Sarah the Librarian

Since I started my new job I really haven't had much time to post here, which is funny, because I've been doing so much learning and growing and thinking about librarianship as I fit into my new role that I could write almost endlessly, but that's also probably why I haven't had any time to get my thoughts in order. Anyway, to keep the old blog going, I thought I'd do one of these old-school survey things that I found over at A Patchwork of Books (and it looks like she got the idea from The Perpetual Page Turner , who looks like someone I should also be following, but really, am I even able to pay that much attention to the people I already follow?) . Author you've read the most books from:  sheer number is probably Ann M. Martin, since I read most of the over 100 Babysitter's Club books back in the day. I am well aware that you can skip Chapter 2. Best sequel ever: I tend to think of books in a series as all stuck together, so it's r...

Last week Jacob Berg wrote a very candid post about the hiring process and it dovetails nicely with something I had wanted to write about. After 2 1/2 years of searching, I finally landed a full-time job. Because of the length of the process and the number of jobs I thought I was getting, but then didn't, I still don't completely comprehend why this is the one that worked out, so I don't have much to say about that, but I do have some thoughts on how to not go crazy during the job search process. It essentially boils down to: Don't take rejection personally.   The nature of the job market in this field means that there are often many more librarians looking for jobs than there are openings, so employers get the luxury of being a little picky. There were multiple positions where I was told very sincerely, "You were great, but so was everyone else, and we had to pick someone, which, unfortunately wasn't you." This is often followed by a well-meani...

After my last post loosely based on my reading of Meg Jay's The Defining Decade , I realized what's really bothering me about that book and a lot of the writing about what's wrong with twentysomethings is this idea that we're not doing enough important things. I think one of the things our generation is struggling with more than previous generations is the idea of how to make your dreams come true as an adult. It's true that we are a generation that was raised to believe that we're special and we can do whatever we want, but sometimes what that feels like is pressure to do something amazing because no one's going to tell you you can't try reaching for the stars. The thing is, we need people doing the mundane everyday work too, and if you're doing something you love, then boring work doesn't feel boring to you. It's all about perspective and realizing that doing something that excites you, or at least fills you with satisfaction is infinite...

I turned thirty this month and, not surprisingly, it's given me pause. Last month I picked up a book on the importance of your twenties , and for the most part it was reassuring because I never approached my twenties with the mindset that they weren't important. In fact, I spent most of my twenties worrying that I had taken them too seriously. I married my college sweetheart and went straight to library school and found jobs in libraries or related fields to pay the bills until I landed my first professional librarian gig. I was conventional, responsible, and hard-working. But then what started as a few bumps in the road quickly became something much more serious. My husband started having health problems, which we finally realized were due to a toxic work environment. We decided not only on a job change, but a move to the city we'd been visiting nearly every month anyway. In the process of moving he managed to injure himself so badly that he was unable to work for mont...

At this point this is the winner by far for Granny Reads. Haviland's novel covers all the major tropes of a historical bodice ripper. Our heroine's name is Desire, and she was tragically orphaned during the latest plague. Despite her gentle upbringing, Desire finds herself at the mercy of a brothel owner who orders her to either become a whore or earn her keep as a thief. Obviously our virtuous heroine can't become a whore, so she tries to steal from a man who turns out to be a highwayman with a mysterious past, whom we eventually discover is the wrongly disinherited son of a late country gentleman. It all sounds so ridiculous, and yet the relationship between Desire and Morgan feels so real. As far as any old school conventions of the genre, Desire is nearly raped about a billion times in this book, typifying the (hopefully) outdated notion that attempted rape should be seen as a compliment and confirmation of your good looks. There's also a homely spinster who is,...

Over the winter, I read Redshirts  by John Scalzi, which was a really fun meta spoof on sci-fi TV shows, where the ensigns on board the ship theorize that the reason they have such a high mortality rate is because they're Redshirts on Start Trek -like show. The story was entertaining, but I only liked it, while my husband loved it. On the other hand, the story's three codas, which initially struck me as strange, eventually became my favorite part of the book. Normally this would just be a comment in a Goodreads review, but I thought the structure of the three codas - the first is told in first person, the second is told in second, the third in third - is a good excuse to have a conversation about point of view in fiction. Also, these codas were an excuse for a mostly comic novel to have a soul, and I love humor with a bit of heart.  If you want to read on, there will be broad spoilers since I'll be talking about where characters are at the end of the story. However, mos...

Elearning and Digital Cultures finished up about a month ago. However, before life got in the way of me finishing this class on time to get a completion certificate, I had most of my ideas in place for my final project, so I'm presenting it now, mostly for myself, to prove that I got something out of this new mode of learning. This MOOC has been quite the journey for me. I've been very hesitant of the whole MOOC phenomenon because of my own history with online education. About a decade ago, when I was an undergrad, I took a blended online and in person course on Medieval Latin. I was going to a small liberal arts and with it's block scheduling, our academic calendar didn't match up with the other schools in the course, so I had to rearrange my schedule to fit in the class. Our weekly lectures were streamed online with chat function embedded, but there was only one lab on campus where the computers had the software and headphones available to access these lectures wi...