I started composing this evening’s blog post in my head while riding my bike to work this morning. Do you think I remember what I “wrote”? Of course not!
I had a wonderfully pleasant weekend of reading. I read The Persians which I will probably tell you about tomorrow. The introduction to the book I read has fantastic information about the Greek theater. The book is bristling with page points. The hard part will be selecting the finer elements and putting it all into coherent sentences. Not something that one can do on a Monday.
In other reading, Travels with Herodotus is great. Kapuscinski has a wonderful voice and equally as wonderful stories. It fits in quite well with The Collector of Worlds, a fictionalized account of Richard Burton. Burton is in India and Kapuscinski was sent to India as a journalist and their two experiences in India were blending and contrasting in my head and sometimes I got confused about which book I was reading.
Some of you may remember I read Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge earlier this year. Isabella recommended the movie with Bill Murray in it. I finally got to watch it. I didn’t settle into it right away, distracting myself with thoughts about that’s not how it was in the book. But when I finally stopped comparing book and movie I really enjoyed it. And overall I found it did stay true to the book and Bill Murray did a good job.
I also answered another reference question over the weekend for school. This one was for a mother looking for information on the dangers of tattoos that she could give her children. She wanted pictures of tattoos gone bad. I chose it on purpose since I have tattoos and felt like I needed to have practice, albeit on a minor subject, in giving someone information about which I don’t necessarily agree. I wanted to tell her that the worst dangers of a tattoo from a reputable artist is choosing a design you might not like in a few years and then want to remove. But I refrained from making any such statements or making any kind of statements other than here is a resource from the FDA. Here is one from the Mayo Clinic. Here are a couple of reputable websites geared towards teens and teen health that have information on tattoos. It was hard but it wasn’t hard. Now if it were something on why women shouldn’t be allowed to have birth control or other such topic that I felt strongly about in the opposite direction, it would be a lot harder.
Off to read an article for class. The professor just emailed it to us this morning. We have to read it and then write a 200 word abstract. The idea being that as a librarian I will have to frequently be able to summarize information for patrons about books or research or what have. Therefore, writing an abstract is good practice. The article is about college students’ preferences for public over academic libraries. Shouldn’t be too hard to condense the essence of 9 pages into 200 words. I hope.
It’s always a struggle to keep my opinion to myself when it’s a subject that I feel strongly about, but in this profession you have to. I just always remind myself about how I feel about censorship. No one person has the right to control information — whether we agree or not. It’s our job to give them objective, factual information. However, on the flip side, we can always offer them all sides of an issue in the interest of making an informed decision.
I would have a hard time keeping my opinions to myself too. Sometimes I need to do that in class (it’s not my place to go into depth about my political views, for example), and it’s hard. But you can always hope the woman reads the information you sent and learns something from it!
How did the abstract go? Fall semester begins for me on Aug. 19, and I’m dreading it since I have enjoyed having a few weeks to myself after summer school ended.
Lisa, ha! Very true and very devious without being obviously devious. I like it
Dorothy, true. I do hope what I sent helps her understand a little bit better. Nothing that I found or sent will seem bad enough to scare a teen who wants a tattoo away from getting one.
Bibliophylia, I read the article last night and then re-read the assignment and realized I have to write two different kinds of abstracts on the same article. Decided I was too tired to do it last night so will work on it tonight. Shouldn’t be hard though since the article lays out its main points quite nicely.
I would think that one of the great things about answering reference questions like that is that you get to present ALL sides of the answer, not just the ‘standard’. So you could slip in some differing views (presenting a fuller picture), and people could choose to read/follow-up or not. I find myself doing this at my own job, which sometimes involves answering questions about severe mental illness.
You can *totally* condense 9 pages into an abstract or two. It’s like a book review!
Had to laugh about “writing” a blog post in your head and then losing it–that’s happened to me a bunch! I’ve always been curious about the Bill Murray movie version of Razor’s Edge–it always seemed like such weird casting, but maybe not! I would think that doing book reviews has given you lots of practice in writing abstracts without even knowing it! Good luck!
