2010 ALA Book Cart Drill Championship

Librarians can be tacky treasures, as was proven at the 2010 ALA Book Cart Drill Championship.  Dancing to choreographed routines, librarians pushed and pulled book carts to music, for the chance to win a gold, silver, or bronze book cart from DEMCO, the competition’s sponsor.  But I suspect most of them did it because librarians just want to have fun.  Since the American Library Association Conference was held in Washington, D.C. this year, I got to witness it for myself.

The first place winner was the team from the University of Pittsburgh School of Library and Information Science, “Dance of the Living Librarians.”  Their performance was mesmerizing.  Watch this video, and at the end, imagine the roar of the audience, which I did not capture:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruvd9nzdiKs

The second and third place winners were almost as good.  In this video, I have the third place entry first, then the second.  I don’t have the names of these teams, and if I do find out who they are, I’ll post it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky7mCUUN630

Here is the YouTube channel with the official videos…much better quality than mine:  http://www.youtube.com/user/Circulatethefun

Ladies' Hammer, gift of Pete Marshall, June 2010

Rosie the Riveter called…she wants her arm back!

This is supposed to be a ladies’ hammer.  Certainly, judging by its heft, it probably could drive small nails.  But do women really need a hammer that’s different from what a man needs?  I have a regular hammer made by Stanley, because, let’s face it, you don’t see Home Depot selling “ladies’ nails,” do you?  You don’t look at a piece of wood, and think, “This is a piece of ladies’ wood.  I’d better go get my ladies’ hammer!”

So, why, you might ask, would anyone make a hammer specifically for ladies, especially one as bizarre as this?  In the mid-twentieth century, the main strategy for reaching out to women customers was to take a man’s product and shrink it, then offer it in “feminine” colors such as pink.  This became known as “shrink it and pink it” in marketing parlance.  Although serious marketing research eventually showed this to be an oversimplification, examples of marketing to women in this manner persist to this day.

This ladies’ hammer appears to be made of molded metal that has been painted to look like a woman’s arm.  The heart with an arrow through it tattoo is a special touch.  Veins bulging from the muscular form give the impression of strength.  The black patch on the fist is the actual peen of this hammer.   However, from an ergonomic point of view, it’s not that useful if you have a lot of nails to drive in…unless, I suppose, they are ladies’ nails.

Reverse side of hammer