Christmas is coming.

It seems like the US can't get started on Christmas soon enough. In early October the stores were already setting up holiday displays. Now that Halloween has passed, all efforts at restraint seem to have disappeared. At the library we're just as guilty. We've got a holiday fiction display up. And believe you me, things are flying off the shelf. It's nuts.

It has even gotten to me. I'm already mentally planning a cookie exchange, making lists of gifts for my loved ones, and thinking of how to decorate the apartment. Since this is my first Christmas living alone and so far from friends and family, I've got a lot of freedom. I also have a cat that likes to bat at anything hanging...

I'm going to be replacing the beautiful glass ornaments that usually adorn my tiny tree with homemade ones. I'm planning on documenting the entire process up here, so check back for updates. Please feel free to send ideas too!

Edible Book

To combine libraries and handmade things for the first time on the blog, I thought I would bring you something happening at my very own school-- the UW Edible Book Festival. I was not able to attend (I was busy making dinner for some very special friends who just got engaged!) but there was a lot of buzz about it in SLIS (School of Library and Information Studies).

The idea is to create something out of edible objects that resembles a book or relates to the experience of reading. This kind of project can appeal to a lot of different folks: artists, kids, teachers, bibliophiles, chefs, or someone who's bored and has a lot of extra spaghetti sitting around. Until I got to SLIS, I had never heard of an edible book--and judging from the emails sent around, they were having a hard time getting people to participate. To me this is an example of poor library marketing. (We'll get into that later...)

Opportunities to make libraries centers of creativity and community are why I got into librarianship in the first place. Hopefully, the Edible Book Festival will continue to thrive and expand, in turn bringing new faces and ideas into our libraries.

For more information and pics of previous festivals, go over here.