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Today I didn't have to go to work exactly. I went to two library meetings with a nice lunch in between. The first meeting was to discuss the deadline for spending the construction funds to buy books for my library at school. The deadline has been moved up two years to June 30, 2009. This means I have a very large and daunting task ahead of me! I have to spend about $140k by then. I have about $98k to go!
It may sound easy to some. I mean I'm a librarian! Shouldn't I be able to just buy books? (It should be like being a kid in a candy store! Right?) Yes, but it is buying the right ones! It takes time and sometimes there just aren't good ones out there on some topics. Every year there are thousands of books published. But think of it in terms of layers. The top layer is the best books and is very thin, with only a couple hundred. Then there is the second layer, which are really good. There are a few more books in this layer. The third layer is books that are pretty good. But I don't want to have to go any farther down than the third layer. I also have to narrow it down to what is good for my middle school library. I can do that for the past few years, but I don't want to have to buy old books. Anything earlier than 2003 in non-fiction wouldn't be good. They would be six years old by the end of this school year.
But back to today! We went out to a neat place I'd never heard of before called Bonnie Ruth's Cafe. It is such an unusual name, I've had trouble remembering it all day! Lunch was good and then we went to a place called The Cupcakery!
http://www.thecupcakery.com/
Click on the "Our Favorites" link to see the cupcakes! Very cute! Some even had edible glitter on them! I had a mini-Southern Belle. It was red velvet cake, which I don't think I've ever had before! Very yummy and just the right little amount!
The second meeting of the day was 17 librarians meeting at a book store! We had a field trip! Very fun! And yes, we were productive too! It is an independent bookstore, not a big chain. I think it is very interesting to see stores that actually want to go head to head with Barnes and Noble and Borders.
http://www.legacybooksonline.com/
This is a photo from my trip to the Texas Book Festival, my first! First Lady, Laura Bush began the festival many years ago when she was the First Lady of Texas. It is a long weekend of talks by authors, book signings, and book buying of course! There is stuff for adults with any interest and kids too. They even have a cooking demonstration tent where you can see authors of new cook books cook!
The festival is held on the grounds of the Texas State Capital in Austin, Texas. It is a beautiful setting, with lots of green grass, tall trees and long walkways. Some sessions are held in the capital, with those most likely to draw large crowds held in the House and Senate chambers where the law makers do their work. Here is a picture of the capital rotunda. It was a beautiful day!
The picture below is with the author I went to see, Heather Fredrick Vogel. She wrote a neat book I read last summer called The Mother-Daughter Book Club. I enjoyed the story and hope to someday be able to share it with a daughter. So I bought my own personal copy to have autographed and surprised myself by having a fellow fan take my picture with the author. Her newest book is Much Ado about Anne, which I bought too because my name is in the title and I can't wait to read it!
This weekend I went to visit my parents in Wimberley, Tx. Mom and I went to Market Days, held on the first Saturday of the month. It is a fun collection of new stuff, homemade stuff, food and junk as Dad likes to call it! (Some of it is! He's right!) Some booths look like a garage sale inside. You can find old square CorningWare dishes with the blue cornflowers on them and one book has old hard back suitcases with old mis-matched silverware.
The pictures below are of one of the booths I always like to go see! They have neat signs with both funny and heartfelt sayings. Some are perfect for a nursery or little kid's room and some would be great for a porch or just the 'perfect' place if you had one in your home. I like the sign on the bottom in the first picture and the one on top in the second picture.
These two pictures are just typical of some of what you can see at Market Days. I used to go often, but I think this was only the second time I've been able to go this year!
