banzailibrarian

Table of contents for Mythlore 107/108

2009-10-12T21:02:39Z

Final approved proof just went to the printer. Subscribers should get this in about 2-3 weeks. There's still time to subscribe at www.mythsoc.org!

Mythlore Issue 107/108 Volume 28, Number 1/2 Fall/Winter 2009

Perilous Shores: The Unfathomable Supernaturalism of Water in 19th-Century Scottish Folklore

Jason Marc Harris

The Noldor and the Tuatha Dé Danaan: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Irish Influences

Annie Kinniburgh

Tolkien’s Sigurd & Gudrún: Summary, Sources, & Analogs

Pierre H. Berube

Amanda McKittrick Ros and the Inklings

Anita G. Gorman and Leslie Robertson Mateer

Ancient Myths in Contemporary Cinema: Oedipus Rex and Perceval the Knight of the Holy Grail in Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense

Inbar Shaham

The Heart of the Labyrinth: Reading Jim Henson’s Labyrinth as a Modern Dream Vision

Shiloh Carroll

No Sex in Narnia? How Hans Christian Andersen’s “Snow Queen” Problematizes C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia

Jennifer L. Miller

Innocence as a Super-power: Little Girls on the Hero’s Journey

David Emerson

Naming the Evil One: Onomastic Strategies in Tolkien and Rowling

Janet Brennan Croft

And reviews of: Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Douglas A. Anderson; The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia, by Laura Miller; Projecting Tolkien’s Musical Worlds: A Study of Musical Affect in Howard Shore’s Soundtrack to Lord of the Rings, by Matthew Young; Esotericism, Art, and Imagination, edited by Arthur Versluis et al.; three new books on The Wind in the Willows, including two annotated versions; Truths Breathed Through Silver: The Inklings’ Moral and Mythopoeic Legacy, edited by Jonathan B. Himes with Joe R. Christopher and Salwa Khoddam; and Volume VI of Tolkien Studies.

Mythlore 105/106 spine snafu update

2009-05-22T16:49:57Z

For Mythlore subscribers -- the labels to cover the printer's error on the spine are here, they work, and they look just fine. For those of you whose renewals/subscriptions/orders were processed in the last week or so, I'll be mailing out the issue with the spine corrected today. For those of you getting the issue as it was sent from the printer, there are two options -- if you are going to Mythcon, I will bring labels; if you aren't or can't wait, email me your address and I'll send you one.

Mythlore 105/106

2009-05-13T15:42:57Z

Mythlore good news and bad news... Issue 105/106 is here! So subscribers should be getting it very soon. Alas, due to a printer’s flub the spine says this is issue 103/104. I’m seeing if I can at least get some labels printed to cover the error. If I can get them I’d be willing to bring some to Mythlore and mail to those who want them.

Yes, I Voted!

2008-10-31T16:12:03Z

In-person absentee voting started today in Oklahoma. I arrived at the County Election Board just after 8:00 and the line already stretched around the corner of the block. It took me 90 minutes, and by the time I was done I'd estimate the wait was well over two hours. The weather was beautiful -- sunny, with just a hint of chill from a south breeze--but it will be getting up to around 80 this afternoon. The crowd was cheerful and strangers were happily chatting away with each other, but studiously avoiding politics. It was mostly an older crowd; I didn't see too many students this morning, but there were people with babies in tow. You can see a picture of the line here:

http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_305100720.html

Oklahoma uses an optical scanning system. The voter connects two halves of a broken arrow pointing to their candidate or party. then feeds it into the scanner. The scanner I used was for the general election only, and I was voter number 160. The other scanner was for general and local, and I didn't see the number, but I esitate is was probably 1 1/2 to 2 times higher.

Plan for lines, but go vote!!

