Category: Library feature

Little Free Seed Library

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If not ‘seed money’ then at least with some seedy help from the Piedmont Master Gardeners, the Gordon Avenue Library of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library, since April, has checked out free seeds to anyone with a library card. Library users can both take-home and drop-off seeds for free at the library. Available seeds include a few vegetables such as carrots and cucumbers, herbs such as basil, and flowers like zinnia. Some borrowers have been donating seeds from their gardens.

According to Eater, “Libraries across the country are fighting food insecurity by offering communities free seeds and gardening education.” This program has become more popular since the Pandemic.

The Piedmont Master Gardeners provide the most expert gardening assistance. If the project takes off, then it may start growing in other JMRL Libraries. The seeds can be grown in containers or planted into the ground.

ALA Top 10 Books Banned in 2023

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https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/04/national-library-week-kicks-highly-anticipated-annual-list-top-10-most

Below are the most Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022:

  1. “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe
    Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
  2. “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson
    Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
  3. “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison
    Reasons: depiction of sexual abuse, claimed to be sexually explicit, EDI content
  4. “Flamer,” by Mike Curato
    Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit
  5. (TIE) “Looking for Alaska,” by John Green
    Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content

        5. (TIE) “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
             Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, LGBTQIA+ content, depiction of sexual       abuse, drugs, profanity

        7.  “Lawn Boy,” by Jonathan Evison
             Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, claimed to be sexually explicit

        8.  “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” by Sherman Alexie
             Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity

        9.  “Out of Darkness,” by Ashley Hope Perez
             Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit

       10. (TIE) “A Court of Mist and Fury,” by Sarah J. Maas
              Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit

       10. (TIE) “Crank,” by Ellen Hopkins
             Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, drugs

       10. (TIE) “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” by Jesse Andrews
             Reasons: Claimed to be sexually explicit, profanity

       10. (TIE) “This Book is Gay,” by Juno Dawson
             Reasons: LGBTQIA+ content, sex education, claimed to be sexually explicit

April 24–Right to Read Day

equipsblog47 Comments 
Who decides what you should read?
Who besides you knows your need
for the books you choose and those you don't?
Should they decide the books you won't?

When it come to guns, they know their rights
But not when books are in their sights.
They are intent to make the choices
Ignoring the sounds of opposing voices.

Freedom of speech
includes freedom to read
It shouldn't be a partisan screed.

Thanks to Michele Lee, myinspiredlife.org for sharing this video in comments. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-fight-over-banning-books/#x

National Library Week, 23-26 April 2023

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National Library Week 2023, April 23-29, will be celebrated with the theme “There’s More to the Story.”

From the ALA webpage:

Libraries are full of stories in a variety of formats from picture books to large print, audiobooks to ebooks, and more. But there’s so much more to the story. Libraries of Things lend items like museum passes, games, musical instruments, and tools. Library programming brings communities together for entertainment, education, and connection through book clubs, storytimes, movie nights, crafting classes, and lectures. Library infrastructure advances communities, providing internet and technology access, literacy skills, and support for businesses, job seekers, and entrepreneurs.

Did you know that some libraries:

  • Helped print out N-95 Masks during the COVID crisis
  • Offer free meeting spaces to local groups for social, literary, and business meetings
  • Offer tutoring and/or ESL services
  • Offer seeds at Seed Libraries
  • Have archives that may include original or historical documents
  • Offer Books or other materials for the blind or visually impaired
  • Are places of refuge for kids before/after school, the homeless, or a place to use the bathroom
  • May provide space for volunteers to offer tax prep assistance
  • May offer paperback books to take or leave
  • Are a frequent target for individuals who think a book that they disapprove of should not be available to you or your children

Change in My Pocket by Rhonda Trueman

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Rhonda Trueman is another guest poet for National Poetry Month. I first met Rhonda as Abbey Zenith in Second Life. Unlike Rolig Loon, I have gotten to know Rhonda in real life too. She is a participant in our semi-annual Mountain Light Poetry Retreat. Her poem is about an experience many of us have shared.

Change in my Pocket
 

Rifling the pockets of this old jacket,

digging for Coke change.

As a cashier chews impatient gum, my

fingers fumble with lint, pennies,

receipts, a ten, and a crumpled note.

I pause to unfold the paper.

A faded, familiar script unleashes

a sweeping flood of memories,

until the smack of popping gum

cracks my reverie.
 

I hand the ten to the clerk and walk away,

leaving the change behind.
 

Rhonda Trueman

Rhonda is a flibbertigibbet of the highest order. She has dabbled in arts and letters, nature and nurture, and academics and adventure. As such, to quote Beatrice via Shakespeare, “I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.” Once a proud member of the Panhandle Poets Society (FL), retirement has broken up the band, scattering its members far and wide. Rhonda, is now located in north Georgia and although she can see South Carolina, just across the river, she dreams of a day when she will return home to North Carolina.

A Real Librarian’s Headstone.

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My friend and shipmate Bonnie Brown did some research on Washington, DC gravestones prior to forthcoming trip to Washington in the late Spring.

Thomas Mann has authored many books about cataloging and doing research at the Library of Congress. (Theses titles are the first of fifteen titles listed in the LC Catalog.) You can assume from the lack of end date, that Mr. Mann may still be alive.

