Thoughts on Information Literacy at the Booksale

It's Tuesday, and day 4 of the Friends of the Library of Hawaii booksale and I have gone 3 out of the 4 days. :) Books are organized in broad categories (literature, hobbies, art, philosophy, sci-fi, etc.) but aren't always necessarily under the category you'd figure they would be in. Furthermore, broad categories are as organized as it'll get...no Dewey decimal system there! As I wandered through the tables of books today I thought - you know, this is kind of like surfing the internet in a way. There's a ton of information there and you try your best to search where you think you'll find what you want - but really, you've just got to search and dig. You can pull out a book of interest because the title looks interesting, or maybe because the spine or cover appeals to you somehow, but really, until you pull it out and look closely, you really don't know. You need to use some critical thinking and information literacy skills to find what you want and decide whether the book you picked up is what you want.

I picked up some excellent books from the bookfair a few of which I was actively looking for, and some that...how shall I put this...I didn't know I wanted until I found them! I was judicious in my decisions, of course, I put back some books I was definitely interested in but thought that they wouldn't be high on my reading list and perhaps they would be higher up on someone else's list.

Here are the treasures I came away with:
1) Tuesday's With Morrie - Mitch Albom
2) Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
3) Amazing Grace - Jonathan Kozol
4) Research Design - John Creswell
5) This Book is not Required (revised edition) - Inge Bell & Bernard McGrane
6) Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington - Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein
7) Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell (SCORE!!!)
8) The Accidental Asian - Eric Liu
9) Waiting for Snow in Havana - Carlos Eire
10) Zami A New Spelling of My Name - Audre Lorde

--All of these for about $16!!! :)

While completely engrossed in Banker to the Poor (while walking to the office) I ran into a woman who wanted to see what I was reading. I came away from that conversation with yet another book recommendation, "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson - I will have to get it, it's totally up my alley. "Reading Lolita in Tehran" is also now on my list. Man, I'd kill for a "pause" button for my life so I could stop everything for a bit and just READ.

I've decided that someday I'll have a (small) library. I haven't figured out where I'd put it. It might be cool to have a library as a room all by itself - but if I ever have kids I doubt I'd have the space. Maybe I'll just have the library in the living room? I could definitely live in a library. The bathroom is (obviously) a logical choice but for sanitation reasons I think I'll pass on that one.......