The Professional Book Nerd

Stationed in Chicago. MLIS. Archives and Special Libraries.

[uispeccoll]

Happy #MiniatureMonday!

Today we’re showcasing TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS. This micro-miniature book features the lyrics to the original English carol, along with hand-colored illustrations of each of the twelve gifts. Also, that end sheet maaaaaarbling! *swoons*

We’ve decided to do our own version of the Twelve Days of Christmas here at Special Collections, so stay tuned to our Tumblr feed for a festive holiday countdown.

-Hannah

Charlotte Smith Miniature Collection M1741.2 .T97 1983

Bernier, Bernier, Jane, and Borrower’s Press. The Twelve Days of Christmas : A Traditional English Carol. Cleveland Heights, Ohio: Borrower’s, 1983.

[uispeccoll]

On the first day of Christmas, my librarian gave to me…

a Hawkeye Ghost in the book stacks!

- Hannah, Elizabeth, & Triston

[uispeccoll]

On the second day of Christmas, my librarian gave to me…

two Spock Ears!

- Hannah

Mary Jennara Wenk Star Trek Collection MsC 1031

[professionalbooknerd-blog]

Bringing Back Storytime [And the Book Nerd!]

The Professional Book Nerd is back and better than ever! 

Okay, that’s a lie. I totally dropped off the face of the library blogging earth just in time for things to get real good. I’ll skip all the middle stuff and just say I’M BACK BLOGGING! I’m now a Youth Services Librarian in the Chicago area and I’m so excited about it. I mostly work with preschoolers and help out everywhere else. 

My library is in the middle of a huge full-building renovation. Updating EVERYTHING. So storytime has been offsite since March and we took the last month off and now finally [FINALLY] we’re back in business in the library. It’s only one per week, all ages, and drop in, but I’m so happy to be back with my kids that I don’t even care. So I’m going to START with sharing my storytime plans and go from there. 

The Books:

The Activities:

-Popcorn Kernels (with scarves!) -The Wiggle Song -Song Cube (I should probably do a post just for that...) -If you’d Like to Read A Book Clap Your Hands (opener) -Slowly Slowly Very Slowly (fingerplay)

The Storytime:

For the first storytime in nearly two months, it went great! We had nine kids, they were awesome, and it was just so good to be back doing storytime. I opened with If You’d Like to Read A Book, like always. Their favorite book was definitely Bear Counts, but the caregivers got QUITE a kick out of my reenactment of Pigeon + Duckling. I do different voices and physicality for them so it’s a whole bunch of Miss Dannie being a big goofball. 

I ended up only going 30 minutes instead of the advertised 45 but they were getting a bit TOO wiggly to keep going. Thankfully, we have a brand new Early Literacy area for them to explore, which definitely happened! 

Can’t wait to see how storytime goes in the future. 

[uispeccoll]

Happy Miniature Monday!

This will make all you bookbinders out there shiver with fear! Here we have two copies of The Offering, published in 1852 by J. Buffum.  The text consists of verses by various authors on flowers. These books should be nearly identical except…one of the covers is reversed! Such a simple yet drastic mistake.  We have numerous other miniatures from J. Buffum, all very similar.  I imagine these books were printed quickly and in large quantities, hence more room for error.  In my opinion, the mistake makes it more interesting.  Enjoy!

The Offering. Boston: J. Buffum, 1852.  The Charlotte Smith Miniatures Collection.

See all of our Miniature Monday posts here

-Laura  

[lauriehalseanderson]

They put my thoughts about censorship on a LIBRARY in Washington, DC!!!!

Absolute career highlight!! Thank you, kind librarians!

[dcpubliclibrary]

Thanks for the inspiration lauriehalseanderson!

You can find even more awesome art inside the building in celebration of Banned Books Week and the freedom to read, express and create as part of UNCENSORED: The Art Exhibition.

[fishingboatproceeds]

Laurie’s words three stories tall. Awesome.

[hdslibrary]

Same text, same edition, very different books

A great example of why we collect multiple copies:

This is a theological work on Unitarian Christianity from 1787, and AHTL holds four copies.  The images above are of copies 2 and 3.  Both have important provenance demonstrating historical connections between American and Transylvanian Unitarians. 

Copy 2 was presented to AHTL in 1922 by a Unitarian Bishop from Kolozsvár; copy 3 was received via the American Unitarian Association, to whom it was given in 1955 by the chairman of the Budapest Unitarian Congregation “as a symbol of fraternity.”

Szentabrahami, Michael Lombard, 1683-1758.   Summa universae theologiae Christianae secundum unitarios, in usum auditorum theologiae concinnata et edita. Cum privilegio sacr. caes. reg. apost. majest.  Claudiopoli : Typis Collegii Reformatorum, 1787.

[the-librarians-of-night-vale]

This Thursday at the Night Vale Public Library is the twice-annual Cleaning of the Books. The Sheriff’s Secret Police Super Secret Special Forces Unit will be on hand to subdue the librarians, who regularly attempt to not only undermine our city with dangerous books, but also sink their sharp claws and pincers into library visitors before flying them off to eat or toy with or whatever it is they do to their victims.

— Welcome to Night Vale, episode 54: A Carnival Comes to Town (via shayera-librarian)

[professionalbooknerd-blog]

Fellow whovian librarians, this is a thing that exists!

