Blind Date With A Book
I have spent quite some time this week setting up my library's "Blind Date with a Book" display. Each book is wrapped in white paper, and then labeled with the first line or some tantalizing keywords. You can't judge a book by its cover when you can't see it!
The knife is my Buck 110, and you might be surprised to learn how useful a good knife is in a library. I also carry a Leatherman multi-tool, but a simple single-blade knife with a big, chunky handle is a lot easier to manipulate. My wrapping paper is cut from a roll of white craft paper, and using the edge of the counter as a guide while slicing with my knife produces a faster and cleaner result than using scissors. Then, you might notice how the wrapping paper makes it difficult to actually check out the book to a patron, so my knife saves the day again as I gently slice the paper to reveal just the barcode strip. I can't pre-plan that window because the books all have different sizes and barcode locations. There's more than one way to skin a book.
Can you guess the book behind this paper from the clues in the heart? The first commenter with the correct answer wins $PIZZA!
Cigarette Rant
I hate tobacco. When I pick up litter along the road, there's always he odd cigarette butt despite the wildfire danger much of the year, and usually someone's spit bottle full of brown slime, too. At the library, people ignore our signage about smoking away from the front door every once in a while. When I check in books, there's frequently a few that reek of smoke, and make everything they contact reek, too.
I'm the first to say vices are not crimes, and prohibition is wrong, but the legal, taxed tobacco industry is the absolute worst thing sometimes. Drug prohibitionists talk about the negative externalities of weed justifying continued raids and repression, but meanwhile, there's this. I hate second-hand smoke. It makes me literally sick, no exaggeration. I hate stale second-hand smoke contaminating the book drop. We wipe down every item returned to our branch using a wash cloth and a spray bottle of specially-formulated book cleaning mix before we shelve it, but I hate having to wash these stinky items with extra care and then get a new wash cloth because that one immediately needs to be tossed in the laundry bag afterward.
As vices go, tobacco is pretty bad. Save money instead of fueling the tobacco industry. Starve the State of its sin taxes, too. Reclaim your health. I know it isn't easy. It's probably at least as hard as when I had to give up foods I love because of allergies. You can do it, though. Hell, switch to vape if you can't give up that sweet, sweet nicotine entirely, but try to kick Big Tobacco in the butt.
Goth Girls and Cougars
One of the first patrons was a young lady (man, that phrase makes this geriatric millennial sound old...) dressed in a goth-influenced red-and-black ensemble with a low-cut top. It's too dang cold for dressing immodestly. I wonder if she is getting the attention she wants, or just attracts the wrong crowd. Cute, but not what this librarian is looking for. Nonetheless, I can't help but notice what is being advertised so prominently.
I also had an awkward moment when another middle-aged woman kept complimenting me on my smile. Once? OK. Four times during one brief conversation at the checkout counter? It was downright weird. I am checking out the books to you. You don't need to be checking me out.
At the risk of false empathy, I think I have an inkling what women subjected to unsolicited compliments might feel. Note to self: Avoid being that guy. But hey, I didn't tell the Goth Girl she'd look cuter if she smiled, so I think I'm on the right track.
CRT: Censorship Resistance Training
It's time for annual mandatory library training. This year, it's a series of videos about censorship and access to information. Libraries have positioned themselves for years as places where patrons are free to read. Good libraries don't ban materials, and we librarians try to avoid taking sides, providing neutral ground for patrons to explore ideas. We do curate our collection and strive to include quality materials with a variety of perspectives, especially on contentious topics, but we don't want to silence discourse or prevent research.
Space is limited, though. We can't have every James Patterson and Danielle Steel novel hogging shelving. We weed our fiction based on how often items circulate and how many other copies are available in our network. We try to replace worn and damaged books with updated materials that fill the same niche in non-fiction, and we don't hide materials or refuse to carry items based on our political, religious, or philosophical prejudices. Unfortunately, "balanced and neutral" seems to be interpreted by most libraries as just, "we have both (D) and (R) propaganda." I can't help but notice an absence of anarchist content, but maybe that's my personal interest influencing my perspective. What do you think?
I also couldn't help but notice the disconnect between the principles we claim to support and the past two years of political and medical uproar culminating in the recent hoopla over Joe Rogan. Spotify artists who haven't said a peep about sharing a platform with rappers who have literal rap sheets and celebrities known to have frequented Jeffrey Epstein's pedophile paradise island are angry because MMA guy has civil conversations with credentialed people who dissent from the official COVID narrative?
General Dysfunction
I post flyers on the door for our events, distribute handouts at the checkout counter, post to our website, and share on local Facebook pages. Then, the day after the event, I hear, "I had no idea this was happening!" #$%@&#$%@!!! That's on you, OK?