36 Questions...

2008-10-27T20:50:12Z

Got this from PunkRockHockeyMom's LJ, http://pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com/, where I posted my answers:

Comment here and repost a blank one on your own journal.
01) Are you currently in a serious relationship?
02) What was your dream growing up?
03) What talent do you wish you had?
04) If I bought you a drink what would it be?
05) Favorite vegetable?
06) What was the last book you read?
07) What zodiac sign are you?
08) Any Tattoos and/or Piercings? Explain where.
09) Worst Habit?
10) If you saw me walking down the street would you offer me a ride?
11) What is your favorite sport?
12) Do you have a Pessimistic or Optimistic attitude?
13) What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with me?
14) Worst thing to ever happen to you?
15) Tell me one weird fact about you.
16) Do you have any pets?
17) What if I showed up at your house unexpectedly?
18) What was your first impression of me?
19) Do you think clowns are cute or scary?
20) If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be?
21) Would you be my crime partner or my conscience?
22) What color eyes do you have?
23) Ever been arrested?
24) Bottle or can soda?
25) If you won $10,000 today, what would you do with it?
27) What's your favorite place to hang out at?
28) Do you believe in ghosts?
29) Favorite thing to do in your spare time?
30) Do you swear a lot?
31) Biggest pet peeve?
32) In one word, how would you describe yourself?
33) Do you believe/appreciate romance?
34) Favourite and least favourite food?
35) Do you believe in God?
36) Will you repost this so I can fill it out and do the same for you?

Call For Papers: Libraries, Museums, and Archives and Popular Culture

2008-07-29T19:03:53Z

Not Just for Librarians!

Libraries, Archives, Museums and Popular Culture Area

Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association

Southwest/Texas American Culture Association

2009 Annual Conference – 30^th Anniversary

Hyatt Regency Albuquerque & Albuquerque, New Mexico
February 24-28, 2009

For more details, visit the Association’s web site at

http://www.h-net.org/~swpca/

The Libraries, Archives, Museums and Popular Culture area solicits paper proposals from librarians, archivists, curators, graduate students, faculty, collectors, writers, and other aficionados (yes! including people who use libraries, archives, and museums!) of popular culture and information settings of all types. We encourage proposals for slide shows, video presentations, workshop formats, and panels organized around common themes. Among recent presentations were discussions of tribal librarianship, library presences in Second Life, and the history and future of the archives of the TV show King of the Hill.

Some suggested topics:

& Histories and profiles of museums, archives, libraries, and other popular culture resources

& Intellectual freedom or cultural sensitivity issues related to popular culture resources

& Book clubs and reading groups, city- or campus-wide reading programs

& Collection building and popular culture resources

& Organization and description of popular culture resources

& New media formats and popular culture in libraries, archives, or museums

& Wikipedia, YouTube, Google books, social networking, EBay, and their impact on libraries and popular culture collections

& The role of public libraries in natural disasters and post-disaster community rebuilding

Other topics welcome!!!

Send a 200-word abstract to the Area Co-Chairs by November 16, 2008. Include your complete mailing address, school or other affiliation, e-mail address, telephone number, and fax number. Graduate students are encouraged to present, and to apply for the graduate paper awards listed at http://www.h-net.org/~swpca/Awards/awards.htm.

Janet Brennan Croft

Head of Access Services

Bizzell Library NW104

University of Oklahoma

Norman, OK 73019-6030

PHONE (405) 325-1918

FAX (405) 325-7618

e-mail: jbcroft@ou.edu

Rhonda Harris Taylor

School of Library and Information Studies

401 West Brooks, Room 120

University of Oklahoma

Norman, OK 73019-6032

PHONE (405) 325-3921

FAX (405) 325-7648

e-mail: rtaylor@ou.edu

Please pass this CFP on to anyone else who might be interested!

Oklahoma encased in ice...

2007-12-13T14:34:53Z

Reports are this was one of the worst storms in Oklahoma history, with the most widespread power outages ever. The pictures you are seeing on the news of whole trees uprooted are not exaggerated! Somehow conditions combined so the ice built up very quickly and very thickly on every exposed surface. Many trees (like the sycamores and weeping willows here on campus) were still holding on to their leaves, and the weight was just too much.

