Book a Month Challenge: August

Time for another Book a Month Challenge review! August's theme was "cold" and this time I actually chose a title that fits pretty neatly into the theme; I usually just create some weak rationalization to support reviewing whatever book I happened to be reading at the time. But, like I said, I played fair this month by reviewing Philip Pullman's Once Upon a Time in the North. This title, satisfying those of us who harbor an ongoing enthusiasm for stories about Lyra's world, acts as a prequel to some of the events described in the wonderful His Dark Materials trilogy while also satisfying the thematic requirement of relating to the something cold ("the north"!)

Like a previous Pullman novel, Lyra's Oxford, Once Upon a Time in the North fleshes out for the reader the history of some of His Dark Materials most interesting characters. Unlike Lyra's Oxford, however, Once Upon a Time in the North takes place prior to the events in His Dark Materials. Pullman has suggested, also, that a third short novel (both Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time are well under 100 pages) will be published, this time chronicling additional adventures of Will Parry.

So, as the story opens some three decades prior to the events in His Dark Materials, the aeronaut Lee Scoresby lands in the far northern town of Novy Odense in the country of Muscovy (those familiar with Pullman's alternate universe will recognize this as the parallel nation to Russia in our own world). The following 95 pages detail a few days of Scoresby's life in this cold and very politically charged town. During his stay, Lee gets himself into some danger as a result of his clear devotion (first described in His Dark Materials) to defending honor and justice wherever he sees the need. While in Novy Odense, Lee meets Iorek Byrnison (one of Pullman's most intriguing characters, in my opinion) and we are treated to a great deal more interaction between Lee and his wonderfully clever and sarcastic daemon, Hester. In fact, the reader even learns (as does Hester herself) what species of animal she actually is!

My intention in providing a book review is never to provide a plot summary, preferring to allow the reader to discover the story on his or her own. However, I will finish up by saying that Once Upon a Time in the North was, for me, a far better read than Lyra's Oxford. This is simply a good story that could easily stand on its own merits; one needn't have read previous Pullman works to enjoy this work. And, the added bonus material included here (including a real board game that is mentioned in passing in the novel) are a lot of fun, too.

The Alexander Hamilton School of Library Managment

I stumbled across a quote today that really made me consider how little has changed over the past couple of centuries:

"How widely different the business of government is from the speculation of it and the energy of the imagination dealing in general propositions from that of execution in detail"

~ Alexander Hamilton

No, I don't normally go around quoting our Founding Fathers and, yes, I am aware of the potential to bore folks when I do. But! This quote is just too true. When I first read it, it just made me laugh but now that I've been thinking about it, I can see how it connects with being a librarian. You know, we all (or a great many of us, anyway) take a course in Library Management while in library school and, if you're anything like me, you probably didn't get as much out of that class as you might have thought you were getting at the time. Honestly, Library Management was one of my favorite classes in library school; I took it in my penultimate semester (no, I don't normally go around using the word "penultimate", either, but it fits!). This was before I had completed any sort of internship or practicum and I was one those folks who had not worked in a library at all prior to entering library school. So, at the time, I felt like I was learning all I'd ever need to know about library management just by taking this course. I had a great instructor and I enjoyed the text, too, after all.

Well, it turns out that maybe I didn't know as much as I thought. Even now, being on the management team for a pretty good-sized library system, I am often surprised at how things turn out to be far more difficult or complex or just different than I expected when I was in the planning stage of things. And the point is, you ask?

One thing I remember from my library management course that I still agree with today was the instructor telling us that, whether we individually were interested in "management" at all, all of us were going to be managers. Primarily, I now interpret this statement to mean that, as librarians in our organizations, we're all expected to be leaders. I make the distinction because it is true that a fair number of the librarians in my organization don't have any formal supervisory responsibilities but we're all expected to be organizational advocates, invent and implement cool ideas, and generally inspire others to do the same. But this is much more difficult than it sounds!

So, what I'm taking a long time to say is that library school is no substitute for experience (and I'm one to talk as I already explained I went to library school without any experience, I know). And I'd go so far as to say that internships and practicums, while extremely useful both in connecting with reality what a student is reading about in a book and in increasing one's ability to find a job upon graduation, don't really cut it either. What I'd like to see in my organization and at other libraries as well (since we all rely upon one another to fill vacancies) is more active support for the development of management-related skills. Simple things would help a lot: invite non-management to participate in management-level decision making meetings; let these folks get a feel for what it's really like to move from the idea on paper to full-on implementation of a new service or policy in a 300+ employee organization. Bring non-management folks to budget meetings to listen as we struggle with spreading that finite pot of money as efficiently as possible. And listen to these librarians when the share a suggestion in these meetings! The earlier on in one's career we can get folks this kind of experience, the more natural it will seem when the job becomes theirs on a full-time basis.

Super Civil!

Check out my alter ego: The Super Civil Librarian! The very superhero-ish sounding Librarian by Day blogged about a cool tool that lets you create your very own superhero alter ego. Give it a spin and tag it as librarysuperhero!