Soda pop and zombies

I’m sharing these merely because I found them amusing:

  • The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy — What do you call carbonated beverages? Soda? Pop? Coke? If you live in Peoria County, odds are you call it “soda,” even though most of northern Illinois calls it “pop.” How do I know? Because someone has taken the time to put together a map of Generic Soft Drink Names by County. It’s just part of a website created by Alan McConchie devoted to the topic.

    When I was in grade school, our family called everything “coke.” It was like calling all tissues “Kleenex” or all copiers “Xerox machines.” We didn’t mean the brand, but the type of product. “Do you want a coke?” “Sure.” “What kind?” “7-Up.” According to the map, that’s a southern thing.

    And then there are the variations. A former co-worker of mine used to call it “sodee.” She was the assistant team leader of our work group, and a couple of us in the group teased her about her pronunciation. “How do you get ‘sodee’ out of a word spelled s-o-d-a?” we’d ask. Irritated with us, she said, “Everyone I know pronounces it that way,” and then, to prove her point, turned to another team member and asked, “How do you pronounce soda? Sodee?”

  • Pride and Prejudice and Zombies — Yes, that’s the real title of a real book that is due to be released later this year, written by Seth Grahame-Smith and co-author Jane Austen. According to the publisher, Quirk Books, it’s “The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!”

    “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.

    That’s one way to get teenage boys to read Austen. I can’t wait for the movie.

Peoria Public Library weeding its collections

dumpster-readerA concerned taxpayer recently told me about the library throwing out a large number of books:

I take my kids to the downtown library a few times a week. I have noticed on a number of occasions that there are people dumping books into the dumpsters behind the buildings. When I asked [someone at the library] what was going on she said that the library was eliminating thousands of books from their collection. I was told that they are also removing most of the magazines and older books that have been stored in the basement level. She said that most all eliminated material is being thrown away and hardly any of it is being donated.

Well, that was certainly a provocative tip! I immediately wrote to library director Ed Szynaka, and he forwarded my inquiry to assistant director Leann Johnson. She basically confirmed what I was told and gave me the following explanation:

Withdrawing items from the collection is an ongoing process for libraries and Peoria Public Library locations strive to maintain an up-to-date and useful collection as well as a strong local history and genealogy collection. As observed, materials are discarded and the reported comment as to the number of items refers to an intensified effort to get the collection in good condition before the imminent building project begins. That being said, this is a very tough thing for librarians to do as we, like all book lovers, find it hard to let go of books of any kind. But the reality of the renovation of the Main Street Library has taken hold and we are now making the decisions that have been on the back burner for a long time.

I appreciate your asking if we donate books and about the library’s policy. Most of the materials are given to the Friends of the Library for their book sales. Proceeds from the book sales then support the wide variety of programs offered by the Library. Other recent cooperative efforts include working with Thomas Jefferson school after the fire, providing childrens’ books to a local church group for a school library in Louisiana, housing a collection of older materials related to the Civil War in the reading room of the GAR Hall, and working with Eastern Illinois University to transfer a large collection of government documents known as the Serial Set to an academic setting where the material is more likely to be used and stored appropriately. Materials that don’t get sold, donated, or recycled are then discarded. We do recycle and would like to recycle more. To my knowledge no recyclers in the area accept hardbound books. We continue to try to locate a recycler who will.

The answer to which books get eliminated and which are retained is a long one and depends on a variety of factors including general condition, outdated information (particularly in the areas of science, medicine and law), demand, copyright dates along with last date circulated, duplicate copies, superseded editions. These guidelines vary based on the subject (Dewey number) or genre. We do have a Collection Management Policy as well as “Weeding” Guidelines for withdrawing materials from the collection. The guidelines are adapted from The CREW Method: Expanded Guidelines for Collection Evaluation and Weeding for Small and Medium-Sized Public Libraries by Belinda Boon. Older materials present another challenge altogether and we take into consideration local topics that provide insight into the history of our area, historic events, unusual topics or unique items.

I hope this helps to answer your questions.

The acronym “CREW” in “The CREW Method” stands for “Continuous Review, Evaluation, and Weeding.” You can read about this method at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission website.