Once again, I am accidentally ahead of the curve

NPR says that libraries may be the next big thing ala cupcakes, which is awesome, except that the next big thing eventually turns into something old and played out. I’d like for libraries to be the next big thing ala flip-flops, which have existed in one form or another for hundreds of years. Despite their lengthy history, it has only been in the last decade and a half that flip-flops came on the scene in the US as acceptable public, adult footwear. Given their ubiquity, despite how bad they are for the feet, I doubt that they’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.

So, while I thank NPR for encouraging people to think about libraries, I don’t want readers to equate these amazing institutions with cupcakes. Cupcakes can be great, no doubt, but they can also be generic and ridiculously expensive, and as a trend cupcakes are dangerously close to overexposure. Instead, when you think of libraries, think of flip-flops: easy to find, accessible to all, and inexpensive to use. But not detrimental to your arches.

Good food for a good cause

I hope you’re hungry, North Jersey. Today, Wednesday July 14, 2010, Blue Moon Mexican Cafe of Englewood is hosting a fundraiser for the Englewood Public Library. In order for the library to benefit from your excellent taste in restaurants, you must present the following flyer. It’s good for the entire day, and for eat-in, delivery, or carryout orders. Help the library!

Here’s a link to the flyer by itself, without any text from this post.

Update: Future Husband Isaiah Mustafa, AKA the Old Spice Guy, says a few words about libraries:

Libraries and schools are not an either/or proposition

The Chicago branch of Fox News, that bastion of fair and balanced reporting, posed a question: Are libraries necessary, or a waste of tax money? Obviously, this is a stupid question and I’m surprised that any news organization aspiring to reputability would even pose it, but thankfully Mary A. Dempsey, the Chicago Public Library Commissioner, had a more extensive response.

If you have a moment

Please be a pal and sign this petition to get the funding of the Englewood Public Library restored. You’d be even more awesome if you passed this along to everybody whose email address you’ve ever learned. TIA!

Keep fighting the good fight

It seems likely that efforts to restore library funding have had a positive impact on elected officials; both the Newark Star Ledger and NJ.com recently had articles that said that library funding would be cut to a much less extreme degree than originally proposed. While this sounds like good news, no specifics in these stories, and the fact that budget restorations are sometimes not passed, means that we need to keep up our efforts. If you haven’t participated in the final push to restore library funding in NJ, please do so now.

Thanks!

Fingers crossed

It’s not much to go on, but I read a couple of articles today that mentioned that the NJ budget that gets passed may scale back on the proposed cuts to the state’s libraries. I’m not sure how much of a reprieve they’re talking about, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

Making hay while I still have a job

I’m enjoying one of the more awesome parts of being employed: the business trip. I’m attending the Computers in Libraries conference this week. Maybe I only find this exciting because I don’t HAVE to travel much, but I like moving around, and the DC area, where I am, is gorgeous this time of year. I’m in a session right now, and it’s pretty fascinating, but sitting here having somebody talk at me is reminding me of college in a big way. I’m taking notes on my computer, which I was a couple of years too old to really have experienced as an undergrad, but is cool. Still, the lure of the internet is, as you can see, too strong to resist.

Please help keep me in books and yarn* – Permanent for now

I know that this isn’t about me at all, but I feel that a little selfishness is allowed, as I will be directly affected if Governor Christie’s proposed budget is passed. As it stands, this budget would cut 74% of New Jersey library funding. By any accounting, that is an insane amount of money, even though the $10 million in library programs cut from the Governor’s budget represents little more than $1 per person in state funds.

What you can do:

• Become a NJ library champion
• Become a BCCLS (Bergen County) library champion
• Contact your legislators online (scroll down)
• Send a letter to your legislators Related: Find out who your legislators are
• Who doesn’t like a good rally? Join the May 6 rally for libraries in sexy Trenton, NJ
• Join the “Save New Jersey Libraries” Facebook Group. This is one of the most visible and least useful ways to support something, so make sure you do at least one or two of the other things, as well.

* Those are my vices, although I will admit that they’re not nearly as exciting as hookers and blow.

I’m old

I’m turning 29 this year, and I feel really old. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it seems amazing to me how fast my 20s went. I feel like my 29 years have gone so fast, and am beginning to understand what genuinely old people (those in their 40s, say) mean when they talk about life going by quickly.

This weekend, I went to Connecticut for my aunt’s 70th birthday party. It was a (gentle) roast, and my cousin, the MC, decided to put the passage of 70 years in perspective. We found a web site that helped us, and she started off her speech to my aunt with the following facts:

What Things Cost in 1940:
Car: $800
Gasoline: 18 cents/gal
House: $6,550
Bread: 8 cents/loaf
Milk: 34 cents/gal
Postage Stamp: 3 cents
Stock Market: 131
Average Annual Salary: $1,900
Minimum Wage: 30 cents per hour

Everybody laughed at the huge difference in price between then and now, and it made think of the changes I’ve seen in many things, just in my own lifetime. A postage stamp cost $.18 when I was born, and I remember watching televised reports of people’s outrage when it went up to $.29 (I just checked, and that happened when I was 9). My undergraduate college now costs about %55 more (!!) per year for tuition, room, and board than it did when I was a student there. I doubt that it’s 55% more awesome than it used to be, but that’s neither here nor there. I remember a forward that the new students sent to each other about knowing that you were a child of the 80s if… It pointed out the differences between the world in which we lived and the one into which we’d been born, and mocked 90s babies for all that they’d missed (I still take this stance, by the way; the 80s > the 90s).

But then I read this piece, and it shocked me. Of course, most American kids today have never used a physical card catalog, unless they’re from a very small library system. That makes sense, but it seems odd that kids today have never experienced something that I enjoyed so much when I was younger. For me, the physical card catalog was interesting because of the “See also” and “See instead” references. I liked it when I thought the way the cataloger had and found what I wanted the the first time. I also liked when I had to look unexpected to find what I wanted. Either way, it was like participating in a scavenger hunt that I always won. Now, people who know what they’re looking for can do the same with an online catalog, search engine, or database in a fraction of the time. The results are the same, although the process is now disappointingly straightforward.

I’m used to people thinking that Google is magically going to spit out the answer to every question they have, and thinking that the Internet is broken if all is not revealed by the first link, but I sometimes forget that there was a time when people regularly had to do more to get information.

Yay for Philadelphia!

As a followup to my previous post about the possible closing of the Free Library of Philadelphia, I am pleased to pass along that the library will remain open! The Pennsylvania State Senate passed a bill that will allow the library to remain open, and keep 3,000 city employees from being laid off. I love it when people come together to do good like this!