Libraries in trouble, bloggers as writers, and a weblog novel?
"Shelf Life Support" is the name of a piece in this week's Chronicle on the crisis facing library budgets in Austin and nationwide. I knew the situation was bad but I didn't know how bad. Apparently a lot of libraries, in order to stay open and pay even a skeleton staff, are cutting their acquisitions budgets to nothing. I know that every visit I've made to the Austin Public Library lately has been a disappointment (with the fortunate exception of children's books!), as the materials on a given subject are badly dated, missing and/or checked out. Given the number of patrons and the number of books in circulation, it's clear that the library's services are still valuable to Austinites even as the library's holdings fall behind. If the trend continues, I fear that APL may resemble the old joke about the Aggie who went to the A&M library: he was able to find the book (singular) on the shelf, but someone had already colored in it.
The article is by Chronicle writer Melanie Haupt, also know to us in Blogistan as Melanie of delicate flower. I like to see the formal and informal sides of Melanie's writing, as with those of another prolific Chron writer and (sometime) blogger Sarah Hepola.
So it's interesting to note that one of the subjects of Melanie's library piece is also an online and offline writer. As a weblogger, Pamie Ribon of pamie.com achieved her 15 minutes of both fame and good karma when she appealed to webloggers to donate books to the Oakland Public Library. And offline, Pamela Ribon is the author of Why Girls are Weird, a new novel which may fall into the disparaging pigeonholes of "chick lit" or "pink books" (here's Fresh Air's Maureen Corrigan on pink books -- scroll down). But Why Girls are Weird sounds like it is also an example of the weblog novel, a genre (to date mostly hypothetical) which may interest geeks of both the pink and blue varieties. And if Ribon's fiction is as funny as her online advocacy ("I guess you don't want little Misty Everest of Oakland, California to find out where babies come from ... that she can make people shoot out of her pee hole"), then it will be a hoot wherever the pigeons put it.
Which is why I'm also pleased to learn from Melanie's piece that Ribon will read from Why Girls are Weird at BookPeople on Tuesday, 7/22/2003. I can't wait.
P.S. And another reading with a library connection although, as far as I know, no pee holes: Dagoberto Gilb will read from his new essay collection Gritos at the Yarborough branch of the Austin Public Library on Wednesday, July 30 at 7:30 PM. Sales of books at the event will benefit APL.