January 200429 January 2004 The silhouette "library people" graphics that ALA's pushing for National Library Week this year would be cooler if the same idea wasn't being used in iPod ads and by Peter Gabriel. Merlin's Lists of Five Things includes this one: Five controversial performers coming to your local library. Two deals going on at the librarism.com store through 4 February: 1) Buy more than $45 in merchandise and save $5 by entering coupon code CPLUVSU. 2) Buy any large coffee mug and get a free bag of gourmet coffee. 22 January 2004 "Ask a Librarian" is a gentle country song, perfect for singin' 'round the fire at Library Camp. This number by Marc Record and the Good Ol'PACs is new in BibDitties. 18 January 2004 The Brick Testament shows what the Bible might have been like if, on the first day, God said, "Let there be Lego." And it is good! It doesn't (yet) include the absolutely best Bible story ever, though. Speaking of Bible stories, we gave our kid a nice illustrated volume of them for Christmas. (We think it's important for children to be able to understand U2 lyrics.) The other night, we noticed that the kid was using a playing card from a casino as a bookmark in it. The Devil is now tempting us to improve this anecdote by saying that we gave the kid The Children's Book of Virtues instead. Get thee behind me ... Speaking of kids, we had a nice Saturday night out with Young Librarian, Curmudgeony Librarian, That Rabbit Girl, and a librarian named Brian who (gasp!) doesn't have a website or blog. The evening reminded us that we are old, despite our refusal to grow up.
In a bizarre experiment funded by an early-literacy grant, reading lamps are being implanted in parents' skulls. It may be comfortable for the eyes, but that's got to cause one helluva headache. Insert pun on the word "bright" here. (Pic scanned from TechnoScout ad in BookPage.) Is Illiteracy So Bad? By the librarian who's doing the McSweeney's "Dispatches" column. Added to Laugh'n'Links. Valentine's Day is stalking up on us, and an old Modern Humorist bit suggests some books to give as Valentine's gifts. Great line from yesterday's Frazz added to Lib.Sigs.: "Somehow reading a book never feels like sitting still." "Find us that book, you're the librarian ..." Great parody lyrics from icontemplate. 12 January 2004 The Cincinnati Enquirer had stopped running The Boondocks. "[W]e did not want to keep publishing a comic that we regularly needed to censor. During the past year, Boondocks was substituted a number of times because it was deemed inappropriate for a family newspaper. And not just this family newspaper. Editors across the country were making the same decisions." Our mom would ask: "So, if editors across the country were jumping off the top of Sears Tower, you'd have to do it, too?" On the plus side, they also gave Cathy the ax and have added Frazz. Thumbshots.org is providing homepage thumbnails for the Open Directory Project, which makes it easy to, say, look for the ugliest library humor site. The Lipstick Librarian is of course the most attractive. There are two dmoz listings in for The Laughing Librarian in the category, one for our current URL, and one for a URL that we ditched almost a year ago. The thumbnail for the old location was apparently gleaned from its redirect, since it's an image from one of last month's updates. We love this line: "Libraries are not safe places, and the reason for that is there are ideas to be found." From an article about a book challenge in Texas. An the quote's even better when you see that the guy who said it's named John Bookman. 10 January 2004 Over at the librarism.com store, we've added two new shirt designs: "I have secret powers ... I'm a librarian!" and "Reference to the rescue." Also available on coffee mugs. Mattel is selling Barbie and Ken done up as Arwen and Aragorn. With the lack of proper equipment, this is one Aragorn you (or Eowyn) can't call "elf fucker." About.com announced the winners of its 2003 Political Dot-Comedy Awards. Google publishes print edition. News blurb from The Specious Report. 8 January 2004 The new issue of Bookslut includes a look back at 2003: The Year In Propaganda. You know, Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, etc. We hope the reference to "the rock-stupid pen name of D. B. C. Pierre" (emphasis ours) was an intentional pun, because it made us smile. 6 January 2004 Oh, how we often wish we had a musket handy at the ref desk! The Librarian's Story is a ripping good yarn from the pages of the February 1858 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Courtesy Cornell U. and LC's American Memory. The good, the bad, the bitchy. Slate reviews the reviews of 2003 in The Critics Critiqued. Damn, we must be good! While ego surfing, we discovered that we and the Library of Congress are the only two sites listed on the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' general LIS resources page. (Not nearly as weird as this fossil from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, but still kinda strange.) 5 January 2004 We generally don't ride the make-fun-of-patrons buggy, but Male Librarian Centerfold has an amusing look at the language of Patronese. (3 January entry) Michael Moore is sending a free copy of his latest book or DVD to any member of the U.S. armed forces serving in Iraq who wants one. (Scroll way down.) School librarian earns honorable mention in lying contest. Guess it'll be a while before the kids ask her for homework help again. "We find some things that look like peanut butter." Another story about the stuff patrons leave in library books. Includes a plug for Lysol spray. And here's one about the kinds of library books that get stolen the most. 4 January 2004
Finally went to see The Return of the King a couple days ago. Does anyone else imagine that Eowyn called Aragorn "elf fucker" behind his back? Cleaning up the To-Do folder to start the year, we've added some of your submissions to Tales of Library Lunacy and Koans of the Zen Librarian. Other things to which we're just getting around: "Boys who are into sports tend not to become librarians" (from the 4 December Unshelved strip) has been added to Lib.Sigs. Still a few days left to cast your votes for About.com's Political Dot-Comedy Awards. The Doodles animation called "Librarian" gave us a chuckle. "If the library were like Amazon.com" by Joseph and Mary. Dispatches From a Public Librarian is a recent addition to McSweeney's. It's more than a month too late to see The Library Project art installation at Wesleyan U, but it looks like it was sorta cool. The 2003 Puffies for book cover blurbs have been announced! The Bold Librarian is a randy ballad that's been around for a long time, but we've only recently seen the lyrics. Another blast from the past: Morrissey wanted to grow up to be a librarian. (See answer to Question 7.) Thanks to Alice in Brazil.
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January 2004
We
hope your holidays were enjoyable. Ours were nice. During our visit to the
in-laws, we escaped briefly to 
Copyright 2004 Brian Smith. Non-commercial distribution of material from The Laughing Librarian is permitted only if the original URL and this copyright notice is included. All commercial distribution is prohibited without written consent of and large cash payments to the author. Some images are from a commercial clipart package and may not be redistributed.