This Day in HISTORY...

In 1842, the Croton Reservoir opened on the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, the location of the New York Public Library. 

Yeah I know the reservoir really has nothing to do with the library now, but hey! It's still in the same location. Can you believe that?  Instead of a library, there was a fortress of stored water. Hmm...interesting!

Since I'm here talking about the New York Public Library, let me show you the room that I'm in.  It's pretty fantastic! :)

It's pretty, but it makes me wonder where all the other books are.  Also, I was looking at some older pictures of this room, and the chairs and tables are set up the exact same way they were done in the 1920s. The furniture even looked the same. I don't know if the furniture is from the 1920s but what if it is?!

Leaving this room, there is a great mural on the ceiling. You'd think we were in the Sistine Chapel or something. But no...it's just a library! ;)

Er...I think I might have taken the picture upside down. Sorry about that.

I miss going to the library to apply for jobs and such because I'm so busy going to work and doing my internship, but at least I have a job now, right?  I'm definitely going to try to stop by to continue the job search!

Well, hope you're all doing well!  I know this blog hasn't been kept updated regularly, but there might be some crazy changes in the next couple weeks. You never know as we venture past our first 100 posts.

GOOD LUCK with midterms and have a FANTASTIC fall break! :)

100! 100! 100! (and ready for 100 more!)

Can you believe it?! 

This is our 100th post!

Library blog writers on an adventure! :)

 I remember back in elementary school when we would do activities to celebrate the 100th day of school or when the benefactor of our school turned 100 years old.  I made a necklace with 100 beads and another necklace of 100 plastic caps from those little Sunny Delight juice bottles (yeah...promoting recycling!).  I think my sister collected 100 pennies (woo! a dollar!), while my brother made a paperclip chain with 100 paperclips.  It was just a matter of collecting 100 items to visually conceptualize what 100 looks like.  So how shall we celebrate the 100th post of The Library Adventures*?

* Yes, we had to change the title (in case you haven't noticed) because Madison joined our writing crew...

If I was at school, I'd probably bring in 100 cupcakes or 100 cookies to the library and share it with all our fantastic followers (you know who you are)!  The Library Adventures wouldn't be anything without them, as I have stated so many times in my closing statements over the summer. 

Well, I'm sure Rick and Madison will figure out something to celebrate this momentous moment - 100 posts!

So what direction is the blog going to go in for its next 100 posts?  Only time will tell, but good times for sure...

From our start in February of this year, the Library Adventures has definitely grown from their original concept of just recording our adventures in the UP library.  While Rick and Madison are still living up the adventures at UP, I graduated and moved to NYC, recording my adventures at the public library here.   

Although we are miles apart and 100 posts down, 

the adventures still continue!

We've added segments that focus on different aspects of the library, adding some variety to our adventures.  Some of these segments include: Books in the Library and Library Travels.  

As Rick, Madison and other UP students continue into the core of the fall semester at UP and beyond, the adventures will start to get back to some of the antics as the end of last year, but you know with new faces and some new places in the library, you never know what to expect!

I'm excited to see what will happen in the next 100 posts, and I hope you are too and join us on our upcoming adventures!!

Now a word from Rick about 100! :)
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It's Rick now!! :D

I'm pretty sure Tarra covered what I wanted to say about the momentous event of ours in this here blog. 100 posts ago I definitely wouldn't have thought that the blog would have evolved the way it did. It really did start out merely as just a way to record our adventures. To see where it's come from then amazes me and even makes me chuckle a bit.

Seriously?

- Who would have thought of celebrating birthdays in the library?

- Who would have thought finding different kinds of books in the library would be fun?*
*By the way, keep an eye on that because I have recently found some pretty cool books

- Who would have thought hanging out in the library would have been the cool thing to do?

Most importantly: Who would have thought of making this blog about the library? (haha)

Anyways, I guess I should write something that has a direction as to where this blog is going. As Tarra mentioned, there have been some changes to the blog. One of them has definitely been the addition of Madison to posting.

