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This may sound a little crazy, but even though I’m on maternity leave for three months or so, this video made me nostalgic for my system. It’s the rather remarkable Why Libraries Matter short documentary from The Atlantic. Beautifully shot and LOOK! There’s Rita Meade again! Somebody give that gal her own show.

While we’re loving our libraries, let’s keep on keeping on.  Here’s Brooklyn Public Librarian Alla Roylance on her own journey and time in the library.  And yes, there are pregnant iguanas involved.

Oh, what the heck. One more.  Here’s a piece on how popular our storytimes are.  Shout outs to Danielle Kalan and Rachael Payne, who both appear in this piece.

I know he’ll soon be living in Brooklyn for a year, but I’d never had a chance to see the man behind Press Here actually speak.  Et voila!  Herve Tullet discusses his latest book.

Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link!

Actually, 100 Scope Notes had most of the good videos this week.  Like John Green’s 47 Charming Facts About Children’s Books.  Tell me this isn’t awesome.

Of course Fact #18 may be untrue.  I did some research for my upcoming book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature (how’s that for a plug, eh?) and though it didn’t make the final cut I have evidence that suggests that it was Potter’s MOTHER and not Potter herself who insulted young Roald.  I do not, however, have any evidence to suggest that it wasn’t Ms. Potter who yelled at Diana Wynne Jones’s sisters for swinging on her fence.  That story appears to be legit.

And for our off-topic video, a very amusing video for Les Miserables fans.  It’s what happens when you run the lyrics to One Day More through a Google translator and back again.

Thanks to Marci for the link.

In New York City, any library patron with $15 or more in fines can’t check out books. To ease this restriction, the New York Public Library and the Queens Public Library will allow 143,000 blocked kids a chance to “read down” their fines this summer.

Children who sign up on Summer Reading can take part in this program. Every fifteen minutes of reading reduces an overall fine by one dollar. The kids then record the titles and the time they spent reading on their Summer Reading 2011 account. The program kicked off on July 25th and will run until September 9th.

NYPL official Jack Martin told The NY Daily News: “Kids might be afraid or ashamed because they are delinquent with the library. The idea of this program is to bring them back in. We are in such hard economic times and children and teens depend on the library.” Do you think this is a fair trade-off? Would adults be open to “reading down” their fines too? (via BookTV)

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