I keep reminding myself that libraries have changed. They aren’t those old formal places that one entered on tip toe, never speaking above a soft whisper. We’re friendly now. We’re noisy sometimes. Occasionally we’re even rowdy. That’s ok. Libraries are public property, publicly owned. The library should be exactly what the majority of its owners wants it to be. I even like them better this way. Aren’t we all more comfortable in our own homes than in more formal places like sanctuaries and courtrooms?

Some libraries even state that their mission is to be the community’s living room. How cozy! However much we want you to be comfortable in our library, some behavior that might seem ok in your own home is still not acceptable in public places. Not even in the library.

It all started a few years ago with the proliferation of personal cell phones. My problem with cell phones is that they ring. Someone speaking on a cell phone in the library is no more disturbing than a conversation between two who are actually present here together. However, that ring! It annoys everyone. If you can’t wait until you get outside to take a call, please set your phone so that it does not startle sleeping babies or set the dogs down the block howling.

Another odd thing about cell phone conversations is that it appears that some people think it has rendered them invisible and inaudible. I really don’t need your problems. Are you sure that you want me to know that you didn’t file an income tax return last year or that various portions of your anatomy don’t function as you’d like? I can hear you and so can most everyone else in the library.

Remember the “sandwich” letter that we learned to write in typing class? The letter that starts out with something pleasant, puts the unpleasantness in the middle and ends up with a complimentary paragraph. The first four paragraphs you just read were the introductory niceness. Now to the heart of the matter:

Using a library, with all its shelves high and low, all its chairs, stepstools and machines, requires bending, stooping and reaching. All this body movement can cause clothing to slip and move out of place. I realize that belting one’s trousers just under one’s chin went out of style a decade or two ago. Even I shop for clothes. I know today’s fashions are not designed to keep one’s person covered at all times.

HOWEVER, just as we would rather not hear about your anatomy, most of it we’d rather not see either. Recently as I walked behind a row of five computer users, three of the five exposed portions of their body that only a proctologist should ever see. Of these three, one was a 40-something “gentleman”, one a male teen and one a 30-ish female.
I am at a loss to know how to handle this. Thus far, I have not been able to force myself to bring this to the attention of the patrons. Don’t they feel a breeze on their nether regions? Don’t they care? Do they think that we find this fashion statement attractive?

Okay, public. This is your warning. Turn off that cell phone ringer and pull up your pants before entering the library. Aging librarians are prone to swooning into a faint at the sign of bare behinds.

It’s weeding time at the library. Library weeding is just like the garden variety. Pull out the undesirables to allow the really good ones to strut their stuff and to allow space to add whatever new comes along.

For many years a slim volume produced by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission has been the weeding “bible” of the library world. It is known as the Crew Method: Expanded Guidelines for Collection Evaluation and Weeding for Small and Medium-Sized Public Libraries. I’m not sure who appointed those guys master weeders, but they developed a simple method that most libraries use. The Crew manual states that depending on shelf space, we should choose a date three to five years ago and weed any adult fiction book that hasn’t been checked out since that date. We’re crowded, so we use the three year rule. If nobody has wanted to read it in the last three years, chances are no one ever will.

It just kills me. I read several book review journals every month. I only buy books that came well recommended and reviewed. How do all these dud slip by? Perhaps I am gullible, just a real sucker for a well written book review. It also works the other way around. Every once in awhile a good book slips by me. Sometimes I will read the review and think “who cares about religious intrigue in the art world? “ Six thousand people cared enough to buy The Da Vinci Code the first day it was published. Sixty million more copies have sold since. Maybe I just need more practice.

I’ve weeded like crazy this week. The shelves by the east door that hold our new books are getting crowded. Some of the least new ones need to move onto the regular shelves and I must make way for them. Thus, there are lots of free books for the taking. They are housed on the shelves on the stair landing. A sample of what is available:

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It was published in 1989. It’s 973 pages long. Demi tried for years to persuade me to read it. When Oprah recommended it, I read it. It’s very good. The hoopla has died down and we now have an extra copy.

Love with Noodles: An Amorous Widower’s Tale by Harry Freund. I haven’t read this one. The cover says that widower Dan remained faithful to his deceased wife until a string of tantalizing women entered his life.

The Sudoku Murder by Shelley Freydont. Apparently readers didn’t stay interested in this one any longer than I did in those stupid puzzles of the same name. I never did get one to work out right.

Ten Little New Yorkers by Kinky Friedman. He’s that wacky guy that keeps running (but not winning) for governor of Texas. The cover says he lives with his five dogs and one armadillo in a little green trailer in the Texas hill country. His books just aren’t very popular around here. I think we are probably too sensible to appreciate his humor.

Also available are assorted other rejects. Some John Grisham and Julie Garwood books have been read to pieces. They will probably make it through one more reading. If you read to the beat of a different drummer, we have a free book for you. If you follow the straight and narrow reading path, we have some well worn copies for you to take home to keep and enjoy. Stop by, check out what is available FOR FREE at your library.

When someone asks if I have read any good books lately, the answer is always “yes”. It’s always true, mostly because I read lots of books, but it also true because I don’t read any other kind. I start lots of bad books, but I don’t finish them. Since I read for pleasure, why bother with a book that is less than enjoyable?

Just this week I finished The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family, and Fate by Marjorie Williams. Ms. Williams was a columnist for the Washington Post and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The book is a compilation of her work. The longer pieces are mostly profiles of famous and not quite famous people. They range from Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson Archie to Barbara Bush. The second half of the book is shorter pieces, essays. These encompass her feelings about motherhood, politics and her battle with cancer. It was a good read. I have my name on the waiting list for her other book, Reputation: Portraits in Power. I’ve heard that it is even better.

Sometimes, I think that journalists make the best non-fiction authors. They don’t need to learn to write. They have already become accomplished at it. They know how to accept judicial editing. They just “get” how to tell a story well. Some other well loved books by journalists are:

-Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by sports writer Mitch Albom. This one has become a classic, almost everyone has read it. It’s the story of a grateful student paying homage to a dying teacher.
-Anything by Rick Bragg, the former newspaper columnist. His family biographies including Ava’s Man are his best work.
-Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by In America by magazine columnist Barbara Ehrenreich.
-The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman, newspaper journalist.
-Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene, Chicago newspaper columnist. One of my all-time favorite books by a journalist. Greene may have been packed off in disgrace for crummy behavior, but he’s a terrific storyteller.
-Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer. A well written account of how a bar full of guys became substitute fathers and role models for a neighborhood kid.
-The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeannette Walls. The story of the world’s most dysfunctional family. A must-read for anyone who still harbors a grudge against his/her own parents. I gave it to all my own kids for Christmas one year. I wanted them to realize that their childhood could have been worse.
-The Night of the Gun by David Carr. The story of a successful journalist’s fall into drugs and crime.

Whatever your reading tastes, stop by the library. We have a book for you.