Review: Lirael by Garth Nix, Read by Tim Curry

“When a dangerous necromancer threatens to unleash a long-buried evil, Lirael and Prince Sameth are drawn into a battle to save the Old Kingdom and reveal their true destinies.” Lirael, the second book in The Abhorsen Chronicles/The Old Kingdom series, begins deep within the mountains of the Calyr (those with the “sight,” who see the future). Lirael is parentless and sightless, an oddity in the Clayr household. She is young, too, only 14 and wants nothing more than to gain the sight.  To take her mind of her shortcomings Lirael takes a position as an 3^rd Assistant Librarian in the Clayr’s massive library.

The commentary on librarians and librarianship is hilarious if somewhat disconcerting to a future librarian. Lirael chooses the profession because she knows she can hide there and avoid people – a perfect job for an odd, quiet girl! Hmm. On the flip side, Lirael looks forward to the adventures she will have in the library when alone there: long forgotten corridors, chained books with protective spells, interesting ancient trinkets and dangerous creatures! Of course, Lirael opens one too many doors and the story really begins.

Lirael’s companion, the Disreputable Dog, is now one of my all time favorite characters. Smart and sassy this K-9 offers comic relief while proffering mysterious insights for Lirael to digest. “Does the walker choose the path or the path choose the walker?”  A dynamic character, the Disreputable Dog is begging for a walk one minute and guiding a dangerous mission the next. “Dog, I want a straight answer. Who or what are you?” asks Lirael. And dog the replies, “I’m the Disreputable Dog! And your friend.” *Watering eyes*

Garth Nix is a great writer. The content is great. He builds a unique but believable world and sets interesting characters in it. He is a great storyteller but also a good writer in a technical and artistic sense, too. He never complicates passages. I’m never stumbling over sentence structure. The diction is good which shows in the dialog and descriptive passages which made my skin tingle as much as they made me laugh. I feel transported in these stories.

I listened to the audiobook (samples) which is read by Tim Curry who did an outstanding job. I was leery at the idea of listening for 15 hours but, wow, it was worth it. I was sad when the end came. I looked forward to listening to Curry’s dynamic voice every day. So much so, in fact, that I drove to the neighboring town and got a library card there so I could check out the third book, Abhorsen, with Curry reading again. (Oddly, my library only owns Lirael in audio format.) Curry booms, leers, whispers, lingers, rushes and pauses in all the right moments making the listening experience theatrical. It’s not over done but done just right. 

Two tiny issues:

1) Notwithstanding Tim Curry’s awesome voice acting, the first two disks of the story had me worried that Lirael was going to be a dud. Lirael spends a great deal of time moping in the beginning. It’s not that she hasn’t cause to mope but I did want to reach into the story and slap her face, tell her to stop obsessing about herself, to stop waiting for things to happen to her and make something happen! Of course, this is exactly what occurs as Lirael grows up (minus the slapping). And when Lirael began her struggle to find her place in the world I began to like her very much.

2) Lirael is not a standalone novel. It’s not that the reader misses too much info from Sabriel to understand what’s going on in Lirael but the ending is very unresolved. Personally, this did not bother me at all since I am enjoying the story. As I am writing this I have already begun the third book (good so far!) and feel as though Lirael and Abhorsen are the same book, really, just cut in half.

If you are a fantasy fan I highly recommend this series. I fully expect I’ll be purchasing these books in some format. Definitely re-reads. Read my reivew of the first book, Sabriel, here.

Publisher: Listening Library, 2002     Duration: 14 hours, 44 mins on 13 CDs
Rating: 5 Stars     Source: Public Library

Review: The Dismissal of Miss Ruth Brown by Louise S. Robbins

History, what we know of the past, is often told by the victors. Having transcribed countless interviews, faithfully scoured dusty files and coils of microfilm, Louise S. Robbins forms a more complete account of Ruth Brown’s career as a librarian. The text is a scholarly endeavor to bring about a more accurate picture of a “perfect town” that wasn’t so perfect after all. It’s a true story about racism and about standing up for what you believe. About censorship and the public library’s role towards it at a critical time in American history.

An abbreviated summary: “In 1950 Ruth W. Brown, librarian at the Bartlesville Public Library, was dismissed from her job after thirty years of exemplary service, ostensibly because she had circulated subversive materials. In truth, however, Brown was fired because she was active in a group affiliated with the Congress of Racial Equality.”

If you are interested in the civil rights movement, information and library science, libraries generally, censorship or American history I definitely recommend this book to you. It is told like an elongated form of investigative journalism and tends to be fact heavy. What I most enjoyed about Ruth Brown’s personality was how, despite her appearance, she was anything but a stereotypical librarian (especially for her day).

