, and while I bonded with the librarian over shared beloved and despised professors from our mutual library school, noting was to be done.  Except for going home, reading the book in a timely fashion, and accepting the dollar-a-day late fee until I was finished.  Or return it and check it out again in a couple of weeks, but I was already underway and would rather not have the interim.

So I stayed up tonight and read the book.  Well done, and wonderfully spooky, not at all "scary," and delightfully very much of a time and of a place adding an unintentional curious dimension to the narrative.  I also found it to be much more of a mystery novel that I anticipated, which was made worse for me having seen the film and therefore knowing the secrets to be revealed well in advance and through hundreds of pages of clues and foreshadowing.  Nothing spoils a good mystery like knowing, or guessing, the ending.  And based on the breadcrumbs of Miss Macardle, and my own attention to detail and modern cynicism about such things, I'm thinking I would have guessed at the first hint. And I imagine to suggest the suspicions at the first hint to a reader of the time would have made her clutch her pearls.

But all in all, a great story.  I recommend reading over viewing, but I am going to see if I can't find a DVD copy to watch again.  And I recommend you ask at your local library to see if you can't get your hands on a copy.  Just in time for Halloween.  Ghostly goodness.

By the way, while walking to the library I noted to PeeDee that the book was due yesterday, and that I wasn't finished yet, and that I was going to have to eat a dollar-a-day late fee.

To which he noted, "So...you are actually a day late, and a dollar short."

Spot on.



Update: Criterion is releasing a restored version with special features on Blu-Ray this October!

Fog Over Frisco

The San Francisco Public Library is hosting their 2013 Summer Film Festival by showing 20 movies in 20 branches this summer, and all movies were filmed or set in San Francisco! Its a fun list, and I'm excited to finally see Fog Over Frisco, which isn't available on DVD and hard to find (Amazon sometimes has it available under the "burn on demand" DVD-R service, but that can be iffy.)

Fog Over Frisco, 1934, stars Bette Davis and has been lauded as a San Francsico thriller and often seen as a precursor to the Hitchock style.

From Wikipedia:

Arlene Bradford (Bette Davis) is a spoiled, bored, wealthy socialite who finances her extravagant lifestyle by exploiting her fiancé Spencer Carlton's (Lyle Talbot) access to her stepfather's brokerage firm and using her connection to steal security bonds for crime boss Jake Bello (Irving Pichel).

When Arlene disappears, her sister Val (Margaret Lindsay) steps in to discover what happened to her with the help of society reporter Tony Sterling (Donald Woods) andphotojournalist Izzy Wright (Hugh Herbert).

Bette Davis, anxious to portray the slatternly waitress Mildred in the RKO Radio Pictures production Of Human Bondage, accepted the relatively small role of Arlene in the hope her cooperation would convince Jack Warner to lend her to the rival studio for the film. Her ploy worked, and when Warner received word about her dynamic performance inBondage, he elevated her to top billing in Frisco.^[1]Part of the Warner Brothers release was filmed on location in San Francisco. It was remade as Spy Ship in 1942.

The SFPL will be screening Fog Over Frisco at the West Portal Branch at 6:30 next Tuesday, July 23.

Neil Gaiman on why libraries matter

Via BoingBoing, I found this excellent interview with Neil Gaiman on why librarians are needed more than ever in the 21st century. Added bonus, it turns out the interview was with BookPage, the book review magazine where I had my first job—a small outfit in Nashville, Tennessee.

Neil Gaiman is my favorite author. And as most writers do, he gets the library (emphasis mine).

Over the last decade, which is less than a blink of an eye in the history of the human race, it’s all changed. And we’ve gone from a world in which there is too little information, in which information is scarce, to a world in which there is too much information, and most of it is untrue or irrelevant. You know, the world of the Internet is the world of information that is not actually so. It’s a world of information that just isn’t actually true, or if it is true, it’s not what you needed, or it doesn’t actually apply like that, or whatever. And you suddenly move into a world in which librarians fulfill this completely different function.

We’ve gone from looking at a desert, in which a librarian had to walk into the desert for you and come back with a lump of gold, to a forest, to this huge jungle in which what you want is one apple. And at that point, the librarian can walk into the jungle and come back with the apple. So I think from that point of view, the time of librarians, and the time of libraries—they definitely haven’t gone anywhere.

the mater of libraries is that libraries matter

While we're on the topic of the vital importance of libraries to the community and society, here are Five Fantastic Library Infographics.

Click here to view my favorite, of which the image at right is just an excerpt (from the good people at Masters In Education.org).

Care for the library—it cares for you.

Interesting bit of news, via American Libraries: ALA President Barbara Stripling releases a statement on libraries and the Affordable Care Act

From the statement:

Our research shows that Americans regularly turn to their local libraries as a trusted resource for information regarding government initiatives and programs. A recent study showed that more than a third of library computer users (28 million people) use library computers and seek assistance from librarians for health and wellness issues, including learning about medical conditions, finding health care providers, and assessing health insurance options. A 2012 ALA study found that 97 percent of libraries reported assisting library patrons with applying for and accessing e-government services.

The American Library Association and other groups are working to be sure librarians and the public are aware of information on the new law. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the federal agency responsible for the improvement of library services nationwide, and the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are working in partnership to make sure that libraries are aware of and able to connect patrons with the information and resources they will need. IMLS has also awarded a grant to OCLC’s WebJunction to provide training support for this effort.

