Category: Cornell

Posted on

Library Tourism, Ithaca

The weekend was so good that it took me until Tuesday to write about it. With a full serving of book-shopping, horse-petting and firework-ogling,  I luxuriated my way around Ithaca, reveling in the not-work.

I discovered that libraries can be found in the most surprising places. The bird sanctuary where the beavers live also houses a new audio and video library, complete with some very hip compact shelving and an enormous AV-lab. I saw a huge turtle from the window outside their reading room, so I am now a big fan.

Posted on

Mailbag, Ithaca trivia

Look everybody! I got my very first bit of blog-related mail today! Plus a half-assed proposal! Thanks Dale!

Dear Erica,

Stumbled across your blog a couple days ago, and check it daily devoutly now. I’m married and too old for you this time around, but would you marry me in my next life?

Dale

On that note, I’d like to thank both of the people currently reading this (hi dad) for their patience through all of this site-moving, domain-name-changing redesign nonsense. If you visit me in Ithaca, I will gladly buy you a beer. Or an “organic carbonated wheat supplement” as they call it here in hippietown.

Here’s my favorite Ithaca related site today, stolen directly from Mimi Smartypants. These guys are the ones behind the Lion in Helen Newman hall. May I suggest a library theme for your next prank? Perhaps something related to the “stone throwing is prohibited” sign on the roof of Olin library? Just a thought…

Posted on

Libraries and the people who work in them

Hey, big news! Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian is now online in a nice temporary format. In other news, this blog has been discovered by people at work, so now I have to be extra careful not to mention how frightening I find the break room.

Here’s an interesting factoid about libraries and the people who work in them: Many of us have absolutely no contact with patrons or customers or whatever you call them. Mmm hmm. It’s true. Most of the straight-up academic librarians around here can be found hidden in back rooms, far from the maddeningly crowded cybercafe, trying to wrap their poor heads around grant applications and articles on digital preservation. Which, among other things, means I get to wear Birkenstocks to work.

Posted on

Hooray Hooray the ALA

Oh that wacky American Library Association convention. Imagine, if you will, 50 billion librarians wandering around downtown Toronto. Yes, it looked like that.

I did a bit of shopping on Sunday afternoon, and had the honor of being informed by a salesgirl that a librarian had appeared on TLC’s A Makeover Story and had been brought to that very store. “See” she implied, “it’s not too late for you!”

On a similar “weird public image of librarianship” line, I had more trouble with the ALA vendors than usual. Since I’m no longer a student, I had to contend with eager sales representatives trying to sell me their wares. I found myself regularly explaining that SOME librarians don’t actually work with books, deal with the public, or care much about the latest installment in the Harry Potter series. Once I made the mistake of mentioning the words “digital preservation research” and was treated to a sales pitch for a music journal.

I did get a chance to see a copy of Revolting Librarians Redux this weekend, and I would like to encourage everyone to buy the heck out of it. Among other things, the book contains a poem that I hadn’t read since I submitted it. I was pleased to see that it didn’t suck quite as badly as I had feared.

News Flash: A woman just walked by my library office window practicing sign language to herself. People often walk by my office and don’t realize they are being observed. Unfortunately, this works both ways, and I’ve often been caught chewing my fingernails by a casual passerby.

Posted on

ALA in Toronto 2003

The library has been empty and echoing today since so many of the staff have boarded the bus for the American Library Association conference. Tomorrow, I too will be leaving for the land of free tote bags and low-key cultural revolution.

I say fie on SARS, and will support lovely Toronto in her hour of need. If anyone wants to catch a quick dance, I’ll be at the Social Responsibilities Round Table Boogie Down event Sunday night, whoopin’ it up with the Cuban librarians.

Posted on

Spring! Drunken Students!

Flowers and Fishnets my dearies, spring has come to my Eastern College Town, and the windows of the library have been covered with plywood to protect them from the ravages of Drunken Students! Having done my undergraduate degree in a school where Drunken Students have the regular habit of burning police cars and smashing shop windows, I’m not entirely surprised.

Here at Cornell, there is some annual “let’s all get schnokered and come throw up on the reference desk” type event coming up here on Friday. I’ll be your entrenched reporter, with my ringside office window.

Posted on

Revolting Librarians Redux

The section of the library dedicated to books on librarianship is located outside my office door. I thumbed through a few of them this morning. I was curious what a book on librarianship looked like, since I never really saw that many at “library school”.

Most were from the 70s and 80s, and were dedicated to some pretty abstract stuff, but nestled among the monographs on school librarianship, I found the 1972 classic Revolting Librarians. I’m amazed by the number of librarians and libraryworkers who aren’t familiar with what is the most radical, most groundbreaking, and most hilarious book ever written on the subject of librarianship. Fortunately, it’s in the public domain (because librarians rule), and also fortunately, there’s a sequel due out this fall, edited by the indelible Katia Roberto and Jessamyn West.

I contributed a piece of doggerel whose rhyme scheme should make English majors wince worldwide. Hopefully my library will buy the thing so I can walk by it in the stacks every day and feel all smug.

Posted on

Small town conundrum

One of the Cornell campus bus drivers sells homemade maple syrup out of a box next to his seat. I see him about one out of every ten times I ride the bus, which usually launches me into this cycle of feeling like I should buy some just to support the weirdness of the endeavor, but not actually wanting any maple syrup.