Happy Banned Books Week!

Banned Books Week is here -- an issue about which the American Library Association likes to make a big honking deal every year -- and with it will come, predictably, a bunch of people pointing out that censorship is not quite the issue here in the U.S.A. as it was in, say, Soviet Russia. This issue is already being debated on our library's website (check the comments on the linked post). And while it's true, the event would be more accurately if less alliterativey called Challenged Books Week, and it's true most challenges come from individuals concerned about what their kids are reading, not government agencies trying to keep information from the populace, I'm still OK with the American Library Association making a big deal out of this and getting some press and attention to the issue of freedom of information.

The reason I am OK with it is that they brainwashed me at the ALA conference in DC back in June. No, wait. I wasn't supposed to say that! The REAL reason I am OK with it is that the First Amendment is an important one, foundation of our democracy and all that, and having a large influential organization that is hard core in defense of it is, in my opinion, a Good Thing. Would democracy be eroded if fewer youngsters had access to And Tango Makes Three, the gay penguin book that has been high on the list in recent years? Not really. Do I want to live in a country where the most uptight parents decide what books are available in the public library? Or a country where nothing that could possibly offend anyone is available in print? Definitely not.

Besides, I've always loathed the argument that because something is available it is being forced upon you. It's like when people complain about what's on TV. OK ... then STOP WATCHING. Unless you're being tied down, Clockwork Orange-style, with your eyelids pried open, I don't see what the problem is.

Speaking of "Clockwork Orange," that is in my personal Top Three of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen* and I don't ever want to see it again. But do I think it should be banned? Nope. Am I sorry I saw it? Not really. Isn't it good for us to be disturbed, to have our feathers ruffled, to think about things that are nasty or upsetting? Not full time, naturally, and I've been known to run for the Jane Austen/Georgette Heyer comfort read in a second after upsetting experiences. But dictating what others can read/view based on personal preference or worldview is no way to run a library, or a free country.

I was schooled as a First Amendment zealot by working as a newspaper reporter -- and that's another reason ALA's role is crucial. These days, with newspapers facing a vastly diminished role in public life, SOMEBODY has to step up and be the First Amendment hardliners. So why not ALA and librarians in general? Happy Banned Books Week!

* The other two, if you really must know, are "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" and "Breaking the Waves." And "Blue Velvet" finishes just out of the money but I have no plans to see that one again in this lifetime, either. All this is making me wonder: in these times of high-circulation DVDs, do those titles get challenged? Because a lot of the movies are WAY more violent and disturbing than most of the books. But Banned Media Resources Week just doesn' t have the same ring to it, does it?

A report from Library Land

I recently attended the American Library Association annual conference in Washington, D.C. -- the mother of all library conferences. According to an ALA news release, there were 19,513 attendees -- and I believe it. The gathering was so huge that I knew my college housemate was there -- and never saw her once in three days (she is a university library dean and operates on a whole different level of librarianship). What did I learn? For one thing, from the moment I stepped into the Convention Center to pick up my registration packet, I realized this was my tribe. Everyone looked a little familiar, even though I didn't know any of them. This conference was one of the first times I've felt real regret for not going into this field earlier in my career -- even though I value everything I learned from journalism and other jobs.

It was an exceptionally well-organized conference, which I suppose comes from having these down after all these years. Everything was in the room specified, at the time specified. Events started on time and did not run over their allotted time. A lot of conferences could take a few lessons. For me, it was a nice mix of literary celebrity and practical info. My only complaint is that not much seemed geared toward little libraries like ours -- and I know there are a lot of us out there. No doubt that's because little library staffers don't have time to attend ALA conference organizing sessions, or make their name in the field as speakers. But it's worth keeping in mind because I bet a big part of ALA's constituency actually comes from little shops.

There were some big name writers there -- Toni Morrison as the keynote speaker at the opening general session, John Grisham, Junot Diaz, Dennis Lehane. It was interesting to see the difference between librarians as an audience from a purely literary gathering like the Key West Literary Seminar or the Miami Book Fair. Librarians seemed purely appreciative, not needy in the way that literary eventgoers can sometimes be, and I liked that. Naturally all the writers made sure to give props to libraries and librarians.

Some other mostly random observations and quotes:

What is it with the librarians and Second Life? I just don't get it -- and I don't want to and I won't. Maybe it's because I associate it with a particularly unappealing former work colleague but it just strikes me as creepy. Isn't Regular Life enough, or more than enough to keep up with? I suppose this is just how others feel about Facebook but that's cool. No one's forcing you to do any of those things. It just seems like I never hear any references to Second Life ... except from strangely enthusiastic librarians.

"You don't walk into Nordstrom's and say, 'please show me your inventory management system.'" Stephen Abram of Gale, talking about the way we present our online public access catalogs to patrons.

