Nancy Pearl's Book Lust

Two weekends ago at the Wyoming Book Festival, we enjoyed hearing Nancy Pearl speak. Nancy--and everyone calls her Nancy--is the body model for the Librarian Action Figure (picture with Nancy at left), the author of reading guides such as Book Lust, and a regular commentator on NPR's Morning Edition.

Nancy modestly explains that the Librarian Action Figure with its stereotypical shushing motion is not really all about her--that it represents librarians everywhere who are ready to help readers find books they love. She's traveled the world since the Action Figure came out and reports that only 23 librarians do not have a sense of humor--those are the ones who are really mad about the Action Figure.

To keep up with Nancy, we recommend Nancy Pearl's Book Lust Wiki which provides such jewels as the Rule of 50 that first appeared in Book Lust:

Believe me, nobody is going to get any points in heaven by slogging their way through a book they aren't enjoying but think they ought to read. I live by what I call 'the rule of fifty,' which acknowledges that time is short and the world of books is immense. If you're fifty years old or younger, give every book about fifty pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up. If you're over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100. The result is the number of pages you should read before deciding.

More on Work

Apropos last week's post on Americans' enjoyment of work:

In 1899, Charlotte Perkins Gilman published "The Yellow Wallpaper," a story in which a young woman diagnosed with neurasthenia takes the rest cure . . . and slowly goes mad as a result.

The story created a shocked sensation, and in 1913 Gilman published "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper" to explain the genesis of her story, which was her own struggle with the rest cure.

In it, she says,

. . . using the remnants of intelligence that remained, and helped by a wise friend, I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and went to work again--work, the normal life of every human being; work, in which is joy and growth and service, without which one is a pauper and a parasite--ultimately recovering some measure of power.

Work Is Not a Necessary Evil

Many of us grumble about our work lives, but consider this: "For most Americans, job satisfaction is a reliable source of happiness—more so than leisure."

The article "I Love My Work," by Arthur C. Brooks, in the September/October issue of The American explains that for most Americans "Work brings happiness":

In fact, according to the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS) from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, among adults who worked 10 hours a week or more in 2002, a surprising 89 percent said they were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their jobs. (our emphasis)

Work carries with it intrinsic rewards, such as a sense of meaning and control in in our lives.

As one might expect, however, there are caveats:

• ". . . there is a point beyond which excessive hours of work will lower health and quality of living," and
  
• jobs which are less meaningful and absorbing lead to unhappiness.

The entire, thought-provoking article is at The American's web site.

About Wyoming

Wyoming writer, poet, journalist and non-fiction author Tom Rea has a new web site.

Among the many interesting things on the site, we especially like the Vignettes from Wyoming's Past, which are ". . . true narratives from Wyoming history. . . . prepared for the American History Cowboy Coalition, a federally funded Teaching American History program in the Natrona County School District in Casper, Wyoming."

Enjoy!

Aye

Aye.
Originally uploaded by elvissa

In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, the Chronicle of Higher Education, provides us these tips on Pirate Day humor:

• . . . for classicists;
• . . . and for theologians;
• . . . and for lesbian and gay historians;
  
• . . . and a tour of Pirate University.

To these recommendations, we add

• the Pirate-Librarian's blog;
• The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Buccaneer Edition); and
  
• an English-to-Pirate translator.

:-P

Some of us experienced mixed feelings when the David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, authors of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, plunked themselves firmly on the side of emoticons in emails: "Even though we're well out of junior high, we like emoticons and think there are good uses for them. . . . Emoticons are an attempt to put a human face on faceless, quick communication" (134).

Regardless of how we may feel about the ubiquitous smiling faces, tomorrow--Wednesday, 19 September 2007--is the 25th birthday of the emoticon. :o)

Scott E. Fahlman, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, invented the digital smiley face and first made use of it in the following email message:

9-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

Celebrate the computer smiley's birthday by reading how Professor Fahlman created the original at Smiley Lore :-)

P.S. Our favorite smiley is the Santa emoticon:

For Pete's Sake--Get Some Sleep!

Yesterday after a student repeatedly fell asleep in our class (and after we had lost patience with kindly awakening him), we finally had to ask him to leave and go take a nap elsewhere. Convinced that our scintillating teaching style is not at fault, we wonder why so many students are snoozing through classes these days.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's News Blog has reported on recent studies which suggest students really do need their sleep, albeit not necessarily during class time:

Pulling an all-nighter may get a paper done, but the time-honored practice hurts students, according to two recent studies. Students who burned the midnight oil at St. Lawrence University had lower GPA’s, and night owls on the women’s basketball team at Stanford University were slower and missed more shots, USA Today reported.

But colleges are doing more to help their students rest easy, the article said. The University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Maryland at College Park are giving workshops on sleep disorders; Rice University has a campaign for a regular bedtime; and Duke University offers stressed-out students an “Oasis” with ample windows, a fountain, and a massage chair. [emphasis and links added]