BookLust

Those Super Librarians!

Just a quick note to thank all the wonderful librarians and technicians who came by the Scholastic booth on Friday at the OLA Super Conference to get a signed copy of 13 Ghosts of Halloween. It was wonderful meeting you all, and I really appreciate all of you taking the time to see me.

Also thanks to everyone for not throwing rocks at me when I started singing during my CANSCAIP presentation. One of the best comments made to me after singing from 13 Ghosts came from a children's author who exclaimed, "You got balls!"

Signing and singing! What more could one ask for? A good time was certainly had by me.

It's a Bird, It's a Plane...It's a Super Conference!

Hey all you librarians and library technicians in Ontario – if you're going to the OLA Super Conference this year, please stop by the Scholastic booth at 11:00am on Friday February 1st, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I'll be there signing my illustrated book 13 Ghosts of Halloween, and I'll be really sad if no one comes to see me. Seriously, you don't want to see a cartoonist cry – it ain't a pretty sight. So please say hello!

I'll also be at the Expo Theatre on the Expo Floor from 12:00 noon 'til about 2:00pm with a great group of CANSCAIP authors and illustrators, doing a five-minute plug for 13 Ghosts. I'm terrified!! So if you see me, please don't laugh. 'Cuz that will make me cry, too....aren't artists a neurotic bunch? Well, I know I am, anyway...

So let's have a big hooray for  libraries and librarians and library technicians! You rock my world, baby!

Show Us Yer Library!

The lovely and delightful Kimbooktu is asking all book-lusters to share a photo of their libraries! It's not a contest, just a chance to share a special part of yourself with some kindred biblio spirits. Don't worry about how big or small or fancy or silly your library may be – vive la difference, I say! There's already some wonderful photos posted on a special page dedicated to this project.

So get yer cameras and start clickin'! Share the library love!

Of Cartoons and Cataloguing and Things

Humour me for a few minutes, ok? This week I finally cleaned up my disaster of a studio, which involved organizing old files and papers and drawings and crap. In amongst this mess I found an old project I had done way back when I was a student studying Library Techniques in college. We're talking mid-80s, when I was about 21. It was the final major project in my cataloguing class. Even in the world of nit-picky Library Science, if there was an opportunity to do something, anything remotely creative, by golly I jumped at the chance.

The late 70s and early 80s was a time of major change in the field of Library Science. The whole process of cataloguing was becoming automated, thanks in large part to this amazing company known as University of Toronto Library Automated System, or UTLAS for short. Any library people out there remember that acronym? If you can, you're dating yourself!

Well, for some bizarre reason I decided to create a beginner's training manual for technicians who had to learn the UTLAS cataloguing coding system. Me! Writing a technical training manual! I had experienced the depths of hell trying to learn from those goddam computer technical manuals, and decided the best way to learn a new system, any new system, was with humour, down-to-earth language, and surprise, surprise, cartoons! Inspired by those wonderful books  Marx For Beginners and Trotsky For Beginners (Remember those? What fun!), I created UTLAS For Beginners.

That adorable redhead you see was based on a real girl I knew in my class. She was cute as a button, full of spunk, had quite the potty mouth, and was the only person I ever let call me 'Patty'. She was the one bright shining star in those two years of death-by-boredom – a walking, living breathing cartoon. So I had to put her in my book!

Ok, I'll try not to bore you too much more. One interesting thing that came out of this project was that somehow one of the big cheezes at UTLAS got a copy of the manual (I made many copies for librarians who needed a laugh), and they actually called me when I was working at McMaster University, and suggested possibly using my concept for their own training manual publications. Sadly the idea never got off the ground, but it was very flattering for my ideas to be taken seriously like that. That was the first time I experienced the realization as an adult that I had something different to offer the world – that my writing and drawing could take me to some interesting places, if I just took the risk of sharing it with others.

Oh, and I got an A+ for the project!

Are Your West Indian Roots Showing?

If you've got roots in the West Indies and a passion for genealogy, why not sign up for an informative workshop with a lady who's an expert in genealogy of the British West Indies? Ok, ok, she's my mom, but really, she knows her stuff. And she's fun and witty and makes every subject interesting. The workshop will take place at the North York Public Library, and will run for three Saturdays in March. Here's some more info:

GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH
IN THE BRITISH WEST INDIES
Do you have ancestors who lived in the British West Indies –  perhaps Jamaica, Trinidad, or another island? If so, this new course will provide an introduction to genealogical research in the islands of the British West Indies. It will include their history, geography, records and where to find them, as well as published and Internet sources. Although this is not a beginner's course, we will provide some basic information for those new to family history research.
Course: 3 sessions, Saturdays, 2-4pm, March 3-17
Location: Meeting Room 1, North York Library
Instructor: Dorothy Kew
Fee: $45

For other courses and workshops in genealogical research, check out the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.