With Madison posting now, we feel like the blog has a totally different dimension that it never had last year. What I mean by this is Madison might be writing, every now and then, a behind the scenes kind of look at the library. You know? Give us the low down on what's going on in the library that the students, like myself, don't know.

I hope that by adding in this section of the blog it will give the reader's a more in depth look. You know!? bahaha.

As for the posting I'll be doing, it won't change. It'll still stay along the lines of what Tarra and I recorded in the last semester. I should mention that I will really have to work on getting to the library this year and staying there late. Not just for the sake of the blog, but because I really haven't been to the library all that much this year.

Take my word though that I will be a better presence in the library and that blogging will continue and it'll be like old times.

If there's one thing Tarra and I have decided on, it's the fact that we want YOU, yes you the reader, to be involved with our adventures this year. By this we mean that we want you to not just be part of the adventure, but even let people know about your own adventure.

This is your opportunity to add to the blog. Just simply drop me a blog post to my email (baleros13@up.edu) as well as a picture of you taken while in the library and it'll get put up along with other posts. I really hope that you guys take advantage of this because it'll be fun to hear what other people experience in the library!

Again, it'll give a different dimension to the blog. It'll be just more than my perspective and Madison's perspective. Seriously, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS!!

I'm signing out now from the library balcony ;)

Be sure to keep an eye out for future postings. (Postings that hopefully will come more frequently!)

It's been TOO long.

Do you guys recognize my background? If you don't it's definitely been too long since you've last seen a picture of the library.

Trust me, it really has been a long time for myself since I've been in the library.

I mean, I've been going to the library periodically since school started, but I never really spent a good amount of time there. Even yesterday night, I was just there for an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I know it'll take some good time to get used to going back there so late.

Also, with it only having been the 2nd week of school, the library has been kind of dead at night. I'm pretty sure the library is getting more action during the day than it has been during the night. That will change as the semester goes on though ...

As for now this is all I'm going to write seeing as I'm working on Calculus problems.

Just hang in there, post will be more frequent as the semester gets more and more demanding. For now though this will have to do. I'll be sure to make a note of some of the changes in the library as I write more.

Love you guys. Thanks for continuing to follow this blog as the adventures take a sharp turn to the left.

So many rules...

Found the main reading room at the New York Public Library.  It's really spacious. Tons of spots for laptops and what not, but who would have thought there would be so many rules about where you can and can not have a laptop or earphones for that matter?!

I asked the information desk for some help, and she insisted I go to the North Hall.  Got all settled in and everything, and then one of the security guards gave me a slip of paper. I thought he was going to tell me I can't be on Facebook or something. But no, it said you can't wear headphones because the area is strictly used for research and study.  I'm pretty sure my music wasn't even that loud. 

So I migrated over to the South Hall because you can wear head phones there.  I found a good spot, but then there was a sign that says no laptop docking here. Moving again...I was heading to the last tables but no, no laptop docking there either.  Finally, found a spot under the AC. It's so cold right here, but at least I have power for my laptop and music - the essentials to applying for jobs online. ;)

Rick & Madison or any of our followers - Are there any rules like that at the UP library?  Just curious.

NYC Public Library!

After a couple days without Internet, I finally found a place with Internet! Thanks goodness because I was going crazy without it!

If you haven't been keeping with me, check out my personal blog, titled "POST GRAD life."

I've been on a whirlwind trip to New York City, and being in desperate need to find a job, I needed to find a place to find Internet access.

So...

Thank GOD for the New York Public Library!

I'm sure you knew that I would depend on the library...just so I could write on here! Haha! Well, as much as cozy as a coffee shop, which would probably be Starbucks here, I honestly have to say that I'm more comfortable in a library.  After all those hours in the UP library, it just became a part of me.  So look forward to my adventures from the NYPL while Rick and Madison keep it real at the UP library! ;) 

For today's adventure, I started a little late.  Next time I'm going to wake up and go straight to the library. I really need to figure out my NYC schedule. But yeah, after doing the usual Facebook, Twitter, blog, email routine, it's back to the job applications. I have the resumes and cover letters all ready. Just a matter of emailing them! Woo...! 

