Snowmen - more than you ever imagined

Last time, I recommended the book: History of the Snowman, by Bob Eckstein. I had read about it in various library review periodicals and being fond of snowmen in a as long as I don't have to be the one out in the cold making them sort of way, I requested the book to see what it was all about. Well in a word - snowmen. But it is a delightful book. Mr. Eckstein writes with a great deal of humor, yet it really is a scholarly tome underneath. I was amazed at how much there is to know about snowmen - especially their appearances in early literature (we are talking medieval here) and art. The book also is an interesting exploration of popular culture and the development of an icon.

Anyway, I got an email from Mr. Eckstein - he discovered that I had mentioned his book in this blog (just check out the comments on the last posting). His contact brought me to his website:

http://www.historyofthesnowman.com/

Take a moment to check this site out. Just the snowman of the day is worth the visit, but there is so much more to the page like the picture below.

It's in the posting about the planned snowman amusement park in Norway - the idea fit right in with my 'thing' with Scandinavian mysteries. I can just imagine the story . . .

Books: The Making of the Wizard of Oz, by Aljean Harmetz

From Abba to Zoom: a popular culture encyclopedia of the late 20th Centure, David Mansour

DVD: Coca-cola: the history of an American icon

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?

Well, we survived our first taste of winter this past week and as always there were success stories (shout out to Brentwood) and stories with less success (too many to list). I travel to the North Shore from the very southern depths of Allegheny County, driving that lovely road Route 51. Apparently it is maintained section by section by the local community, so it is an interesting and challenging patchwork ranging from well-cleared and salted to surfaces that have seen a salt truck in recent history to wilderness travel (I exaggerate of course). Even the various neighborhoods of Pittsburgh that 51 winds through have an astounding range of clearing, Overbrook being good, West End not so good, North Shore - we won't talk about that.

This is always a challenging season for us bookmobilers. Trying to decide what the weather will do as the day progresses, how well the streets will really be cleared, how well the sidewalks to the senior facilities and the Head Start buildings will be salted - it is an art that we are constantly working to improve. We have to consider the sure-footedness of the particular vehicle. The big community route buses are like tanks. The senior bus is skittish even with wet leaves and ice is a more interesting challenge. We have to consider the communities we are going to and through, are we taking major roads that will be cleared or are we going to be on secondary roads in communities that don't get to salting for a while. We have to consider the weather forecast and what time of day we are going out. We have to consider the safety of our drivers, the librarians, the patrons and of course the vehicles.

Most libraries have a simple snow plan - if the school district closes, the library closes. Unfortunately, that doesn't work for us except for the preschool route. Many of our preschool sites are in schools, so our preschool librarian gets to watch for closures in a number of communities on a bad snow day. The community route runs mostly at night and weekends. By the end of a day, the roads might be nice and clear even if school was cancelled, and of course there is no school on weekends.

Since it is challenging for us to decide whether to drive or not, you should be ready to call us to check whether we are going to be at your community or facility. No book, movie or piece of music is worth risking your safety. We will keep or reorder whatever is on hold for you so that it will be waiting for you on our next visit. We are nice about waiving the fines, especially when the stuff is late due to weather conditions. But most importantly - CALL US!

Monday through Friday 8-4 call us at 412-321-1853. On Saturdays we will answer the phone between 8:30 and 9:30. If you still need an update for evening stops after our regular hours, you can call at 412-726-3525. That will answer only when the weather is bad, so if there is no answer, we plan to be at your stop. And if you call the center during our regular hours and no one answers - it's a snow day. No one could make it to work so get some hot chocolate, snuggle under a warm throw and we will see you next time.

Movie: Snow Day
Book: Snowflake Bentley, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Book: The History of the Snowman: from the ice age to the flea market, by Bob Eckstein

Getting back to you . . .

