I was one of lucky ones

*Long post and rant incoming*

My Gran was a Librarian, and she was the best one…Apparently. Because, unfortunately there have been a lot of Librarians who I have felt REALLY let down their communities, over the last couple of years.

I studied to become a Librarian, and found a job for a little while. Then when I became sick, they were the first ones to dismiss me. I was shocked. That was my first bad experience with Librarians.

The next has honestly been over the last couple of years. I was then really horrified by a Librarian friend of mine who decided to jump on the “I hate Meghan Markle” bandwagon and decided MM was lying about her mental health. Her “proof” was saying that she’s British (she’s lived in Australia since the 70’s, and cannot vote in the current UK election). Her other “proof” was showing me a website of the Royal Family’s Hospital, or something? I worked with her in education, and I showed her the website of where we worked. “Nice looking website, but we know that it’s not working”.

'Explain what you mean by Woke & then we can have the conversation'. Incredibly put by @RakieAyola.
This should be the response to every commentator, Journalist & MP who've become far too comfortable throwing the Term 'Woke' into every one of their dog whistle opinions pic.twitter.com/mLouu2sDbw

— Mikey Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) October 24, 2022

Then I am going to be honest, I get REALLY shitty with people and especially Librarians and “readers” who “claim” that it’s the “woke mob” banning books.

I’m sorry, what?

The Right-Wing Plot To Destroy Public Libraries

Conservative Christian groups are targeting Louisiana libraries

The right in the US has a new bogeyman: libraries

Republican war on books: They don’t just want to control your body — next up, your mind

Sometimes I get told that we told that we “cancelled” Dr. Seuss Again, sorry, what? Dr Seuss is not cancelled, by any of stretch of the imagination. What ACTUALLY happened was, a Dr Seuss book that wasn’t only just racist, but no one was buying anymore, they took it out of publication.

Detractors accused liberals of “canceling” the beloved children’s author who sold more than 650 million books worldwide. But it was the company founded by Dr. Seuss’s family that decided to stop printing the six books because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”18 Mar 2021 Dora Mekouar

Every single people I talked to about it, couldn’t even NAME the books that were taken out of publication.

I recently congratulated my public Library for having, front and center Juno Dawsons book “What the T”. I thanked the Library for doing that, and we all admitted to getting teary. The sad thing was, I couldn’t post that on social media, except for here. Even then I didn’t put the state I’m in, I didn’t name the Library. I didn’t even take a photo of the book, I couldn’t share it. I KNEW what would happen. What would happen? Look above.

The “woke mob” DON’T BAN THINGS, unless it’s actually harmful. Why, you may ask.

What’s It Like to Be the Target of A Book Banning Effort? School Librarian Martha Hickson Tells Her Story.

I read a story recently of a Texas Librarian who got rid of a lot of books, and I admit I was angry with her. As I read on though, suddenly it became clearer. She was doing it too LITERALLY SAVE HER OWN LIFE. How can anyone who read that, as a Librarian go “oh, it’s totally the left/woke mob” banning books. When their own fellow Librarians are having their lives threatened by the Right?

One of the reasons my Gran was beloved by a lot in her community, was she was the best Librarian, she knew EVERYTHING. She went to America to help with AIDS victims. This the Gran who now, has Dementia. So when I see Librarians who SHOULD know fucking better, I get angry for my Gran and for the people in their community. I get angry at the spread of misinformation, by Librarians, who out of all people should KNOW how to research.

For all those who are interested, here is where you can purchase some totally “cancelled” Dr Seuss stuff.

The Dr. Seuss Shop

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The greatest gift

I have ever gotten is my Kobo, given to me by my partner. I honestly didn’t even know that Kobo even existed! What I love about it, is that unlike Kindle I can actually borrow from my Library still (considering licenses for ebooks) and it is so light! It’s brilliant!

While obviously this isn’t the greatest gift of all time, when you consider parenthood, owing a pet, having the dream career, winning the lotto, hugging a huge tree that’s not been cut down…

What do you think the is the greatest gift, you’ve ever received?

Grab and Go…Go…

I was debating or not whether to write this as a review of the book, or write about the “grab and go” concept. I decided to write about the grab and go concept. If you do want to see a review of the book, you can find it on my Goodreads account.

