Category Archives: Library

Bring it On! (@ your library)

While I don’t think I’m capable of devoting an entire week to Cheerleading, I felt compelled to compose at least one post in honor of Bring it On Week. Because libraries are also cheertastic!

Cheerleading can be dangerous. There’s the risk of injury and the horrible illnesses that may strike when you’re away at cheerleading camp (Clinical Infectious Diseases). Even worse, you may encounter President Gerald Ford.

If you were a cheerleader in Wyoming in the 1950s, there is a high chance you might have worn a goofy hat. Sometimes cheerleaders were forced to wear letters on their sweaters, bows around their necks. Or yell through megaphones. Sometimes it isn’t the cheerleaders but the spectators at a game that might wear something wacky, as seen in this great picture of Warren Buffet hanging out in a fur coat with a cigar.

If you want to protest something more than your opposing team, why not try a little bit of Radical Cheerleading? Just remember, as you are trying to bring more super cheertasticness to your life that your library might have some cheerfabulous resources for you.

Dud Avocado

One of my holiday splurges was picking up a few New York Review Classics Books. I just finished The Dud Avocado and was amused by a few passages where Sally Jay demonstrates a pathological fear of becoming a spinster librarian. She has a recurring nightmare called the Dreaded Librarian Dream:

It’s all very vague. It takes place in a sort of vast hall, in the center of which sits a girl behind a desk, or rather a circular counter, which completely surrounds her. It’s funny about that desk; I’ve seen it somewhere before, I know I have, although it’s quite unlike any desk I’ve ever seen in a library. Anyway, the closer I get to this girl, the older she becomes, until she turns into a middle-aged spinster librarian. Then I see that it’s me. People keep coming up to her from every direction asking her for books. They are all going somewhere. In fact it isn’t a library at all, it’s more like a station. Everyone is in a hurry. They are all going somewhere except me. I’m trapped. One of the worst aspects of this dream is that from the very first time I dreamed it I’ve known, within the nightmare, so to speak, that it was one I’ve had before- an old, old nightmare of long ago. That gives it its special, ageless, hopeless quality.

Viz Library Editions

Viz is going to produce library editions for first volumes of some popular series. This might be useful, since graphic novel collections in libraries tend to be very high circulating items with a lot of wear and tear:

LIBRARY EDITIONS • MSRP: $15.99 • Available January 2008
In January, the company will also publish new hardcover Library Editions
of the first volumes of several popular manga series including BLEACH,
DEATH NOTE, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, INUYASHA, NARUTO and RANMA ½. The
content of these editions will match their original manga counterparts
but now packaged with a rugged hardcover to make the volumes viable for
years of library use.

Full press release is up at Pop Culture Shock

Manga: The Complete Guide

Manga: The Complete Guide by Jason Thompson (amazon)

I was eagerly awaiting the release of this book, since it combines two of my main passions – manga and reference books. Manga: The Complete Guide combines manga reviews with overviews of manga genres and creators. It would be a great reference book for any public library. Parents could use it to get an overview of their children’s reading habits. Manga fans can use it to get ideas for what to read next. Librarians can use the book as a collection development resource. The book opens with a brief history of manga, with a timeline included. The reviews in the book include age ratings, series are rated from 0-4 stars. Yaoi and adult manga are reviewed in separate sections at the end of the book. The genre overviews include shonen, shoujo, seinen, and josei as well as cooking, crime, magical girls, phantom thieves, and more. I hope the publisher decides to produce supplemental volumes in the future because while the reviews are comprehensive now, with the rate publishers are churning out translated manga there will soon be many series that aren’t covered in this book. Manga: The Complete Guide would make a great gift for your favorite YA librarian or manga fan.