I promised to report back about my luck in tracking down some Danish and Finnish mysteries. Well, it has been a mixed bag. Although the Danish mystery field is very active, none have been translated into English. I had a bit more luck with an author from Finland - not only is it virtually the only one translated into English, it was actually available in the system. The book, Stone Murders, by Matti Joensuu, is definitely on the dark side of the traditionally dark Scandinavian mysteries. Years ago during a Winter Olympics, there was one of those get to know the people clips about a pairs couple from Finland. The theme was how depressed and glum the Finns are (in spite of having tons of tango halls where lots of people hang out and glumly dance the tango). Apparently melancholy is beautiful to the Finnish soul.

This book is nothing if not melancholy. It was a bit choppy - I would guess it all depends on the translator - but I would read others in the series. What was unique about this mystery as compared to other in the genre is that the police in the story were frightened. Although they carry guns, these police were characterized as being scared of the rough crowd, or too frightened to enter a dark tunnel. Maybe it is just more honest than most other police fiction.

There was also a sense that they could never get ahead of crime - as in protecting the public - rather they were there to clean up the dreary mess. Missed opportunities came back to punish them with the unhappy results they would have to live thinking about. Life is filled with alcholism, spousal abuse and physical abuse of children. Everyone is tired and feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. And yet it's always the US being held up as being such a violent place.

But it is a beautiful country and I browsed through the Wikipedia links about Finland marveling at the differentness of their architecture. Take a moment to browse - it is fascinating.


Book: Leney, Terttu - Finland
Movie: Scent of a Woman

Creating a Bookmobile Community . . .

Last spring, a patron came on board to return the selection for this year's One Book, One Community. She said she had enjoyed the book, but was that all there was to One Book? I was caught by surprise, not sure what to say. Sure, most libraries have book discussions and programming concerning the One Book selection, but we didn't have the venue to do so and just promoted the reading of the title. But it got me thinking - how could we make it possible to do more with One Book? After some thought - and a felicitous class on Web 2.0/Library 2.0 - I decided the only way to bring together our users, scattered as they are all over the county, was to do something online.

So I turned to my computer guys for advice and thus was born the idea of the Bookmobile Community, a cyber community that would make interaction between us all possible. We decided to use our new website as the base, start an informal blog and then a discussion forum. This blog is interactive - you can make comments anytime and I will post them for all to read. Most exciting and with the most potential to really be interesting, useful and interactive is the forum - and it is ready for you to try now.

It has been named As the Wheels Turn to keep with the whole bookmobile theme and it is an easy to use venue to talk books. There are currently just a couple of discussions going on, but anyone can start a new one. Need a new author? Post the question and watch for recommendatons. Want to discuss a specific book with someone else? Start the discussion and see who jumps in. Hated a book and want to warn people off? Go for it! And you don't have to leave home.

It is a really easy process (thank you Randy) but full directions are on the webpage (thank you Robyn) - just select As the Wheels Turn from the menu on the right. To get directly to the forum, just click on the icon on the main page - it's the one that looks like a bookmobile.

So I am really hopeful that this turns out to be just the thing to spark some talk with all of you. If you have friends, neighbors, co-workers and family that might be interested in taking part - invite them to join. It isn't just limited to us bookmobile people, we are just the core. Go on, give it a try!

Book: Book Club cookbook, by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp
DVD: The Carol Burnett Show

And now for something completely different

I am absolutely thrilled that there is a new Icelandic mystery out by Arnaldur Indridason - Voices. I have read 2 others by him so far - the only ones in the system - and have found this author a worthy addition to the grim, dark Scandinavian style of mysteries. I am hopelessly addicted to these kinds of mysteries. It all started one day when I was desperate to find some book to read with lunch. Being a mystery fan, I was browsing that section of our collection and came across a book by Henning Mankell (a Swedish author) and gave it a try. I had ordered another title by the time my lunchtime was over. I was and remain hooked. If you haven't read one of his Kurt Wallander mysteries, try one. The characters and lives they live are so real, alternatingly tough and boring (the lives not the books), full of promise and yet without hope. No one is very happy, everyone drinks too much and everything seems grey - the weather, their lives, the world around them. Apparently, Sweden isn't all we imagine it to be. But Mankell's books are not dreary or depressing - they are fascinating, good mysteries and a great read. Try this entry in the Language Log blog for another person's take on the Wallander mysteries.

