Books, Beaches, & Blather

Baseball and Academics

This is a nice article about a really nice kid - we've only known Stephen for four years, but it's been a pleasure watching him grow up from a distance (well, across campus).

The New Dodger Stadium (& The Grove)

I think I'm really going to like this.

Meanwhile, anyone who as been to The Grove (the one! the only!) might enjoy this scathing review.

Picture of the Week

Summer

Up here on the Drescher Campus the students have left.  A few will be back for the summer term, but for the most part, the library will be relatively quiet for the next four months.  It's getting a little warmer here, too: instead of high temps in the mid 60's, we're having more and more days when the thermometer tops out around 72.  The collective mood on campus is lifting, too, for like the liturgical calendar for some, the academic calendar's rhythms have a direct impact on the psyches of most university employees.  Tomorrow night is the annual chi-chi faculty/staff appreciation dinner at the Millennium Biltmore downtown, and most nights I can open the windows and let cool ocean breezes blow through the house while I listen to Vin Scully call the Dodgers game.  Oh how intoxicating are summers in Southern California.

I haven't always liked summers.  In fact, growing up in Alabama, I hated summers.  Summers meant boredom, oppressive heat and humidity, bugs, scout camp.  I think I associated baseball (especially Atlanta Braves baseball) with all these things, so I never really liked baseball as a kid, either.  I still hate the Braves.  Instead, I loved Fall.  Fall meant many good things: school (lack of boredom), college football, pretty leaves, cooler days and nights, holidays around the corner. 

Now, Fall is my least favorite season.  October is our hottest month in California, and the Santa Anas that bring this heat often bring wildfires.  People here don't particularly care for college football, even if God's Gift to Humanity (the USC Trojans) play nearby.  And I don't care for all the Christmas music around these parts come November - it's hard to take any faux Victorian character seriously who sings "oh the weather outside is frightful" when it's 75 degrees out and sunny.

I'm looking forward to this summer because hopefully it will be lazy.  C is going to Spain for a quick research trip, but the most exotic places I'm traveling to this summer are Minnesota and Tennessee.  In late May, Pepperdine is hosting this year's Christian College Librarians conference, so between now and then I'll be spending a lot of time planning that bacchanalia, but other than that I can't say much else is stressing me right now.

I would like Andruw Jones to at least bat his weight.  But I guess his pathos is to be expected from a former Brave.

Bits

1.  As always, Chicago was quite fun.  It was nice to see so many friends.  Special thanks to JR for showing me around the U of Chicago campus; I'd never been there before and getting to poke around (albeit briefly) the Seminary Co-op bookstore was a definite highlight of the trip.  Oh yeah, another plus was seeing Obama's house up-close.  Not that I'm a stalker.

2.  Meanwhile, IU hired Tom Crean to be its head basketball coach.  I'm pleasantly surprised: he's saying all the right things, even down to the "I want to recruit players who know why we wear the candy-striped pants."  IU will be back in the Final Four within 5 years.  You heard it here first.

3.  A Seaver College graduation I may actually attend: Lasorda and Scully are the speakers.

4.  There are no more miserable web interfaces than library catalogs.  Most library catalogs are horrible; librarians are the first to admit this.  Worldcat Local looks fantastic, though - and thankfully we're getting it.  For a look at a first adapter, check out U-Dub.

5.  Speaking of librarian things, mad props to E. Henderson, our relatively-new special collections librarian.  Yesterday he hosted a special collections open house, and I was stunned to see some of the things we have hidden back in the climate-controlled vaults: first editions of a number of rare books (Uncle Tom's Cabin, Don Quixote), bibles from the 16th century, personally autographed presidential materials from Eisenhower forward, etc...now all displayed in an attractive setting back in Payson's special collections room.  Who knew there was more there than surfboards?

6.  It will be nice to have Elrod here.

Chicago

It's that time of year again, and while C typically must attend, this year I'm tagging along with her.  Chicago is one of my favorite cities, and six months out of the year I'm tempted to think I'd like it more than L.A.  That's probably because I don't normally visit the city in the winter (when it's in the 60's here) or in the summer (when it's in the 70's here).

I'm planning for this trip to be a geek tour - there are numerous libraries in Chicago I've never visited, and hopefully this time I'll visit the business libraries of Northwestern, DePaul, and the U of C.  Pepperdine shares a similar structural arrangement with each of these schools: main campuses somewhat outside of the urban center, with business school campuses closer to the business/financial centers of the city.  Maybe I'll go and learn something.  Maybe not.   Otherwise, not much else is planned...it will be good to catch up with friends who live there (M.Scott, J.Hooten, and C.Greene) and if I'm lucky get to wolf down a cinnamon roll from Ann Sather.