We here at Semi-hip have been informed that Blogger will no longer play ball with those of its constituents who upload their blog via FTP. This is a very small majority of bloggers, they say, but it just so happens that Semi-Hip falls in to this category.

So. What does this mean for us? This means that as of March 16th (or somewhere around there, I can’t remember the exact date they gave) Semi-Hip will no longer be able to publish our blog posts with Blogger.

Now, we could use one of their pre-existing templates, but that would take away from the fun of our unique and Semi-Hip personality. So instead, we have decided that we will migrate over to WordPress. They are more Semi-Hip any way. And thanks to our very best fan EVER, Josh W., our transition should not be too bad. Thanks Josh!

Our address, www.semihiplibrarian.com will remain the same.

Have you seen this? These nifty old books are actually a hard case for your laptop!

Interested? Buy it here!

Have you ever noticed that whenever an author dies, their books just fly off the shelves? Or you constantly get a question like this one I had today: “Do you have that Salinger book?” Hmm……
Here’s an article on “The Death Effect.”

J.D. Salinger’s Death Sparks e-Run on ‘Catcher in the Rye’
By JEFF BERCOVICI

It happens all the time: An author/musician/actor dies, and sales of his most famous book/album/film immediately go through the roof. In the case of J.D. Salinger’s passing Thursday, we were able to quantify and track the “death effect” in real time thanks to the sales rank feature on Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.

Reports that the 92-year-old writer had died hit the web around 1 p.m. Eastern time. At 1:15 p.m., the most popular paperback edition of Catcher in the Rye was ranked at No. 565 among all books on Amazon. Barnes & Noble had it at No. 826.

A little over two hours later, it had climbed to No. 202 on Amazon and 223 on Barnes & Noble. That sounds like a huge increase, but that far down the list, a relatively modest change in volume can produce a big jump in rankings.

But then the sales rush began in earnest. By 5:30 p.m., Catcher in the Rye had cracked the top 100 on Barnesandnoble.com and risen all the way to No. 23 on Amazon. The last time I checked, at 6:30, it was No. 13 on Amazon and No. 61 on Barnes & Noble.

What a delicious piece of fiction! A truly precocious eleven year old girl delves into the gory details of a murder in her family’s cucumber patch with the zeal and insight of Sherlock Holmes. The year is 1950 and Flavia de Luce lives in a giant manor house with her older sisters and her reclusive father. But Flavia is no ordinary little girl. She has a knack for chemistry and a penchant for poison, spending most of her time performing experiments in the manor’s giant chemistry lab.

When a man breathes his dying breath into her face, exhaling a smelly “Vale!” as he expires, Flavia realizes that the man was murdered – she could smell the poison on his breath. Knowing that she is smarter than everyone around her, she throws herself into discovering the secrets surrounding the murder. She is Sherlock Holmes, in manner and intelligence, in a little girl’s body.

What a truly fun read! And good news! There are to be six more in the series!

AND! If you are uber-nerdy, there is a Flavia de Luce fan club:
http://flaviafanclub.ning.com/

Happy Reading!

From The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley:

pg. 58:
As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.  No . . . eight days a week.

pg. 61:
“Yes?” she said, peering over her spectacles.  They teach them to do that at the Royal Academy of Library Science.

If there is one thing in this world I am passionate about, it is freedom of speech.

By JULISSA McKINNON
The Press-Enterprise (original article)

After a parent complained about an elementary school student stumbling across “oral sex” in a classroom dictionary, Menifee Union School District officials decided to pull Merriam Webster’s 10th edition from all school shelves earlier this week.

School officials will review the dictionary to decide if it should be permanently banned because of the “sexually graphic” entry, said district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus. The dictionaries were initially purchased a few years ago for fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms districtwide, according to a memo to the superintendent.

“It’s just not age appropriate,” said Cadmus, adding that this is the first time a book has been removed from classrooms throughout the district.

“It’s hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we’ll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature,” Cadmus said. She explained that other dictionary entries defining human anatomy would probably not be cause for alarm.

Meanwhile, some parents are questioning the district’s response and some school board members are asking why officials did not consult with them.

“Censorship in the schools, really? Pretty soon the only dictionary in the school library will be the Bert and Ernie dictionary,” said Emanuel Chavez, the parent of second- and sixth-grade students. “If the kids are exposed to it, it’s up to the parents to explain it to them at their level.”

Board member Rita Peters questioned why one parent’s complaint would lead the district to pull the dictionaries.

“If we’re going to pull a book because it has something on oral sex, then every book in the library with that better be pulled,” she said. “The standard needs to be consistent … We don’t need parents setting policy.”

Peters said if the dictionary quarantine is setting a precedent, a committee should be formed to review all school books for age-appropriateness.

Board member Randy Freeman, an elementary school teacher and parent to four daughters in Menifee schools, said he supports the initial decision to ban the dictionary temporarily.

Freeman said it’s “a prestigious dictionary that’s used in the Riverside County spelling bee, but I also imagine there are words in there of concern.”

Reach Julissa McKinnon at 951-375-3730 or jmckinnon@PE.com

An update to this story can be found here.

I live for moments like this:

In the middle of story time, one of my two-year-olds told me that his mom had the Biggest Loser. Every one heard it.

Then, when he was leaving, his grandmother told him to say goodbye to the man and his son they had just met. This two-year-old says “Goodbye Donny. It was nice to meet you at library school.” In perfect diction. Priceless.

If you really, really, really want to be a semi-hip librarian, you need to get yourself one of these hats. Wear it to work, see what people think! You too may have six year olds coming up to you saying “I like your hat” and dirty old men leering at your awesomeness. Up next, a picture of me wearing this fedora. Yea, that’s right, I own one.

I finished this novel today. This is what I wrote about it on GoodReads.

At once monochrome, dull, and gray and at the same time hauntingly beautiful, The Girl with Glass Feet is a timeless love story doomed from the beginning. But though it is full of hopelessness it is also full of hope. Though it is unrealistic in its portrayal of the natural order of things, it is at the same time uncannily pure in its portrayal of the pain and wonderfulness of love. It takes the reader on a journey that is strange and unearthly but at the same time to a place of which we all, as human beings, are painfully familiar. This is a story of pain, of loss, of cowardice, of bravery, but most importantly, of what we can accomplish because of the love of others. It shows us that we need not be bound by our past. In a word, it is beautiful.

I ran across an interesting article today on marketing your library. It’s called the “Social Media” card, and it’s basically a business card with all of your social networking info on it. Sounds pretty cool, especially when you think about all the people you tell all day long about library programs, books you like to read, etc. You could just hand them a card and say, “Hey, check my out on XYZ social network if you’re interested in more.” Seems like a pretty good way to get more buzz for the library to me! I would love to see if there is an increase in traffic at programs because of such a card – just a thought!