The End of Harry Potter

This past weekend, the last Harry Potter film came out. And considering it broke box office records, I would say the world is still Potter crazy.

While reading this little personal retrospective of Harry Potter, I was struck by the idea that maybe this is one of (and maybe the last) time that people will line up at night to get books, that everyone will insist on reading it immediately. I really hope that kids and adults will fall so in love with books, authors, and series that these sorts of things will continue to happen, but, given that books are now buyable online and can be sent immediately to devices like a Kindle, maybe people will not need to get together to celebrate the books coming out. I loved those parties when I was a teenager. I would get dressed up, drink Butterbeer, play trivia games and hang with other fans. I am so glad that Quidditch is around because that seems like a nice way for Harry's world to live on, but I will miss those late nights where I hung with fans at a bookstore, went home and read rabidly on my bed, catching an hour or two of sleep, and then getting up the next morning for a party at the library. Those were good times. I love the books because they were about Harry discovering a community of people who were different than him, sometimes quirky, but always loving and well-meaning. The books let me find a community that was the same, and I am glad I did.

Databasing

This past weekend I went to the library to start on a database I'm building for them.  It's just suppose to be, at this point, a collection of all the students signed up for the Summer Reading Program.  I took time putting all the information together in a coherent chunk. 
One of the toughest things involves reading people's writing.  I'm often struck by how difficult it is to tell what people write.  I've been spoiled by reading so much in books and online, where type is all standardized. 
Once I get going, I'm pretty effective.  In the less than two hours that I worked on it, I made it through almost four hundred registration papers.  And I only began on the S's, so there's still a ton of kids.  (Way more, it seems, than last year.)
In the meantime, I sat at the desk waiting for kids to come in.  There were only maybe four or five, but that's okay.  Shelby came in and said hi to me, which was really nice.  And I got to meet another volunteer named Brandon.  He too is an English major, so we talked about books we like.  

Friday at the Library

I went in again for my library volunteer time. It was quieter than it was yesterday, but I figure that's because of the holiday weekend.
One of my friends, Shelby, came in. She and I worked together last year on The Offbeat. It turns out that she got on the Poetry Board for The Red Cedar Review. I congratulated her. She told me that they've already had their first meeting this summer, and that they've been working through their archive. (They're going to be publishing a retrospective issue this coming year.) It's good to hear that things have been going well for them.
I was asked to file student's papers, indicating the kind of reading they had done this Summer. It was mostly fine, but about ten students only had first names on their sheets, which made it hard to file. Luckily, one of the other librarians there had their registration forms, and tried to figure out which students had those papers.
The librarian asked me if I'd like to set up a database again of the information on the students. No problem, I said. So next week, when I get a chance to go in again, that's what I'll be doing.
Otherwise, I finished two more essays on feminism (one on feminism and autobiography and another on feminism and modernism) and then I read three chapters of Little Dorrit.

Mistaken for a Librarian

I went in today for my first session of volunteering for the Summer Reading Program at the library. I originally was going to have my first day tomorrow, but the Children's Librarian called, asking if I could come in to help train a young man who has never done it before. And I guess it's a good thing I agreed, because that young man never showed up to volunteer.
Since it was the morning shift, it was relatively quiet. A few kids came in to turn in their reports on the books they read. One of them had read a book named Sophie the Awesome, and she told me she really liked the character. Her sister really liked a book called The Pigeon Wants a Dog, because she too wants a puppy. Then I gave them each their prizes, which right now are little rubber sharks. (Why sharks I'm not sure.) And I signed a few extra families up for the program.
One of the things that is a little strange is that people often treat me as if I am a librarian, which I am not. Several adults approached me today with questions. I can answer some of the more general ones, like where certain genres of books are located, but today a Mom asked me where the Junie B. Jones books were. The library is organized alphabetically by author, and since I haven't the foggiest notion who the author of the books are, I couldn't tell her. And I don't have access to the computer system that the librarians have, so I couldn't even look something like that up. I'm not totally sure how to feel about the whole mistaken for a librarian thing, since I don't think I look like a librarian, just a student.
When I'm not doing stuff, I sit and read. I'm still slowly working through the essays on feminism I've wanted to read. What's taking a long time is not so much the reading but the follow up stuff. I find that I'm always having great and interesting thoughts that I write down in my notebook. And then I'm slowly making lists of books and people to look up to get a better sense of the other secondary and primary sources that went into a particular essay.

Summer Reading Program

Like all book junkies, I love a good library. And, like so many things, you never forget your first.
The local library that I grew up in has a lot of memories for me. I went to storytime here as a kid. I ran around the garden. I saw my first butterflies up close when a woman came in to do a show about them. I surfed the Internet back in the day when people were still using that phrase.
When I got a little older, I started volunteering at the library. As a kid, they had a Summer Reading Program, and I participated. It only seemed fair, at around twelve or fourteen, to start helping out, since I had enjoyed it back then. Over the years, I've gone back on occasion to put some more time in, since this library has sentimental value and because it's a good way to get a sense of what's happening in YA literature.
I signed up for a few times to volunteer this summer. I'm reluctant to take too many times, as of right now, since a lot of teenagers use the volunteer time to get into things like NHS. But I signed up for a few times throughout the coming weeks.
Year to year, not much changes at the Summer Reading Program. The idea of the program is to reward and encourage reading by elementary school kids throughout the summer. Volunteers man a table and record each student's reading. Every time they come in, they get at least one prize. Usually prizes are something small, like a yo-yo or a toy unicorn or temporary tattoos. For an adult, this would just be junk, but for a small child, this is a big deal. These kids then want to work for more prizes and keep reading. At the end of the program, we tally up the information. Kids who read the most get an extra prize. And we record what schools have the most kids participate and which schools read the most.
I do a couple of things. I man the desk and talk to kids about their books (we're suppose to ask them if they liked what they read.) Sometimes I work on Wednesdays, when there's a special guest, and the library is packed, and extra volunteers are needed to deal with everything. And then, this last summer, they asked me to find a way to combine all the data we got.
Easy, I thought. And it was. I just made a spreadsheet. After all the time I've spent at the Offbeat and the Red Cedar Review and the Center for Poetry, spreadsheets are a perfect way to organize data. So I've done that now for them too.
We talked last year about making a zine for the teens, but none of the teens were interested in writing or anything like that. Maybe we'll try again this year. Or we'll find something else fun to do. I've been wondering if they would like to make book trailers, which have become popular, or even start a blog.

Poetry Performer?

I was at the library today to pick up a book I need for some research I'm doing on Matilda of Tuscany. I had requested the book a few days back, and it came back faster than I expected it to. While at the counter, the young man working there looked hard at me.
"Were you at that poetry reading thing?"
Oh. Which one? "The Red Cedar Review?"
"Yeah. You were really good."
"Thank you."
Every time I get a compliment (which is frequently, these days), it makes me so happy. People like my poetry. They like my performances.
I always dreamed about people liking my poems when they read them. I never thought about being a big deal as a poet performer.
But I've been thinking a lot since my last reading last Thursday, and I'm increasingly wondering if I can do this for a living. I think I would like that. It just never occurred to me to be more than just someone who writes; I haven't thought about being a talent who also reads. But maybe I should give it some more thought. Maybe I should consider making it work.