I'll just BET there were!

Take a look at this from AL Direct:

The father of two teenage boys has asked city officials to fine the
Bentonville (Ark.) Public Library for keeping The Whole Lesbian Sex
Book by Felice Newman on the open shelves where his sons could find it. Earl Adams said his 14- and 16-year-old sons discovered the book in January while browsing for literature on military academies and were “greatly disturbed,” causing “many sleepless nights in our house.”

BWA-HA-HA-HAHA!!!! You think??? Sleepless nights when two teenage boys get their sweaty hands on a lesbian sex manual??? You think???

**Gasp!!!** I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so heartless. Obviously this guy is upset, and certainly he has every right to monitor what his kids read. It was just the unfortunate phrasing of the orignal AL Online post that had me laughing out loud at the reference desk.

On the lighter side ...

Some emails from reader's I've received have let me know that this blog is coming across as pretty damn bleak, and going back and reading it in its entirety, I can see that it certainly is. Not my intent, but since I began it in the period shortly before the one-year anniversary of Katrina, it's no wonder.

But let me assure you that all is not doom and gloom, either in my own life, or in New Orleans itself. For example, take a look at this video from YouTube:





I love this video! It cracks me up. I watch it when I am feeling down about the recovery, or my situation. It actually makes me feel better about the recovery. That everything is going to be all right. There is just something so hilarious and beautiful about this pasty, sunburned, fat white man, dancng in the ruins of New Orleans. dancing in front of a house whose door is hanging wide open, because it's so fucking wrecked that it doesn't even matter if anyone breaks in -- there's nothing to steal, and if anyone trashed the place, no matter how hard they tried, they could not measurably impair the state of the house. (My house's door is hanging open right now too.) Dancing in the waist-highh weeds, dancing ... in a neighborhood that could be my own (although I think it's Lakeview) ...

It's hard to describe the rush of incredulous laughter and unexpected, perverse joy I got when I first saw this video. It is so RIDICULOUS, and yet so right. I laughed my head off, and so did my husband.

You see, this is New Orleans! This is what the city is about -- not the houses, not the buildings, the business or the tourist trade, but the people and their spirit. And this is why we will prevail in the end -- white and black, rich and poor, Catholic and Pagan and Voodoo. Because New Orleanians love life! If the storm has wrecked your city and the flood has destroyed your home, what else is there to do but dance, dance! Dancing in the ruins -- in a way, that is what New Orleans has always been about.

There's no drowning the spirit, baby!

The video is by EndlessJoe, the dancer is CaptainPepito, and the music is by DJ Kool. Rock on! Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Library 2.0 Redux

I enjoy this hit I just got from the famous Library 2.0 Idea Generator: embrace the biblioblogosphere using a folksonomy.

Well, you'd have to, wouldn't you?

And this one from the whiteboard: rant about your library and call it a ''Rich User Experience."

Yes, we should unload on patrons and they should thank us for it!

Ha, ha, just kidding, potential employers!

Seriously ... just kidding. Irony! Irony!

Library 2.0 Nirvana

I have to say, this is pretty funny:

The Library 2.0 Generator

My favorite commandment was, "Attract Walt Crawford and reach Library 2.0 Nirvana overnight."

Although I have to look up Walt Crawford now.