DIY Librarian

A community group in the town of Millvale, just outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wants to bring a library to the town, and they’re holding a benefit concert called BOOK’N Bands. Rock on, Millvale.

My previous place of work, a beautiful old Carnegie library which also houses a gymnasium and music hall, is hosting a Patti Smith concert!

Check out this video about The High Strung’s 50-library tour on Ypulse. See little kids dancing like maniacs! See them reading during a rock concert! Libraries rock! [via LISNews]

Last week I went to a blues concert at my local public library. It was in a beautiful community room in the new library building, and it was standing room only.

As 2005 fades away and 2006 starts up in earnest, people post year-end lists (or they post reasons why they don’t post year-end lists). The New York Times examines the trend (Jan. 5, 2006), focusing on music critics’ lists.

As I mentioned when I posted the DIY Librarian top 5 library blogs of 2005, I see lists as more of a conversation starter than anything. List-making is very popular in the DIY household; we must run out of things to say to each other.

It’s also a little competitive, though. You know you’ve won the match when you name your top whatever and the other person just says, “Oooooh, why didn’t I think of that?”

Now quick! Name your top 10 songs to catalog to!

1. 25 Minutes To Go (Johnny Cash)
2. F*!#in’ Up (Neil Young + Crazy Horse)
3. Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash)
4. I Wanna Be Sedated (The Ramones)
5. Loser (Beck)
6. Too Much Monkey Business (Chuck Berry)
7. Whiskey River (Willie Nelson)
8. Do Anything You Wanna Do (Eddie and the Hot Rods)
9. It Doesn’t Matter Anymore (Wanda Jackson)
10. I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart (Patsy Montana)

The amazing guitarist Link Wray passed away on November 5. You can read the AP obituary at CNN.com, which makes me doubly sad because the photo they use is of Wray performing in New Orleans.

Harry and the Potters is a punk band consisting of two brothers playing songs about Harry Potter and rocking out in libraries. I read about them in Blender, and MTV also wrote about them. I listened to a song, and it sounded pretty fun, though I have to admit I fail to fully grasp the awesomeness of Harry Potter.

In his Chronicle of Higher Education column Saving Secondhand Bookstores, Thomas H. Benton laments the replacement of secondhand bookstores with online vendors:

Paradoxically, that means I now buy fewer books because I don’t feel the need to buy in anticipation of future needs. I know I can almost always get exactly what I want online within 48 hours.

Previously, Benton noted that online library catalogs and databases similarly take away from the serendipity of browsing a library collection.

I don’t necessarily agree that electronic sources prohibit browsing. Serendipitous discovery is different in the electronic world, to be sure, but it does exist. And I certainly don’t want to advocate for decreased availability; there is something to being able to get the information you need when you need it, and I imagine Benton is grateful for it. But, were it not for a chance encounter in a secondhand bookstore, I would not be reading the book I’m enjoying immensely right now.

Several years ago, my husband and I happened across a copy of Dave Marsh’s Louie Louie in a bargain bin at a bookstore near Pittsburgh. Yes, that’s right, an entire book about the song “Louie Louie”. We He thought it sounded weird, too, so one of us he bought it (probably my husband, but I couldn’t say for sure). For the last several years, and through two or three household moves, I forgot about the book. Then, recently, I was looking for a book to read and stumbled across it on our bookshelves. If, at the time, we he had thought to ourselves himself, “This is interesting, but we can always get it from Amazon later,” I would not be privy to the sordid story of “Louie Louie” (which, by the way, is a tale of intrigue, copyright, and censorship—perfect reading for librarians).

[update] Paragraph above edited after consultation with my husband, who actually has a memory.

Obituary from BBC News. Donations toward funeral expenses can be made at www.gatemouth.com.