A Very Busy Saturday

While the rest of Missoula was out enjoying a beautiful summer day, the lucky few here at the library had our hands full. As I type this, the culmination of roughly two years worth of planning, construction, shifting, moving and preparation is open to the public for the very first time. I'm speaking, of course, of the hour and fifteen minute old Young Adult room. About 10 teens anxiously waited near the doors for the big reveal at 4:00 this afternoon. This tropical YA paradise is what greeted them:

Pretzels, Veggie Trays, Punch and cake awaited the survivors of the YA redesign. If you hurry and get here in the next 15 minutes there just may be a slice of cake still here.

In other parts of the library, Entertainment Central finally received proper labeling on Friday. Now when we tell patrons their audiobook is in "Entertainment Central" we (hopefully) will be treated to fewer blank stares.

Finally, flanking the sides of the above entryway to Entertainment Central is our brand new section - "Grab 'n Go." These books will be 10-day checkouts, non-holdable and non-renewable. Patrons will also be limited to 5 total items from the Grab 'n Go section. We hope for high turnover and better availability for our most popular titles. See that new Janet Evanovich down there? Right now there are 163 holds on that title, but you could stroll in and grab it today without waiting. This is our way of saying, "Thanks for actually stopping by the library!"

Well, I think all of us here at the library have had just about enough excitement for one day. In about half an hour we'll lock up and enjoy the rest of this wonderful summer day with the rest of you.

Collective Nouns

If you haven't guessed as much from reading my Word Woman posts, I have an on-going love affair with language. Words are my passion, etymology is my raison d'etre and vocabulary is a way of life for me. That being the case, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite underrated parts of speech: The collective noun. Collective nouns are words that describe a group of things, whether they be birds, plants, animals, people or what have you. Their tendency to be both amusing and aptly descriptive of the nouns they modify has often led me to wonder about the sort of person who sits around making them up. So, for your edification, here is just a small sample of the collective nouns common to the English language:

A pod of assassins
A rainbow of butterflies
A glaring of cats
A drunken ship of cobblers
A turandot of finches
A giggle of girls
A cruft of hackers

A gang of hoodlums

A cavalcade of horsemen
A multiply of husbands

A thicket of idiots

A vagary of impediments

A rash of irritants

A neverthriving of jugglers

A qwerty of keyboards

A banner of knights

An atlas of maps

A scourge of mosquitoes

A mischief of mice

A chapter of pages

A gaze of raccoons

A rabble of rats

A decision of referees

A house of senators

A slither of snakes

A galaxy of starfish

A pack of submarines

An ambush of tigers

A flock of tourists

An ugly of walruses

A sneak of weasels

Collective nouns are fun, colorful words to slip into everyday speech, so go ahead and astonish your friends and family with the wealth of words you have at your disposal by using one today!

Book Displays Galore!

We have doubled our book displays after the addition of our new Power Walls. In addition to the permanent new fiction and non-fiction, staff picks and Wild About books, we have:

Books on grilling for the summer!


Montana fiction for the locals and wannabe locals!

And the ever important Chick Lit display!

We're excited to offer more book displays and reader's advisory for all of our patrons, and be able to highlight different parts of our collection. Stay tuned for news on the Grab 'n Go section coming very soon!

Word Woman

Welcome to another outrageous episode of Word Woman's Weekly Work-Out! Stretch your mind and help keep those synapses in shape with the Word of the Week. In keeping with the election year theme, here's another piece of political terminology for you to ponder:

Frontrunneritis: (noun) The condition of being a leading candidate , especially the tendency to coast or to be under increased scrutiny by the press. -- "Hatchet Jobs and Hardball: The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang", Grant Barrett, ed., Oxford University Press, 2004.

Example: Many voters have been wondering if Obama will start showing signs of frontrunneritis and slack off in his campaigning now that he has gotten the nod from the Democratic Party.

Power Walls, Walls of Power

We can all bid a fond (?) farewell to those little carts that the New Arrivals and Staff Picks were living on--this afternoon our Power Walls arrived and were pretty much immediately filled up by eager staffers.

Look for the rotating displays to move into this area in the near future, along with the forthcoming Grab-n-Go items, more about which anon.