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001     Pages: 256
Rating: 3 Stars     Source: purchased

Review: The Library Card by Jerry Spinelli

Creativity without direction, privilege without motivation, difficulty grieving, fear of isolation - these phrases define four children who are changed by a chance encounter with a library card. It’s blue, it’s plain and unmarked but somehow each child knows that the card is special. It appears at critical moments in their lives when things could easily turn for worse if no one, or nothing, intervenes. The card’s magical properties draw them to libraries they never knew existed where they encounter books and people who make a difference in their lives. In turn, the children begin to touch the lives of those around them. The Library Card is a sweet if somewhat dated homage to the power of books and librarians in the world of children.

Publisher: Scholastic, 1997     Pages: 148
Rating: 3 Stars     Source: IC Public Library

Librarian Offline: Are Your Posts Forgotten?

For one of my MLIS classes this semester I read the article “The Web Means the End of Forgetting” by Jeffrey Rosen which appeared in The New York Times Magazine on July 25, 2010. As users of social networking sites, the article should interest book bloggers. The article raises many interesting ideas about an individual’s privacy online and how one’s online reputation affects the real world.

So, you’ve set up of your Twitter account and have a Facebook account, too. And you blog regularly. You have set your privacy controls to limit who can see what. But...

Did you know that the Library of Congress keeps every tweet?

Did you know that a Facebook friend can post a picture of you without your permission and that anyone who is friends with your friend can download that picture and do whatever he/she wants with it?

Did you know that …“75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants -- including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites. Seventy percent of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online…(Rosen).”

The article brings up a question that my classmates have been discussing – is there such a thing as an “off-duty” persona? Librarians are public servants, often in the public eye and know their patrons personally. They are frequently approached in grocery stores and in their homes about library issues. This being the case, Librarians often feel as though they are “on” all the time – constantly watched, constantly scrutinized. Of course, this perception of being “on” changes from person to person and community to community.

There are social websites such as Second Life which have become popular for librarians to hang out on. Many librarians blog about their work places, too. And a few, just a few, have come under fire for speaking their minds about their workplaces. Some librarians have been told to cease blogging about their library or they will be fired (instances of this are explored in Marilyn Johnson’s This Book is Overdue!). This is odd since the library is usually the protector of free speech.

But these scenarios raise the question: Is perfectly legal, off-duty activity our employer's business? Are we not entitled to a private life?

People deserve second chances if for no other reason than that we are human. We make mistakes but we also learn from them and change. In order to get a second chance we need people to forgive us our foolishness. And forgiveness requires a measure of forgetfulness.

The article suggests that online content is not easily forgotten. Once someone puts up a negative tweet about you it is out there forever. Once you post an embarrassing picture of yourself it is, potentially, out there forever. Go to Google now and look up “drunken pirate” and you’ll find the infamous MySpace photo of Stacy Snyder who was denied her teaching degree as a result of this photo. Is her perfectly legal off-duty activity her university’s business? Regardless of how you feel about her activity, doesn’t she deserve a second chance? Shouldn’t she be able to wipe the slate clean and start over? Think about employers who Google her (or you) – will they be willing to overlook her (or your) online reputation?

Think critically about yourself. What political groups are you affiliated with? What religion? What’s your stance on issue “X” that you vocally blogged about? What pictures did you post from last summer? Now what will future employers, who hire experts to identify you online, think about your online reputation?

The article mentions law experts who think individuals should have more privacy protection online so that hiring and firing is not based on online gossip or an embarrassing photo that was only intended to be shared with friends. One expert suggests that individuals should be able to file for “reputation bankruptcy” which would clean the slate every decade much like consumer-reporting agencies. Consumer-reporting agencies are required to give you one free credit report each year. Wouldn’t it be nice if social networking sites sent you a report each year, letting you know where pictures of you are and what comments were made about you, so you had a chance to refute those comments or delete tags of you in photos?

Our world is increasingly shrinking into a global village. It doesn’t matter if you have an account on these websites if others who know you, and post things about you, do. Privacy issues are and will continue to be an area of debate. What can we do if our reputations are largely out of our hands? As the article suggests, show empathy and cut people some slack when you see a tarnished online reputation of someone else.

“The Web Means the End of Forgetting” New York Times Magazine, The (NY) - Sunday, July 25, 2010
Author: JEFFREY ROSEN

Review: Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles

Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles chronicles, you guessed it, the history of the library! The book follows the evolution of the “book” from clay tablets to today’s more recognizable codex form. It tracks the cultural significance and rising symbolism associated with libraries over time such as elitist, propaganda machines, scenes of victory and democracy.  It subtly confronts and debunks myths and stereotypes about these people we call librarians and the mystical auras that surround the library.

I read this book for an intro course for my MLS degree. It’s one of my favorite reads so far. I liked the overview this text provided and felt it gave me insight into how traditions have influenced the field of librarianship, the relationship between the library and its users and the library’s function.