I’m hoping that by writing a bit about the Grab and Go, others will want to encourage their Libraries to do the same. I think that they are a fantastic idea!

The concept behind Grab and Go that you grab a book from a shelf that has highly recommend (normally new) books and you go with it.

What I love about it is that there is usually a really good selection of new books and they are out there. They’re just hidden within the shelves, despite being new. They are usually on a special shelf, rather than at the end of each ‘bay’. The other thing with Grab and Go books that I enjoy is that if you are stuck in a reading rut. There’s usually an interesting book for you to grab and get you out of your funk. Even if it’s just that the cover is pretty.

I admit that I’ve been lucky when it comes to Grab and Go books. I am sure there are books on the Grab and Go shelf, that may have a pretty cover page. But the inside is bland and unreadable.

The only real downfall with a Grab and Go book. You tend to not be able to have them as long. Usually a fiction book, you can have for a month and renew it at least twice more. With Grab and Go it’s about 10 days and you cannot renew.

 

Your Local Library

Linkedin – Activities you can do at your local library for free!

You should check out what you can do at yours!

These are just some of the things that my local Libraries do:

1. Chess Club
2. Helping the elderly with technology
3. Reading Challenges
4. Family Histories
5. Some of the Libraries have PlayStation consoles…with games

 

 

Librarians that kick some ass!

Library in the worldBook Riot – Six Bad-ass Librarians

I found this awesome article on Book Riot and they had a list of what the consider to be the most Six Bad-Ass Librarian in pop culture. I felt however they were some missing from the article! See if you agree with me.

• Giles from “Buffy…I mean come on! He knew about a lot of monsters, demons and different demonic languages! He’d also sometimes side-by-side, fight with Buffy.
• Now technically the greatest Library in the world, has more robots for “Librarians” than actually living breathing Librarians.
• The of course there are all the “Librarians” in the tv series…”The Librarians”.
• Who doesn’t know about “Belle” as the Librarian from “Once upon a time”!.
• Mrs Phelps from “Matilda”.

About Open Library

I just found a really amazing site and I wanted to share it with you all, especially those people who are writers and trying to discover ways to get their books out there.

Their goal is to provide a page on the web for every book ever published.

At its heart, Open Library is a catalog. The project began in November 2007 and has been inhaling catalog records from some of the biggest libraries in the world ever since. Open Library’s goal is to list every book — whether in-print or out-of-print, available at a bookstore or a library, scanned or typed in as text.

I wrote a book, and I have it in digital form. Can I make it readable on Open Library?

Yes! It’s a three step process. Here is the short outline and you can read a longer outline on this page.

1. Create an account and upload your book to the Internet Archive (you will need to set up a second account to do this, you can’t log in with your Open Library credentials).
2. Create a record for your item on Open Library by clicking the Add A Book link in the header and adding the proper information.
3. Add the Internet Archive ID to the Open Library record in the ID Numbers section. To do this, click Edit to edit the record, scroll down to the ID Numbers section and add the Internet Archive identifier which is the last part of the URL. As an example for this book, the Internet Archive ID is historiaephilipp02just. Adding this link will activate the “read” buttons. Make sure you click “save” at the bottom of the page when you are done adding the link to the Internet Archive.

For more information on the uploading process, please see this blog post about uploading and metadata.

 

Just relax

I think that the hardest thing to do in this world is just too truly and utterly 100% relax. The last month or so have been really hard for me, I’m living pretty much pay check to check this past month. This usually happens to me twice a year. Usually a month before the busy times at my work happens. It’s part of the reason I am looking for something more permanent.

Even though when I’m on holidays and planned ones, I will still worry…Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that week off, maybe I shouldn’t have bought that extra chocolate bar. It can get very overwhelming sometimes. Especially when I start to get upset at myself for buying that little extra treat.

I find the hardest thing to do is to my forgive myself. That’s when my head gets all messed up and I have to try and control my mind so I don’t get so upset that it gets me down all day. So I didn’t mean for this to become a kind of depressing post. I just wanted to share with you what I try to do to cheer myself up that either costs nothing or costs very little.