[mollymwetta]

Last year for banned books week I did this shredded books passive program in my library and I thought I’d share it for those of you looking for a low cost, easy, but fun program (it was a hit in my library). 

[ultrafacts]

Source For more facts follow Ultrafacts

[kvotheunkvothe]

EVERY TIME SOMEONE BRINGS UP THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA I GET SO ANGRY.

[tuxedoandex-deactivated20200116]

but why

[faith-n-reason-deactivated20191]

Because it got burned. All of that knowledge, lost forever.

[aussietory]

[ultrafacts]

The library was destroyed over 1000’s of years ago. The library consisted of thousands of scrolls and books about mathematics, engineering, physiology, geography, blueprints, medicine, plays, & important scriptures. Thinkers from all over the Mediterranean used to come to Alexandria to study.Most of the major work of civilization up until that point was lost. If the library still survived till this day, society may have been more advanced and we would sure know more about the ancient world.

[happyless]

***INSANELY PAINFUL SHRIEKING***

[littledallilasbookshelf]

Brentwood Library, Tennessee

[hpldreads]

If you loved:

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Divergent by Veronica Roth

The Giver by Lois Lowery

Maybe you should try one of these!

The Selection by Kiera Cass

Matched by Ally Condie

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Legend by Marie Lu

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Feed by M. T. Anderson

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Gone by Michael Grant

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The City of Ember by Jeannie DuPrau

For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Heir Apparent by Vivan Vande Velde

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama

X-Men: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont and John Byrne

The Handmaid’s Tale by Magaret Atwood

Fahrenheit 451  by Ray Bradbury

1984 by George Orwell

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

[professionalbooknerd-blog]

Hey, I'm 15 and I'm considering being a public librarian. I'm not sure though, because over the past month or two I've been considering other careers I though I'd be good at, and later realizing they're not right for me. I want to have a plan, a set goal I can work towards, but I need to know what I want to be to do that. I love libraries, and I love reading (even though I haven't finished a book since April or so.) I don't know... I'm not passionate enough about anything to dedicate my life.

I'm sorry I did not get to this sooner! The good news is that you're still young and have PLENTY of time to decide what you would like to do with your life. I would recommend, as with anything, to do some research into possible career paths for you first. Volunteering is really great, too. See if your library is accepting volunteers and use it to start getting to know as much as you can. The same applies for any field you want to get into. Volunteer while you can. The great thing (at least it was for me) about library school is that it's after your Bachelor's. I had four years of undergrad to really think about librarianship before I took the dive into the graduate program. Sometimes it takes getting involved in the field to discover you're passionate about it. Really give it a go and see if you like it! 

[sweetzen]

[glasstownentertainment]

When you need research to write, here’s how to master the art of Googling! (Confession: I didn’t know about 90% of these. Epic fail.)

[sunonmywings]

Ooo! So useful! I already use some of these, but didn’t know half of them.

[tinyjavs-deactivated20130624]

think about the concept of a library. that’s one thing that humanity didn’t fuck up. we did a good thing when we made libraries

[danhickey-deactivated20160216]

Spotted on Cornell’s campus: “♥ A Librarian” bumper sticker. I approve!

[thelifeguardlibrarian]

i mean i hate bumper stickers but if i didn’t…

[shreddedpaperthoughts-blog]

Librarianship is a form of heroism. It’s just not as flashy as swords and dragons.

Seanan McGuire, Chimes at Midnight (via cathylibrary)

I mean, I usually ride my dragon to work, doesn’t every librarian?

(via gtpubliclibrary)

We prefer griffons in Pickerington, but dragons are good, too.

(via pickeringtonlibrary)

As an actual dragon librarian, I am confused by this statement.

(via loisthelibrarian)

I second loisthelibrarian. Don’t we use our mighty wings to return to our hoards each morning?

(via thatgothlibrarian)

some of us are whispers aerially challenged

(via archifist)

[haiyaxai-deactivated20151103]

This is a summary of college only using two pictures; expensive as hell.

That’s my Sociology “book”. In fact what it is is a piece of paper with codes written on it to allow me to access an electronic version of a book. I was told by my professor that I could not buy any other paperback version, or use another code, so I was left with no option other than buying a piece of paper for over $200. Best part about all this is my professor wrote the books; there’s something hilariously sadistic about that. So I pretty much doled out $200 for a current edition of an online textbook that is no different than an older, paperback edition of the same book for $5; yeah, I checked. My mistake for listening to my professor.

This is why we download. 

 Alternatives to buying overpriced textbooks

Textbooknova 

Reddit

Bookboon 

Textbookrevolution 

GaTech Math Textbooks

Ebookee 

Freebookspot 

Free-ebooks

Getfreeebooks 

BookFinder

Oerconsortium 

Project Gutenberg

[crystalgarbage-blog]

Spreading this shit like nutella because goddamn textbooks are so expensive. 

[referencesforartists]

not necessarily art related but as someone who couldn’t afford their textbooks this semester this is a godsend

[amplifytheworld-blog]

REBLOGGING because after a little digging, I found my $200 textbook for free in PDF form.

[inunchartedwaters-deactivated20]

friendly reminder that this exists since I know we’re all going back to college soon

[1-4victor-out]

Will reblog every time I see it.