One of the comments that Laura heard a lot was that volunteers could take her job.

---

I also never heard of annotating books as a taught skill. I even remember feeling vaguely naughty when I first got to college and owned my textbooks, therefore having the power to highlight them. And I still can't bring myself to write in the margins--I'll occasionally star a key detail, but that's it.

Every once in awhile I run across a library book a previous patron has felt the need to annotate and/or copyedit, and it's extremely annoying. It's like having an unwanted interloper on my conversation with the book.

Seattle has a pretty good library system, though they set up their funding structure in such a way that they've spent tons of money on buildings while IMHO neglecting their collection and having to cut back on hours of operation compared to when I first moved here. They're not the route to go if you want to read a new book right away, and sometimes it's a scramble to get there before closing. Still, I'd be bereft if I didn't have them. Thanks to interlibrary loan I can get pretty much any obscure text on my chosen historical era within a month, and I'd go broke buying books if I didn't have the library to supply 50-75% of my reading material. Of course, I'm hardly a typical citizen, or even a typical library patron, and I suppose I'm using more of my share of the tax dollar kitty on getting all those obscure military histories shuttled across the country for my researching pleasure. I don't really feel the tiniest bit of guilt about that, though.

Lately I've been taking Annabel with me on my weekly library runs, so I'm actually spending time in my branch instead of just dropping off my returns and picking up the next batch of holds, so I'm getting to rediscover the joy of a whole roomfull of BOOKS through her eyes.

---

Check out the hours that are left. It's such horseshit.

Good lord. Never again will I whine about SPL branches closing at 8:00 instead of 9:00 on weekdays.

SPL has a huge range of activities, speakers, book clubs--all the things I guess you'd expect from a major urban library, mostly at the central library but quite a bit at the branches as well. And the mobile services division is partnering with some local preschools, including Annabel's, as a sort of get-ready-to-read outreach. Friday we went to a dinner where the librarians talked to the parents about how to encourage early literacy skills (not reading as such, but understanding books, learning letters, etc.). I found it helpful and informative even as a parent who already reads to my child and generally provides a bookish environment.

---

One of the comments that Laura heard a lot was that volunteers could take her job.

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa.

---

This time it was national health care and how we shouldn't trust the government to do anything efficiently.

I think the problem with health care is there is a desire for it work both as a free market system and a government service. Everybody should be able to get it, but the government shouldn't be involved.

It's sort of like going to the road store to buy the street your house is on and going to the road repair place to get it serviced. I'm sure there are people who think that's great, but I imagine most people don't want roads to work that way.

The current system isn't even a good free market system. The insurance model for something everybody will need is kinda weird. You have employers having to deal with health care which is a big headache especially for small businesses. You're screwed if you're not able to get in a large pool. To me it feels like a bunch of band-aids.

---

To me it feels like a bunch of band-aids.

Yeah. Plus with socialized medial insurance you'd have one big bureaucracy. With the current system you've got thousands of smaller bureaucracies, duplicating effort and what-not (which is, oddly enough, far less efficient than one big bureaucracy would be). A major reason for all the increases in insurance premiums in the last few decades has been the sharp increase in paperwork and associated bureaucracy. The % of people's health care $ that goes to bureaucracy/paperwork is far higher than it used to be.

---

Senior year in high school, we bought books for history class so that we could write in them. (There were some loaners in case people couldn't afford them.)

Come to think of it, we did it in English Lit, too.

People gobsmack me with the stupid. Everyone wants something for nothing (by which I mean, roads and services, but none of those nasty taxes!), and no one seems to get the concept of for the public good.

---

Deeply bizarre Friday Afternoon video [okay for work]: [link]

---

I love annotating text and think it's a good skill to be taught to students, especially with readers who struggle because it makes explicit what is often a hidden process -- that of making meaning of a text. And I will often, with short pieces, have kids get credit for annotating (or group annotating) because they are practicing it and need motivation to do so since it isn't easy.

...

And there are lots of ways to annotate and teach annotating. For many of the teachers I work with, it's now WHAT or HOW something is annotated, but it is the fact that annotation happens that is important.

Yep to both of these, especially the practicing part. And no, it wasn't taught in most schools until very recently; like Susan said, most of us got to college and realized we actually could write in books and started to...because it was really helpful in paying attention to the text and remembering it. Its usefulness has a lot to do with learning styles, especially for kinesthetic/visual learners. The act of marking the text helps lock it into your brain.

I give my kids a bunch of different appoaches like marking the actual text, using post-its (color-coded are especially effective), or creating notes systems so that they can deal with any kind of text they face. If it's their own book and not one they want to keep pristine, mark that sucker up! If they don't want to write in the book or if it's not their own book (I can't believe anyone would write a library book. Seriously, people! Manners!), then post-its or a note system work well. Like Kat said, it's not really the "what" or "how" of the annotation as much as it is understanding the process and developing a system that works for you.

In my opinion, teaching active reading skills like this alongside writing process skills are the major pedogogical leaps that English teaching has made in the past 20 years.

I love love LOVE the library. So very much. I am always horrified when I hear stories like your friend's, Allyson. My ex-MIL was a librarian assistant in a small town in upstate NY, and they were constantly fighting to keep their library funded and open. I just don't understand how people could think that the internet replaces the need for libraries. Yes, research is easier, but unless you have access to some of the better academic databases (ProQuest, Galegroup, JStor, etc.) , you aren't getting the quality of research that is available at local libraries through their computers. And in terms of pleasure reading...FREE BOOKS, people! How can they not get that?!?

Um. I may be ranting. I'm going to blame my student advisory group, who brought in Oreos and milk this morning. I may be a bit sugar-buzzed.

---

The house we're buying has a very high level of radon. Anyone here ever dealt with radon mitigation? How much does it cost to fix? Will it give us cancer?

---