Field Trip: Li-Berrying

When I was younger, I would go on adventures.  I would pack my bag with books, drawing paper, pens and pencils, binoculars, and other necessary bits for excursions around our ranch, an adventure-appropriate snack, and set out.  I had a very vivid memory yesterday of a bag of leftover McDonald's Sausage McMuffins sitting on our kitchen counter, which I took apart, and put the biscuits in one bag, and the sausage patties in another, and then only allowing myself to eat one bite of one or another at a time.  I called it hard tack.  This is how I felt yesterday when my supplies bag and I set out with a map of the LAPL libraries, looking to check off as many as I felt like visiting.  Of course, I came back with a bag full of books, rather than setting out with one.  I got lost a few times-- a couple of times on purpose, a few times, on accident-- but visited one library on Friday, and four libraries yesterday.  

The "Library of the Day" award goes to the Los Feliz branch for this picture (and to the reference librarian who let me take it):

What a beautiful reading garden, right?  NOT!  This is their story reading room, inside the library.  Doesn't it just look like an image from Legends of Sleepy Hollow, or Harry Potter?  The "moon" is a skylight, and the branches edge the room, which is round, and painted a pale blue, with recessed lighting.  There are baskets of stuffed animals and board books everywhere.  Los Feliz also has beautiful wood paneling throughout the library, and large cork boards covering the walls, advertising their amazing programming: weekly Scrabble meetings; SAT

 tutoring; a quilting bee; infant, toddler, and pre-k storytimes; mother-daughter non-fiction craft book club; Beads and Feathers, a children's craft group.  They also have a "Twilight" READ poster prominently displayed, signed by the members of the Twilight cast, which is pretty cool.

The Cahuenga and Wilshire branches had my favorite exterior architecture.

Wilshire was recently renovated, while maintaing the historical aspects of the architecture, including a beautiful fireplace and marble floors.  They also have a beautiful courtyard, but there doesn't seem to be any access to it other than gazing at it through their french doors.  Their layout is also impeccable, grouping popular materials such as fiction, DVDs, and CDs together, all the nonfiction in a second area, and children's books in a third, all triangulated around the reference and check-out desk.  Cahuenga, unfortunately, didn't have this going for them at all, but they have one of the most complete and well-thought out teen rooms I have seen outside of the Central Library downtown.  While I wouldn't have known that Cahuenga was the library, driving by (there is only one exterior sign, and it is obscured by bushes and missing several letters: Cahu n   Pub ic L br ry), their interior signage rocks the stacks-- large, neon, and zebra print in the teen room, green and jazzy-looking frogs in the kids room.  

The Atwater Village Branch has a very interesting way of arranging their adult fiction: there is the standard alphabetical by author's, but there is also a section labeled "Classics."  I think this works for teen sections, as they may be looking for book report books, but in the adult section, it felt a little arbitrary.  For example, I wanted a copy of Atlas Shugged.  Classic.  But Lolita was shelved with the regular books.  The House on Mango Street?  Classic.  Some books, like Willa Cather's (there must be a big demand for her books at this branch, because they had about thirty copies of different titles), were shelved in both.  So My Antonia was shelved both in "Classics," and under 'C' for Cather.  Who decides what a classic is, and isn't?  One thing I really like about their organization system, however, is the children's picture book section, which is separate from the children's chapter books.  A lot of libraries organize this section by chunking off Caldecotts, Concept books, bilingual or other language books.  They label them with stickers on the binding denoting this information, but they are all in one section.  Atwater includes them all together, which I think reflects the more organic way a kid might search for books, and also allows them to find something they didn't even know they were looking for-- a monolingual kid finding a bilingual book, for example.  How many kids that are age-appropriate for a Caldecott walk into a library saying, "My mind feels dull today.  I think I'd like a Caldecott to engage my intellect, and shake off this ennui."?  Not many, I think.  The former organization scheme only helps MLIS students like me, who have to find five Caldecotts to read for class.  

And of course, the final branch, Will and Ariel Durant, with the gigantic kid's novel section, and the sweet librarian who commented as I was paying my fine from the two years prior, "Just think of it this way: you're ensuring your future salary."  

The haul:

I was able to find Atlas Shrugged, which I've been looking for for awhile, and the sequel to The Higher Power of Lucky, Lucky Breaks, which has been checked out of every library for ages.  I did not, however, find The Magician's Elephant.  I have a sneaking feeling that every parent in the city who reads educational websites has checked it out for their child, and it won't be much easier to find after the Newbery announcements next Monday.  I think DiCamillo may get an honor for this one, though I don't think she'll win-- if she does, I think she'll be the only three time winner.  

Seven down, 65 to go!

The Annoyed Librarian, Redux

I love a woman who can piss me off one day, and then make me do a fist pump the next: Protect Your Children from the Classics!

Annoyed Librarian, I think I'd like to have a martini with you.

In the spirit of the thing, a few of the books I was assigned at my small, conservative high school.  Never mind the Shakespeare; it's too easy:

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald: Infidelity (is anyone faithful in this book, except Gatsby?), murder (not just one, but TWO!  And that's those that are explicit...), flagrantly flaunting the articles of the U.S. Constitution (rum running, anyone?), animal abuse, domestic violence, organized crime, sexism

Lord of the Flies, William Golding: What isn't up with this book?