Accord to this blog posting Saying Farewell to a Dear Friend, Thomas Mann retired in January 2015 from the Library of Congress were he worked in the Main Reading Room.

March 2 is National Read Across America Day

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“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”- Dr. Seuss

This falls on Theodore Seusss Geissel’s birthday. Although Dr. Seuss may have fallen from favor, his books still continue to inspire kids.

Read Across America Day “calls upon everyone to read and engage with children to make reading a more fun and interactive experience. From the time when the building blocks of our character are laid, to adulthood when we seek to escape from the humdrum of daily life in the pages of a book, reading plays an integral role in shaping us into who we are. With the advent of smartphones and tablets, it is more essential than ever to motivate children to read.” 

Some actors have turned Dr. Seuss rhymes into rap songs. Many examples popped during the COVID quarantine. https://www.scarymommy.com/wes-tank-dr-seuss-dr-dre-mashups-youtube

Reblog: How the Armed Services Editions Created a Nation of Readers

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One of my jobs as a military librarian was to provide monthly book kits to deployed soldiers, sailors (both ashore and afloat), and Marines on Embassy Duty around the world. Those paperback book kits were the lineal descendants of the World War II’s Armed Serviced Editions.

How the Armed Services Editions Created a Nation of Readers

Up in the Crow’s Nest

equipsblog24 Comments 
Up in the Crow's Nest
Silence abounds 
Geezers relaxing
without making sounds

Reading or playing 
puzzles or chess 
One doing cross stitch
smoothly, no mess

The bar is not open
but the coffeeshop is
people standing in line 
to the espresso fizz.

Surrounded by ocean 
Where the sky meets the sea 
A quiet retreat to 
which introverts flee.

The Crow’s Nest seems almost like a library with a variety of books, games, computers and many different types of places to sit. Before Covid, many of the cruise ships had libraries with a full time librarian.

From Literary History–Some Books Entering the Public Domain in the US in 2023

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So what’s on the table this year? Though copyright laws differ from country to country, on January 1st, 2023, books that were published in 1927 will enter the public domain in the United States. Here’s a selection of the most interesting:

Herbert Asbury, The Gangs of New York

Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop

Agatha Christie, The Big Four

Countee Cullen, ed., Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Negro Poets

Franklin W. Dixon, The Tower Treasure (The Hardy Boys #1)

Franklin W. Dixon, The House on the Cliff (The Hardy Boys #2)

Franklin W. Dixon, The Secret of the Old Mill (The Hardy Boys #3)

Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger”

Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place”

E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel

Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women

Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

Franz Kafka, Amerika

Anita Loos, But Gentlemen Marry Brunettes

Edith Wharton, Twilight Sleep

Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

A Library Addict

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The idea that heaven may be a library really resonates with me.
Kaushal’s ode to libraries is worth sharing, my book loving readers.

Kaushal Kishore

Right from my school days, I had a special fascination for libraries, and their books, magazines and periodicals.

The reason was obviouy, the options were wide open. Cost was another factor, and the third and most important factor was the compulsion to read within the given time limit, as books had to be returned to the librarians after a week or two.

This passion continued even when I went to college, university and the different places where I was posted during my employment. Queen’s College in Varanasi had a limited number of books, but when I joined Banaras Hindu University (BHU), I got everything I wanted.

I resolved not to buy a single book for my BSc (Hons) course. Geology books were expensive, as most of them were written by foreign authors. So instead of restricting myself to select books, I decided to borrow books from libraries.

While my Geology…

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Libraries and Veterans

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The Libraries and Veterans National Forum was born out of efforts from librarians at the Texas A&M University Libraries and their desire to better learn from others libraries’ efforts to support the veteran and military communities. Collaborating with librarians from academic, public, school, state, and VA libraries, the Libraries and Veterans National Forum project team gathered 250 librarians engaging in this work to share their success stories, brainstorm solutions to their challenges, and gain new ideas to bring back to their libraries.  The online Forum took place during the Fall of 2021, and recordings of the Forum sessions will be made available on this site Librarians across the U.S. also had the opportunity to apply for microgrants that could seed veterans’ programming at their local libraries. In an effort to help librarians just getting started working with veterans, as well as those looking for new ideas to bring to their libraries, an online toolkit was created to collect the shared knowledge of librarians working with the veteran community. It contains lesson plans, program outlines, collection development policies, best practice documents, and more to help ease the way for those just getting started in this work – and to make it easier for those already engaged to find new ideas and new strategies to increase the success of their programs.

To check out these resources click here.

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Smithsonian to Offer a “Nature of the Book” Zoom Tour

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From the webpage

Nature of the Book will open November 10 in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. To celebrate, we’re taking you on a virtual tour!

Featuring an array of books from our Special Collections, paired with specimens ranging from ochre, azurite, and cotton bolls to silkworm cocoons and wasp nests, Nature of the Book tells a story of both local resources and resourcefulness, and global influence. You’re invited to learn more directly from the book conservators who curated the exhibition during our next online presentation.

Featuring:

• Vanessa Smith, Supervisory Conservator
• Katie Wagner, Senior Book Conservator Time

Nov 15, 2022 06:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Web page registration: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Lgl6uKlkQhi26mZNdhSqHw