I lose blog posts in that fashion all the time. I’m sure they’re so much wittier and pithier than what I end up posting.
Bill Murray wanted to star in The Razor’s Edge something fierce. In fact, I think he had the book optioned. It was the sop the studios threw to him for making all his other popular movies.
Oh no, now I’m going to have to re-read _The Persians_, I’m sure. Oh well, at least it’s short, right? But then you’ll probably move onto The Peloponnesian War, huh?
Writing abstracts: ugh! For some reason, the semester I was in school in England, we had to write tons of those. Maybe our English teacher thought we were all going to be librarians?
As a teacher, I have to check my opinions at the door sometimes, too. But it can be hard, especially when a kid believes something in complete opposition to my core beliefs. It hadn’t occurred to me that librarians might encounter that same issue, but now that you describe it, it seems obvious. You can decipher a whole lot about what people think, want, need, feel, etc., simply by knowing what information they wish to obtain.
I wonder how many librarians I’ve offended in the past
.
Don’t you love having weekends where you get in lots of reading?!! As for the reference question it is sort of strange looking for information on a subject you don’t really agree with. I suppose as a librarian you sometimes have to act like you don’t have personal opinions–it is certainly a good practice in restraint. Of course you probably found reputable websites that gave both sides of the story, which seems fair.
By the way, I’ve written so many great posts in my head, but the second I sit down at the computer I’ve long forgotten them!
I wish I could stick a computer disk in my brain sometimes.
Oh I spend so much time composing stuff in my head and then, when finally in front of the keyboard, thinking, now what was that good sentence again? Gah! I’m glad Travels with Herodotus is good – I’ve seen it in the bookshop here and been very tempted to get it after enjoying your posts so much!
Daphne, the opportunity to provide the information requested but also educate beyond the request will make situations where I don’t agree easier.
Gentle Reader, glad I am not the only one! I thought Bill Murray was weird casting too especially in the beginning there was a long scene where he was acting goofy. He didn’t quite pull off Larry, but he did ok.
Carrie, yes, those lost blog posts are always the most clever ones! That’s interesting that Murray wanted to star in Razor’s Edge so badly. I wonder what it was about the story he found so appealing?
Emily, oh yes, the Peloponnesian War is definitely in my not too distant future
So you are an expert at writing abstracts then! A whole semester of writing them though would make me a little crazy.
J.D., teaching is definitely one where you have to keep your opinion to yourself. But you can also present all the information and hope the students make a good decision. And I can’t imagine you ever offending any librarians, though if you have, I’m sure it was in a good way
Danielle, reading-filled weekends are treasures. I think it would be hard to get more reputable than the websites I found, and they all had information about how to get a safe tattoo. Acting like I don’t have a personal opinion wasn’t so hard via email, but I wonder how it will be in person? And if you get a brain disk drive, please let me know about it because I could really use one too!
Litlove, I fell better knowing you and it seems so many other have the same problem. Travels with Herodotus is very journalistic, the guy was a journalist after all. There is something that seems to be held back that is making the whole thing quite intriguing.
I had no idea about this Bill Murray movie. I need to remember to look for it.
Hope your writing assignment went well… I’m actually curious about that abstract. College students prefer public libraries to academic ones? really? Interesting… I wonder why.
‘Shouldn’t be too hard to condense the essence of 9 pages into 200 words. I hope.’
That gets a chuckle. You should get an honorary doctorate for your proficiency at writing overviews of literature. Does your professor know about ‘So Many Books’? He might be able to learn a thing or two.
Iliana, it’s not a bad one. Though he has certainly matured as an actor since the 80s. The assignment has gone well, thanks. Since you are curious about the article, perhaps I will post a little about it
Paul, you’re too kind! Nah, the prof doesn’t know about the blog. I’m not very good at shameless self-promotion