I'm a winner ....

I'm a winner in the "foundlove" contest!!

http://library.sdsu.edu/foundlove

Did you find love in Love Library? | Library & information Access | San Diego State University

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Name: Melanie (nee May )Thompson

Story: I fell in love in the Love Library during my undergrad years. I fell in love with words. I worked at the Love Library from 1975-1978, my sophomore through senior year. My job was typing headings on and filing the 3 x 5 cards for the card catalog.  You newest grads won't know what that means. We didn't have computers-for-all then. We had drawers and drawers and drawers-- long, heavy drawers filled with 3 x 5 inch file cards so people could look up books by author, title or subject. Under the tutelage of Librarian Bill Pease and my mentor Amy Tsuji, I would type the SUBJECT or AUTHOR or TITLE at the top of a set of catalog cards. The lowest floor of the library had a book repair area, receiving area , cataloging area,  a complex, organized method of coping the cards, sorting, correcting, proofreading the cards. And then, SHOW TIME: the cards had to go upstairs on display for the public.  I became so proficient (this is MY memory) at learning articles (A, an, the, Der, Die and Das, El, La, etc.) in SO MANY languages, that I was the "chosen one" to file catalog cards upstairs in the drawers for the public.  (You ignore articles when you're filing a title--it's complicated.)  I would look up words unbeknowst to me in the OED.. (Oxford English Dictionary)-- the behemoth volumes of dictionary that took many square feet of "Reference Area" just to house the great tomes on multiple pedestal wooden stands. I LOVED not making popcorn at the local theater anymore. I LOVED the people I worked with. I LOVED learning about learning and access to the floors and floors of book, the endless periodicals..... it was a nerd's paradise.... and I was a nerd and I learned life-skills that have helped me in crossword puzzles, in Peace Corps, in medical school, in motherhood, in book club.....And right this very minute, I can play Scrabble  on line with my kids and I'm kicking my friend's LEXULOUS bottom, I look up every word I don't know in my books and magazines and I keep my important things to do on nostalgic 3 x 5 inch cards.... My children will quote me as saying, "Books are our friends." Thanks SDSU. Thanks Love Library.

Three books in Three days – my life in solitary confinement

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose   by Tony Hsieh

The Dam Committee   by Earl H. Smith

Boomerang: Travel in the New Third World   by Michael Lewis

Okay, granted, all three books have been started for weeks.  I just hadn’t finished any of them.  Don’t judge me. It’s like changing the channel on the TV before one show is over. I started Boomerang in late October in response to a recommendation from one of my head hunters. I admitted, I knew nothing about the world economy or how we got in this mess.  The book was readable and educational and was actually easier to finish than Delivering Happiness. I picked Delivering Happiness up after a Jon Stewart interview with Tony Hsieh, the really young CEO of Zappos. The description of his philosophy of delivering excellent customer service struck me like lightening in direct contrast to whatever was going on at work that week.

Earl Smith was my fun, witty, eloquent Dean when I was at Colby College. I went to his book signing at the China Library this winter and he was very self-conscious that there were no books available to sign at the time. It will be hard for him to sign my Kindle, but the book was light and entertaining… It might annoy people in Belgrade (where Earl lives) because it’s all about characters in “Belfry, Maine.”

Completed in between:

The Help       by Kathryn Stockett (because Oprah told us to read it)

A Hope in the Unseen   by Ron Suskind  (for Kelcy’s Freshman reading at UMASS)

And

Fifth’s Business    by Robert Davies   (for book club that hasn’t happened yet)

Now I’m in the middle of Into the Wild   by Jon Krakauer  (about a young man on an Alaskan wilderness adventure that ends badly, downloaded on Kindle when I was flying to Anchorage and was too lazy to schlepp Alaska by Michener that Omer loaned me – also too lazy to read it! It's a very heavy book.) Next are all the books people gave me for presents....