Confessions of an Audio Book Addict

In my first blog post last year, I said I couldn’t make any promises as to how often I would post to this blog, but even I didn’t think it would be sixteen months between posts! I’ll try to do better.

A few months ago, there was an article in the New York Times titled Your Cheatin’ Listenin’ Ways.* The article discussed how many book club members across the country were criticized by other book club members and accused of “cheating” because they listened to their book club titles instead of reading them. The Lyme Public Library has a book club, and I confess that I listen to most of the titles we discuss. Unabridged audio books are word for word exactly the same as the print versions, and I fail to see how this is “cheating” or taking the easy way out. Since I can barely get through ten pages of a book before falling asleep when I’m reading in bed at night, if I didn’t listen to the books, I doubt I’d finish any of them on time. But I was curious as to how our book club members felt about it, so I brought it up at our first meeting after our summer break. I already knew that at least one other member of the group listened to some of the titles on tape or cd, and a few others admitted to doing so occasionally. None of the group members seemed to have any real objections to the practice.

I was a late convert to audio books. I had tried listening to some when they first became popular, but I couldn’t seem to keep my attention focused on them, so I gave up. Quite a few years later, we received All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg as part of our quarterly selection from the regional audio book cooperative. I had heard a critic from the Los Angeles Times characterize it as an American Angela’s Ashes. I wanted to read it but never seemed to find the time. So when it came in as an audio book, I decided to give listening another try. Whether it was the book itself, which is wonderful, or the narrator (Frank Muller), I was entranced. I could have listened forever, and ever since, I have been hooked on audio books. The audio version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince helped me survive a hellish train ride to Chicago and back several years ago. The actor Jim Dale narrates all of the Harry Potter audio books, and he does a marvelous job voicing all the different characters. There are as many or more adults who request the HP book on audio from our library as there are children.

My favorite audio book that I’ve listened to recently is Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver. I am not a cook or a gardener. Actually, I dislike both of those activities, but Kingsolver’s account of her family’s move from Arizona to a farm in rural Appalachia is funny, touching and informative without being preachy. Her family decided for one year to consume only food that either they produced or was produced locally. She is not a vegetarian, and she does not expect other people to make the same decision her family made, but her story does illustrate how food we produce can enrich our lives and how corporations’ power to control not only the quality of food that is available to us, but what kinds of foods are available to us can diminish them. I wish everyone would read it.

So, if you don’t have enough time to read, try an audio book. You can listen while you drive, exercise, cook, clean or rest. I also invite you to try out the Lyme Library Book Club. We meet on the second Thursday of the month at 7 P.M. You can come to all our meetings or just a few. This spring we will have three local authors joining us. Lyme resident James Benn will join us on February 14 to talk about his book The First Wave. Lyme resident Susan Cole, who works with Wally Lamb and the inmates in the writers’ program at the York Correctional Facility in Niantic, is a contributor to their new book I’ll Fly Away and will speak about it on April 10, and East Haddam resident Bruce McGhie will join us on May 8 to discuss his book Ascent. Our whole book club schedule is available at our web site http://www.lymepl.org/. Copies of the books are available at the library 3-4 weeks before each meeting, and if you decide to listen instead of read, I promise we won’t frown on it!

*Andrew Adam Newman "Your Cheatin' Listenin' Ways." New York Times, August 2, 2007, Late Edition (east Coast), http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed November 10, 2007).

The Connecticut Four

My first job interview out of library school was for the position of Children’s Librarian at the Old Lyme Phoebe Griffin Noyes Library. The Library Director at PGN at that time was Peter Chase. Peter eventually moved on and is currently the Director of the Plainville Public Library. He has been on my mind frequently of late because as you may have seen in the news media, he is also a member of the Connecticut Four. He became a member of this elite club by doing what many librarians do – volunteering his time as an officer of a non-profit library consortium. What he got for his trouble (along with two other officers and the Executive Director of the consortium called Library Connections, Inc.) was a visit from the FBI, a National Security Letter demanding confidential records about library users, and a gag order prohibiting him from telling anyone about it – his staff, board members, the media, friends, family, even his spouse – EVER!

The prospect of being visited by federal agents or other law enforcement officials who demand that you violate the fundamental and most basic tenets of your profession or else risk imprisonment is enough to make a person shake in his or her boots, and librarians I know who have received such visits freely admit to doing just that. I imagine that the Connecticut Four were shaking in their boots as well, but not only did they refuse to turn the records over to the FBI, they contacted the American Civil Liberties Union and filed suit in Federal Court to challenge the gag order.

Librarians are just as eager to stop terrorism as everyone else, and libraries have surrendered confidential records in the past when presented with court ordered warrants and subpoenas that were obtained by providing the required evidence of criminal activity. The provision of the USA Patriot Act that authorizes the expanded use of National Security Letters and imposes a gag order is troublesome because no judicial oversight or court order is required. Federal agents do not have to prove to a court that there is evidence of criminal activity. They can conduct fishing expeditions into citizens’ private lives without cause and for no other reason than that they might get lucky and find something all the while requiring that their investigation be kept secret. It is not only librarians and the ACLU who find this unacceptable. Many states, cities and towns across the country, including Lyme, have passed resolutions opposing any provisions of the Patriot Act or Homeland Security Act that violate citizens’ civil rights. Included in the Resolution passed at the Lyme Annual Town meeting on May 27, 2005 are concerns about “expansion of authority to conduct unregulated electronic surveillance of lawful activities” and “expanded information gathering about persons without any demonstrated evidence of criminal behavior and without court order.” It also states that “the privacy rights and intellectual freedoms of its residents are affirmed and librarians, booksellers and other communications dealers are supported in protecting those rights.”

The Connecticut Four and the ACLU were successful in having the gag order overturned in Federal Court although not in time to allow them to speak publicly on the reauthorization of portions of the Patriot Act. Last week, the FBI rescinded its demand for the confidential records from Library Connections, Inc. Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most revered founding fathers once wrote: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” The Connecticut Four were not willing to sacrifice that liberty for themselves or for the rest of us, and for that they have my admiration, respect and gratitude.

Holy Wi-Fi, Batman! The Lyme Public Library has a blog!

Welcome to the Lyme Public Library Blog! Thanks to continuing education workshops sponsored by organizations such as the Connecticut State Library, the Connecticut Library Consortium, and the Connecticut Library Association, we dinosaurs who went to library school before the computer revolution can keep up with new technologies. The particular workshop that taught me how to set up this blog was called “Getting the 411 on New Technologies: Blogs, Wikis, Mobile Devices and more.”

The purpose of this blog is to keep the community informed of library services, programs, and events, and occasionally to comment on issues that affect this library or libraries in general. Despite disseminating information in our print newsletter, our web site, print and online media outlets, flyers, etc., there always seem to be people who say they didn’t see it, so this is one more tool we can use to try to get the word out, albeit in a more casual way. In addition, if you have any questions about the library or topics you’d like to see addressed in this blog, email us at lplblog@gmail.com. I can’t make any promises as to how often I will post to the blog. Despite my good intentions, I have a feeling it won’t be as often as I’d like, but I hope you’ll check in periodically to see what’s happening at the library. Again, welcome, and thanks for reading.