Books: Books are a great way to cheer myself up and a few other people too I do believe. The great thing about books is that they can actually be really cheap, and sometimes free if you know what you’re doing! Join a Library-Not only do they end up getting a lot of the newest books for you to borrow for free, a lot of Libraries will take requests for new books. A lot of Libraries also have books sales where they sell a lot of different items (not just books) at a heavily discounted price. Just recently I bought three dvds of movies I’ve been wanting for a while now for $6.00 ($2.00 each).

Walking/Dancing: I love to dance and lately I have been taking my dog for even more walks. When I go back to my Mums house, I feel like I NEED to take my dog for a walk, even though she’s little and we play a lot inside. Not only can both walking and dancing be done for free, but they both also release endorphin.

D.I.Y: I always find that over the years you tend to build up a collection of things that need to be done around the house. Now this can be expensive if you do it all in one go. Sometimes I find as well though when you think of the D.I.Y. projects that need to be done you go out and get that stuff. So over time it all builds up, including the materials you need for the project.

Series watching: Now what I mean by this is when you have a favourite television series and you just sit and watch it all day, or at least have it on in the background. Now this is a great idea for relaxing because watching or even just listening to a favourite show, has shown to relax and calm the mind down. I know myself, personally, I cannot fall asleep if I’ve watched something traumatic or some kind of horror film. One of the great things about this option is that there are so many different ways you can do this. Some retail outlet these days will have a deal, for example, 3 DVDS for only $30 (I recently did this one). Let alone the new streaming services. Which do cost a bit more money than a one-off, however, you can get great deals.

I did nearly put a bath in, to relax,…but the reason that I didn’t. It ultimately leads to your overall water bill and if you are anything like me. I usually end up staying in the bath for about 15 minutes. My partner can spend literally hours, but I just cannot do it.

Let’s Share!

Treasure your library — Bookwitch

It’s not new, this idea of saving libraries. People are working hard to prevent closures, or this idea of ‘merely’ giving the school librarian the sack, leaving the books to look after themselves. Lots of authors, and others, were out marching a couple of weeks ago in London. I wish I could have been there. And then […]

via Treasure your library — Bookwitch

15 Bookish Facts about Me

After reading through the fascinating post written by the amazing Blogger Addlepates and book nerds (Go and check them out!) I decided to “steal” and write up my own list, especially after what I wrote with my last post last week about having a Reading Block. I went with 15 instead of 25 because I kept stopping and starting and realised this was about to post!lol

1. I am yet to try out Kindles and e-readers. It’s not that I am totally against the idea, it’s more that I haven’t really gotten around to it. I’ve asked for one for Christmas and Birthday and nothing yet!
2. Like my previous post suggests, I either read a lot or not at all. I can’t just seem to read a chapter or so. I either start and don’t stop, or I don’t start at all!
3. I don’t really enjoy pure romance novels like “Mills and Boons”, but I would never discourage someone from reading them either.
4. My Grandmother was a really good Library Manager and when I was little I used to visit her at the Library all the time and joined in all the holiday activities.
5. I still have a lot of books from my childhood, but a lot of them are now in boxes. I still love pulling them out and reading them.
6. Talking about childhood books, there’s always a couple of them I read every single year.
7. I’ve just recently thanked everybody who bought me books when I was kid, they are expensive!
8. I want more bookcases…Who doesn’t though!
9. My favourite author is Jodi Picoult, I love the research she does and how she can write a story from every point of view.
10. I once wrote a few episode ideas for a TV show based on a fantasy online role playing games I was playing at the time. Think X-Men Evolution. Except, instead of mutants, you had sorceress, elves, and humans, etc. I think it’s somewhere still in my house.
11. Writing about writing, I currently have a book I’m writing for fun, based on a character I played in a game called Monster Hunter.
12. I was the only Year 12 (Senior at High School) who understood what Shakespeare was talking about.
13. I can enjoy a book and the movie adaption without hating the other. I can see them as their own work. Except for making Fili and Kili’s death all about Tauriel!!! I didn’t even mind her until that happened.
14. I try to buy at least new three books a year. Which probably doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’ve got no space either. I very rarely throw any out.
15.  I find that there is a book quote for every single thing in life. It’s one of the reasons I started “Weekly Random Literature Quotes”.

Just like Addlepates and Book Nerds, I am also going to tag the last five people who followed me. In no particular order:

• Your Sentence Here
• MomentD1Pose
• Spiritually Promiscuous
• Bay Art
• Baby Animal Love

Fact vs Opinion