Random Thursday (ˈrandəm ˈTHərzdā): the day on which Sarah plunks down all the odd bits and pieces she’s acquired here and there in an effort to avoid writing a real post, the assembly of which usually ends up taking twice as much time as sitting down and creating actual content.
Raise your hand if you’re surprised at today’s theme. . . . Didn’t think so!
As I said a few months ago, people send me tons of library-related links—and National Library Week* seems like a good opportunity to use some of ’em.
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Alternate caption: Those who resist eBooks have developed their own methods of keeping their favorite books on hand . . .
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Bookmobile of the Desert
My dear friend thefirstmausi sent me a heads up about the traveling Camel Library in Kenya, which supplies reading materials to remote villages.
She sent me a lovely video about it as well, but it’s from a German news site. This wouldn’t have stopped me from sharing it—the narration isn’t essential and many of the people interviewed speak English**— but the viewer controls are also in German, and I’m not fluent enough to figure out how to embed the video, or even if it might be allowed.
I’m hoping thefirstmausi can hep me figure it out, but meanwhile, here’s another video I found—it’s not as good as the original, but you can still see how important this service is, and how focused the children are:
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Put Unshelved on Your Shelves!
(Click for the whole series of these Internet vs. Library strips. And there’s a later set of them here)
Unshelved is my favorite library-centered webcomic. It describes, in exaggerated detail, the trials, tribulations, and basic weirdness faced by the staff of a small town public library.
Grace and I met Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes a few years ago at an ALA conference—great guys. She and I each bought an entire set of their Unshelved books and true to their promise, they risked severe carpal tunnel to sign all the books.
Colombian grade-school teacher Luis Soriano started a traveling library with seventy books and two burros, Alfa and Beto, to serve the children of the tiny communities around St. Gloria on the Caribbean shore.
I don’t usually tear up at documentaries, but . . .
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You want to know what librarians are really like?
Click the button
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Thou Shalt Not Circ!
I teared up at this one, too, for an entirely different reason. Seriously—I laughed so hard I woke the children and I didn’t even care.
I know it’s long, but it’s so, so worth it. Trust me:
Thanks, Kev. This almost makes up for that limerick.
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*”It is? Sarah, why didn’t you tell us?”
**It was a surreal experience to hear my mental translation of the German translation of the interviewees spoken out loud with a Kenyan accent . For a moment, I thought I’d either gone psychic or blown a synapse.
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Attention!
Long posts try patience—
Winner of Haiku Contest
Revealed this evening!
Earful of Cider 