"We are living in a golden age of comics and book design." Audrey Niffenegger, author of "The Time Traveler's Wife," "Her Fearful Symmetry" and the upcoming graphic novel "The Night Bookmobile."

Dennis Lehane said the first nine screenplay adaptations of his novel "Shutter Island" tried to change the story to have a happy ending -- and they all sucked.

The panel called "Isn't It Romantic?" -- which featured six very nice and funny writers of romance novels -- was held in a room that was way too small for the crowd, in stark contrast to other sessions that had much bigger rooms and were half full or less. I think that speaks to the dissing of genre in general and romance in particular (I didn't check out the couple of scifi sessions I saw on the agenda so I don't know if those had similar room assignment/crowd issues). Too bad -- because we know they're popular with readers and obviously with a good section of librarians, too. Speaking of stereotyping, I think I was at the exact median of age, body size and apparel choices in that room -- making me feel both at home and strange, like when I see Swedes whom I've never met and am not related to, but who sort of feel familiar.

And this isn't ALA or library-related at all but if you go to Washington and have limited museum viewing time, I cannot recommend enough visiting the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. They share the old U.S. Patent Office building and they are both fantastic museums that are also a reasonable size to take in. The Portrait Gallery side, in particular, offers a nice precis of American history at the same time as seeing some cool paintings. And I got to see a genuine painting of Elizabeth I there! (Yes, she's not American but she played a role in early English settlements.) The real thing! The guy who painted that was looking at her! That gets my Tudor geek on, big time.

Of course, if you're interested at all in libraries you will probably visit the Library of Congress -- I'm embarrassed to say this was my first visit there but it was so worth it. What a gorgeous building, and monument, to the mission of libraries and their centrality to our country. And it's a working library, too. The tour was great, with all the cool architectural and artistic details explained and they had a great exhibit called Exploring the Early Americas. Highlighted in this exhibit is a map from the early 1500s by German mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller, for which the Library recently paid $10 million. Why, you might wonder, would our national library pay $10 million for some German map? It turns out this was the map in which Waldseemüller named that big continent to the west after one of the early explorers: Amerigo Vespucci. OK. Now I get it.

To have and to ... whatever

Imagine our delight here at the Key West library when we saw that our inaugural One Island One Book program , featuring Ernest Hemingway's Key West novel To Have and Have Not, had made the pages of American Libraries, one of the premiere professional journals of libraryland! And it was the issue with library god Neil Gaiman on the cover, even. How cool is that! Until ... we turned to page 12 and saw the nice write-up that explained our book of choice was Ernest Hemingway's ... To Have and To Hold. Huh?

Having written for publication for many years I understand how this sort of mistake happens. Once in awhile your brain just takes a little timeout -- and next thing you know, the action of your misfired synapse is set in type. If you're lucky, you have a smart editor whose brain is working better than yours that day and she catches the goof. If not ... it's mortifying. One of my favorite things about blogging is that you can go back and fix these kinds of screw-ups as soon as you, or someone else, notices them.

Unfortunately for the good folks at the American Library Association, and for us, you can't do that with print. So there we are, for eternity, with Hemingway's To Have and To Hold.

By the way, there is a novel with that title in our collection -- we came across it the other day while moving the large print novels. It's by Fern Michaels, the prolific romance writer. It's probably a fine piece of entertainment -- but it's unlikely to be chosen as a One Book One Island title. (And not to be confused with To Have and To Hold by Jane Green, which it looks like we used to have in the collection but no longer do.)

Best of the best

I'm a sucker for those Best Books and various awards -- and wouldn't you know the fine folks at the Williamsburg (Va.) Regional Library, in their really impressive blog, Blogging For A Good Book, have created a megalist of the best of the best. Check it out -- and if you're in Key West you can check out a lot of them from the library. I'm not going to go through and figure out exactly which of these titles we have but most of them look mighty familiar. I can tell you for sure that we have the top fiction title, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, and the top nonfiction book, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. One of the real pleasures of my job is coming across blogs like this -- it's so great to see there are librarians -- and readers in general -- out there who love books, love reading, and love sharing what they know.

How do I love my local public library? Let me count the ways.

The great, smart, public spirited, hardworking people at the Monroe County Public Library aren't letting budget blues or holiday overload get them down -- instead they're keeping up great public service, like this online display of books by writers who will appear at the upcoming Key West Literary Seminar (spaces still open for the second session! free Sunday afternoon sessions both weekends!). My man Christopher, owner of the increasingly essential Voltaire Books, just stopped by and told me they have books by all the seminar writers -- what a great Christmas gift! And if that's not enough reason to love this library, here's another: Saturday is the season's first book sale in the Palm Garden. Woo hoo! Lord knows I don't need more books in my house but these are still irresistible bargains for any bibliophile (and you never know when you might find, say, a signed first edition Elizabeth Bishop in there). It has happened. As a weekday gal, it's also good to see these events back on Saturdays.