Thoughtful Gatsby Piece

Thanks to Andrew Clarke, at the Anthony Powell Discussion List, for mentioning Douglas Murray's article in The Spectator, The not-so-great-Gatsby.  The novel, says Murray, "is one of those works which has been subsumed and overtaken by its own myth."  He draws a parallel with Brideshead Revisited, which has also been filmed a couple of times.

But just as most people now seem to remember Brideshead Revisited not as a novel about religion and alcoholic disintegration, but one of idyllic summers and teddy bears, so Gatsby is remembered as something it is not. Rather than a description of futility and envy, it tends to be recalled for its aspiration and glamour.

 Anthony Powell thought highly of The Great Gatsby, reading it again and again.  I read it for the first time a couple of years ago.  It seemed a pretty bleak tale to me.

I doubt that I would prefer Leonardo di Caprio's Gatsby to Robert Redford's.  I did go to see the 2008 film of Brideshead Revisited, but it fell far short of the 1981 television serial.  I wouldn't even watch the 2002 television remake of Doctor Zhivago. 

Retrieving Lost Recipes, and Memories

Memorial Day is approaching, and people must be planning picnics.  I helped two women today who wanted to find recipes they had made many years ago, and who no longer had the cookbooks they had appeared in.

The first woman was a walk-up.  Did the library have The Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook?  No, we had other BH&G cookbooks, but not that one.  Our copies of the BH&G New Cookbook, which appeared to have been a revised edition of that original book, were all lost or withdrawn.  She asked to see The BH&G All-Time Favorites Cookbook, and then looked through the index.

I asked her again what she was looking for.  She wanted a recipe for tuna casserole that had been in that BH&G cookbook.  Her copy of the book had been destroyed.  I thought I might be able to find it online.  We returned to the reference desk, and I was able to find it, thanks to Retro-Food.Com, where it was copied from The Better Homes and Gardens Casserole Cook Book, (1961).  I turned the monitor so she could see it.  She said that it was the recipe, because it had the pimientos in it.  I printed it out and gave it to her.  She had a big smile as she read through it and thanked me.

Tuna-Noodle Casserole

6 ounces (about 3 cups) medium noodles
1 6 to 9 oz can tuna, drained
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sliced celery
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup diced green pepper
1/4 cup chopped pimiento
1/2 teaspoon salt
…
1 can cream of celery soup
1/2 cup milk
1 cup (1/4 pound) shredded sharp process cheese
…
1/2 cup slivered blanched almonds, toasted (optional)
Cook noodles in boiling salted water till tender; drain. Combine noodles, tuna, mayonnaise, vegetables, and salt.
Blend together soup and milk; heat through. Add cheese; heat and stir until cheese melts. Add to noodle mixture.
Turn into ungreased 2-qt casserole. Sprinkle with toasted almonds. Bake uncovered in hot oven (425) about 20 minutes or till bubbly. Makes 6 servings.

The second woman called by telephone.  SM was someone I've helped many times before.  She wanted a recipe for chicken salad that she thought had appeared in The Springtime Tallahassee Cookbook back in the seventies.  Springtime Tallahassee is Tallahassee's Spring festival and parade.  It was just getting started in the seventies, and the cookbook had likely been part of a fundraising effort.

The thing she remembered about this recipe was that it included "chow-chow", a pickled relish that she said Publix Super Market told her they had.  We didn't have The Springtime Tallahassee Cookbook.  I was doubtful, but a search for "springtime tallahassee chicken salad", amazingly, yielded a recipe for Tallahassee Chicken Salad, chow-chow and all, from The Florida Cookbook, by Jeanne Voltz and Caroline Stuart, at RecipeSource.Com.

               TALLAHASSEE CHICKEN SALAD (FLORIDA COOKING)

Recipe By     :

Serving Size  : 4    Preparation Time :0:00

Categories    : Poultry                          Salads

  Amount  Measure       Ingredient -- Preparation Method

--------  ------------  --------------------------------

   2       c            Poached Chicken thighs and-

                        -breasts, poached. See note

   1       c            Celery, diced.

                        Half a 93/8-ounce jar chow-

                        -chow

                        Dash hot pepper sauce

     1/3   c            Mayonnaise, or as needed to-

                        -moisten

                        Garden or Boston lettuce

In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine the chicken, celery, chowchow, and pepper sauce.  Mix lightly; add the mayonnaise and mix again.  Add more mayonnaise if needed to moisten well.  Chill 1 to 2 hours before serving.  Line a bowl or platter with greens and spoon the salad onto the greens.

