Sorcery & Cecelia: or, The Now-Quotidian Long Tail

Back in the mid-to late 1990s, I was on a quest. I wanted to find a copy of a book by Patricia Wrede and Carolyn Stevermer called Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot. It came out in 1988, and I missed it, but I had loved Patricia Wrede's fantasy Lyra books, and I knew enough to know that S&C was a regency romance. In epistollary style. With magic. And I had to have it. I lived in a smallish city in Oregon (Corvallis) and it was not to be found there. So I went on the quest: As we travelled, my spouse and I would always look for second-hand book stores and check them out, for S&C and general second-hand bookstore finds. 

I never found it, but not for lack of trying. And at some point in the early 2000s I discovered Bookfinder and was finally able to purchase it (but not immediately! The first time I looked, it only listed one copy for $75!). 

So when I saw this tweet today, it took me down memory land a bit - the book that I spent over six years trying to find as an analog item could now be purchased with the press of a one-click button: 

Sorcery & Cecelia or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot-Patricia Wrede & Caroline Stevermer 3.99 http://t.co/J2KqCIiNbO |ARe http://t.co/veBORrxiQ5
— Sarah Wendell (@SmartBitches) July 18, 2014

Every so often you have to step back and think about what a weird world this is. As NYT writer Nick Bilton wrote, I Live in the Future. 

Today, of course, I'm especially aware that the shiny side of the future comes along with a dark side - with horrible things like weaponry that can shoot an airliner out of the sky. I'm also remembering how I felt when I finally held Sorcery & Cecelia in my hands: on one  hand, so glad to finally have it (and I totally loved it when I read it!), but on the other hand, a tiny bit sorry that my quest - that had led us to so many second hand bookstores in every town we visited - was over. I still go to second-hand bookstores, of course (but so much less over the past four years since I got an ereader) but it was never quite the same...

My Road to Librarianship (catch that meme!)

I read on another library blog, Guardienne of the Tomes, that there was a "how did you become a librarian" meme running its course, and although I also wasn't tagged,I thought I would write it up. It's fun to recall how things happened!

So my mom was a library worker (with a B.A in library science from Mississippi State College for Women) and my Aunt Mary ran the Blandford, MA library for years, so I guess I was fated to become a librarian! In fact, that’s what I told people I wanted to be in grade school (when it wasn’t being a fighter pilot). In fact, I actually kinda enrolled in library school in the late 80s – my first class was in the spring term and it jumped *right into* the MARC record. Honestly, I was kinda freaked out, and I had a job offer anyway, so I dropped out almost immediately.

The job offer was from Project Vote Smart, where I worked from 1989 to 1997, when I left to really go to library school. I was the first paid employee and for a long time I did pretty much everything, but eventually ended up running the Reporter’s Resource Center, among (still) many other things (OK, I have to boast a little – I was on C-SPAN once!). I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was doing Special Library work. Eventually I knew that I needed to leave and go do other things, and I thought I would get an advanced degree in public policy. But I actually never got around to taking the SAT, or applying.

So, in the fall of 1996 I got an invitation to be on a panel at Washington State University’s Foley Institute on How to be a Better Consumer of Political News. It was me and a bunch of journos, and the conversation quickly went into blame-the-media territory, which just wasn’t my deal, so I stayed pretty quiet. So someone saw that, and lobbed a question aimed straight at me, about access to information, and I just went to town on it (I can only say) passionately (I still have the video of the forum – haven’t watched it in years, but I should digitize it as part of my personal history!).

Flying back to Corvallis from Pullman, I started thinking. I had actually suggested librarianship as a possible career for my husband, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe that was really want I wanted to do – it was a career that embodied connecting people with information, leading to knowledge, often at a one-on-one level. So when I got home, I took Mark out to lunch and confessed that I wanted to go to library school myself, and *now*!. Luckily he was cool with it! Immediately I arranged to take the SAT, and applied to the University of Washington’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science. I got in, started in 1997, graduated in 1999, was *incredibly lucky* to be hired as an adjunct librarian at UW’s Suzzallo Library (a great experience, with absolutely great people!) and – should I say coincidently or ironically? – got hired as a social science and instruction librarian at Washington State University in 2000! Mark got a temporary staff job at WSU’s Manuscript, Archives and Special Collections in 2001, and then started working at Pullman's Neill Public Library. He enrolled in the UW’s MLIS distance program the year it opene , and got his degree in 2005 (he works at the WSU Libraries as well, now). Funny, how it all came together in a big circle in the end!

I'm so glad I went to library school. I love what I do!