While each chapter has a theme the book more or less moves chronologically forward making the narrative fairly easy to follow. While the text is literary and not a textbook there were times when the prose gets a bit tedious, especially with the ancient quotes and digressions. These digressions held up the flow for me. The middle section began to lose my interest and I read quickly to get through.

The later chapters really began to shine. The chapter “Knowledge On Fire” was fun in a demented sort of way. Who knew libraries were such targets and have endured one physical attack after another. Books have been burned, lost, recovered and recreated so that even when some wish for a text’s destruction it proves to be an incredibly difficult task to actually burn a book out of existence. I didn’t know anything about libraries in ghettos during the WWII and found this section fascinating.

What I enjoyed most is the characterization of famous librarians, scholars and certain libraries. I met some people I never heard about like Panizzi whose radical ideas for cataloging made him unpopular with some and beloved by others. The chapter with Dewey, famous for the Dewey Decimal System, was fun and interesting as well.

This is a book written by a lover of libraries. As my classmates and I decided, it’s philosophical as much as it’s historical. It’s emotional and nostalgic as much as it is factual and informative. I certainly fall within the targeted audience and I felt it was a worthwhile read.
Publisher: Norton, 2003    Pages: 245
Rating: 3.5 Stars        Source: Purchased from Amazon

This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson

In case you didn’t know, I begin classes this fall in Information and Library Science. So, the title of this book caught my attention right away. Johnson’s book gave me a nice overview of the changes in the field. She talks about the transformation from the card catalog to the digital age, from shushing librarian to reference activists providing 24 hour service. It’s a quickly changing field and Johnson captures the excitement as one who embraces the opportunities change brings.

My favorite chapters were: “On the Ground” in which Johnson discusses what the process of keeping up with current technology is like for librarians and IT specialists (who often butt heads); “The Blog People” because, obviously, I like blogging. Here are a couple librarian blogs which Johnson mentions and I found interesting: Miss Information (anecdotes and personal stories) and Tame the Web (with a current events and tech focus). And last but not least, I really liked “Gotham City” that explores the massive New York Public Library – its branches and services, changes and adaptations to budget cuts and community needs. If I ever make it to NYC the library is on my “to see” list.

The video is one I’ve seen before on another review about This Book is Overdue! by a fellow blogger. Believe it or not, each year the ALA holds a drill cart competition. Johnson attended one in 2007 and reported it was hilarious. The video is of the 2009 winners’ drill. Enjoy.


Johnson’s writing style is informal giving the text a personal quality as she focuses on individual librarians and their accomplishments. Some places were a bit dry. Personal descriptions tended to be long-winded. I wasn’t interested in a librarian’s mustache or glasses frame but his/her achievements. Otherwise, the text was very readable. Anyone working in a library or similar setting will likely enjoy this book. I’m glad I read it. I feel like I have a better idea of what I’m getting myself into! I can’t wait.
Publisher: Harper, 2010     Pages: 272
Rating: 4 Stars                     Source: Bought on Amazon

Circulation Workers, Beware!

Americans like to think we are a very independent people. As such, we often like to do things for ourselves rather than rely on a middle man. But does the expediency of self-serve programs really make our lives better? When did the self-serve wave begin? The elevator assistant has long been banished. Except for a few gas stations on the west coast, everyone pumps their own gas. We pay at the pump. We wash our own cars. Fifty percent of the time, I scan and bag my own groceries. If I want a cashier I have to wait in a longer and slower line. I can get lunch out of a vending machine. I get money out of an ATM. I do all my banking on-line. I can easily go through an entire day without speaking to another human about any of my needs. Is this good quality service? I don’t know. I like having options - the option to get in the cashier line, the option of speaking to a bank teller. I like knowing who to speak to if I have questions or problems. So, why am I talking about this?

In the spring edition of American Libraries by the American Library Association, an article entitled "A Circulation Renovation Cuts Expsenses" praises a public library for implementing technology that replaces the need for circulation workers thereby cutting costs significantly. This machine checks books out, in and sorts the returned materials into appropriate bins. Kudos to the engineer of this thing. I understand the economy has caused many libraries to cut budgets, cut jobs and look for ways to serve their communities without cutting programs. But honestly, as a circulation worker myself, this article scares me. I have worked at my college’s circ. department and plan to work there this summer. I’m the first person most people go to for any and all questions – not the librarians’ reference desk. As a student, I am often able to answer patron questions that the librarians don’t know how to answer. Not that I’m dissing the librarians. They know more in general than I do. I guess I don’t feel appreciated knowing a machine can replace me. It makes me uneasy every time technology puts more people out of a job. And I feel like my options are being limited.

What do you all think? Am I being paranoid? What are the up-sides to self-serve check out?