The Retronaut

So, I just noticed that the Retronaut has linked to my blog because I sent the Retronaut a scan of the pamphlet "Social Telegrams". So let me just say hello to anyone who has ended up on this page after visiting the Retronaut.  For those of you visiting for the first time my twitter feed is @jillerickson and one day I will write a classic novel featuring a character named Chester B. Ticklejamset. Chester got his name when I was in 5th grade, so this novel has been gestating for some time, but I'm sure any Retronaut will understand that things that age have certain miraculous properties.

My day job is reference librarian at a public library, but for many years I worked at a VERY Retronaut kind of place ... The Boston Athenaeum.

Want to hear my voice? I didn't win the Public Radio Host contest (mentioned below), but I do now have a monthly gig talking about books on our local NPR station WCAI.

And, as you can also see below, I've been reading Proust aloud for quite a long time now.

And perhaps tomorrow I will have time to write a bit about "A Gathering for A Scattering" which took place at the Edward Gorey House this past Saturday. Our cat Jane, formerly owned by EG, was at last returned to her original home.

Salutations to you all.

Proust on Warm Weather

"I remember the warm weather we were then having, when a drop of sweat would fall vertically, regularly, intermittently from the brow of the farm boys working in the sun, like the drip from a cistern, alternating with the fall of the ripe fruit coming away from the tree in the neighboring "close"; they have remained, still today, together with this mystery of a woman concealed, the most constant element in any love that is offered to me. I will break all my week's engagements to get to know a woman I have been told about but to whom I would not give a moment's thought, if it is a week when the weather is of this kind, and if I am to meet her at some isolated farmhouse. For all my knowing that weather and an assignation of this sort are not from her, they are the bait, familiar to me though it is, that I allow myself to take and which is enough to hook me. I know that in cold weather, in a town, I might have desired this woman, but without the accompaniment of any romantic feelings, without falling in love; the love is no less strong once, the circumstances being what they are, it has enslaved me; it is simply more melancholy, as our feelings for people become in life the more we perceive the increasingly small part they are playing and that the new love, which we would wish to be so enduring, and to be cut short at the same time as our life itself, will be the last."

Sodom and Gomorrah, translated by John Sturrock

And I know everyone obsesses about that madeleine, but I'd have to say that orangeade is featured far more often! So go find yourself a bottle of sparkling French orangeade and an isolated farm house and enjoy the heat.

The Ideal Patron

Sometimes the public library reference desk can still thrill me. Small boy, 7 or 8, comes up to reference desk with his father. He had been in the children's room, but they suggested he needed to go upstairs for reference help. So there he was, the small boy, with his father. Small boy tells me he needs the Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology. I didn't even know we had an Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology, but this small boy was sure we did. His father looked bewildered. As it happens I had purchased the Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology: a global guide to hidden animals and their pursuers by Michael Newton. The small boy was besides himself with delight as I handed him the book, which was a pretty big book for a pretty small boy. Then his father told him it was a reference book, which meant it couldn't go home. Small boy looks unhappy. I couldn't let that stand ... of course you can take the book home. Happy boy. Happy father. Happy reference librarian.

It is one of the mysteries of collection development. Did I know that boy would be in my reference room one day looking for a book on cryptozoology? No I did not, but I sure was delighted that it was there yesterday! I have no doubt there are many fine web sources for cryptozoology, but why should a small boy have to troll the web to find his heart's desire? A book with which he can sleep if he so wishes.

Proust in Photos

Of course, I have been documenting Proust in my paper journal, and every so often in a photo. And if I could get flickr and blogger to play nice together, there would be a lovely Proustian photo RIGHT HERE! But having spent too much of the morning on that project, I'm just giving you the link to the Proust set! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jillyjally/sets/72157626749964379/


And believe me, there will be a long post on the EBSCO/H.W. Wilson merger, and my love affair with the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, whose funeral we all will be attending very soon, I am sure. To quote from EBSCO:

Q: Will EBSCO continue to produce print books?

A: All current subscriptions to Wilson print books will be fulfilled. Salem Press, a publisher of print books, is part of the EBSCO family of offerings. We recognize the value of print resources, and will evaluate which print resources make sense to continue to produce based on library feedback. While we expect to continue to produce those identified as valuable to customers, print resources that have experienced a decline in interest levels from librarians may be discontinued in the future, while new resources surface.

Still Reading Proust

So back in 2009 M. and I began to read Proust aloud. Shockingly, on so many levels, we are still reading Proust aloud. We have made our way from Swann's Way to In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower to The Guermantes Way, and our now midway through the fourth volume Sodom and Gomorrah. After hundreds of pages about the customs of dinner parties, he suddenly plummets us into a heartbreaking section on the death of his grandmother. M. and I both in tears as we remember our own dead while reading.

As it turned out to read Proust and also write about Proust at the same time was not as easy as I thought it might be when we began. Will we make it to the end of all the volumes? I suspect we will, but clearly we need to pick up the pace at this point!

And given that I originally chose Gorey Librarian as the title of this once imagined blog ... I will share the news that all of the Gorey cats are now dead. Jane, our sweet Gorey cat, and the other five along with Edward Gorey himself will have their ashes scattered around his house (which is now a museum) at the end of the month.

I am now thinking I need to start a blog called "Reference Librarians Anonymous" for Reference Librarians who care too much. In the age of "google is good enough" the real Reference Librarians need some kind of outlet for their rage and sadness at the gradual loss of such a grand profession. But may I also say, I had a student come into the Reference Room yesterday who was smitten with the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences! Moments like these give me hope for the future of a world where books & reference still have meaning beyond "did you try g*"?