Biblioball 2009: Baby, It's Cold Outside

It finally is cold outside! The Desk Set is throwing a lavish, entertainment-filled winter formal this Friday, December 11th at The Bell House. Where else can you score free happy hour whiskey and winter ale (8-9 pm), watch a lady on her flying trapeze, win a fabulous raffle prize, hear tons of live music, and dance the night away? Plus: foot juggling, food, portraits (both photographic and illustrated), and more librarians than you can shake a stick at.

Proceeds from this carnival of delights will be donated to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens. Tickets are $20 in advance/$25 at the door and all kinds of worth it.

See you there!

Biblioball 2009 from Desk Set on Vimeo.

P.S. Please don't shake sticks at librarians, just dance with one!

Terrible Things Now Underway

Nancy Pearl: the librarian's golden calf? Discuss. Or just go watch her daughter take the stage this month in Terrible Things. Here are all the relevant details, including special promo pricing for the librarian community. And if you attend a performance, please share your thoughts in the comments.
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Science Tuesday meets Oklahoma angst as Lisa D'Amour and Katie Pearl flip P.S. 122 into a low-rent IMAX and get up close and in between molecules, quarks and memories. Have you ever wondered if all those lives you've imagined yourself living are actually happening in a parallel world(s)? Terrible Things takes audiences on a T-R-I-P inside the many lives of Katie Pearl and her action-figure literary mom, NANCY PEARL. Expect an in-your-body out-of-body experience shaped by Katie Pearl, three killer dancers: Emily Johnson, Morgan Thorson, and Karen Sherman, two Brazilian Jiu Jitsu wrestlers, and 1000 marshmallows. Featuring the choreography of Emily Johnson.

Here is a special discount code that you can use and pass along to your friends to get a special ticket price (normally $20)*:

$15 Single tickets with code BOOK15
2-for-1 tickets with code BOOK241

You just enter this code when you purchase your tickets here: https://www.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/203/1259712000000.

PERFORMANCE INFO:

Fri, Dec 4 - Sun, Dec 20
Thu - Sat 8pm, Sun 6pm
Late shows: Sat, Dec 12/Fri, Dec 18/Sat, Dec 19 10 pm

Additional shows Mon, Dec 14 + Wed, Dec 16 8pm
No show Thu, Dec 17

PERFORMANCE SPACE 122
150 1st Avenue @ East 9th Street, NYC
www.ps122.org

"Next time D'Amour and Pearl bring their enchanting work to town be sure to take it in." - John del Signore, The Gothamist

"The collaborative team of playwright Lisa D'Amour and director Katie Pearl make beguiling, innovative theatre pieces." - American Theater Magazine

www.pearldamour.com

*Restrictions apply - May be discontinued at any time, may not be applied to past sales or combined with other offers.

Embrace Your Independents

We're already two days into Independent Bookstore Week! All ears open to the music of language, from now through Saturday, the 21st. Brokelyn highlights some of the sassier, Brooklyn-ier offerings of this first annual installment, brought to you by the Independent Booksellers of New York City.

November Confesses to All Kinds of Terrible Things

My second least favorite month is nearly upon us. (February's the hands-down worst, no contest!) If you're equally disenchanted by the end of Daylight Savings and November's general gloom, distract yourself with this, that, or the other:

• Nov. 4: Get schooled on RDA by everyone's favorite cataloging instructor and winner of Library Journal's 2008 Teaching Award, Rick Block, at the New York Technical Services Librarians fall program.
• Nov. 6-7: Wondering how to get patrons of all ages interested in poetry? Attend the Poetry in the Branches National Institute at New York's beautiful, spacious, and new-as-can-be Poets House.
• Nov. 19: SLA's New York Chapter upgrades your brain at the New York Information and Intelligence Forum.
• Nov. 21: Eat brunch with America's most famous library-lady, Nancy Pearl. Okay, Laura Bush might be more (in)famous. Proceeds benefit her daughter's upcoming dramatic confessional, Terrible Things. Mmm...marshmallows...
  

The McNally Jackson Halloween Embarrassment

From the lovely ladies of the Desk Set:

The Desk Set is delighted to be helping out our friends at McNally Jackson for their Halloween happy hour costume party The McNally Jackson Halloween Embarrassment.