The Beautiful People

So I'm on the phone with my mom, and I'm assuming she's going to ask how my Literary Gala went. Well yes, she did ask, but she had plenty of her own news to tell.

"Well, first there was the evening where I got to welcome the Lieutenant Governor, the Hon. James Bartleman for the annual Mary Fix Memorial Lecture. And did I mention that myself and my colleagues were recognized by the City of Mississauga's Mayor and Council at the weekly Council Meeting, for winning the OLA Award for Archival and Historic Preservation? Oh, and yes, by the way, I'm to be on Rogers Television (Cable 10) on Thursday evening a t about 7:15 p.m. to appear on Talk Local, a phone-in talk show from 8 to 10 p.m., because you know, February is Heritage Month."

"Well, what do expect?" I replied, "We are the beautiful people, you know!"

Snort.

But seriously, my mom is so cool. That's her on the far left, with the short grey hair and glasses. The lady in front holding the award is the indominatable Mayor Hazel McCallion, 85 years old and still going strong! Many thanks to Catherine Monast, for permission to use this photo.

And If you'd like to find out more about Mississauga Library's amazing Historical Images Gallery, click here.

And if you happen to live in Mississauga, why not check out my mom tomorrow night on local TV! Way better entertainment than Survivor and Lost, for sure!

Way to go, mom!

Books Just Make Me Wanna Sing!

Behold Reading On a Dream: A Library Musical.

Thanks to RobotJohnny.

Dab of Dewey Humour 2

I completely forgot about this cartoon! It's one of my faves. A bit worn out over the years of wear and tear. I drew it many moons ago, when I was still single (note the maiden name: "Kew"). I had it pinned on this large cork board where I placed interesting library ephemera I collected, when I worked for The Toronto Public Library (For example, as a cataloguer of children's books, I found many lovely bookmarks over the years, which I'm still planning to create into a collage).

If I was having a particularly annoying day (I worked for the former City of York, before TPL became amalgamated, and trust me, the former City of York was nuts), I would just look up at that cartoon and smile. What can I say? Years of catologuing starts to have strange effects on a person's brain matter.

Anyway, enough posting. I'm off for my own "mini adventure". It involves lots of red wine.

A Dab of Dewey Humour

Did Melville Dewey actually have a sense of humour? I don't know very much about the man. The only trivia I ever heard about him was that he was a real ladies' man. Perhaps that's why he hung out in libraries. The creation of the Dewey Decimal System was just a ruse to get action in the stacks. But I digress.

I thought I would continue the fun today and share with you some of my library cartoons. Having worked in the library world for 10 years, I think I have earned the right to make fun of the profession. It really irks my mother (who is a librarian) that I often draw librarians in the stereotypical spinster fashion. But you know what? Stereotypes are usually based on an element of truth; and trust me, I saw some pretty scarey stereotypical librarians in my day.

A little bit of info about some of the 'toons. The first one is from a very old comic strip I did when I was working as a library technician at McMaster University, and was also taking some university courses. I decided to get a bit more involved in campus life, and drew a weekly strip for the student newspaper, The Silhouette. It was called "Endr" and was actually a knickname of this Latvian engineering student that I had a crush on. I wonder what happened to him. He had a cool motorcycle.

The second gag I quite like, but have yet to sell it anywhere.

The third one I haven't sold either. Perhaps library humour is not appreciated in magazines? Who knows. My mom did not appreciate this gag. Perhaps because her name is Dorothy.

Lusty Librarians

Did I mention that in a former life I was a library technician? That's like a librarian without any of the money or glory. It usually involves lots of cataloguing and (ugh) retrospective conversion. My mother's a librarian and I married a library technician. And I have a cousin in BC that's also an LT. So it's in the blood or something. Used to be that librarians were the antithesis of cool. A Masters of Library Science was the scarlett letter "S" branded on every female librarian's forehead for tight-assed spinster. But librarians are so cool now that they pose on covers of books they write and become models for actions figures. So if you're so inclined you can purchase "The Librarian Action Figure for order & discipline in home libraries". Also note:

"The Librarian Action Figure will make you organize all your books, magazines, periodicals, journals, videos, and CD ROMs -- and quietly, please! -- press the button on her back to activate the well-known shushing action. Modeled after librarian Nancy Pearl in Washington state, she comes with a tiny plastic replica of her most recent book, Book Lust, a stack of other books, a card with a brief history of libraries, plus a check-out card in a library sleeve, two bookmarks, and a Nancy Pearl trading card. The Librarian Action Figure is made of classic action-figure hard plastic and is 5" tall."

To find these treasures and others like it, check out The Library Shop at The New York Public Library.