Don't forget to play!

National Gaming Day @ your library. Join the thousands of folks across the nation (and around the world!) who'll play games on Saturday.

You know you want to!

Superheroes & Sterotypes

It's Friday so there must be blog reading!

* A new superhero at Comic-Con? Hmm...

* Cat and Girl does it again with "Long Time Listener". Amen to "it's a start"!!! (via about a half-dozen blogs)

* I am a slacker; I've only just found the Library Leadership Network. (I need to add this great resource to my Information Systems wiki!)

* Just for fun: Non-Wrecky Children's Book Cakes. Beautiful!

* Necessary Science Stuff: Check out Experience the Planets, "our solar system through the eyes of artists" - amazing, amazing, amazing!

Random Fridays

Bits-n-pieces to end the week!

* More on the forthcoming calendar from the Texas Library Association. (thanks to many!)

* The secret side of happenings at the ALA conferences? (NSFW language)

* I just love precision book cart drill teams, especially ones that channel Marilyn Monroe. (thanks Coleen!)

* Speaking of bookcarts, don't forget that Unshelved's Pimp My Bookcart contest is accepting entries!

Yeah, sorry, that's all I've got for now. More next week! Currently 103° and thinking about rain.

Random Linkdump

These have been collecting for the last couple of weeks; more to come later!

* thanks to Danny for letting me know about "Sit Down, Shut Up", a short-lived animated TV series featuring an "unappreciated librarian who often gets mistaken for objects such as brooms or toilet brushes." Makes me want to run right out and see it... er.... wait....

* librarygrrrl has written several Reference Desk Haikus that just need to be enjoyed. My favorite is "I am an expert / in tracking down resources. / I earned a degree."

* See! I told you not to mess with a Warhammer 40K Librarian!

Currently 93° and sunny. Looks like we might have an early monsoon season this year!

Book of Monsters now available!

Volume Two of the collected Rex Libris, "Book of Monsters," is now available! Get your copy from SLG Publishing today, or ask your local comic book store to order you one! If you weren't able to get the individual issues, this is the best way to see what you've missed, and based on the extras added to Volume One, "I, Librarian," there will be lots of fun extras in this one too.

Careers, Tattoos and Archie McPhee

Yes, they really do all have something in common: they're in today's Random Tuesday Musings.

* US World and News Report has released an article (by Marty Nemko, 11 December 2008) stating that, yes, once more, Librarian is a great career for 2009. (The flame war that broke out on NextGenLib may provide some alternate opinions, though.) I personally have a lot of issues with the way the article is written - I mean, to be honest, I don't know a single librarian who kicks back in the morning with a cuppa and "leafing through catalogs from online database publishers and book reviews in Library Journal to decide which titles to add to your collection" - we've got way, way, way too much else to do as well! But...it's always nice to see the profession presented in a positive way, and Nemko certainly does that.

* Surely you remember Archie McPhee - the company that brought us the Librarian Action Figure! If you've ever wanted to know more - such as, Why?!?! - then this interview with founder Mark Pahlow by Jack Broom at the Seattle Times might help. Yes, we feature prominently ;-) and I think I'm going to check out this book - I love perusing the catalog and plan on getting many things to fill my son's toybox as he gets older!

* Lastly, just an interesting photo collection: the Science Tattoo Emporium.

Friday Fun

Today: T-shirts! All from the folks at Instant Attitudes.

• Want!
  
  
• Don't we all?
  
  
• For the other coffee-holics out there
  

I hear there's this thing called "fall" happening in other places. Right now, we've got 90° temps with mostly sunny skies. Yay!

Brain Break!

Thanks to Hedgehog Librarian!


EepyBird's Sticky Note experiment from Eepybird on Vimeo.

Fredricksen Library Bookcart Drill Team

Brilliant! Be sure to check out the Fredricksen Library Bookcart Drill Team as they do an awesome quick-change from Marian the Librarian to Queen! (I can't seem to embed this one properly or I'd have done so...go check it out!)

Happy Dancing People

How did I miss this?!?! July 22nd's Astronomy Picture of the Day (always amazing) was actually a movie. Of people. Around the world. DANCING! I defy you to watch this without smiling. (I was smiling so much by the end of it that my cheeks hurt!) As a lifelong dancer, I heartily applaud Matt Harding and his team for this production. Thank you!


Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Librarian Glasses...

...on a necklace! Interesting. From Tatty Devine, via Shiny Shiny. (Not sure I'd want to spend $44 + S&H on one, though...)