Our house was okay – we were just outside the worst of the storm, and while we did get pretty thick ice and lost power for 13 hours, we really didn’t have much damage to our trees. We’re long-term country dwellers, so we already had the generator, kerosene heater, Coleman lanterns, port-a-potty – the whole survivalist works. In town, though, it’s another story. The trees are all so horribly damaged – it would break Tolkien’s heart to see them. A lot of the town is still without power, so many off-campus students are spending a large part of the day here in the library. The local public schools are closed the rest of the week. Most of the dorms are okay – Little Ferret didn’t lose power, and took some amazing pictures of the damage on campus. Finals were cancelled Monday, with make-ups on Friday and Saturday, so we’ve extended our already extended library hours. What a horrible mess, and the kids who already had plane tickets for Friday or Saturday are scrambling to make other arrangements with their professors.

But I lived through a similar storm in Tennessee – I think it was 1995 or thereabouts. In about two years the trees were pretty much back to normal. I think this was worse here, but bad as it looks, an intense pruning won't kill a tree that’s healthy to begin with. A lot of the trees may bounce back. But the clean-up is going to be very hard work and take many months. And we're expecting snow and high winds Friday night into Saturday morning -- any branches just hanging on will probably come down.

Life, pretty much

2007-12-03T15:31:28Z

Well, it's been one of those frustrating periods at work. I seem to spend more time out of my office, at meetings or product demos or at the annex, than in my office. This means my email tools aren't as powerful, so things don't get flagged in a way that will catch my attention and wind up drifting out of my ken.

On the other hand, I got a new AT&T Tilt phone last week, and the hubby thought it was so cool he got one the next day. It combines a phone, PDA, and camera in one device -- something I've been wanting for years. It has a cool slide-out keyboard, and the display flips from letter to landscape. It's also got GPS and internet connectivity, and plenty of room for entertainment on a 2G storage card. I won't have to take a laptop when I travel -- well, if I don't mind the small screen size and a keyboard that you can really only use with your thumbs -- or pay expensive hotel and airport rates for internet service.

Which is nice, because it looks like I've got lots of travel lined up for next year. I had a very frustrating experience with Southwest last time I travelled, and I want to pack light enough it doesn't happen again. I joined a flight that was already in progress, and since there was no room in the overhead bins, they took my bag off the flight. It got there okay, but I hadn't locked or tagged it because I'd planned to carry it on. Well, I got myself an early Christmas present -- a small rolling bag that fits under the seat, and a matching tote/briefbag. I should be able to handle a similar situation next time!

So, out at the library's storage annex, waiting for the HVAC repair person who was due half an hour ago. I can see how this day is shaping up already!

Living in the Index Zone....

2007-10-23T20:35:32Z

So the big project right now is the Mythlore Issues 1-100 Index. All the data entry is complete -- it includes articles, book reviews, and some columns, with abstracts and subject headings. Edith Crowe did the original work on this; I transcribed her entries into EndNote and brought the whole thing up to date with the issues since her original project. I've been using the database a lot myself already!

But here's the question, and I'd love to get some input. We want to post the index as a searchable database on the Mythsoc website -- but we also want to do a print version through the Mythopoeic Press. Would you still buy a print version if it's available online? What if the print version had some added features, like an essay on the history of Mythlore or some illustrations? What if the abstracts were only available in the print version? Would it depend on the price? (It's too big already to just include in an issue of Mythlore -- it'll be the size of a whole issue in itself!)

Personally, I'd make use of both, depending on what I'm using it for!

It's really been amazing, going through the old issues. There are so many articles I need to go back to and read thoroughly. And all the book reviews -- wow! Alexei Kondratiev's reviews in particular make me want to rush to my bookshelves and start reading all those great books I set aside for a rainy day years ago.

And for those of you eagerly awaiting Mythlore 99/100, I heard from the printer that it will be ready to go to the mailing service on Thursday. Yay!

Let's see how this works...

2007-09-24T19:50:23Z

I took the "what Tarot Card are you" test that Ellen referenced. Because I should be editing Mythlore so I can get it finished this week, of course. Let's see how this cut-&-paste thingie works...

