Women's History Month Resource

Once upon a time, way back in the summer before I started middle school, I went on a trip. This trip was made in two ten-passenger vans, with somewhere around 18 women. This trip took us from Valparaiso, Indiana, to Seneca Falls, New York.

It was Celebrate '98, the 150th anniversary of the first Women's Rights Convention, which took place in Seneca Falls in 1848.

The trip was amazing -- it probably had more to do with me not falling victim to bad self-esteem immediately upon setting foot in middle school, like some girls, than anything else. It instilled in me a sense of sisterhood, and a sense of what women can accomplish.

(And we can accomplish a lot, in case you were wondering.)

In honor of Women's History Month, Alexander Street Press is making available its "Women and Social Movements in the United States" database for free. Search by social movements; by subject; or chronologically. They've got great graphics and information tables. Everything, really, to expand your knowledge of women and social movements beyond the requisite Susan B. Anthony namedropping. Check it out.

(You can do it!)

Can you tell which toe is broken?

While no broken toe is enjoyable per se, I must admit I would have rather broken my toe as the Queen of Hearts at Alice's Unbirthday Party than how I broke it this time, against my metal bar chair.

Just a couple of the interesting things about libraries...

-How they look

-What they include

I won't be shh-ing you at the library anytime soon...

There's a new book out that talks about why librarians are a necessary part of the changing information landscape. We're here to stay!

Reviews? Of course!

School Libraries

The Monroe County Community School Corporation is currently considering cutting a TON of school resources, including some to ALL of school libraries. Unfortunately, the sad-looking future of the school libraries here isn't anything special; similar cuts are being seriously considered all over the state of Indiana, and all over the country.

What's so sad about legislators thinking they can easily make budget cuts by getting rid of school libraries is that they don't realize what a positive impact school libraries have on schools' students. Cathy Collins, herself a school librarian in California (in a school district contemplating cuts), wrote this fantastic opinion piece really demonstrating the value inherent to a school library.

At a time when the sad state of education in our nation is almost always in the news, can we really afford to get rid of this necessary resource in our schools? Do we really want to be taking information access away from students? I certainly hope not.

Make your voices heard in your school districts and states! Tell those in charge that school libraries are important to you -- and to our future as a nation!

Beckett

Today at work, a girl came in to talk about her paper about why Waiting for Godot is an Absurdist play. She said she had already outlined her paper, and that she was coming to a writing session as a formality. We chatted a bit, and then I suggested a paper like this:

Write about how Waiting for Godot is an Absurdist play.

I can't.

Why not?

I'm waiting for Godot.

That's it. That's all the paper would say. So what if the assignment has a 4-6 page guideline?

Was that unprofessional of me to say?

(If it was unprofessional, it probably didn't help that I also mentioned the factoid that Samuel Beckett used to drive Andre the Giant to school. For realsies.)

New links from the ALA newsletter

Sorry I've been MIA for a bit; somehow I got sucked into classical children's literature and the Super Bowl last week, and this week has totally sped by. But, hopefully, these interesting stories will help make up for my absence:

1) The New York Public Library (love it!) has launched a historical geography site that allows anyone (=you!) to go access a whole slew of maps, historical and not, for some really interesting comparisons. See how cities develop!

2) The National Archives now has its own Flickr page, on which viewers like you can browse through photos of seminal moments and seminal people in US history.

3) Genealogy; pretty much every library seems to have a division of it nowadays. But how can we really make the field stand out? With the help of Abby from NCIS, of course!