So when I ran out of Mankell, I tried out some others in the genre and came across the Icelandic mysteries. And from there I have been trying out a variety of other similar writers. I can highly recommend Karin Fossum - her mysteries take place in Norway. I also have enjoyed Mari Jungstedt's series taking place in Gotland, Sweden so much that I wish I could travel to Gotland - what a beautiful place. Of course, I regret not taking advantage of those weekend trips to Iceland that were so popular in the '80's.

I guess my fascination with Scandinavian mysteries can really be traced back to Robert Barnard's Death in a cold climate. I can remember reading this and being amazed at the thought of living somewhere that has, tops, an hour of weak daylight a day during the long winters. What kind of people could live in those conditions, would choose to live there voluntarily? I have a hard time by mid January and we have plenty of daylight in comparison.

So I am going to try to track down some Finnish and Danish mysteries - if they have been translated - I hear the Finns are a very dour folk. Should make for some great reading. I'll keep you posted.

Movie: Smilla's Sense of Snow
Book: Smilla's Sense of Snow , by Peter Hoeg. Not a traditional mystery, but mysterious and really shows a different slant on Denmark and life in Greenland.

And the real move begins . . .

So the office was all moved and staff was settling in.

It was now time for the collection to be moved. We have a collection of some 50,000 items and the movers had loaded up rolling shelves with the first part during the prior week.

Now that the new shelving was in place, bolted to the floor (did I forget to mention the day of hearing the shelving assemblers drill bolt holes into the concrete floor for 120 stacks of shelving?) the collection could be moved over.

Of course we picked the hottest week of the summer - moving from a semi-airconditioned space to an un-airconditioned space. And it was hot, hot, hot! We moved a lot of books that Thursday and Friday. All the carts had to be carefully loaded following the way the books, etc. are shelved, carefully labelled to indicate the start of the load. The shelving in the Beaver Ave. facility had to be labelled to indicate where to shelve the various collections: fiction, paperbacks, picture books, etc. etc. Well, about halfway through Friday it was obvious that there was at least 2 more days worth of move ahead. Not a problem? Not exactly. I was going on vacation - couldn't change the plans - leaving Saturday. So the rest of the move would have to go on without my trusty supervision.

As it turned out, the move went on pretty well without me. There was only one more glitch - you knew that had to be another, right? It was one of the very last trips over with the moving van. It was that really really hot day - 98+ degrees and humidity off the charts. Something went wrong in the moving van on the trip over - the cases of books broke loose and fell over. Hundreds of books spilled out on the floor and were now totally out of order.

Luckily, a librarian at the ACLA office - Debi Ryder - was kind enough to brave the heat and the challenge and came over to get things in order. Thanks again Debi!! The move was complete. The computers were now online, and we now had the time to address the challenges of getting a place for everything.

It was tough seeing our old home base empty after all these years, but our new facility is focusing us all on the new challenges and views of the future. Something unexpected happens everyday! After all, this isn't the end, it's just the beginning . . .

Movie: Grease

Music: Abbey Road, by the Beatles

Book: Everything happens for a reason: finding the true meaning of the events in our lives, by Mira Kirshenbaum

With a little help from our friends

And that glitch was a doozie. Just a week before our move we discovered that our landlord did not have sufficient shelving for our purposes. All our carefully choreographed plans pivoted on getting the shelving installed first. Thank goodness we had determined a source of used shelving. We called Yankee Supply and ask for shelving to be delivered asap. They still had sufficient on hand and agreed to get it shipped within the week. Based on that, we talked to the movers and arranged for the office area to be moved one week and the collection the following to allow for enough time for the shelving to arrive and be assembled. By this time we were working with Dave Caparosa, a space designer recommended by our landlord. He worked out the layout of the shelving to best fit the space available in the new facility and arranged for installers for the shelving. Everything was good to go again - what else could go wrong? Well of course something could and did. We got the call from Yankee Supply - they were having more difficulty than expected rounding up the shelving from their various warehouses meaning another delay of a day or two – plus the weekend. They did promise to have the shelving delivered by Tuesday. The assembling would start Tuesday and finish up Wednesday. The collection move would start Thursday and be done on Friday. It was all still doable.

