Cavendish Library Blog

When I read my monthly issue of Booklist, the magazine that so many of us librarians read, I was delighted to see an upcoming book called Dewey about a library cat.  As both a librarian and a cat person (the two don’t always go together) I was delighted.  So many of the best selling books about animals are about dogs.  Marley and Me comes to mind.  I ordered it through my jobber and waited anxiously for the book to arrive.  It came with a cute little picture of an orange fluffy cat on it. Awwww!  I was entranced and brought it home to read, ignoring the homework that I was supposed to correct and the homework I was supposed to do for a class that I am taking.  I inhaled the book, sure I was going to love it.  Thinking this was going to be the Marley and Me of cats and plus it was written by a librarian, I dove right in with high hopes.  It started off good enough, the kitten had been found stuffed into a book drop and the poor thing was almost frozen to death.  Mind you I hate pet abuse, so I was rooting for the cat all the way.  The cat was adopted by the library, named Dewey Readmore Books and was the perfect choice: affectionate, open outgoing and funny. To be fair the book was good.  But in Marley and Me’s league?  Nope.  The thing that I thought made Marley and Me such a fantastic book, was the tension inherent in the story.  What was Marley going to do next? Was he going to eat a garage door?  Go crazy at the beach? He was unpredictable.  Dewey was predictable.  Did he become part of the town and famous? Yes.  Did he make a difference in the life of the author?  Yes, but all of this was predictable as told in the full title of the book: Dewey: the Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World.   Oh, by the way, Spenser Iowa is not a small town, they have a population of around 10,994 according to the 2007 census.  In Vermont, that is not a small town.

If you take the book on its own merit, it is a good read.  As a librarian, I am always interested in what is going on in other libraries, how they are attracting and serving  people, what ideas that they have that might inspire me and help me attract and serve more people, so I probably would have picked it up anyway. The author Vicky Myron, did a good job.  It was well written and enjoyable.

I don’t know if the fundemental difference between Dewey and Marley and Me is that of the difference between cats and dogs.  Dogs want to please you.  They come when called and are interactive and social.  Cats train you to please them.  They do their own thing on their terms.  If Dewey was interactive and social it was because it was his style to be so.  Still, it’s worth the time to read.  I can bet that it will be in your local library.  Which librarian can resist it?

One of the true joys of being a librarian, and there are many, is the immediate selection, every day of books.  I often thought, while I was still a classroom teacher that working in a library would be like working in a candy store: you would pig out for a while, but then get sick of it.  Well, I have been a librarian for five years now, and I’m still pigging out on books.   I am willing to work in a chocolate store and see if I get sick of it too, but I doubt it. Anyway, back to books. My lastest discovery, or in this case rediscovery, is Russian Literature and history.  I have always been one of those people who hoped that Anna Anderson really was Anastasia and have devoured books on the last Imperial family, mostly non-fiction and mostly supporting the idea that one of the Romanovs might have survived.  I went so far as to take Russian history classes in college and argue vociferously with my professor as to whether or not Anastasia might have survived.  I hadn’t read much about Russia until recently when I stumbled across an audiobook of Robert Alexander’s The Romanov Bride which reignited my interest.  It’s not about Anastasia, but her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth.  I of course had to get my hands on his other book The  Kitchen Boy and I am working on getting Rasputin’s Daughter.  The former being excellent and I am looking forward to the latter.  I have also dusted off my Anastasia books and am enjoying them as well. I have also started the Edvard Radzinsky biography of Tsar Alexander II.  A good book so far, but Radzinsky has this horrible habit of clubbing you over the head multiple times with foreshadowing.  His books are sprinkled with comments like “then he sat down to a dish of macaroni, the same meal he would eat on the last night of his life”.  For my birthday,  I recently gifted myself with a copy of Christine Feehan’s Dark Curse,  a gothic semi-vampire romance story, the latest in a series that I eagerly devour the minute they are published.  A great book, but I think she started to take herself a little too seriously when she created a language for her Carpathians based on proto Hungarian.  This series did start out as paranormal romance, and until they get done or so bad that I can’t stand it I will buy them for myself.  Meanwhile, I ordered that book for the library.  Come by and take a look at it.

I heard a rumor through my husband about Sarah Palin supposedly banning books when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.  I was somewhat relieved to read in today’s USA Today that that information was incorrect.  According to McCain spokesman, Taylor Griffen, she only asked about how it could be done as there had been some controversy about a few books in the library, and it was a total coincidence that the librarian was asked to reapply for her job some time after.  Supposedly the book banning question was “theoretical”.  This means that Sarah never really tried to ban books.  This is the truth, right?