NOTE:  To poach chicken: Combine 1 pound each of skinned chicken thighs and breast pieces in a large skillet with a carrot, peeled and sliced; a rib of celery, cut in chunks; a small onion, cut in halves but not peeled; pepper, a sprig or two of parsley, and a lemon half.  Cover, and simmer 30 to 45 minutes, until juices run clear or golden when the chicken is pierced with a fork.  Cool the chicken in the broth.  Cut meat off the bone and chop it coarsely.  Refrigerate until ready to make the salad.  If desired, the broth should be saved for soups or other uses.

If you want an easy way to feel like a hero, find a recipe for an old woman.  Her warm thanks made my day.

Looks Like Texas

A nice collection of images from West Texas, around San Angelo, by "tomlandry7".  If you've lived in Texas, and miss it, you might like them

"Pay-for-Print" Training

Jimmy G. shows librarians how to work the coin-machine, in preparation for the introduction of "pay-for-print" on Friday.

Jimmy rotates the box around to open the back.

Jimmy shows us how to unjam it, how to take the money out, how to refill it.with change.  It is pretty simple.

Users with library cards will get ten free pages per day, paying for additional pages at ten cents per page.  They can put credit on their cards or pay in cash.  "Guests"  will have to pay for any printing in cash.

We anticipate that printing will go way down.  It has already.  This will affect our supply of scratch paper, which we keep in a wire basket at the reference desk to give away.  There is unlikely to be the amount of waste paper that we've gotten in the past from unwanted print jobs.

It is only now sinking in for me, how much the new arrangement has changed my experience at the reference desk.  We have regular Tech/Media Staff covering Internet sign-up at the reference desk now, and this has provided enormous relief.

You are trying to do reference work, helping people find information and use the collection, in person and by telephone, but there is also the constant approach of people wanting "guest passes", who are unable or unwilling to provide themselves with library cards.  And then there are all the other kinds of help that public-access users need, with e-mail, file management, equipment, (such as USB drives and head phones).  We still do some of all this, but to have a skilled Tech/Media staff person at point is something we've never before had.

I have spent almost all my time away from the reference desk yesterday and today at the microfilm viewer and the scanner, searching for and e-mailing obituaries.  I had seven to look for, two with only the month and year, (it takes me 30-40 minutes to search a month+ of microfilm).  I had another e-mail from someone wanting stories about a murder trial "sometime in 1969 or 1970", that I had to turn down.  There is no index for the local newspaper, except for the late'80's and early '90's.
___________________________________________

Finished Patience with God:  the story of Zacchaeus continuing in us, by Tomáš Halík.  My interlibrary loan copy is due May 9.  I bought the e-book editions for this and Night of the Confessor, for my Sony Reader.  Second-hand copies of Patience with God, (2009), are now unavailable at reasonable prices.  Halik has perhaps struck a different chord, in this "Year of Evangelism".  Patience with God, with seekers, with non-believers.  Patience is mercy, love, forgiveness.
.

Last Monday in April

This was our first Monday with all the new public-access terminals on the second floor in Adult Services.  There are 41 terminals now, where there were 28 PC's and terminals before.  Monday has always been a busy day for computing, but today was intense.  If we had not had someone from Tech/Media detailed to handle computer reservations for us, I don't know what we would have done.  We wouldn't have been able to answer the phone or take reference questions.

I had a woman today who wanted to find homeless shelters on the California coast.  We recognized her, having spent a lot of time a couple of months ago helping her apply for certification in Florida as a cosmetologist.  She was living at the homeless shelter, and was very unhappy there.  She wanted to live somewhere that is not as hot as it is here, but not up north.  She said that she had gotten cancer on her head from living here.  She thought that California might be the place to go.  God in heaven.  I wanted to help, but she needed more than I could give her as a librarian.  I found an online directory to homeless shelters, and printed out the list of towns in California that had shelters.  She took it and got a computer.

Processing online requests, I got around 20, from what looked like two Chinese brothers, for every current MCAT test-prep guide there is.  I can't imagine wanting something bad enough to work my way through 20 test-prep books. The Decline of the West.

It's the last week of session for the Florida Legislature, and R. is working late.  It was raining when I left the library on my Vespa at 6.  In spite of my poncho, I arrived home with my shoes and cuffs wet.  After I changed, I browned some chicken strips, sauteed mushrooms, a shallot and garlic in butter, and simmered all in chicken broth, serving over rice.