Here’s your chance to bust out, dust off and iron up your old Lizzy Bennet gown, stick a red felt A on your chest, or throw on some round specs and a striped scarf. Enjoy some tunes, some drinks, and some bookstore ambiance as you show off your clever costume. What’s that? You’ve already made plans for Halloween? Well, make McNally Jackson your first stop: festivities start at 7:00, costume contest is at 8:00, and you’ll be on your way to whatever debauchery awaits by 9:00.

Two more terrific things about this party: Esther K. Smith will teach you how to make some badly needed cootie catchers, and you can purchase paperbacks from the Books Through Bars wishlist to donate while you party.

Here are the details as supplied by McNally Jackson:

The McNally Jackson Halloween Embarrassment

You’re a nerd. And not just a little nerd either, no, you’re a nerd of magnificent proportions. You love books so much that you’re not satisfied just reading books shamefully in the privacy of your home, no, you have to read them on trains, buses, in restaurants. It’s embarrassing.
Not only that, but you think about books all day, you talk about them. When you walk down the street, when you kiss your children goodnight, you are a book nerd even then, in your heart.
You should be ashamed but you’re not. No, you celebrate your nerd-dom, you revel in it. Then, on Halloween, otherwise known as Nerdmas, you take to the streets. You wear your nerd heart on your nerd sleeve and dance (poorly) and sing (poorly). You let the nerd all hang out.
And somehow society just lets this happen? People don’t flee; indeed, some join in with you! You form roving nerd troupes, carnivals of embarrassment and glee!

You, dear reader, are invited.

This Halloween we hope book nerds of all sorts will join us to act like damned costumed fools amid our stacks. With a little help from the nerdy librarians of the Desk Set, we’re hosting our annual Halloween party, and that means it’s time to dust off your spats and clichés, grab those fangs and poorly executed allegories. We’re inviting all attendees to draw on their bookish lore to dress up as a favorite character. Or theme. Or setting? Even a title will do. Anyhow, we expect you to impress us with your book-themed costume. Uncostumed book nerds are welcome, too, they just won’t have a shot to win fabulous prizes.

We’ll begin with a horror reading at 7:00, followed by music and drinks. At 8:00 we’ll host our costume contest, with a panel of judges rating your getup for execution, originality and enthusiasm.

We’ll have plenty of other ways for you to embarrass yourselves, too, including:
*a scary voice contest
*papercrafts with our neighborhood paper wizard Esther Smith
*charity book donations (kindness is embarrassing, isn’t it?)
*and plenty of opportunities to indulge your embarrassing love for sweets

The party is open to the public: no fee or reservation required. All we want is your nerdy nerdy self.
Note however, that this party is for fully-grown nerds. Younger party-goers are welcome to our kid’s Halloween celebration from noon to 2.

McNally Jackson, 52 Prince St.
(b/t Lafayette & Mulberry)
New York, NY 10012
212.274.1160

October 31, 2009

7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Take the Field: Trips, Week of Oct. 5, 2009

I'm not sure how anyone can concentrate on librarianship with the sweet promise of postseason baseball just days away. If your priorities don't include pennants and pinch runners, you have my pity...and freedom to attend these bookish events:

• Oct. 6: Sneak a peek at Jewish Theological Seminary's incredible library; then make your way downtown to help plan next year's Anarchist Book Fair.
• Oct. 7: Go deep inside The Strand with METRO. You'll "learn how books are processed, how rare books are selected and hear how librarians can purchase books for their libraries and themselves."
• Oct. 9-11: Rutgers delivers the Mobile Communication and Social Policy Conference, a weekend-long affair of potential interest to the media-savvy, globally-minded librarian.
• Oct. 10: Do you like to read stuff and then talk about it...at a bar? No heavy tomes to struggle through for this reading group's Saturday meeting at Flannery's.

Remember to check the right-hand calendar for additional excursions.

Weekend Field Trips: Banned Books Week Ends, October Begins

Have you checked out the Shelved @ NYC calendar for October? The number of conferences, classes, library tours, and other events is borderline scary, but in that pre-Halloween, embrace-the-foreboding kinda way. Here are some things happening THIS WEEKEND that won't harm your psyche or pilfer your wallet (badly):

• The Contemporary Artists Book Conference is in residence at P.S.1. The sessions started today, but there are three more for you to catch tomorrow (on print-on-demand, zines, and a stellar keynote conversation).
• Here's the buzz: Pratt SILSSA is taking Banned Books Week seriously. Bee a part of the Librarian Swarm at Union Square this Saturday afternoon.
• Flickr Commons fans should head to the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday night for Common Ground, "a beautiful nighttime parade of images gathered and transmitted from the global Commons network, meet staff from Brooklyn and NYPL, get your hands on some cool Flickr schwag and enjoy the surrounding First Saturday festivities."