Just as our communities turn to libraries for help to learn about citizenship and passport requirements, use public access computers to get disaster relief information and obtain assistance with copyright and patent questions, we expect libraries will receive many inquiries from the public about the Affordable Care Act.  Decisions about how libraries will respond to inquiries about the ACA will be made by local libraries. As always, libraries do not promote specific programs or points of view, but provide the public with balanced, unbiased access to information.

Comic commentary mine:

put your head in a book

or put a book in your head.

Via Laughing Squid, check out the very cool project The Power of Books by Mladen Penev.  

Is the letterpress is mightier than the pen which is mightier than the sword?  

Words have power.  

A great book is a ticking mind bomb.  

dated reference desk

The reference is a bit dated, but I would have loved this in the library.  

Wild Cats

I attended a Davidson College alumni event last night and got to hear the new President of the college, Carol Quillen, speak. The event was at the Zoo, after hours, in the dark, and the external power was out, so there certainly was an "effect," going on. I've heard many "new" Presidents speak over the years and I have never been more impressed with an academic leader as much as I was last night with Dr. Quillen.  And I have met many.

Her articulate vision of what makes Davidson College excellent, and what they need to do to both preserve this excellence and become the absolute leader in quality liberal arts education in the digital age was at the very least intensely inspiring.

During the Q&A she spoke to the students' reaction to the Chick-Fil-A nastiness, the abusive Amendment 1 in North Carolina, commitments to diversity, and advanced education design—structurally, philosophically, programmatically, and digitally. I came away in awe of this women who has taken passion and crazy super smart and applied to into action and a plan for transformation while retaining the essence of Davidson. I only wish I were going through Davidson now. I think while hiding so far in the closet, which was absolutely necessary for my survival at the time, that unfortunately meant I had to hide from many of the opportunities Davidson had to offer even then.

I spoke to her a little afterwards and listened in on her talks regarding adaptive learning/teaching programs which are so different from the software I encountered during my MLIS which were more focused on distance learning delivery than actual teaching or learning. Oddly enough, when reading my digital magazines this morning I came across two related stories. One on the rise and fall of Blackboard as the dominate player in the edtech market. Personally as a user, I hated the Blackboard system. Hated it.

Driven and created by Professors, Coursera is the new emergent leader in education technology, not only designing learning systems for their own students, but making available some of the best courses in the world available online for free.

And how the Minnesota legislature could really use it themselves as they appear to be a bunch of frakking morons, banning delivery of MIT, Harvard and other courses online because they aren't in Minnesota (and paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars in registration fees).

Someone needs a lesson.

Public Libraries: Centers for Learning and Looning

If you never knew, all the crazy shit goes down at the library.  Makes me miss my favorite but retired blogger: The Foxy Librarian.

reference decks

Today's Unshelved spoke to me in ways that should probably be discussed with a mental health professional. But I love it.

Especially when times are tough

People need the library.

And it's National Library Week. If you haven't checked out (get it) your local library recently, you may have missed the transformation—libraries are not just books, but media catalogs, information access centers, research professionals, and community centers with learning programs for every age, with focuses on adult education for job seeking, career advancement and personal development as well as fostering and feeding a love of learning for everyone.

And they are particular busy during tax season.  Libraries don't provide tax advice, but they are experts in guiding you to the best resources address your needs.

Have a question? Ask a librarian.

I'm enjoying the irony that one of my favorite comments during National Library Week is from PC Mag:

Any four-year-old will tell you that a library is a building that lends books, but the real purpose of a library is to amass and disseminate knowledge. So, even if printed matter were to disappear, libraries would still be a cultural necessity.

For my locals, take a moment to explore the redesigned website of the San Francisco Public Library, then visit a branch—they have nearly finished their ambitious project of physically renovating every branch.  There's one near you.

look me up

Unshelved

books can take you to fantastic new places

And artist Guy Laramee makes that happen, appropriately enough for the literate, literally.

Check out these amazing landscapes carved from books.

take note

As a man of letters, I'm speaking of actual missives not just talking as a writerly person, I have found a new interesting blog. Well, it's new to me. Cleaning out my parents' attic over the past few weeks I came across several caches of priceless hand-written letters—letters from my grandfather to my grandmother during the second World War, letters from my cousin in Alabama chronicling her life as an early teen and attendant drama, letters to/from my brother from his college years at Davidson and at King's College in London (including a wonderfully saucy one from one brother to another)—and as I collected these tangible treats, I thought how my niece and nephew might miss you on such treasures, such tangible records of their lives, should all of heir correspondence be electronic. No more pens put to paper. No one will clean out their attics and ponder wistfully over old YouTube directories and Facebook posts.

The blog which caught my eye is Letters of Note, which singles out different physical epistles each post and offers insight, commentary or reflection on, well, letters of note.

As long as we're talking about the written word, another wonderful gem crossed my path this week: a startup company offering hand crafted antique books—be they law journals, medical tomes, or cookbooks—handcrafted to conceal a hand-crafted Italian glass flask within.

Now these are books I could really get into.

Bender Bound: Each item is made to order and takes six to eight weeks to fulfill, so no luck ordering for the holidays this year. Which is sad because I really wanted to get Jay one of those big boring law books with a bottle within for his office. Each one runs about $130, with pre-orders discounted to $100. The lads are seeking capital funding to continue and grow their business. On a side note, they proudly note that "No hipsters were employed during the crafting of our books."