Predictive Humor

It's almost scary! Almost seven years ago, I wrote the infamous satirical list of Thin Books for Busy Librarians - which included "Successful Introduction of Beowulf to Reluctant Readers". Sitting on the shelves of my library now are two books that are achieving just that; one a graphic novel and the other a 'picture book' version. Mind you, the reasonably recent release of the movie of the book didn't hurt, either.

Today I attended one of the most worthwhile Professional Development activities I've been to in literally decades - Kevin Hennah's Visual merchandising and space management for libraries. Not only were the ideas brilliant, but also achievable, budget wise. But the scary bit was the fact that I wrote another satirical piece ages ago (as in years, not geological epochs), on how to tart up a daggy library with sticky tape and library glue.

Fortunately, today's event wasn't a presentation about tacking up your basic bits of paper, with tragic layout, onto already cluttered walls and noticeboards. In a strange sort of a way that was a bit of a shame, really - that's one of my areas of speciality.

Words cannot describe how a very impressive change can be achieved, with the expenditure of only a few hundred dollars. Actually that's not quite true. Words could describe it ... but its been a long day, and I haven't had my afternoon Power Coma yet. [Power "naps" are for whimps.]