So the office space move was finally a go and went off without a hitch. Except for the other glitch - yes there had to be another, right? Our internet connection in the new facility was going to be delayed for several weeks - everything else was in place, the internal wiring, the router and other equipment, our computers, our desks - everything but the last vital link. So we would have to do our work without our usual access to our circulation system or the internet. Luckily we had the laptops that all have a wireless connection that we could use in the new facility. Hey we could handle it!

Very, very early Tuesday morning the shelving arrived from Rhode Island and Chuck, our vehicle, facility and all around can-do guy was ready with the rented forklift.





The installers came later that day and set to work. Everything was moving along great until - what's that? A glitch. Yankee Supply had sent us the shelves from a different shelving system than the frames they sent. After a call to them, a discussion with the installers, we moved ahead with a little rebate on the shelving and a bit of finessing of the shelving – check the picture below to see the finessing in action.

But the news was good– the shelves were ready for the movers right on time.









There couldn’t be any more glitches in our future at this point, right?



Music CD - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
Book - Don't sweat the small stuff, Richard Carlson
Book - The resilience factor: 7 keys to finding your inner strength and overcoming life's hurdles, Karen Reivich

The search began . . .

About a year ago, when Mobile Library Services was asked to vacate the building we had occupied for decades. It was lucky that we had a year to find alternate digs as it was surprisingly difficult to find a location that suited our needs: room for 5 large vehicles, 12' high bay doors, warehouse space for our collection of some 40,000 items and office space for 11 people.














We did find spaces: space that was too big (like the old Sam's Club in West Mifflin), space that just had been leased (like a location near Hays), space that needed too much remodeling (like a moving company building on the North Side), space that was too challenging to move vehicles in and out of (like a space in the Strip District). And each had it's appeal. The old Sam't Club was great for me - my hour commute would be down to 10 minutes. The Hays location was on a nice quiet street that was handy to all major roads. The moving company building had a fabulous garage and funky brick interior walls in the office area. The space in the Strip District, well it was in the Strip District!

We finally hit on two choices - one in North Versailles and one on Beaver Ave. After a long period of negotiation, the Beaver Ave. location was settled on and just in time. We had only a couple of months left to execute the move. We had thought ahead so that we would be ready when our new location was selected. We had engaged a moving service, one that had moved us a couple of years ago when the Alexander St. building had been remodeled, Fife Moving and Storage down in Washington PA. They were a great group of guys to work with, were experienced with moving libraries, and had done the job well. We got an estimate from them (gulp). We also found a used shelving dealer, Yankee Supply out in Rhode Island, that had sufficient shelving for our needs and had gotten an estimate (gulp again), just in case. The landlord at Alexander St. had intimated that we would be able to get shelving to replace the units we were currently using. We were moving from a location where the shelving was built in (attached to the ceiling and floor) to a site where the shelving had to be free-standing. So the move was on. Fife was called, a date was set, the staff was mobilized to start the packing process and we hit our first glitch. As the poet said: The best laid plans . . .



Picks of the day:
Book - The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Burns, by Robert Burns
Book - Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
Movie - Moving

Return to ACLA Mobile Library Services webpage

The journey begins . . .

Join me on this new journey I'm taking. I know where the journey is starting from - my cluttered desk at our new Mobile Library Services home on Beaver Ave.


I don't really have a destination in mind, so hopefully you will enjoy the journey. I tend to be a random thinker, so I will be jumping around alot, taking side trips, going where the spirit takes me, but in general, I will be focused on the bookmobile, libraries and the love of books, films and music. I'm going to start by sharing our moving adventure - and what an adventure it was and continues to be. I will be introducing our great bookmobile world - the folks that keep the bookmobiles on the road, the folks that work on the bookmobiles, the folks that work behind the scenes and the folks that come on board. And here and there I will be talking about books and movies. I hope to hear from you with questions, comments and suggestions (hey, be nice) and I welcome your ideas.

So, buckle your seatbelts and join me!

Picks of the day:
Book - Join Me, by Danny Wallace
Movie - All About Eve