My dear friend Thom over at the Audio Artifacts blog emailed me this little librarian gem that I just had to share with you. Have a lovely weekend!
-Crystal

The University of Iowa Libraries is (single administrative entity)
celebrating its sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary this year. We do
exhibitions in the North Lobby of the Main Library, and the one that has been up this fall is about (gasp!) librarians–titled “Beyond the Bun: A Look Inside Librarian Culture.” The following quotations were prominently displayed–

“Beware the lustful fires that burn in a librarian’s heart. They can
rage beyond all control.”
–The Onion, May 28, 2003

“Librarians possess a vast store of politeness. These people get asked
every crazy question on God’s green earth and they tolerate the cranks
and eccentrics.”
–Garrison Keillor, Lives of the Cowboys

“Libraries are brothels for the mind, and librarians are the madams,
greeting customers, understanding their strange tastes and needs, and pimping books.”
–Guy Browning, The Guardian, October 18, 2003

“He’s like Super Librarian, y’know? Everyone forgets, Willow, that
knowledge is the ultimate weapon.”
–Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

“Librarians are subversive. You think they’re just sitting there at the
desk, all quiet and everything. They’re like plotting the revolution,
man.”
–Michael Moore, Buzz Flash Interviews, March 13, 2002

“Show me a computer expert that gives a damn, and I’ll show you a
librarian.”
–Patricia Wilson Berger, Chicago Tribune, June 1990

“If reference librarians were paid at market rates for all the roles
they play, they would have salaries well over $200,000.”
–Will Manley, The Truth About Reference Librarians, 1996

“In the nonstop tsunami of global information librarians provide us with floaties and teach us to swim.”
–Linton Weeks, Washington Post, January 13, 2001

Grace Fitzgerald, University of Iowa

I’m taking a break from writing “Silver Bullet” (no, I haven’t decided on a new title yet) I don’t want to stop writing, but I have to. Just for a little while, I promise!

I have to review some history books for a library journal. Very scholarly stuff here. And very dry. The review deadlines are looming and I swore to get them in on time. I’ve put them off repeatedly to write my own book (much more interesting) and now I must pay for being a bad, bad girl.

So, I need to crack the whip on myself (don’t you just love self-flagellation?) and get this over with. I have to sit my butt in the seat and just do it… Yeah… Any second now…

I’m about to have a major shortage of time. My university wants me to teach a new General Education class on information literacy. This means extra money, a promotion to adjunct faculty, and a fantastic boost to my resume. But, this is all on top of my full-time work as a librarian. How will I have time to write? I don’t have a whole lot of spare time now and it’s all about to go out the window.

I love to write, but I freely admit to being ambitious in my chosen career. Why not? I’ve invested years of my life and tens of thousands of dollars into the education it took just to become a librarian. So, I should be the best librarian I can be, right? Right!

You can see my conundrum at this point. Rock (my work) and Hard Place (my writing). That’s me you see stuck in the middle. Crapola. Talk about too much of a good thing!

In better news: my word count and revision count are both up! Yeah, buddy!

I finished my first business trip and it was only kinda fun/interesting. Very sad. It turned into one of those experiences where everyone knows each other and is best of friends and I had no idea what was going on. At all. Ever.

Sometimes it really stinks being the new kid on the block. There’s only so long I can blow sunshine out of my butt before I just want to go home to my evil demon hellcat, Horatio.

In writing news, I have new pages on my “Silver Bullet” manuscript. Very productive hotel time. I might be taking a slightly different direction with the world-building — must do more research. Hey, I’m a librarian — we research everything. Deal with it.

For the next two days, I will be out of town at a training workshop. I will have absolutely no internet access on this little jaunt. As a special treat for my loyal readers (though these readers are mostly hypothetical) I will post ahead for Thursday and Friday. I wouldn’t want people to miss their daily dose of me. I’m very excited about this outing; it’s my first ever “official” business trip. Rememeber, I only just finished grad school.

I’m hoping to get a wee bit of writing done in my hotel room during my off-time. I’m not even going to attempt to lug my laptop with me. Instead, I’ll take along my trusty yellow legal pad and try to get some new scenes for “Silver Bullet” done. If that doesn’t work, I’ll see if anything comes to me on “Supersize Girl” or “Siren’s Song.” Wish me luck!