Afternoon Thoughts

Afternoon Thoughts

This morning I filled our display for Banned Books Week 9/23/2008-9/28/2008. Most of the books had been taken out by patrons. We make it a point to allow patrons to take out books in our display if they ask for them. One of the major points of displaying books is to increase the amount of books being used. Two of the books were The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Color Purple. I believe banning books lessens freedom and reduces democracy in many cases. I can see red sometimes over the causes which people want things banned for.

I've taken a little bit of time to also prepare for the poetry open microphone this afternoon. I've printed out some of my poems and am ready to read some of them. I also have picked out some poetry books to display. Right now, they are on a cart in the back office. I usually pick out a mix of popular poets; Nikki Giovanni, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Berrigan, Diane Wakoski and anthologies; From Totems to Hip Hop and others. I also try to include some poetry from France, China, Arabia, and different places around the world.

The juice and cookies are in the refrigerator next to the community room. I am hoping that they have the new microphone for the reading. They promised they would buy it today, but they are having some payment issues right now.... It is a minor frustration. The layout is ready.

I also picked out two books from the new books section to look at. I don't read everything that I pick out. The first book is Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi. John Scalzi writes in the Old Man's War universe. This book is military science fiction. The other book which I am looking at is Sinner A Paradise Novel by Ted Dekker.

I did my short program. Not many people came. I find this very frustrating. Programming is not my strong point, nor is outreach. It is not something which I like doing. No one else is willing. It is very frustrating. I would much rather be working with the books and reference. I am also very good with doing displays, ordering, and materials.

I worked out my frustration a bit by sorting through the donations. I've found five books which are new and acceptable, all of them are 2007 titles by popular authors which should be added to the collection. I'll probably be going through the donations tomorrow. I really like doing this. It helps me release tension. It also reminds me of when I used to go through garage sales and flea markets to find old and valuable books. It is a kind of meditation exercise for me. I can concentrate completely on sorting through books and evaluating them for currency, condition, and relevance to our collection. The first thing I look for is condition.