January thaw

[altivo]

Drip, drip, drip. Dropping below freezing now. Fortunately the warm up was only a couple of degrees above freezing, so we didn't get the catastrophic meltdown that flooded the boys' barn last year. The main consequence was that the snow around the "ice tracks" our wheelbarrow follows got spongy, making navigation of a full wheelbarrow difficult. It slips off the track now and bogs down in the soft snow alongside, making for much heavy work.

I spent the morning cleaning up Booth Tarkington (no not literally, he's been dead for half a century.) I rescued a 1914 edition of Penrod that was about to be discarded from the children's department because it hadn't been checked out in some time. Now that's no surprise, given a plain binding and the fact that it's a fairly thick book. As is often the case with such classics, Tarkington's Penrod books were really written for adults but later came to be considered children's books. They aren't. I was going to move it to adult fiction, and found that we have a number of more obscure Tarkington novels in that section. The cataloging was bad, which doesn't help circulate books or even with finding them. In fact, Monsieur Beaucaire was entered in the catalog as a second copy of The Magnificent Ambersons. Sigh. I don't know how these things happen or why. I can only say that it was all long before I was here, and it's all corrected now.

Received a second shipment of two books I had ordered for myself before the holidays. The original order came just a few days after I ordered, and I was surprised to receive a duplicate shipment yesterday. The packing slip says it's a "replacement shipment - original never received" which is certainly not true. Nor did I report non-receipt. I e-mailed the seller's customer service asking if perhaps someone had transposed digits in an order or customer number, and how to return the duplicates. The response just arrived: "Please keep the extra copies, on us." So they aren't going to tell me how it happened. Guess I'll donate them to the library.

Gary's in Chicago. I'm bored and sleepy. Lots I should be doing, but don't feel like it, so I'm probably going to read until I can't stay awake any more and then go to bed.

Comments

[quetico.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I got an extra toolbox that way, when the original got lost, and eventually turned up.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Seller's policies about such things are often inconsistent. I've had the same place tell me to return inconsequential items and another time keep expensive ones.

[mondhasen.livejournal.com]

I rescued a 1914 edition of Penrod that was about to be discarded from the children's department because it hadn't been checked out in some time.

I've gotten hardened against such practices, knowing that culling has to begin somewhere, but inwardly this still bothers me when a classic old book is retired due to circulation numbers. I used to bring a lot of these weeds home, like my 1909 The Arabian Nights, illustrated by Parish, but I just can't save them all.

So tonight I've ordered a 1914 Penrod from our Scituate branch just to give it a looksee, and to give it a mark. I hope it was cataloged correctly and doesn't turn out to be one of the latter reprints.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Those old editions with Parrish illustrations are collectors' items. They really should be saved somehow.

I agree, space is limited and sometimes things do have to be removed from the collections. It has to be done judiciously though, and not just by numbers. I need to remove a lot of outdated material on computers and networks, something I can competently do. On the other paw, I can't judge medical books properly. Sadly, everyone thinks they are competent to weed the children's books, but few really have the background and vision that is needed.

My predecessor tossed books just because they were "old" or "looked too worn," with utter disregard for context, content, or historic value.

[equusmaximus.livejournal.com]

It's a shame that libraries just don't have room for all of the books that are out there, and thus must discard books over time. I remember books from my childhood that I cannot find in the library anymore. :/

As for things being mis-catalouged, this is something I see happening all the time when it comes to video rentals. I don't know how many times I've found the movie "Wizards" in the Children's Section. "D-Uh, it's a cartoon, so it must be a kid's film!" More rarely, I've found "Fritz the Cat" in the kiddie-section, but the cover artwork on Fritz generally make it obvious that it's not a kiddie-film, but Wizards was a little more obscure unless you're paying attention.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

One of the joys of working in a really large research library is that you rarely have to throw things away or sell them. Unfortunately, the politics of academic institutions are draconian and obnoxious.

Children's books often disappear because they are completely worn out and falling apart. That's why few libraries have the original format editions of Beatrix Potter's animal story books, for instance. It's sad, too. All those lovely watercolor illustrations she did and the miniature format was so perfect. The modern reprints just don't have the same quality of reproduction for the artwork, or the same feel to them.

Yes! Animated films are one of my big peeves. Here as in so many places, they tend to be tossed into the children's department without any thought at all. I've now made so much noise about it that I get asked when one arrives whether it should go there or not. Jeez, folks, read the reviews and summaries. It's not rocket science, really. But they just can't break free of the notion that all animated films are simple cartoons. Worse, they can't bring themselves to watch one and find out differently. It's a deep seated prejudice that underlies that attitude. Fantasia is a perfect example. Except for the Mickey Mouse scene and perhaps the classical myths to Beethoven, children are bored and confused. A deeper understanding of both the stories and the music are needed in order to appreciate the film. Then comes Allegro non Tropo which is in part a parody of the original, and things grow really complex. "But it's a cartoon, it's for kids." Sorry, no.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Fantasia reminds me of when, as a child, I used to fast-forward right to the Pastoral Symphony and... er... the one with the ballet hippos. I found the rest boring; Even Mickey as the sorceror's apprentice annoyed the younger me with his blatant incompetence and inefficiency (yes, really). :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You're right, I forgot about "Dance of the Hours." ;p

However, the treasures in the film lie in the Bach at the beginning, the Tschaikowsky Nutcracker selections, and the last two works, "Night on Bald Mountain" and "Ave Maria," at least in my opinion. Children generally do not appreciate those and may even be seriously frightened by some of them.

Disney's own discussions of the film make it clear that he was aiming at all audiences, but in particular hoped to reawaken an interest in classical music among teens and adults. At least in the era in which the film was released, it failed at that and was heavily criticized for the choice of "long hair" music. Fortunately it survived and is appreciated today.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Well done for rescuing the baby book and sorting out its brothers and sisters in the process.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, I can only preserve these and make them accessible. I can't actually get people to read them, which means that eventually they will be tossed out.

[kakoukorakos.livejournal.com]

I just can't see discarding a book simply because someone hasn't checked it out in years. A local school pulled quite a number of books from its collection that didn't appear to have been checked out in upwards of 30 years. Some were horifically-outdated reference books, but a lot of them just seemed like it shouldn't matter how long they haven't been checked-out. Maintaining a current & popular collection is what bookstores do; preserving obscure books is what libraries' missions are.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Only in part. Yes, academic and research libraries generally need to preserve as much as they can. Public libraries have more limited space and budgets. If we never thinned out the collection, we'd have to stop growing. Nothing new is even worse than nothing old.

We do, however, try to be selective about what gets removed. How to's for Windows 3.1 are much more dispensible than early 20th century novels. I've been rebuilding some of the things my predecessor tossed, like Jane Austen and Mark Twain. We've also added back a lot of older award winning children's books that had gone away (probably through self-destruction in that case, rather than "weeding.") It is sadly true, however, that general public readership rarely looks at such things. They think instead that we should have fifteen copies of the latest James Patterson or Janet Evanovich, so they don't have to buy one and can get ours as soon as they want it.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

1914 edition O.O Wow, I'd be surprised if any of my local libraries had anything that old. Most of the old things go to the state library where they're cared for with care.

Well at least the library can benefit from the shipping error :) As to bored and sleepy I always feel like I should be doing something more constructive but end up sleeping or doing something else. But the Heat doesn't help.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Send some heat up here please. *has cold paffers*

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Are you sure the sun is really savage here at the moment *goes outside and tells the heat to move over there to where you are*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think it got here, but mostly it made fog so thick you couldn't see more than 100 meters or so. Driving to work this morning was a challenge.