libraries

Bringing Board Games to the Library

When I was down at ALA this summer, I attended a session focused on board gaming and libraries. As an academic librarian, I’ve often looked with envy at the fun activities public libraries get to run from time to time. Movie nights. Festivals. Board games. So much of what I do is focused purely on the academic side of reading. Research. Information evaluation, etc. We do a few things more slanted toward fun, but I’d never really considered board games as a good fit for the library. But while I was at that session, I suddenly found myself questioning that

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Three Days of Retreats

I’ve got three days of library retreats in front of me. That might sound like it’ll be tons of fun to some of you. “Retreat” always used to bring to mind lots of fun images. Perhaps canoeing down a river, or maybe trekking across the fields somewhere picturesque. (In fact, the first retreat I ever had in Maine involved going orienteering, which was a whole lot of fun.) I’m not going to say these retreats (one of which is two days, and one of which is one day) will be no fun at all. I’ve got friends who will be

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The End of an Era: Stepping Down from the Maine Library Association Presidency

I had my last meeting as part of the Maine Library Association presidency today. It’s hard to believe it’s been six years that I’ve been doing this. Six years! So much has changed in that time. I remember first getting the phone call from the incoming president, asking if I’d be interested and willing to serve in the presidency (as Vice President for two years, President for two years, and then Past President for two years). It was a big commitment, especially for someone who had just been in the Maine library world for less than six years. In the

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Good Intentions Don’t Make a Bad Law Better

A few months ago, a Maine lawmaker’s 12th grade son was assigned to read a graphic novel in school: Kafka on the Shore. It’s not an obscure book. It won the World Fantasy Award in 2006, appeared on the New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2005, and has received a fair bit of acclaim. It also contains explicit depictions of sex and rape. The lawmaker was shocked by the assigned reading, and so she decided to do something about it, proposing LD 94, a bill which would make it illegal to provide obscene material to children in school. (Which

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A Report on MLA Annual

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days. I was off at the annual Maine Library Association conference at Sunday River. This year we had a pre-conference as well, so it’s been a very busy weekend. Thankfully, it’s also been relatively stress-free, since we’ve got such a great conference committee running things. If you would have asked me six years ago, when I was just getting involved with MLA, if the time would ever come when running a conference for 185 people over three days wouldn’t have felt like that big of a deal, I would have said

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