Things I’m in the midst of, or recently finished…
Streaming Meeting Discussion over at ALA Connect. Follow-up to the LITA Board excitement at Midwinter. I’m glad ALA is thinking about this in a timely fashion. I’m depressed about the generally negative, circle-the-wagons tone of the actual posted document. I go into detail about why over at Connect; basically, it dovetailed too much and too soon with what I had just blogged about the structure of the ALA. I also agree strongly with many of Roy Tennant’s and Karen Schneider’s comments. At any rate, if this is a topic you’re interested in, go over there and have a read and maybe leave a comment.
Stoner, John Williams. Despite having been written in the 1960s, this book has nothing to do with drugs. It’s a slim little novel written with astonishing restraint and simplicity; a novel where everything went on under the surface, yet it never ground to a halt — the way literary writing wants to be and so seldom can. I truly disliked nearly every character in the book, but the writing was so astonishing I loved the book, and it reduced me to a pile of tears at the end.
Running the books: the adventures of an accidental prison librarians, Avi Steinberg. I love books that give me a view into other social worlds, so of course I was all about this. Killer first line. Funny as hell. But thought-provoking, not just because of the contrast between its world and mine, but also because of the author’s occasional flashes of analytical brilliance. And its thoughts on the skills useful for librarians are…not ones you are likely to have seen elsewhere.
An enormous pile of articles and some books for the book chapter I’m writing, which I’m finding remarkably interesting. Just started Cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge by Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder.
The ALA-APA and ACRL salary surveys. Well, I mean…not cover-to-cover or anything.
Have just started Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants; not far enough in to comment; so far, so good.
andromeda yelton 
Blogged: what I’m reading ≫ http://www.andromedayelton.com/wp/2011/0…
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RT @ThatAndromeda: Blogged: what I’m reading ≫ http://www.andromedayelton.com/wp/2011/0…
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I’ve had Stoner sitting in my bookshelf to-read pile for ages–I’ll have to bump it up to the top! I generally don’t like books where none of the characters are sympathetic, but you’ve sold me.
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Normally I would have problems with that sort of book too! It’s a testament to how good this guy’s writing is. (And I found myself able to sympathize with their situations to some extent even as I really did not like the way they handled those situations.)
I’d never heard of the book, and then a few people gave it spookily good reviews, and they were right.
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