Well, I'll add a picture in a bit or next time. Hope you all are doing fantastic!

P.S. Look out for Rick and Madison's blog about the first week of school...

Complete Library Overhaul

It is quite possible that I may just be an overly sensitive person, but the following post is not recommended for young viewers, as it may cause crying, gasping, weeping, and other sad tendencies.

As I stated in my last post, I was reading The Dentist of Auschwitz which, as you all know, is about one of the most tragic events in history, The Holocaust. During World War II, the Germans rounded up as many Jewish people they could find, put them to hard labor, and more often than not systematically killed them. More than 6 million people were killed during this time. But why do you ask, am I bringing this matter up?

Well, I am comparing the Holocaust to what they are currently doing to the library. It seems as though many of the periodicals downstairs are rarely read, and therefore do not deserve to loiter the shelves of our basement. Therefore, and I will say this in the most graphic way possible, the books are yanked off the shelves, thrown onto a cart with all of the other periodicals that no longer have a home, then shoved into the elevator, wheeled like cattle to the strategically placed dumpster in the loading dock, and tossed without a second thought.

P.S. Its a recycling dumpster.

It is quite sad in my opinion, even though no one is reading them. In fact, anytime books are tossed, even if they are recycled, I feel a tickle in my throat. All of that knowledge, in the trash. All of the wasted time, effort, schooling, parental raising that it took to create that author and for the author to create that book, is just down the drain.

But alas, not all is sad when it comes to books. Just as old people die, young people are born. Everyday, new books are brought into the University of Portland Library world, to be put on display as their funky fresh selves for all to see. They have shiny new covers, clean and crisp white pages, and they smell new. It is divine. And it makes me smile, just as a new mother smiles at the beloved miracle she holds in her hands.

Signing off

Madison Delaney Blake

Interim Week

Silence. Stillness. Calm. Peace. Death?

All words that are synonyms to quiet, as defined by Dictionary.com's Thesaurus, and all words that describe the library at this current time-except for the last one, I hope.

It is interim week. This means the second summer session of classes has ended, and the fall semester will not begin until the 30th of this month. It is an odd time. At this current time, 9:00 on a Monday morning, the library is lifeless. Most of the noise is coming from the full time supervisors behind the circulation desk, and the light above the circulation desk, which, until last week, I had always thought it was the vent making that noise. I was wrong.

Over yonder I can see the student reference librarian, whom at any moment may be impaled by the giant "Ask Us" sign. I'm sure it will happen one day, what with the sign placed merely on fishing line nailed to the ceiling.

But with such nothingness, the library still goes on. Cleaning whiteboards that haven't been used in 3 months, shelving endless children's books, sending our books to other libraries to be enjoyed by students who don't go to UP. Its almost like when parents send their children go college. It is sad, but you know they will be back for a short while, only to leave you again. Finally, at some point, they leave forever. Often by force. This happens at the library too. Its called weeding. A sad time when books that haven't been used for years get the boot. We remove all identity that we ever owned them with harsh permanent markers, and often times they sit and wait for their doom.

OK, maybe it isn't like that in real life, but wouldn't that be sad if it was?

Has anyone ever noticed the striations in the white carpet of the library? It almost reminds me of a terrain maps my stepdad has lying around our house when he is preparing to go hunting. Or the water stains on the ceiling that remind me of clouds. Its almost as if I'm in the woods, with all of the knowledge I need to know at my fingertips.

However, instead i'm sitting at a computer, in a quiet building, reading the Dentist of Auschwitz. Yes. it is quite a Monday morning here at the library. The life of a Student Supervisor may not be that great, but it does have its pluses. Just wait and see....

Signing off,

Madison