On the other hand, there is widespread dysfunction in our Youth Services department, and that is the fault of their bigwigs. The logistics are always get screwed up, and we frontline librarians catch the flak when the Youth Services coordinators failed to get stuff to us. Miss M. the youth librarian is even in the dark half the time. #$%@&#$%@!!!
Feel-Good Story
It's not all frustration, though. I do genuinely like most of the patrons we serve, and it's fun to help people find new books, whether fiction or factual. The Blind Date with a Book is already going well. A Victorian-era fantasy and fairy tales collection left with one of the homeschooling moms who likes finding new stuff for her kids. I also know an elderly lady picked up an Ivan Doig novel, and I think she'll like it. See if your library is doing something similar. Maybe you'll find a new favorite author?
I'm old enough to remember when CRT stood for "cathode ray tube," even though I'm too young to qualify as a "geriatric" millennial. Then again, I've also used a rotary dial telephone, my favourite scientific calculator is older than I am, I know what semi-log paper is, I own a pocket watch (which, by the way, is what that mini pocket inside the right front pocket of trousers is actually for, not bloody coins), and, as you already know, I shoot a flintlock, so which one of us is old-fashioned, now?
On a totally different note, don't knock showing a little skin during the winter - I used to run barefoot through the snow when I was a kid, and these days, my cut-off for t-shirt weather is about 50 degrees, and I don't need earmuffs until it drops below 10. What I don't understand is the combination of wool hat, jumper, and shorts - every time I see that (which I haven't since I was in college), I'm tempted to ask "are you hot or cold?" Then again, speaking to my own weirdness, I simply don't wear shorts - ever. If it gets hot enough that I need to, I just pull up my flares, since that's what they're made for.
To the disconnect, remember: everyone is insane, we simply deviate from sanity in differing manners, pun fully intended, and to different degrees; "normal" is merely a setting on a dryer.
I would very much like to buy a cap-and-ball revolver, but I don't see myself falling in love with muzzle-loaders.
Remember, my library rants are almost always at least slightly tongue-in-cheek, and I was leaning into the premature geezer attitude here. It is true that I handle heat better than cold. Old injuries and chronic illness make me ache though. That grousing is legit.
I know, I know. I've shot a cap-and-ball revolver, it's loads of fun. When I have some money to burn, I think I'll buy my own Le Mat replica (a.k.a. "grapeshot revolver," which I prefer because of my old name).
If I may ask, what time of year were you born? I was born in the middle of the winter, but my sister was born in early summer, and she's not particularly fond of cold weather either. I wonder if there's a statistically significant correlation...
I was born late in the year with snow on the ground.
I forgot to mention earlier that I do have a Scotty pocket watch in my emergency kit. Wind-up for the win when off grid! It keeps decent time still when I last tested it.
Upvoting your post even though I make a living selling cigars and pipe tobacco. I'm not a big fan of the cigarettes, though. In my opinion, the cigarette companies have ruined the responsible enjoyment of tobacco for the rest of us.
This is the best take on Spotify I've read all week:
It should be in one of those full-color Instagram quote blocks or something.
I'm curious how your co-workers and other people in Censorship Resistance Training (wait--are they really going for the CRT acronym?) feel about the Rogan censorship.
I think there is a distinction between the aficionado/connoisseur and the chain-smoking addicts. It's a bit like how I enjoy a beer every now and again, but some people are simply drunks. Gourmet vs. gourmand.
The CRT acronym is my own tongue-in-cheek jab, not something official. I find libraries an odd environment. The folks I work with in my branch trend conservative/libertarian, but some branches skew liberal/socialist. There are busybody control freaks in both the left and the right, and it's the authoritarians who present the real threats, but one would hope librarians could be more consistent on intellectual freedom. We're all human though.
Your content has been voted as a part of Encouragement program. Keep up the good work!
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more
Is it Wall-E?
!discovery 23
Nope! Nice try though.
This post was shared and voted inside the discord by the curators team of discovery-it
Join our community! hive-193212
Discovery-it is also a Witness, vote for us here
Delegate to us for passive income. Check our 80% fee-back Program
Lost Horizon and 1984 came to mind, but I 'm not sure either won an Oscar. Or maybe it was I, Robot?
1984 wasn't much of an adventure, and it was definitely dystopian as opposed to Utopian. However, you win !PIZZA for mentioning Lost Horizon by James Hilton! The 1937 film adaptation won the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Film Editing.
Yay, I figured it out! I've read the book, but I don't think I ever saw the movie.
I love this blind date with a book idea. So only the genre is known? This would save me so much time choosing, and have me reading stuff I might never have come across.
Some of them don't even have the genre, and just hope to hook you with the first line. And yes, it is a fun way to try something new!
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
@jacobtothe(1/5) tipped @scribblingramma (x1)
You can now send $PIZZA tips in Discord via tip.cc!