Poetry's New Cathedral on the Hudson

Congratulations Poets House! As reported by Library Journal, the 24 year-old poetry library and education center has successfully moved from its cramped Soho digs to "a stunning new location in Battery Park City in lower Manhattan, in a LEED Gold-certified building, with huge windows overlooking the Hudson River." (For a more detailed description of the space, check out this NY Times article.) Their grand opening celebration took place over the weekend, while regular library and reading room hours recommenced today.

"Throughout its transformations, the heart of Poets House has remained its poetry collection," their website states. "With over 50,000 volumes of poetry—including books, journals, chapbooks, audio and video tapes, and digital media—our collection is among the most comprehensive, open-access collections of poetry in the United States and is the foundation for all our programs and services."

And speaking of programs and services, Poets House will host its annual Poetry in the Branches (PITB) National Institute the weekend of November 6-7. The PITB program works with NYC's public libraries to increase patron exposure to poetry via workshops, readings, improved collection development, and librarian training.

A Branch Library Grows in Brooklyn

[Re-posted from Lower East Side Librarian]

A new alternative library grows in Brooklyn: the Branch Library in Clinton Hill is a project driven primarily by designers I believe, but they were respectful enough of the library profession to talk to some librarians, including the NYC Radical Reference collective. They'll be open the next 8 Sundays (and they hope beyond) from 1-5 in an unused parking lot on the corner of Myrtle and Clinton.

It may be some librarians' immediate reaction to be defensive, critical, or even angry at these amateur upstarts, but I think we'd be smarter to embrace, encourage, and advise them (when asked). I love their community centric approach. Jerome Chou, one of the group's core members, described how they're letting patrons design the library at our last Rad Ref meeting.

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Click to continue reading Jenna's post!

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And if you'd like to volunteer or donate supplies (and books!), please contact Jerome at librarybranch@gmail.com.

NYPL Announces Longer Hours and Free Timbits (Today!)

To think that just three months ago threats to library funding had New York Public Library officials forecasting severe service cuts, with branches opening a mere 4 days per week. Today, NYPL announced expanded hours at 10 libraries in The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. Mid-Manhattan can now boast 88 hours of service per week, including stints from 8am-11pm, Monday through Thursday. To celebrate, their Cover-to-Cover Café is offering free Tim Hortons coffee and doughnuts all day TODAY.

Will Queens Library join its sister systems in extending opening times? The 2009 Library of the Year has maintained Sunday service at its Central Library and Kew Gardens Hills branch, and the South Hollis branch re-opened last week after six months of renovations.

BPL Restores Scraps of Sunday Service & So Much More

Um, hello! I've been clinging to the waning summer, ignoring responsibilities left and right. (This blog is on the left, of course. To the right: bills, toilet-cleaning, passport renewal.) So now that the school year has begun and the days of sun and make believe are over, here's a run-down of the library newsie events of the past few weeks.

• Brokelyn reported on a do-it-yourself library project called, simply, Branch. According to their bare-bones website, "Branch is a community design and planning project to create a temporary public space on Sundays that will offer books and computer usage, as well as performances and workshops. Branch will be free and open to the public." They opened last Sunday in the Citibank parking lot on the corner of Myrtle and Clinton, and will reappear each week through the end of November. A fundraiser is scheduled for the 16th (see calendar at left).
• Not to rain on Branch's static, parking lot parade, but Brooklyn Public Library's Sunday service is back! Kind of. The Central and Kings Highway libraries will open year-round starting September 13, while Sunday access to the McKinley Park and Borough Park branches will be limited to the school year. Sixteen additional branches have extended their evening service to twice weekly.
  
• The BPL's Park Slope branch will close for renovations sometime this fall (date TBA). Work to improve the library's handicapped accessibility will take anywhere from one to two years. The infamous mommy brigade can't be pleased, but Fucked in Park Slope is looking on the bright (dark)side.
  