I watched The Journey Home, the EWTN show where Catholic converts tell their stories.  It was a good one tonight, with Leo Brown, a former rock DJ who runs a Catholic radio station.  Good stories.

R. arrived home around 10 p.m. and, after a little while, took a shower and went to bed.  She has to be at work by 6 a.m. Wednesday, and may have to stay until midnight.

Public-Access Computing Back Online

We were all nervous this morning before opening. We needn't have worried.  The few glitches were minor.  The technical crew wrapped up the project as though it had been easy.  It was in fact an impressive accomplishment.  By mid-morning all was smooth & serene.

You can see the new print station on the right.  For now, printing is still free, while users see what their jobs "would cost", and will, as of May 10.  The mere addition of a few steps to go through to print, even without charging, seemed to cut down on printing today.  Users have to preview their jobs before sending them to the printer, and then release their jobs at the printer station by putting in their library card or guest pass numbers.

It has been decided to make the Gates Computer Lab downstairs a quiet zone, with no sound available on the terminals   Sound ports will only be provided for the upstairs workstations.

What I Will Be Looking At

This is what the new arrangement looked like at the end of Friday.  They are supposed to be done by Monday the 22nd.  Those are magazine racks at the far end.  The public-access Internet workstations have largely taken over the old sleep.. um, reading area with upholstered chairs and low tables.  Our loungers and readers must move on to other spaces.

It looks rather daunting, but we will have help from the Tech/Media folks downstairs for Internet sign-up, since we have gained most of their  workstations.  The media collection, CD's, DVD's, and a dwindling collection of books on audiocassette and VHS videos, will benefit enormously from the extra space.

It is a stripped-down, rationalized public-access computing we will be offering now.  The Pano-Logic Zero Client stations offer ports for USB devices and head-phones only; no drives for DVD's, CD's or floppy-disks.  The installation of executable files will be blocked, so you won't be able to install iTunes or file-sharing programs.  And then in May we will be going to pay-for-print, which most other public libraries already have, and which I expect will reduce our door-count significantly.

This renovation has been talked about for 10 years or so, and here it is.  It is going to be a lot better than what we've been living with for so long.  It will be what we have when I retire in the not-so-distant future.

End of an Era: Good-bye to PC's, MS Office, Free Printing

 

All of the public-access "desk-top" PC's and terminals are offline this week at the main library.  We are making several major changes at once.

Since the 1990's, there have been public-access Internet computers on the the first floor, ("Tech-Media"), and the second floor, ("Adult Services").  Most of them, 42 seats, will now be assembled, with new furniture, in Adult Services on the second floor, leaving 20 or so in the old "Gates Lab" classroom in Tech-Media.

PC's, boxes with their own motherboards and hard drives, are going away completely.  Public-access computing will move entirely to Pano Logic Zero Client terminals.  Microsoft Office will also disappear, replaced by Open Office.

The library is also implementing "pay-for-print".  Library card holders will get 10 pages free, and pay ten cents per page thereafter.  Users with "guest-passes" will get no free pages.

It will be a shock to our users.  Some of them, anyway.  Many of our regular "homeless" patrons, (who live at the Shelter), have acquired wireless laptops.

Blogging Reference

It's been ages, dear reader, since my last one of these.

The Springtime Tallahassee festival is underway today downtown.  I had to weave around and between Springtime 10K runners to get to the library on my Vespa.  Some staff were here early to help the Friends of the Library with a book sale in the park.  I expect people who come to the library by car to stay away today unless they are coming to the festival.  Traffic will be pretty tied up with street closings.

Barbara H. called about requests for books by Alex George, a British writer whose 2012 book, A Good American, has made a splash in the U.S, but whose earlier novels are not generally owned by U.S. libraries, and so difficult to get through interlibrary loan.

A patron is looking for Debra S., who is helping with the library's "Springtime" presence.  We can't find her.  It turns out there's more to it than just the book sale, which is in front of the library steps on the park side.  We apparently have two information booths, one for children, with free stickers, and one for adults, up by the DoubleTree Hotel.  It's thought that Debra may be there, but no one knows for sure.  There was no mention of the booths in our advisory about the book sale.

A man wants several titles by Elaine Pagels: Beyond Belief, which is on-shelf, The Gnostic Gospels, which is in transit, and for which I place a hold, The Origin of Satan, copies of which are lost, and for which I send a request to purchase/ILL, and The Secrets of Mary Magdalene, which is on-shelf.  Also, The Fifth Gospel, by Robert Winterhalter, which is on-shelf.

