In A Library

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.

Library Pick Up LInes

Mind if I check you out?

I bet you have quite a nice book worm!

Are you a librarian? Well I really need to be shushed!

Damn... you have more hard covers than my private stash

Have you heard the one about the librarian with more stacks than she could handle?

No one believes I am a librarian, maybe you should try to check me out.

You have the tightest hair bun in the place.

Let's play search engine: enter your terms and see if you get positive results.

I'd catalog you under "Desirable!"

You're the hottest one I've checked out all week.

So... they say Dewey had a harem, care to help me start mine?

They say you're like a public library, anyone with a card can check you out.

I may not be a cataloger, but I bet I can find a place to fit you in.

So is it true academic librarians only let scholars in?

My mom was a librarian, she taught me every should have access to my stacks

What's you cutter number baby?

Playing doctor is for kids! Let's play librarian.

Do you mind if I use my Dewey Decimal on you?

Hey baby, let's play library, you can be the door and I'll slam you!

Do you know the difference between sex and The LC Subject Headings?
(No?) Do you want to go up to my room?

Are you a librarian? So then you can believe in open access to your stacks?

So when's the last time you were "on the desk"

My fingers are quite strong from typing all day.

Good Reads

Last night I learned of another fabulous site. Good reads.

You can put together lists of what you have read, what you want to read, what you are busy reading, or create your own listing. What's so great about that? You can invite your friends or meet people there.

Once you locate a person you may like to make friends with you can view all their "shelves" (the lists I mentioned before.) If that's not enough for you, you can also compare your lists and ratings with other members when you view their profiles.

Here is the profile link for myself (currently public - may switch to private at some later time.)

Good reads - is what your friends are reading!

Be Like Me - Find a Reason to Make Every Day a Party!

Perhaps the post about towel day peaked your literary holiday curiosity (what sort of phrase was that?) Anyhow. I did some digging just for you ma' babies.

By the way it seems this month is National Under-Appreciated Librarian Month as well as Get Caught Reading Month

Library Lovers month - February
National Book Month - October
National Library Week--4th week in April
Reading is Fun Week--4th week in April
Read a New Book Month--December
Read Me Day--April 23
On this day, wear clothes that everyone can read.
National Storytelling Festival--October 5
Tell a Story Day--April 27
Read an Almanac Month--July
Dictionary Day--October 16
Card Reading Day--February 21
National Columnists Day--June 27
Humorists Are Artists Too Month (HAAM)--March
Be Kind to Editors and Writers Month--September
Poetry Month--March
Great Poetry Reading Day--April 28
Bad Poetry Reading Day--August 18
Limerick Day--May 12
Clerihew Day--July 10
Mother Goose Day--May 1
Winnie the Pooh Day--January 18
Paul Bunyan Day--June 28
Tom Sawyer Fence Painting Day--July 4
Tolkien Week--Last week in September
Hobbit Day--September 22
Alfred Hitchcock Day--March 12
Eliza Doolittle Day--May 20
Dear Diary Day--September 22
Plan Your Epitaph Day--November 1

List of Authors birthdays

Thanks to Today in Literature you can literally become more aware of bookish history ;)

I also turned up the calendar of literary facts. Just click on the month and day you wish to know more about and there you have it.

Literary significance of each month in the year

Bridalwave

Sister site to Trashionista which I mentioned the other week who flatteringly mentioned my post on what celebs can be found reading has also apparently noted my appearance on the blogging scene.

Thank you BridalWave I love you too:

Library-themed wedding invitations

When Southern California public librarian Scott Douglas, author of McSweeney's Dispatches from a Public Librarian column and the memoir Quiet, Please, married a library assistant, they somewhat inevitably created library-themed wedding invitations that I can't look at without smiling.

Did they fine guests who arrived late, I wonder...

[via Petit ver épicurien de livre]

Related: Martha Stewart's Typewriter guest book | "Hitched" pendant | Macdonald Berystede - wedding ceremony and reception venue

NERD PRIDE DAY!!!

Appropriately today is also Nerd Pride Day. A day celebrating the right for each and every one of us to embrace our geek or nerdiness.

This particular holiday only began in 2006 in celebration of the premier of the 1st Star Wars movie in 1977.

HAPPY TOWEL DAY!

It's that time of year again. May 25th - towel day. Celebrated every year t this time as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams.

Towel day 1st began in 2001. It was held to demonstrate fans mourning the passing of Adams.

Douglas Adams' own ode to a towel:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value - you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you - daft as a bush, but very, very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

The original article that began towel day from Binary Freedom:

Towel Day: A Tribute to Douglas Adams
Monday May 14, 2001 06:00am PDT

Douglas Adams will be missed by his fans worldwide. So that all his fans everywhere can pay tribute to this genius, I propose that two weeks after his passing (May 25, 2001) be marked as "Towel Day". All Douglas Adams fans are encouraged to carry a towel with them for the day, and preferably quote the popular books and television series constantly..

So long Douglas, and thanks for all the fish!

– D Clyde Williamson, 2001-05-14

Towel day links of note:

http://www.towelday.kojv.net/
http://www.towelday.org/
http://greatzarquon.tripod.com/
http://www.hoboes.com/Mimsy/?ART=197
http://www.towel-day.com/en/

Wikihow to celebrate towel day

Towelini - another good resource for all your towel day needs