• Sony debuted its Daily Edition touchscreen ebook reader on August 25 at New York Public Library on 42nd Street. It goes on sale in December for $399. NYPL worked with Sony to expand its selection of ebooks, all of which will be downloadable to any brand of ereader or appropriate electronic device.
  
• City Room asked straphangers "What was the last book, magazine and newspaper you read on the subway?" The results seem surprisingly erudite...until you realize that the 8,000 respondents are all NY Times readers, and self-selected ones at that.
• The Brooklyn Book Festival is coming to Borough Hall this Sunday. With over 200 authors expected, you'll need to prioritize! Check out Brooklyn Based's game plan for hitting the best of the best.
  

Summer Reprieve: Field Trips, Week of June 22, 2009

Welcome to summer, NYC! The City Council restored local library funding last week, soothing the frayed nerves of panicked librarians city-wide. If you're a public library employee whose livelihood was delivered from the brink, congratulations! Well, for the most part. To the miserable minority who were secretly hoping to be laid off, my condolences.

On the heels of the funding crisis, WNYC broadcast a short piece about merging the city's three library systems.



The reporter claims "this option is so radical, [former Local 1930 leader] Ray Markey says he only heard it proposed once in his 40 years on the job." Really? Maybe the powers that be haven't considered it as a serious solution, but I've certainly heard the merger idea suggested by many locals (librarians and laypeople alike).

• June 23-26: Various METRO webinars and on-site workshops.
• June 27: Join ARLIS/NY on a picnic at Socrates Sculpture Park and a trip to the Noguchi Museum.
• June 27-28: Spend your weekend at the NYC Zine Fest. It's true what they say: the best things in life are FREE!!!
  

Summer, METRO-Style

METRO hosted a cool-sounding program today, "Internet Access to New York's Historical Record," that I neglected to pressure you to attend. Well, there's plenty more where that came from. Scroll through METRO's calendar, download their summer catalog, or read their June Digitech Newsletter to learn about their free-to-cheap seasonal offerings.

More Branch Library News

The NY Times recently published an interview of Tatyana Magazinnik, a librarian at Queens Library's Broadway branch. So it seems Brooklyn Public isn't the only NYC library system celebrating a reopening this week: service will resume at Mrs. Magazinnik's Broadway Library this Saturday, June 13, with music, dancing, and magic to entertain the L.I.C. crowd. This may sound somewhat derisive, but enjoy Saturday service while you still can!

Good Fortune Comes Our Way: Field Trips, Week of June 8, 2009

Thursday marks the long-awaited reopening of Brooklyn Public Library's Kings Highway branch. Shuttered for two full years, patrons can celebrate their newly renovated and handicap accessible library with live music and a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

For the rest of us, this week is rife with serious learning opportunities.

• June 9: Get your job search advice from high-powered career consultant Laura Hill, courtesy of SLA-NY.
• June 10-12: The International Conference on E-Learning in the Workplace: "By uniting the corporate and academic worlds, ICELW is creating a new synergy — one with the unique capability to realize the vast potential of e-learning in business and industry." And libraries, says I.
• June 10: Twitter talk for librarians at the CUNY Graduate Center.
  
• June 12: Learn the basics of media preservation and the history of the videotape at this IMAP workshop.
  
• June 12-13: Do the vagaries of intellectual property rights make you all hot and bothered? Well then, does Iona have a conference for you!
  

Kick Up Your Heals: Field Trips, Week of June 1, 2009

Due to personal/professional upheaval, I've let poor little Shelved @ NYC suffer from neglect this past week or so. No more! June promises an abundance of libraryland events, yours to enjoy while the ominous tick-tock of the budget clock winds down to the zero hour. Get out where? Get out of the library:

• June 2: Librarian, heal thyself, with METRO's "Nurturing Leadership Within Your Own Library."
• June 3: If you want to attend LibCampNYC this year, here's hoping you're already on the list. If you missed out on this popular unconference, console yourself with a library tour. ARLIS NY has arranged a visit to the New-York Historical Society Library; NY Librarians Meetup has done likewise with the Youth Services & Multilingual Center at BPL's Central Branch.
• June 4: The MyMETRO Special Interest Group will wrangle the leaders of three major NYC librarian social networking groups on their D.I.Y. Networking panel.
• June 5-6: The Desk Set wants you out on the dance floor for the 3rd annual installment of Dance! Dance! Library Revolution. Raffle proceeds go towards Books Through Bars.
  

