The Christmas Tree of Knowledge

My sister-in-law takes my niece to their library frequently, and last week she texted me this photo:

This is in the Sandusky (OH) Library (where I grew up), and I think it's great. Slightly less massive than this one, and it makes me wonder if the staff marked all those volumes as "Display" in their catalog.

Anyway, this also serves as my annual "don't expect to hear from me for awhile" Christmas post - hopefully when I'm visiting my family in Ohio, I'll be able to stop into the Sandusky Library and check out their tree. Happy Holidays everyone.

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Librarian Holiday Gift Guide

Do you know what I enjoy more than telling people where the bathroom is? Shopping.

In case anyone is pestering you for gift ideas, they could read How To Get Good Gifts for Librarians, or use the links below to find something for the librarian in their life.

• Typographic Note Cards from my cousin Tom's collections at studiotwentysix2
• One of my favorite t-shirts
• PLA's online shop, including the cookery apron
• Make a year-end donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and help fight for freedom
• Help out Cory Doctorow's self-publishing experiment, With a Little Help
• Support a library school student's effort to raise money for his graduation with a Tattooed Librarians of the Pacific Northwest calendar. Other calendars: Librarian: The Original Search Engine and Library due date calendar
• Unshelved's online store - I wear my Library Raid jacket all the time (thanks Tim)
• Assorted book- and librarian-themed items at Etsy, CafePress, Zazzle, BookLoverTshirts.com, GiftsForAGeek.com
• As seen on Swiss Army Librarian: Kate Spade book bags, Seuss Army Knife shirt, Swiss Army Librarian sticker (still available for free!)
• For more tech-oriented ideas, BoingBoing's Holiday Gift Guide has some fun and unusual suggestions
• Update: Barbarian Librarian's Booty Shop - gifts for book people with attitude
• Update 2: More awesomeness from Boing Boing - their Charitable Giving Guide, the 2010 edition, with donation ideas such as Creative Commons, The Internet Archive, and The Gutenberg Project. And don't forget Wikipedia
• Update 3: Librarian Lump of Coal Gift Guide 2010 from 100 Scope Notes - these are great, but my favorite is the squashed rat bookmark
• Update 4: I'm sorry I forgot this one: give someone a gift membership to LibraryThing.com - 1-year or lifetime

And finally, the Washington Post's fiction critic picks special gifts for the book lover (via LISNews):

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Post-Christmas Post

It's the day after Christmas,
and all through the house,
not a creature is stirring,
because everyone has gone home...

A few people this year have told me that the day after Christmas is the saddest day of the year for them - all of the hustle-and-bustle of Christmas is over, and today is such a letdown. Personally, I am fairly anti-hustle-and-bustle in general, so I don't mind. After all, we still have leftovers.

Plus, if you were nice all year (and Christian), you should have some gifts to play with. This year, among a few other things, I got two books, Ben Schott's Schott's Almanac and Tom Robbins' short story collection Wild Ducks Flying Backward.

I also got a Canon PowerShot A540 digital camera. I figure having my own camera will make updating my profile on flickr a bit easier (so here's to entering the Information Age, one baby step at a time).

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your holiday, if you chose to celebrate one.

Ben Schott, Canon PowerShot A540 digital camera, christmas, flickr, gifts, Schott's Almanac, Tom Robbins, Wild Ducks Flying Backward

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