A bit apprehensive (another meme)

[mary_j_59]

I got this from bluestocking79, who has answered some very fascinating questions in a most articulate manner, in spite of having the flu! Here is the meme - I've seen it before, but never dared to do it:

The problem with LJ: we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. So ask me something you want to know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Ask away. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don't know about you.

Comments

[missfloraposte.livejournal.com]

I'll ask two, which lets you pick whichever you want:

Where would your dream home be?
Is there a book or film that has been particularly meaningful to you, and why?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Wow, good questions, and I'm not sure what to answer. As to the dream home, I'm a western New Englander, and I love the landscape and climate there - it's home. But I also lived for three years in England and Europe, and there are things about that lifestyle that are much better and saner than our American one. For one thing, it's much more human in scale, and you don't have to depend on cars so much. So - as compromise, I think maybe a college town like Northampton, MA. It has public transport, there's a lot going on in the center of town itself, the landscape is quite lovely, and it's not too isolated. I'd need to be in a place with lots of trees and gardens and easy access to real countryside, but also with some real cultural life. My sister and I loved Cambridge when we were there, actually, but I would miss having hills around.

As for books and films, I think everyone who knows me knows I was enormously impacted, as a child, by A Wrinkle in Time and The Lord of the Rings. But I think I should mention the one Spielberg film I truly love, in spite of (and perhaps because of) its flaws - Empire of the Sun. At the heart of that film is an astounding performance by young Christian Bale, and considerable honesty about the amorality of the child's imagination. What a lot of people who panned the film didn't understand is simply this: it's all happening in the child's head. And it gets at the difference between the innocence of childhood - which is, as I said, essentially amoral and self-absorbed, but which is still innocent - and the innocence of Grace. Being a Spielberg film, it's sentimental in places, but I really think it may be the most honest and least sentimental film he ever made. My two cents-

[missfloraposte.livejournal.com]

When I think of New England, the first things I think of are autumnal leaves and seafood - which suggests that this is the stereotype offered in the media. Is it really like that at all?

I've never seen Empire of the Sun - I must give it a watch.

If you don't mind one more question - who is your favourite Lord of the Rings character?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is actually like that. The beautiful fall colors - which are also all around down here in southern NY - are commonplace throughout the Northeast, and especially anywhere there are sugar maples. And you can get great seafood throughout New England (just as you can throughout England!), from my home state of Connecticut, on Long Island sound, right up through Maine.

My favorite character in Tolkien's epic varied with my age. As a child, I think I may have loved Legolas as much as my sister did; I also loved Eowyn. Then Aragorn was my favorite, and then Faramir, whom I still love (I still love Eowyn, too). But, nowadays, Sam Gamgee is my hero.

[missfloraposte.livejournal.com]

Wow - so the leaves thing is actually for real? That's lovely.

I think that's the thing with Lord of the Rings isn't it? There's different things that one can take from it as grows and changes. Did the films do the book justice for you?

On a slightly more lowbrow note, I thought that Faramir was a poor neglected darling in the film. ;)

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

What inspired you to become a librarian instead of anything else related to literature?
I remember how upset you've been about Madam Pince and also that I think I've met more Madam Pinces than dedicated librarians like you. *blush*

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

"Instead of"? I think it's "in addition to"!

Well - at first (after my childhood dreams of being an astronaut, paleontologist or perhaps actor) I wanted to be a teacher, when I was 14. But I always knew I wanted to write, and discovered pretty soon that I would do better not to try to earn a living that way. I first considered becoming a librarian when I was 19, in college, but still thought I might teach. But, after graduate school, at about the time I took the graduate entrance exam for teaching, I got some substitute teaching experience, and found out that it takes a high-energy extrovert and/or an extremely energetic person to deal with a class of little ones. I did well one on one, or in small groups, with older kids. In graduate school, I also interned under a lovely librarian - that school happened to offer a dual degree, so I got my MLS and have never looked back.

Now, American libraries and Madame Pince. A lot of people don't understand what the library system offers generally, nor what librarians actually do. Libraries are great democratic institutions. There was just a show - a very good one, and it's true enough - about the Public parks as "America's best idea". As I said, true enough. But, what the National, state and local parks do for our wildlife and landscape, our public libraries do for learning and ideas. Anyone can come to a library and study anything he or she wants, free of charge. What we do not have ourselves, we can obtain from the web or from other libraries at low cost. We are in the forefront of forming an educated electorate - just as much so as schools - we are builders and preservers of community, and we are in the forefront of preserving the first amendment. (That's freedom of speech and information, as well as freedom of assembly and freedom to dissent - and it's something a lot of Europeans don't understand. But I think you probably do.)