Getting Hired, Staying Hired

Holding on to the job, that's the real trick these days. Here's a relevant program from our friends at METRO:

Getting Hired, Staying Hired: Tips for Job Hunting and Career Development
Date: Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 Time: 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
Location: St. John’s University Downtown Campus, 101 Murray Street

METRO is teaming up with St. John’s University to offer a special evening devoted to job hunting and career development in the library profession. Queens Library Outreach Librarian and METRO Magnet Consultant, Ellen Mehling will share strategies to help you “look” your best to potential library employers, whether it’s in writing or in person. Take away tips on improving your resume and interviewing and networking skills.

Refreshments and networking with colleagues will follow.
Students and recent grads are encouraged to attend.
No charge for myMETRO and METRO members; $25 non-members. Registration required. Attendees will need a photo ID to enter the building. Space is limited.

Presenter: Ellen Mehling received her MLS and Certificate of Advanced Studies in Archives from Long Island University, and has taught workshops and classes on job hunting, researching, info literacy and other subjects at high schools, colleges and at METRO’s Training Center, as well as other venues throughout NYC. She is also the Manager of METRO’s Job Magnet website.

Cuban Field Trips/Viajes Cubanos, Week of May 18

Librarian-friendly activities are somewhat wanting this week, but if you have an interest in Cuban art...goldmine! "Cuban Artists' Books and Prints / Libros y Grabados de Artistas Cubanos 1985-2009," an exhibition organized by Wake Forest University and the Grolier Club, opens on Wednesday with accompanying events at the Club and the Museum of Modern Art. It includes 120 books and projects in various media, created under the auspices of Ediciones Vigía, a collaborative artists' press.

From the Grolier Club's description, one might conclude that much of the art is minimally (or only slyly) subversive, that these state-educated artists have endured Castro's "gaunt and threadbare state" experiencing a minimum of cruelty and repression. From the Wake Forest press release:

In 2007, [curator Linda S.] Howe initiated an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship project to create an exhibition that would bring national and international attention to these artists and their work. “These artists have survived cultural politics, difficult living conditions and resource shortages that limited their access to the most basic materials, like paper,” she said, “but the project is not about politics. It’s about living our university motto, ‘Pro Humanitate’—for the good of humanity.”

But how does one think about/discuss/engage with Cuba sans politics? Learn more, live:

• May 20: "Cuban Artists' Books" panel discussion and symposia at MoMA.
• May 21: Free lecture by exhibition curator Linda S. Howe at the Grolier Club.
  

To Boldly Go: Field Trips, Week of May 11, 2009

For those of us at work in academia, the semester is winding down. Summer's quiet promise lies just ahead, with more time for special projects and municipal expeditions. Explore these strange (or familiar) worlds:

• May 11-13: METRO activities are about to slow down for the season as well, but not before presenting these workshops on communication, collaboration, and digitization.
• May 13-14: Library tours are absolutely de rigeur. On Wednesday, join the Desk Set for a peak into NYU's Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Thursday brings a pecuniary double-header with ACRL/NY's tours of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the American Numismatic Society.
• May 13: The Tribeca Performing Arts Center hosts a panel discussion, "Rare Editions: The Book as Art," in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at Lehman College.
• May 14, 16: Support Brooklyn Public Library times two. Proceeds from Brooklyn Vanguard's Party with a Purpose will help replenish the Clinton Hill branch's dwindling coffers, while books donated at Saturday's Great American Book Drive will benefit the entire system.
  

There Is No Spoon: Field Trips, Week of May 4

The events calendar is looking rather serious this week; I'll put on my thinking cap if you will:

• May 5: Join SLA-NY and METRO for a free crash-course in taxonomies.
• May 6: Learn how in-house digitization projects get done at the New York Technical Services Librarians' spring program, "DIY Digital: Local Initiatives, Local Support."
• May 7: Spend the afternoon at the Brooklyn Museum with the New York Art Resources Consortium discussing collaboration opportunities for art museum libraries.
  
• May 8: Meander up the Hudson for Nylink's annual meeting at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Thought-provoking programs in a pastoral setting!