Random Video

Busy, busy, busy - here are some things to keep you occupied...

* Thumbs down: Erik the Librarian. Seen around the net, and in Library Journal...4 episodes posted so far. The summary says "Erik is a reclusive, introspective, yet very vocal librarian on a perpetual quest to make himself understood." LJ said "...it's a low point in the ongoing wars against the librarian stereotype. [...] Actually, he's obnoxious, manic, grating, and aggressive to the point of stalkerish." And, you know, I just can't top that. (I also couldn't watch anymore past about halfway through episode 3...blech.)

* Thumbs up: Library War. "The action comedy anime adapts Hiro Arikawa's popular novel about battles fought to preserve libraries when a new law threatens to clamp down on freedom of expression in 2019." I watched the video (no, I had no idea what they were saying) and just hope it gets released here with subtitles! Reminded me a lot of Yomiko Readman, aka The Paper, from Read or Die. (Watch it, if you haven't!)

* Two Thumbs Up! "Blood In The Stacks: Ravaged By A Vampire Librarian." (No, really, it's totally SFW.) Since even my stick people are sometimes unidentifiable, watching this vampbrarian (ha, ha) come to life was wild!

18 Sexy Trips to the Library Stacks

Entertainment Weekly celebrates National Library Week in their own film-based way.

Spring is on the way out; today it's supposed to hit 95°. Thus begins summer's approach...

It's Friday, so it should be funny...

"Press button..."

thanks, Sixten!

The Year in First Lines

This not-a-meme is popping up everywhere; I'm running from Hedgehog Librarian's posting. You take the first sentence from the first post of each month for the year and post 'em... here goes!

January: Happy New Year, everyone!

February: Damn.

March: The Call for Speakers has been sent out for Internet Librarian.

April: Or, not...

May: OK, late off the block but I just have to share this: Librarian, by HauntedLove. (Still one of my faves!)

June: So, I'm in Denver now...

July: So, American Libraries also wrote me up in the June 20th issue of AL Direct, in the "Actions & Answers" section.

August: ...buried, inundated, overwhelmed...

September: Found via the ever-reliable LISNews, this article over on "Mere Comments" (a blog for Touchstone magazine) titled "The Librarian as 'Professional'" had me alternating between annoyance and agreement.

October: Hat tip to the 3BT blog...

November: (Catching up on my last few posts!)

December: So.

It seems that I have a habit of starting off my posts rather... shortly. Hmm. Also, so, so, so, ok, and SO. Ha!

Are you geeky enough to be a librarian?

Found quite a while after posting on the Librarian Avengers site, I just took this quiz, and scored a 13. 10-15 = "I’ve got some library school applications under my desk you big dork". Are you geeky enough? (I think I've got to work on it a bit!)

A small bit o'info: The centerpiece of my door art is "Why you should fall to your knees and worship a librarian". I get comments on it all the time... and if they're snarky, I kick the crap out of them.

60° and sunny... I'm such a wimp I'm wearing wool slippers, a long-sleeved T, a long-sleeved woolen shirt, and have a blanket on my lap. It's almost embarrassing.

Want

I must admit, I want the "November was a good month" shirt (if only it came in another color, sigh) and the glasses on the female model. Bummer about the tape on the male model's glasses, though - they appear to have crossed "librarian" with "geek" for this one. (As a geeky librarian, I would like to state for the record: No tape on my glasses.)

Found via Folderol

Fun for Friday

(This has absolutely nothing to do with librarians!) A friend forwarded this to me; considering that (in my mis-spent youth) I've been in clubs with folks who dance a lot like some of his segments I had to laugh! Check out the Evolution of Dance over on YouTube.

It's a toasty 106° today.

More Rex!

Rex Libris #8 is now available; continue the adventures of the World's Most Kick-Butt Librarian (apologies to Andrew, the original Butt-Kicking Librarian) in this "all-action-all-the-time extravaganza"! I found Rex's home page as well, and I really encourage all librarians to read about the Ordo Bibliotheca :-D

As well, I've just learned that Warner Brothers has optioned Rex for the big screen!

Conference Plug: I'll be talking about Rex (and a whole lotta other librarian pop culture stuff!) on Tuesday, June 5th starting at 2:30 pm. I hope you'll join me!

Feh... it's only 94°. Guess our heat wave is over... for now!

Ice Break on the Rillito

Well, it's that time of year again - the forecast is for our first 100° day tomorrow, and it's supposed to be 100°+ all weekend long. Wonder when we'll actually break 100?

Ah, summer's here!