<img src="http://www.flarn.com/~warlock/tarot/catpeople/2.jpg">
<h2 align="center">You are The High Priestess</h2>
Science, Wisdom, Knowledge, Education.
The High Priestess is the card of knowledge, instinctual, supernatural, secret knowledge. She holds scrolls of arcane information that she might, or might not reveal to you. The moon crown on her head as well as the crescent by her foot indicates her willingness to illuminate what you otherwise might not see, reveal the secrets you need to know. The High Priestess is also associated with the moon however and can also indicate change or fluxuation, particularily when it comes to your moods.
What Tarot Card are You? <a href="http://www.flarn.com/~warlock/tarot">Take the Test to Find Out.</a>

High Priestess, hmm. Of course, I've been re-reading Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching novels (trying to come up with a paper for SWT Pop Culture in Februery) and I always wind up channelling Granny a bit when I read those...

Time to breathe....

2007-09-07T18:03:37Z

What a semester this has already been, and we're only at the end of the 3rd week. The textbooks-on-reserve project, a fiat (but funded generously) from the university president, has driven us all MAD for weeks. On the surface, it's a wonderful idea for the library to have copies of textbooks to lend to students. But then you get to the nitty-gritty. How do you choose which textbooks? (We settled on two criteria: price over $95, or total class registration over [I think] 100, with 1 textbook per 35 students.) Where do you put them? (I have room for only 2000 without big changes affecting the whole department.) How do you assure equitable use? (Two hours in the library with 1 renewal seems fair to us, but not to the students who want to check out "their" copy for the whole semester!) How do you process and catalog them so they can be found? (Especially since they come from the bookstore without the name of the assigning professor.) Well, it's gotten us a lot of publicity, and a chance to promote our other services, and we had 550 circulations the first week and 870 the second, so it's not all bad. Except maybe for the bookstore, and it's not THEIR fault the books are expensive.

Little Ferret seems well settled-in, though still a bit nervous about upcoming tests. Unfortunately, there are three home football games in a row this month. This makes it a bit difficult to arrange a trip home for laundry and groceries, since she lives catty-cornered from the stadium, surrounded by parking that gets reserved for tailgating fans. She says she could hear the cheers from her room last weekend!

I took Tuesday off and indulged myself in a full day of sewing. (Well, after laying some sidewalk pavers and reconfiguring the pet-feeding shelves early in the morning!) I've been thinking a bit about making my sewing more efficient and came up with some new rules for myself.

1. Life's too short to sew cheap fabric. The $1 a yard bin at WalMart is not my friend. I did a particularly ruthless purge of my closets and found that many of the things I threw out were nicely tailored suits made out of crappy fabric and never worn. Cheap fabric is for quick summer skirts, trendy items, and test garments -- not for anything requiring tailoring.

2. Everything I sew must go with at least two complementary pieces already in existence in my closet. Garments in potentia don't count.

3. I really don't quilt much anymore, so no more saving every tiny scrap just in case. Less packrattery produces a calmer environment.

4. The time you expend on finishing touches will, over the life of the garment, save the equivalent time in frustration by vastly increasing wearablility. Only the lightest summer jackets and skirts should be unlined; everything that can have pockets should have pockets (pants without pockets being particularly worthless); a nearly invisible hand-sewn hem will always look far more professional than a top-stitched one; no leaving the hem of a shirt unfinished because "I'll always wear it tucked in"...

5. A "grand day of cutting out" isn't working for me. If I cut out five or six projects at once, chances are most of them won't get finished. I'm going to attempt to get everything done except the sitting-in-front-of-the-TV steps (buttons, hemming) before I cut out the next garment, and see how it works.

6. Be vary wary of sewing a style of garment you don't normally wear. If you don't try on that type of garment in the store, then sewing it may be a waste of time.

So what am I working on now? A raglan-sleeve wrap jacket (pushing the limits of rule #6 -- I haven't made one for ages, though I wear raglan sweaters) out of some decades-old wool-blend black and brown boucle curtain material (bending rule #1, though if it's survived decades of off-and-on use, it can't be that bad a quality of fabric) lined with scraps of a sari (rule #3) leftover from a shirt I started last year (rule #5)... But hey, if I consider it a test garment, I can get away with it! And actually it's looking good so far.

Whew, but a bit at loose ends...

