I tell you all that to tell you this: corporations do not give two craps about local needs
How many times have you been working the reference desk and thought, man alive I could use a meal? Too many times, am I right? Born and raised in the deep South, my meals tend to lean toward the "chicken fried" variety, so I submit to you my own recipe for cooking up chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits, and gravy in the library break room.
How to libraries ever expect to get their books, DVDs, and farm equipment back? The most common way is to institute fines and fees for lost, damaged, or late items. With more and more people being made poor by social and economic divides created by a military and prison industrial complex, fines are not cool. Because of this non-coolness, some libraries have begun to explore alternative methods to monetary library fines.
When I was in kindergarten, some kid named Derrick said he did not want to be my friend. That hurt. Kick me in the stomach, cannot breathe crying hurt. Rejection is the monster that we all run from and from time to time will knock you down and tear out your heart.
As you all know, Wichita Falls library has been desperately seeking a name for its racoon mascots. These mascots have a long and treasured history with the library system, much like the fabled lions that grace the New York Public Library. I promise you, by the end of this blog entry you will know the name or names of these branded creations.
One of you sent me a story that's been floating around about a Maryland prison banning the Game of Thrones books because they have maps in them. This prompted a discussion in the library.
How would you end Game of Thrones if you could not find out the ending due to some arbitrary bureaucratic nonsense?
Having food poisoning and driving a car might seem like a bad combination, and I am here to tell you they are. If you can avoid getting food poisoning, I suggest you do. If you do get food poisoning, stay out of your car for all of our sakes.
Over at the University of Southern Denmark in the country of Denmark, they found book that could kill people. Not some incendiary texts like Mein Kampf full of crazy stupid ideas of harm, but actual books with poison on them.
The other day I am sitting at the reference desk and a student of the local college comes up and interrupts my game of Minecraft. The kid in question asks for help finding sources for a reference paper.
The end of the world has to come at some point, right? Fire and death or just a general slow spin to the stop, the big ball of dirt has to go barren at some point. For the last few centuries, that is The Apocalypse.
The annual American Library Association conference has come and gone. New Orleans took the brunt this year, the warm wild city welcoming librarians from all over as well as Michelle Obama and Emilio Estevez. I for one am excited with how Young Guns 3 seems to be shaping up.
It's that time of year where all the important or lucky librarians get sent off to the American Library Association's Annual Conference. The rest of us get left behind. Gotta do something, so why not go to the movies?
Remember back in the day when the office party would be raging and Brenda would drop her pants and hop up on the copy machine? Me neither, library holiday parties have never been ragers. But that butt copy has always been a temptation, huh? Maybe not for long. Old tech dies with each generation, speeding up. Here are thirteen reasons why your library no longer needs a copy machine.
Thoughts of New Orleans are coming to mind this week as the annual ALA conference comes up. I will admit, I am a lot homesick and wishing I could be there.
When I was little, I loved summer reading. I would go down to the library and other kids would actually be there. I got to fill out a form and tell all about the books I had been reading.
Mike Myers the comedian once said in the movie So I Married an Axe Murderer that most Scottish meals are based on a dare. Cooking in the South is based often on hope.
My mother taught me to cook the traditional way. She'd say, "ST, use the microwave if you don't want cereal. We're late for school."
The end of a movie is like desert to a dinner. Some of them make you shit the bed.
Jason wakes up in a world without a sky. Check out this cliche story that by the end will have you wondering.... Wait, are we still in a dream? SHARED DREAM: It'll make you SLEEPY.
From the year 2000 to 2003, I worked in a lot of varied jobs to pay my rent while I went to college. A lot of those jobs were in kitchens, those hot and sweaty and crowded dens of iniquity. Years after, I read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and was transported to those times and those people with a strange sense of nostalgia and love. This past week Mr. Bourdain took his own life, casting my mind back to other memories of that time.
The man stacked books. They started small. A few little book stacks on tables here and there left at the end of the day. People do that. Shelver Becca called me in one day to look at them.