Q is for Quagmire

Giggidy, Giggidy.

Has this ever happened to you:

You are innocently shelving a few books.  Suddenly, the hairs on the back of your neck start to tingle.  You look around, but see nothing.  Then, through an opening on the shelf you see a pair of eyes staring at you.  Like a good librarian, you ignore the eyes and go back to the task at hand.  You feel a shift in the force.  A small, bald man in a grey cardigan and sweat pants nears you.  He holds out a piece of paper and asks you where the cook books are.  You show him.  He thanks you and explains to you about how his wife just had twins and he is in charge of cooking and is completely out of sorts.  You smile and tell him if he needs anything to just ask.  He thanks you and leaves as you return to the desk.  Then some guy hits on you.

Happens all the time.  Well, the helping a bedraggled stranger part.  Not so much the getting hit on, but when you are a six foot, three inch, 240 pound dude, you do not get much play from the pervert crowd.  Except for... nah, not here, not now.  However, I have seen this happen often and interviewed a few of my fellow librarians of the female type and come up with a few pointers:

1.    Stay calm and professional
2.    Keep your distance.
3.    Move to a crowded area.
4.    Tell someone.
5.    Carry mace or pepper spray.
6.    Carry a baseball bat emblazoned with the words "Nut-Buster 3000."
7.    On your first day, get in a fight with the biggest dude there.
8.    Don't eat the yellow snow.
9.    Get away from me.
10.  You don't have to be faster than the pervert, just faster than your coworkers.

iPad App Makes Civil War Photos Pop in 3D

Just jumps right out at ya, am I right?

Matt Raymond, the Library of Congress's former communications director, used original Civil War negatives to create 3D images for an iPad app.  Twenty-four of the pictures will be with the first incarnation of the app with more possibly on the way.  The app will cost you $1.99 or you could just hop on over to the LoC where the 3D images have been donated.

This is cool and all, but I want some true to life 4D rocking my mobile, you know?  I want what Harry Potter has and I am not talking Ginny Weasley.  When my newspapers, books and magazines feature people dancing for my amusement without me having to click on a play button, I will be happy.  And do not try to tell me about GIFs either.  They do not count until they stop repeating themselves like a YouTube video with Tourrette's Syndrome.  Until then, my iPhone will keep doing the same things it always does:  playing Angry Birds, dropping calls, and taking blurry photos.

Daily Mail

Doctor Who Companion Elisabeth Sladen Passed Away

David Tennant (The Doctor) and Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith)

Elisabeth Sladen, 63, passed away after a battle with cancer.  The actress portrayed Sarah Jane Smith on the original show on and off from 1973 to the present.  While I admit I was late on the Doctor Who bandwagon, only coming in at the start of the new series, I have retroactively watched many of the Sarah Jane adventures with Tom Baker and John Pertwee as well as her appearances on the new and found her delightful.

The news has been confirmed by fellow Doctor Who alum Nicola Bryant in a tweet:

I'm so sorry to have to say I've just had a call to say Liz Sladen has died. It's too much to take in, but it's true. How tragically young.

And also by Gallifrey One, the annual Doctor Who convention:

We are absolutely devastated to note the passing today of the extraordinary Elisabeth Sladen. Our deepest sympathies to her family.

My heart goes out to her friends and family.

Update:  BBC news, Doctor Who news page, and Digital Spy also confirm.

P is for Phone

"You got a phone I can have?"
"We have a phone patrons can use for emergencies, but we do not have a public phone."
"Cool, can I use it?"

Have you ever had someone say "cool" in an emergency?  You would be amazed how calm and collected some people can be when the poop really hits the oscillating fan.  And to be able to hold together in a public forum, to stay on the phone with the other person and talk about Grandma's hip replacement when all hell is breaking loose, that takes moxie and spirit.

Check out the jump for a little more discussion on phones in the library.

Pay phones
A pay phone in a public library is like a prostitute in a bar: used, abused, and socially unacceptable.  Nobody wants to use it except the most desperate of people and often those are the folks staff will let use the library phone anyway.  Also, if you have it in a corner or out of the way area, it becomes creepyville where dudes wearing long coats and little else hang out.

Public phones
Public phones do exist in remote parts of the world where libraries still trust people to make sensible use of their time.  These places also lose their phone service when someone wishes to access the Internet because they are all on the same line.  The idea of trusting the public with an open phone connection is like trusting a bear with your child.  Sure everything might turn out fine, but there is always the chance for carnage and death.

Library phones
The library must have a land-line phone for the same reason old west towns had a telegraph office: it is the simplest form of communication today.  Think about that.  A hundred years ago, people would be blown away that business is more or less required to have a phone "just cause."  They would have called it witchcraft and burned it down or that "ducking stool" thing that was so popular with the kids those days.  While now everyone must have a website, there is still a majority of the population that is outraged when there is no phone number to connect them to someone to be outraged at.  