The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri: I suppose it's fair to say all of the deadly sins are represented?  I always felt like the way Dante handled Beatrice was also slightly blasphemous, given the contemporary climate.

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck: Animal abuse, ableism, murder, lying, classism, sexism, violence, racist language, swearing

Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau: This book is down-right unpatriotic!  All citizens should stand behind their country during a time of war.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood: Menage a trois, sort of (and Gossip Girl thought they were being all revolutionary), sex slavery, sexism, terrorism, rape, homosexuality (not that I feel this belongs in a class with the former list, but this is the sort of thing conservative parents get all freaked out about), infanticide

Proof positive it doesn't matter what you say, but how you say it.

Library Pledge: Westwood Public Library

Library: Westwood Public Library

Date: Saturday, October 24th, 2009

I visited this library for a reading by Francesa Lia Block, pesky pixie author of Weetzie Bat.  

I have an author worship problem; whenever I meet a writer whose work I admire I tend to get a little spazzed out... When I met Jonathan Safran Foer way back in... 2006?  I got up to the book signing table, and handed him my book, the Post-it with my name on the title page, and I couldn't even talk.  Couldn't say a word.  I just handed him the book, gave him a wimpy little smile, and walked away.  He kind of looked at me funny... he will be at the Santa Monica Public Library tomorrow talking about Eating Animals.  Maybe I should go and try to not flip out.  But really, has anybody seen Mr. Foer?  I know he's married, but jeez louise.  Can you blame me for going silent? Also, I'm vaguely annoyed about Natalie Portman's recent article on Huffington Post regarding this book; is it really fair for someone to be gorgeous, have kissed Devendra Banhardt, be a genius, and be morally awesome, too?

Anyway, I had the exact opposite effect with Ms. Block when I met her (it was a very small, intimate kind of reading; quite lovely, actually).  I started talking a mile a minute about my niece, my sister, how only the very best boys we dated were Secret Agent Lover Men, a book report my sister did where we chopped all this cheapo doll's hair off so she would have a funky Weetzie-do... ridiculous.  

The library itself is very nice; I have it on good authority that when it rains, because the library has a metal roof, it's quite soothing.  Rainy-day ambiance is very important for libraries, in my mind; this library also has a back window that looks out over a tiny little cemetery.  

The Library List

I have several points to make:

A) You know how when you live in a city, you never go to any of the landmarks in that city?  Like when I lived in San Francisco I never went to Alcatraz or walked across the Golden Gate Bridge or went to the top of the Transamerica Pyramid (though I can't even count the number of times I went to City Lights, which is near the base of the building... sigh.  I've been missing good bookstores... I need to find one here in L.A. Or maybe not.  I might spend the rent check!)  Or when I lived in Big Bear, I never went snowboarding.  And I've never been the Forestiere Underground Gardens.  

B) I love lists.  Don't you love lists?  I love lists because you can check things off of lists.  Sometimes I make lists, and I write "Make To-Do List" at the top so I can cross it off.  

C) People who "do" lists are even more awesome.  Like, people who climb "The Top Seven Tallest Mountains in North America," or who visit every state in the United States, or have acted at least once in every known Shakespeare play.  This kinda stuff kills me.  I feel like it's the epitome of human achievement, even the small stuff, like reading every Jane Austen novel.  There is something so lovely in being complete and comprehensive.

Which brings me to my point.  I have pledged internally, last night, in my Public Libraries class, to visit every City of Los Angeles Public Library in the system.  There are currently 72, two of which I have been to: the Will and Ariel Durant Hollywood Regional Branch, and the Central Library (the cathedral of books...  I want to get married in their atrium...).  This weekend, I will be visiting the Westwood Branch, for a book talk given by three YA authors.  So three down, 69 to go!

I feel so monumental!  So it's not Everest, but I still think it's pretty cool.

So Meta!

When I was an undergrad, there was a group of us going through the literature/creative writing program that were properly surly, generally myopic (judging by the number of thick-rimmed glasses), and of course, snobbily obscure.  One subset of this group even started a salon-type gathering called the Clinamen Society, referring to Harold Bloom's (grr...) theory of creative break in which writers move away from their predecessors.  I felt this name to be vaguely... racy, for no discernible reason. 

This same general group would frequently refer to things as "meta," as in, "metafiction" (fiction about fiction, which was all the rage for a semester with the creative writing kiddos), or "metalanguage" (language used to talk about language).  The former and the latter are proper examples of the use of "meta," but it sort of became a schwa.  "That bar was kinda meta"; "She is a little meta tonight."  I have no idea what these were supposed to mean-- the literal definition of meta, in this context, is of a higher or second order.  A bar to define bars?  That's a damn good bar.

In honor of the re-introduction of "meta" into my paradigm (metadata; meta-science; meta-fields; meta-discipline; meta-structures; I read about all of these this week), I have created a little photo essay in the same loose "meta" sensibility to explain why in the heckers I moved to L.A. anyway.

This is the building where I learn about information science and libraries;

 

Then I go to the main library to...

...read library science books.

Books about libraries, in the library, read by a library and information science major.  So meta!