Friday seems like a good day for a linky post about libraries.
I know I have seen photos of many of these libraries before, but really, can any book and library lover ever tire of looking at photos of amazing world libraries? Be sure to have a cup or towel ready to catch the drool.
Turn up your speakers for 10 Best Songs About Libraries and Librarians. I think my favorite one is “Library Rap” by MC Poindexter & The Study Crew. Prepare to get your groove on!
Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) comes out with a short list every year of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Get your pencils sharpened because here is the 2010 Notable Books List for adults.
This is not library related, but close enough. Menifee Union School District in California is reviewing whether they should ban dictionaries that have definitions of sexual terms from classrooms. The ban is being discussed after a parent of an elementary school child complained that her child found a definition for “oral sex” in the dictionary. I think this is one of the more ridiculous book challenges I have ever heard. And I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid my friends and I would regularly search dictionaries for “dirty words.” That’s what kids do. Besides, kids have to have somewhere to go to find out what the words they hear on the playground mean without having to ask an adult who will, inevitably, be shocked and appalled and the poor kid will end up confused and ashamed. Looking the words up in a dictionary is much better than looking them up on the internet where, no doubt, you can get plenty of visuals to go along with them.
Have a good weekend everyone!
The person in the picture of the British Museum Reading Room looks like they are sleeping. I imagine that like I would have done, they walked in, looked around and was so overwhelmed that they sat down and fainted.
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I saw the article on banning dictionaries earlier this week and was literally speechless with rage. I’m still both shocked and mad that a) a parent would ever think that removing a dictionary from a school is a good idea and b) that the school (and the district) would even consider this a legitimate complaint. Next, let us ban the bare legs on tables and chairs – you never know what lascivious thoughts they might inspire in young, impressionable minds. Good grief.
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The dictionary story is pretty ridiculous. I like your arguments here — we can’t and don’t want to protect kids 100% from everything! It just won’t work and isn’t a good goal to begin with.
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It’s not a library song per se, but I’ve always been a fan of Ice T’s “Lethal Weapon” video (his lethal weapon being his mind) and how he ends up in a library reading a book and looking tough. 😛
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Love the link to the top 10 songs about Libraries and Librarians. What a kick–shared it with everyone I know.
Like #10 too..
Get out of my face/While I’m readin’ my Keats.
The dictionary story is pretty insane but par for course. My experience as a parents is that there are always over-protective parents who want to ban everything but the administration usually is able to deal with them.
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No! They can’t ban the rude words from the dictionary! Where would the schoolkids get their kicks from? I can still remember the general hilarity when a friend of mine looked up brassiere in the dictionary and found the definition read ‘a basket for holding hot coals’. You can’t deny memories like that to people. 😉
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Those banning stories always make me roll my eyes at the nonsense.
But I love the link for the librarian/library songs! Those are awesome. I’m going to be checking them out to see which ones I must have for my iPod.
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The thing is you have to know the words and how they’re spelled to look them up–so you must have already been exposed to them somewhere. Of course a chance encounter with a bad word….now that can be pretty shocking! 😉 It seems like making a big deal out of things sometimes just focuses on what you’re trying to keep out of the limelight. And I had no idea there were so many songs about librarians!
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The absolute best library song, right here:
I’m really not sure how that didn’t make the list. I guess because it’s technically more of a video than a song. “Who’s Dewey?!”
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Heather, I noticed that too! I think it must be the person fainted. I’ve seen the place and I know my mouth dropped open in awe and I may have drooled on the carpet 🙂
Claire, isn’t the whole thing infuriating? I sure hope we don’t end up back with the Victorian ban on bare table legs. If it does, I will keep rebelliously keep my furniture legs naked 🙂
Dorothy, I’m sure if I had ever had kids the other parents would have looked down their noses at me!
Colleen, ooh that’s a good one!
JaneGS, aren’t those songs great? I wonder if school administrators get really tired of overprotective parents? I imagine that they do.
Litlove, LOL! That is a great story! It would be a shame to keep children from having experiences like that.
Iliana, glad you enjoyed the songs. I hope one or two make to your iPod 🙂
Danielle, you are so right about that! And you never know when a chance encounter with a bad word might scar you for life 😉 Now all the kids in the school who never thought of looking up particular words in the dictionary are probably doing it now. I had no idea there were so many library/librarian songs either. It’s pretty funny how much variety there is!
Bibliobio, that’s a fun song I hadn’t heard before. Thanks for sharing the link! There are several other library/librarian songs I know of that didn’t make the list either.
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Reminds me of Ray Bradbury’s disgust at publishers taking out swear words to market Fahrenheit 451 to schools. As if teenagers don’t already swear a blue streak every day of their lives! These parents aren’t sheltering their kids, they’re sheltering themselves from their duty to help their kids deal with the real world. The effect on books is bad but the effect on kids is worse. /rant
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I thought the same thing about the dictionary banning: do we really want kids going to the internet to get their info?!
Thanks for the other fun links.
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Sylvia, not only to teenagers swear but they’ve probably heard a good deal of it in their own home from their parents. I agree with you that it’s the parents sheltering themselves rather than the other way around.
Rebecca, glad you enjoyed them!
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Wow! Thanks for the link to the pics!
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