Thank you, Melissa Marr!

Several weeks ago, while scouring the internet in my never-ending quest for all things fascinating and wonderful in the land of books, I discovered that New York Times bestselling author Melissa Marr was offering a small number of copies of her books to schools and libraries, first come, first served. So, I sent her an email request. She responded very kindly and positively, and today...she visited the Library to present the Young Adult section with autographed copies of her books Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange, and also a copy of Love Is Hell, a book of short stories by Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Gabrielle Zevin, and Laurie Faria Stolarz. Melissa even donated three T-shirts, and Ink Exchange temporary tattoos. Such generosity!

Wicked Lovely spent 11 weeks as a New York Times Bestseller, (going up to #2), was an LA Times fiction bestseller, and is on Amazon's "Best Books of the Year So Far" list (one of only TEN in the children/teen category).

I was completely surprised that she visited in person (I had thought that she would probably mail the books to us), but not too surprised to grab the nearest Melissa Marr fan and take a picture for this blog!
(l-r: Melissa Marr, Keira Richardson (holding the Library's new copy of Ink Exchange.)

Melissa is from this area. She grew up in Hollidaysburg and frequently visited our local libraries, and in her own words, "H-burg Library gave me hours of joy growing up."

You can visit Melissa Marr's website at www.melissa-marr.com. Her next book, Fragile Eternity, is coming out in April.

Why this librarian wants more shouting in her library

Following is an excerpt from an article by Vicky Myron, a library director in Iowa. She wrote the book Dewey about a cat (full name: Dewey Readmore Books) who lived at her library for 20 years and touched many lives. After saying that she hopes she's honored Dewey's life, Ms. Myron adds this:

I hope I've also captured something else: the magic of libraries. Libraries aren't warehouses for books; they are meeting houses for human beings. A good library is less an institution than a home. It has comfortable seats, desks, computers, friendly people and, yes, sometimes even a cat. Libraries are society's great leveling agent: they offer job listings, financial information, technology, entertainment, any book you want. For free. I hate it when people tiptoe through a library. "This isn't a graveyard," I want to shout. "It's alive. So live a little!"

Librarians aren't little old ladies who spend all day stamping books and shushing people. We love to have fun, for one thing. But we also have interesting jobs that entail, among other things, planning community events; adopting new technologies; battling censorship; and reaching out to underprivileged groups. We provide job banks in tough times, free childcare for working parents, and, in Spencer at least, translators for errands and doctors visits, the town's only Spanish-language outreach. Be warned: librarians are studying you, and they know what you need. That's their job.