But, aside from that rant, being a librarian is a great job for a writer, or for someone who's generally interested in learning. You get to see all kinds of books, and read some of them; you learn what is popular, and (perhaps) why; you get to learn all the time - the kids will teach you new ways to use technology, new methods of outreach, and they'll tell you what they like and want - if you ask them. It's fun! Of course, you can't write on the job, but it isn't a job that saps one's creative energy, and I love the contact with the public and being helpful to people. It took me awhile to get to it, but I think I have a great job!

[(Anonymous)]

hey - question for you from a fellow librarian - do you have any LJ post about your issues with Madam Pince? I'm looking at the possibility of trying to write an article or something comparing our views of Madam Pince with what we actually see of her in canon (I'm thinking once I go through to find all the mentions of her, she may be more absent than actually a bad stereotype) Anyway - was trying to find some stuff other librarians had written about the topic and our perceptions, and this post came up in google. I'm not on LJ myself so thats why I'm having to leave this by anonymous comment - sorry about that - but I'm just curious if you have any thoughts or have already written your thoughts on the matter...

- Ally

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, given how much and how passionately I've responded to these books, I don't have a post about Madame Pince. And boy, is she ever a topic for an essay! Unfortunately, I don't own the books any more, and I'm too involved in other projects to spend a lot of time hunting up quotations, but, if I can help at all, I'd be glad to. This is what I remember about her:
There's a scene where she shushes the kids when they get too loud.
There's the famous scene where she chases Harry and Ginny out of the library because they have a chocolate egg.
I think there's a scene where she looks disapproving when one of the kids wants a book?
We all assume that Snape is lying (yes, even I, Snape fan that I am!) when he takes points from the trio in their first year because they have taken a book outside. But, for all we know, that may actually be one of Madame Pince's rules. The kids never go to complain to her, at any rate! And they never ask her for help.

She just seems to fit, and reinforce, all the cheap negative stereotypes about librarians. I cannot remember J.K.Rowling saying a singe positive thing about libraries or librarians in seven books. It seems ungrateful, to put it mildly! Since, in my experience, librarians were her first boosters and were pushing the books to children long before the word-of-mouth by children started.

[(Anonymous)]

No thats exactly what I'm looking for - I want to get what we all seem to remember - which is very bad - and what JK Rowling seems to confirm as far as her own opinion of Madam Pince(there's that quotation from when a librarian got to ask a question (on a different subject) and JK Rowling made a comment along the lines of "oh good - I was afraid you were going to ask about Madam Pince" and how more or less she was that bad, simply because if Hogwarts had had a good librarian, there would have gone most of the plot...

Anyway - I just have a hard time remembering any specifics - so I'm going to start going through the books looking for every instance (this may take quite a while) where the library or Madam Pince is mentioned (oh how I wish Jo would allow ebooks!) and see just what there is - I just wanted to kind of get the "gut" librarian reaction from more than just myself and my friends before I start seeing what actually happens - because it may completely confirm it - or we may find that she's really more noticably absent than actually bad...

But I absolutely agree with your comments! Even if she is more absent than mean or whatever - that is still not an acceptable view of librarianship!! She is obviously not approachable (if anyone could stand her, it would be Hermione - out of a want to find out everything if nothing else - but even she doesn't go to Pince about anything!)

Of course - granted - the HP series in general doesn't exactly promote taking one's problems to adults... in any kind of situation...

But anyway - thanks! I appreciate it! (and I just wanted to make sure you didn't have a Madame Pince post hidden somewhere since I saw that you have quite a few essay type posts here)

-Ally

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about you to ask decent questions so I'll follow with the library stuff. What sort of library do you work in (public, academic, research, etc.) and was it your first choice for type of library?

Did you have to change locations in order to take the job?

Edited reply -

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I work in a public library; I'm what they called, when I graduated from library school, a young adult librarian - which, as I'm sure you know, means I specialize in the teens and tweens.

My initial goal was to work in an academic library, but I've always loved public libraries and was very happy to get a job in one! I did have to change locations, though I didn't have to move very far (I'm now in NY state, but come from CT).