The much overdue Kindle post.

I have a confession to make.

In January I finally broke down and bought a Kindle, using some of my Christmas money.
It isn't really that I didn't like books - their solid feel, the scent of paper, the stories and knowledge within; it was more that I liked them TOO much.

Yes, I ran out of shelf room. Believe me, you do NOT want to see what is crammed onto my limited shelving. I'm a dedicated library user; my rare purchases are all books that I REALLY want. However, it was getting to the point where I'd have to discard a book for every one that I bought. Weeding my collection had been hard enough the last time that I moved; I simply could not pack up and keep them all at the time. The process ended up being a triage of determining which I wanted to keep, which I was less attached to, and which I could reliably find at a public library. Still, it was not an experience a dedicated book hoarder would want to repeat.

Not to mention that the books are really heavy to move.
Friends help you move.
REALLY GOOD friends help you move books. :)

Thus, I went with the Kindle. Small, light, portable, and capable of holding thousands of titles.
Hopefully it will NOT be breakable. I did invest in a protective cover and am not planning to do any bubble bath reading with it in the foreseeable future.

My initial impressions have been favorable. I like the electronic ink screen and have no trouble reading it even with a dim lamp. Navigation is mostly intuitive. Downloading titles is easy. The Kindle also seems to be curbing the extremely bad habit I have of skipping forward within a novel.

There are some drawbacks. Not all titles are available. It probably would not do any sort of justice to photographs or drawings. Thus its use is best limited to books of prose, and it would not work well for a graphic novel or any sort of book with photos or illustrations.

Overall, I really do like my new gadget. The Kindle is solving a major problem for me, and is also fun and easy to use.

I suppose the next thing I have to worry about is how fast I can fill up the memory space on a Kindle...

...uh oh. ;)

Presently rereading: The Name of the Wind

I'm presently rereading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, in preparation for reading the sequel, which was recently published. It is a good, thick book, and a bit of a layered read. I'm noticing a lot of plot elements the second time around that I missed the first time I read it.

Recent Reads: Side Jobs by Jim Butcher

I'm a Jim Butcher fan. I've been so since my friend Kelly and her husband Bryce steered me toward his urban fantasy series, The Dresden Files. What's not to like about tales of a Chicago private investigator who is an honest-to-goodness-staff-wielding wizard?

Ok, that might seem a little far fetched, but Butcher creates vivid characters and interesting plots. If I don't care about the characters, I can't get into a book. It may help that Butcher seems to be a geek. References to Star Wars and Tolkien, among other fandoms, are sprinkled throughout the books.

Apparently other people also have good opinions about The Dresden Files, as the series is now 12 books long and includes New York Times bestsellers. Side Jobs is a collection of short stories and novellas set in The Dresden Files universe. Most of them appeared in other anthologies, and have been republished in the collection.

One story in particular struck me when I read the anthology. Butcher's introduction explains that the story was partially inspired by events that took place after his family moved to a new neighborhood. He spent a lot of time meeting the new neighbors, and was surprised when he discovered how some of the very small things he had done and said had huge impacts of the lives of some of the people he met.

The story itself is a typical Harry Dresden urban fantasy where Harry is trying to keep a holy sword (essentially Excaliber) out of the hands of the wrong person. Long time readers of the series should be able to see how Butcher is having his characters develop based on events in the series. However, in the usual fast-forward of crises, Harry has a number of seemingly minor interactions with various strangers. It isn't until the end of the story that we find that those small encounters were actually more important in many ways than the driving plot of the story.

I think that is a good thing for people to remember. You don't always know how your actions will affect another person. Small encounters can end up changing lives. I know of at least one time that I have caused such a change in a single chance meeting. I'd rather remember the impact I can have by just being me, and try to steer the results to good outcomes.

Reshelving myself

"Recataloged and Reshelving" summarizes where I am in life at the moment. I've recataloged myself*, and am working on getting myself reshelved into a more appropriate situation. Because of the current economy, it is turning out to be more of a task than I anticipated**, but the end result of a vocation that I can love should be well worth it.

Why Librarianship?

Well, I like helping people. It is great to be able to direct them to the exact information that they need. I like teaching them how to find information. This was one of the things that I liked about teaching, but frankly, I think I was much too nice to be a teacher. Patient niceness is an advantage at the Reference Desk, but it is less useful when half the class seems to feel that homework is optional. But to be able to actually help somebody...whether the task is to find a book, do extensive database research, finesse the copier, or untangle some software issue...is a good thing. The task may seem trivial at times, but it is important to the person who takes the trouble to ask for help.

Of course, there is also the books. I know libraries are not just books. They're books, music, movies, media, a public meeting place, a place to learn interesting things, and so much more. But they were originally houses for the written word, and I love books. I love information about far away places and things. I love seeing everyday things through another's perspective. I love story. Frankly, I think most novels have much better plots than many movies or television shows.*** I have very few people that I truly admire, but Nancy Pearl is one of them. Her sheer enthusiasm for finding the right book for the right person at the right time is something I would like to emulate.****

To me, that is the essence of librarianship; finding the "correct information" for each person, whether it be a good story, database assistance, deep research in journals, a forgotten song, an internet search, a book talk group, a travel presentation, a teen game day, a child's story hour, the work of a featured artist, promotion of literacy, or any of the other myriad ways that libraries serve their patrons. Because people come looking for these things, even the smallest assistance touches their lives in a good way.

* A Master of Library Science Degree

** Time to send out more resumes...

*** Come to think of it, the TV shows I tend to gravitate to are the ones with long story arcs that somewhat resemble serial novels.

**** I'm also enough of a geek that any librarian who has an action figure modeled after her tickles me pink.