Cell phones
I... cell phones... little things in their ears... staff joined in... silent mode is an option...  I am sorry, I just can not coherently talk about this anymore.

O is for Original

Dictionary.com defines "original" as an adjective that is

1.  belonging or pertaining to the origin or beginning of something, or to a thing at its beginning: The book still has its original binding.

2.  new; fresh; inventive; novel: an original way of advertising.

3.  arising or proceeding independently of anything else: an original view of history.

4.  capable of or given to thinking or acting in an independent,creative, or individual manner: an original thinker.

5.  created, undertaken, or presented for the first time: to give the original performance of a string quartet.

6.  being something from which a copy, a translation, or the like is made: The original document is in Washington.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Insist upon yourself.  Be original" while Benjamin Franklin said "Originality is the art of concealing your sources."

Herman Melville somberly stated, "it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” as Kahlil Gibran jested, “Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.”

In conclusion, the great M.C. Escher said "Originality is merely an illusion."

May your life and blogs be original.

pw0nd.com

What's Wrong with TV's "Joey"?

 

Joseph.  Joe.  Cup o' Joe.  Joe the Plumber.  Joey Bag O'Donuts.  That name is stitched across the American landscape in a big bad way.  I have a friend, however, that wishes that were not so.  At first, when Joe was still "little Joey" he got a kick out of all the people named after him on television.  Then, he noticed a pattern as he got older:  when a character named "Joey" came along on a TV show, he (or she) was often either an uber  man-child, a moron, or an annoying hippie.  Comic relief, basically.  Even in movies "Joey" was often put down, like in Back to the Future with Uncle "Jailbird" Joey or in the Peter Boyle movie Joe where Joe is kinda nuts.

Hit the link for some TV examples of Joey's gone wrong.

Show: My Two Dads
Actor: Greg Evigan
Profession: Artist
Homelife: Loft in New York with his possible daughter and her other possible father
Distinctive Joey-ness:  Wacky artist that makes his own furniture and clothes (or that was just the 80s)

Catch phrase:  "Paul Reiser sure is funny" followed by career slump

Show: Full House

Actor: Dave Coulier

Profession: Comedian

Homelife: Lives in best friend's house helping take care of best friends three daughters.  

Distinctive Joey-ness:  Fondness for impressions and improvisation

Catch phrase: "Cut-it-out", with hand motions

Show:  Blossom

Actor:  Joey Lawrence

Profession:  High School

Homelife:  Lives at home with his single dad, ex-drug addict brother, and sister whose name no one can remember

Distinctive Joey-ness:  Dumb as a brick

Catch phrase:  "Whoa" followed by audience applause

 

Show:  Friends

Actor:  Matt LeBlanc

Profession:  Actor

Homelife:  Lives with his best friend Chandler and hangs out with his other friends

Distinctive Joey-ness:  Dumb as a brick and smooth with the ladies

Catch phrase:  "How you doing?" followed by booty

Show:  Dawson's Creek

Actress:  Katie Holmes

Profession:  High School

Homelife:  Lives with her sister after her dad was arrested, also spends lots of time on boats in a creek

Distinctive Joey-ness:  Aloof artist with a thang for men

Catch phrase:  "Dawson, you're my two dimensional hero" followed by chaste one-dimensional kiss that lead to weirdly religious short people.

There's also a Joe, North Carolina.  That's about all I got.

N is for News

Often, I do top news stories from around the world of libraries, librarians, books, ebooks, electronics, and whatever else catches my eye.  These are some news stories that appeared this week and the reasons I rejected them or reasons I reject these stories in general.  Here we go!

Ebook sales triple!  Quite frankly, I am tired of hearing about eBooks.  Sure, fascinating reinvention of the way society blah, blah, blah. I am running out of jokes on this.

The Weird World of Straight to DVD Christian film.  This article did not need me throwing jokes at it to make it funny.

Man banned from library allegedly pushed guard through glass window.  While this may be "How to Get Banned From a Library" worthy, I honestly try not to do too much about crazy people going crazy in the library unless it is out of the norm.  If he had assaulted him with a 1st edition of Mark Twain or a red herring, I would have more to run with.

Endless stories about people retiring or changing jobs. I have nothing against celebrating a community leader's career, but I try to stay kinda national or global on this site.  So, unless you develop the cure for book cancer during your cataloging career, you will probably not show up on here unless I start a "Crazy Librarian of the Week" and even then, you would have to be crazy.

Bibliophiles, casual readers get fix at spring book sale Much like the above story, book sales are more of a local thing. Now, again, if there is something spectacular about the book sale, like Nicholas Cage's Superman comic showing up in it, boom, it goes up on this site.

Nicholas Cage's comic book is found, but the thief is still at large. I honestly did not give one poop about a rich guy getting his fancy prize found. Not enough to write about, anyway.

If you see a story you think I might find interesting, send me an email at evan@bannedlibrary.com or @bannedlibrary on Twitter.