Parenthetical

This is the Librarian episode of Your Life Work, a series of vocational films for young people. This one was filmed in 1946: Aside from some mildly embarrassing sexism, I’m amazed at how little hilarity I could find in this. The media are different, but the job hasn’t changed much in 65 years. The funniest [...]

[Read more →]

“I can never decide which book I want, and I hate buying a book and then realizing halfway through that I hate it. I can’t just return it and I’ve wasted money. I wish there were a way I could just borrow a book instead.” You can borrow books and return them if you would [...]

[Read more →]

Teachers’ unions in the MA towns of Raynham and Bridgewater are fighting against volunteers keeping their middle school libraries open after the librarians were laid off to hire more teachers. You can probably see both sides of this: on the one hand, the library needs to stay open so kids can use it! What’s wrong [...]

[Read more →]

Remember when I asked you for summer reading list suggestions? I finished the list a long time ago, of course, but it’s finally on our website. (That link will open a PDF.) The middle school section at the beginning is the part you helped with. (And those yellow highlighted books, by the way? Are links [...]

[Read more →]

More apocalypsey goodness tonight, I promise. But in the meantime, Guys Lit Wire is running a fantastic book drive for Native American reservation school libraries. These schools don’t have much budget for new books, so their collections are looking a little sad. Help get some shiny new reading material into the hands of these kids! [...]

[Read more →]

Following up on last week’s post about books in libraries… the NYTimes Room for Debate blog posted some of the comments from students. Most didn’t say much new, but here are a couple of thoughts I liked: One signed just “a thought”: Also, books (or any other printed material) cannot be changed by any means [...]

[Read more →]

Note: Even more than usual, note the disclaimer. I am speaking my own mind, not that of my Library Director (quoted in this article) or my school. Today’s New York Times includes an online Room for Debate feature: Do School Libraries Need Books? The debaters include James Tracy, Head of the now infamous in library [...]

[Read more →]

The kids are always horrified by this, but sometimes we get rid of books. Usually there’s a good reason. Sometimes there’s a very, very good reason. I want to share with you some of the best that cross my desk on their way to the “free books” cart… Crosbie, John S. Crosbie’s Dictionary of Puns. [...]

[Read more →]

ETA: This seems to be confusing people, so I’ll make it extra-clear: this is not my school! Just another independent school in MA. Our li’l MA independent school library world is national news: the headmaster of Cushing Academy was interviewed on Here and Now today (listen to “Technology in the Classroom”). What’s the deal? Basically, [...]

[Read more →]

Given their “rather fluffy skeletal structure,” Peeps have some special difficulties using the library… but in their research and printing practices, it turns out that they are much like college students. Comment here

[Read more →]