11:42  Very quiet.  Donna C. comes by, asking whether we found Debra.  No, I say.  She says she will be back at noon to relieve me for lunch.

Susan E., with whom I am working today, asks me to look over the new version of our Popular Authors bibliography.  I suggest Gilbert Morris for the historical fiction section, and question Stephen Crane's listing there.  Susan has been passing the quiet morning cleaning old tape and goo off of a large book tape dispenser.  We agree that it must be very old, possibly from the days when the library was in the Northwood Mall, pre-1991.  I started there in 1989, when it was on the bottom floor of the former J. Byron's department store.

Where is the stapler? She didn't recognize our new "plier-grip" stapler as a stapler.  It's been working out very well, and is holding up.  One woman has been asking for our "desktop" stapler, complaining that the new stapler is hard to use with her arthritis.

12:39  Back from  lunch.  Our Internet volunteer, Nellie, is here, hallelujah.  It has picked up considerably, though it is still quiet at the desk so far.

Phone:  it's Jolene.  How old was Andy Griffith when he made the Matlock television series?  Did he have children?  Sixty, two adopted children by his first wife.

A woman with 10K Run bib on sets the security alarm off at the second floor exit.  She says she checked her CD-book out.  I have her go back through, passing the book around to her.

Phone:  She wants Susan E., probably about an exam to be proctored.  She is rescheduling due to the traffic/parking situation.

Here is Nitza, our cheerful shelver, who has arrived in one piece.

1:15  Quiet once more, with several available computers.

Cay, our director, is fussing with the "Bridging Cultures Bookshelf:  Muslim Journeys" display in mid-floor.  There was a presentation for it Thursday night, with scholars from FSU.  She gives a wave, has on t-shirt and jeans, which I don't think I've seen her in for a very long time.

D., from Blessed Sacrament, wants Sacred Darkness:  Encountering Divine Love in Life's Darkest Places, by Paul Coutinho, S.J., for the book club at the Neumann Center.  The library doesn't have it.  She'll order it from Amazon.  Also The Cottage at Glass Beach by Heather Barbieri, She-Wolves:  The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor, and A Long Way from Tipperary by John Dominic Crossan.

Donna C. asks how we are doing.  Susan has already gone to lunch, but we are not busy.  Donna has been soothing an old woman who received a bill for a lost interlibrary loan book.  The woman is devastated at having lost a book.  I remember how patrons at the retirement communities would feel so guilty about having a late book, when I drove the bookmobile. I wish more people were so scrupulous, but we don't want them to die a thousand deaths.

Phone:  do we have Vietnamese poetry in translation?  Nothing in the catalog, nothing, even, in any Asian poetry anthology on the shelf.  No.

Where can he apply for food stamps?  Access Florida.  They do not actually issue stamps or coupons anymore, but rather a sort of grocery debit card.

2:17  Susan is back.

Someone from the Academia Society needs the conference room opened.

Phone:  She's having trouble with her school's ProQuest database, can't get many results about the International Monetary Fund.  I begin to help her, but she says she will have to call back.

2:30  I'm going to end here.  Enough for one day, and for you, I'm sure.

Mummies in Fiction

Following up on the Bog Bodies post, it turns out that, although there is a significant amount of fiction involving Egyptian mummies, it is largely horror fiction.  Egyptian mummies do not turn up in crime/mystery novels the way bog bodies do.

I did not search for long before I found a good list by the Monster Librarian, Mummy Horror Titles, including, if you really are curious, The Essential Guide to Mummy Literature, by Brian J. Frost, (2007).  The Monster Librarian, by the way, has a fine web site that is worth exploring.  I found an interesting H.P. Lovecraft Collection Development Guide.

I don't much care about fictional mummies.  I guess they are a bit like zombies, but without the contagion factor, and with the added "mummy's curse."

I found a very interesting look at the mummy as a subject for horror fiction, The Curse of The Mummy in Modern Horror Fiction, by horror writer KC Redding-Gonzalez:

Anne Rice is the only modern author to tackle a full-length novel of the Mummy in her well-received and bestselling 1989 title, The Mummy, or Ramses The Damned. There is also a film remake from 1999 titled The Mummy directed by Stephen Sommers (starring Brendan Fraser), a re-telling of the 1932 Karloff film. But there are few other takers outside of the short story format, which itself offers few and too far between anthologies with the Mummy as centerpiece. The scarcity of Mummy tales is the indicator of a sea change in the genre and in audience sophistication.