I think the truth lies somewhere in between.  According to USA Today (again) the former librarian Mary Ellen Emmons told an Alaska newspaper in 1996 that “Palin repeatedly asked her about removing books from the library, but Palin had never mentioned specific titles”.

This is enough to make me, as a librarian, a little nervous about this VP Candidate.  Book banning is a scary business.  The idea that one person can make the decision for others (not their particular child) about what they can or cannot read frightens me.  The idea that Palin was repeatedly asking how to remove books from library shelves makes me cringe.  To me, asking about the process is only one step away from using it.

We had a book challenge last January.  A patron wanted a book removed because she believed it was inappropriate for children to read as it contained what she felt was bad language and content.  With some support from the office of intellectual freedom, I survived the challenge.  It was a scary meeting though. 

Books are selected for libraries following what are called “Material Selection Policy” criteria.  They vary from library to library, but basically say that books are selected according to reviews, quality, need and librarian judgement.  Books are not just thrown on the shelf randomly, but are carefully selected to follow these guidelines. Once a book is on the shelf in a library, no one is forced to read it.  Different patrons have different values and it is not the place of one group of people to impose their values on another by trying to remove books.

One of the fundamental ( yes, I am appropriating the word) rights a patron has in the library is the right to read what they want, and while I do think that parents have the right to decide what their child reads, nobody has the right to decide what what other children can or cannot read.

The idea of electing someone who even thinks about book banning concerns me because it is not that far of a reach to see such conservative politics influencing more book bannings and more erosion of civil rights.

As to the book challenge that we had here?  The book is still on the shelves.  It was well reviewed and met our materials selection policy.  I had help defending it from other librarians, who sadly have faced challenges before.

As for me, I have a son who just turned nine.  I watch what he reads, as I think all parents should.  He has not brought home anything I find objectionable.  If he does, you can bet that we will talk about it and our values.

One of the things that has been taking up a tremendous amount of my time over the summer is the new Redfield Proctor room which we have added to the library.  As all of you who read this and take the time to drop in and see my library know that before this we were a one room shop.  A nice, large room, but still just one room divided into the children’s section and the adult section.  This normally wouldn’t cause too much trouble, but along with being the town library, we are also the school library, and as such I teach classes in the library each day and have after school programming and story time as well, so the cheerful sound of children always rings throughout that one room.  That said if you are trying to find a quiet place to read, the library wasn’t always it…..Until now.  In June a large room was converted from a storage place to a combination quiet reading room, space for special collections, small meeting room, gallery for local artists. Along with giving people a place to read quietly and have a nice spot for all of those who come through the library looking for geneological information a place to spread out their papers, the feature that I’m most excited about right now, is gallery for local artists.  The room was completed a few weeks ago and the folks at The Vermont Journal were nice enough to give us some print space about it in which I begged for local artists to come and show off their work.  We finally have one! Glady Degener, long time resident of Cavendish and library patron is going to hang a few of her oils in the Redfield Proctor Room this week, and I couldn’t be more delighted. Come on by and take a look!  As for the real Redfield Proctor, he was a the governer of Vermont, a senator from Vermont, and Secretary of War from 1889-1891, and until Alexander Solzhenitsyn probably the most famous son that Cavendish ever had.  Granted, Solzhenitsyn wasn’t born here, but he lived here for a very long time, and as far as I’m concerned, that counts.

If you love books, like I love books, and if you are reading a library blog, I would hope that you do, you might be interested in the site “What Should I Read Next”, the link to which is on the library website.  Many times when I have finished a book that I really enjoyed, and I know that I have read everything the author has written, I want to read something else like it.  Also, sometimes I get in the “mood” for a book similar to one I have read to help tide me over while waiting impatiently for the next book in a series.  That’s when I turn to “What Should I Read Next?”  It’s simple, really, you type in the title and author of the last book you read, and it suggests books for you.  It’s kind of like a Netflix queue for books.  The more books you type in, the better the suggestions are.  If you create an account, it will store your lists for you.  It’s actually rather cool.  They are also beta testing a “What Should I Watch Next?” section for finding a movie.  Be aware with the book list that it will come up with all of the books by the author of the book you put in, and you can get that on Amazon.com.  It has made some great suggestions for me.  I love the Frances Mayes books…Who doesn’t want to live on a farm in Tuscany and eat the food she describes.  The “What Should I Read Next” website suggested Carol Drinkwater’s book “The Olive Farm” about her struggle to rehabilitate an olive farm in the south of France.  It wasn’t quite as good as “Under the Tuscan Sun” and there were no recipes to make you drool, but it was a good book on the genre.  So…..Once you’ve found a book to read, what do you do?  Call your local library of course!

The Cavendish Fletcher Library Blog is coming soon, so check back in a few days.