2007-08-20T20:29:51Z

The Little Ferret was safely installed in her dorm room Thursday morning, in heat that was already stunning at 9:00 a.m. (Since then we've had over 7 inches of rain in less than 12 hours. The pool actually overflowed. That's Oklahoma weather for you!) Met her roommate, who seems quite nice, and I think they'll do just fine together. Very contrasting decorating styles, though. The Ferret wanted me to buy everything possible in black, with a few forays into charcoal grey and silver. Her roommate's mom picked everything out for her -- hot pink and fluffy. She stopped by my office for coffee before her first class today, seeming quite chipper. Waiting for a report on how it all went this evening...

It's always a pain to take a few days off work, because so much piles up to be taken care of at once. Today it's all been folks opening their email after the summer off and discovering all those books they should have renewed weeks ago. Tomorrow I am going to escape to my study for a while and work on Mythlore, I promise myself. Right now I'm in the layout-and-quote-checking phase. I always grumble about people who can't transcribe a quote without making some sort of mistake, but I have to remind myself about a bloomer I once made when transcribing a Lewis quote about Tolkien (should have been "a cache of CHOICE tobacco," not just plain old baccy). It's not easy -- the fingers type what the mind thinks it sees. But first I have to get the next issue of Oklahoma Librarian ready. That's a lot quicker than Mythlore, especially since I'm limited to 8 pages and half of the back page is the mailing label!

Hole drilled, back to what passes for normal...

2007-08-14T14:05:53Z

I now have a pipe with a sprinkler on the end suspended in the middle of my office ceiling. The whole library is undergoing two major and annoying renovation projects right now -- we're replacing the HVAC system on the fifth floor, where the Special Collections usually live, and installing sprinklers throughout the 1958 and 1982 additions. Lots of noise, dust, workers, and general inconvenience, with areas roped off or sheathed in plastic and elevators reserved for construction materials. They only have a few days left to get the main floor done before classes start! But it's got to be done. I'm just glad my department successfully (and in under the time budgeted!) made room on the third floor and moved all the special collections into their temporary home. We don't have much to worry about till it's time to move everything back!

Anyway, yes, Little Ferret is coming here to OU. As a National Merit Scholar (preen, preen) she gets a pretty much free ride (parents heave great sigh of relief and start pricing all those put-off home improvements), so she's going to stay in the Honors dorm instead of at home. OU really loves its Merit Scholars and prides itself on having more than any other public university in the country. However, I do have to say the dorm rooms are pretty small, and the lack of an elevator is a bit of a drawback. But Boren Hall is a pretty cool building. The ground floor includes classrooms, computer and writing labs, a small library and other amenities, and there are three floors of dorm rooms above. People who have lived there tell me it's a very tight-knit community, and kids tend to stay all four years in spite of the old-fashioned rooms. Sounds a bit like Hogwarts to me....

They also promote undergraduate research very heavily, so I'm trying to convince the Ferret she needs to write a paper for Mythcon next year. On the other hand, they also heavily promote study abroad, so we'll have to see how scheduling works out -- and Mythcon next year will overlap with the first day of classes, which is not so good.

Just got the off-prints of my latest library article: "Balancing Evolving 'Real' and 'Virtual' Patron Needs: A Challenge for Access Services in Academic Libraries" (Journal of Access Services, v.3:4 (2005), 13-27). On rereading, I'm still pretty pleased with it. If only we could implement some of the innovative patron service ideas I ran across while researching it...

Sorry I missed Mythcon!

2007-08-13T14:55:00Z

Wow, it sounds like it was great this year. My first Mythcon was at the Clark Kerr Center in 2001, so I can just picture it all. But ti's not just the location, evocative as memroies may be -- it's the people that make Mythcon. And it really is like missing a family reunion. Next year in Connecticut!

Right now, though, we are thoroughly occupied with getting Little Ferret out the door to college. Move-in day in Thursday. The forecast is 100 degrees and sunny. Fortunately, we are in one of the morning groups; unfortunately, her room's on the 3rd floor of a building with no elevators. We still haven't gotten an email from her assigned roommate, so that's a small source of anxiety.

More later -- I'm about to have a hole drilled in my office wall.....