Today was fun!

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/