One [Insert Entity], One-or-So Book(s)

As soon as the group presenting on One City-One Book (OCOB) mentioned that 48 states have had OCOB programs, I wanted to know which two states haven't had similar programs. Upon asking one of the group members the same question, my suspicions were confirmed: West Virginia was one of those two states (Arizona being the other, as far as the group member could remember). Not surprising to me at all. In what is traditionally ranked as the 50th-least-literate state/District of Columbia out of 51 (we have a saying in West Virginia, "Thank God for Mississippi"), I'm not at all surprised that a literacy-promoting program has not been instituted there. And yet West Virginia managed to produce some of my favorite librarians of all times, the public and school librarians who inspired my love of reading through pre-school and elementary school times, on through middle school (probably my favorite librarian content-wise, because she knew exactly what types of books I liked and used that to introduce me to new books, including my now-favorite author) and even the grandmother of one of my best friends who was my high school librarian. But anyway, I digress for the sake of lauding some of my librarians, in contrast to the abysmal lack of literacy programs and even of literacy itself in West Virginia.

So how do I feel about OCOB programs? I'm not a huge fan, to be honest. I think the concept behind them is pretty good, to encourage discourse amongst community members, based in a common experience. But having participated in two years' worth of them here on campus, I have yet to experience that heightened sense of engagement. I mean, I may have enjoyed Henrietta Lacks because it was a pleasant read, significantly less academic than the rest of the stuff I was reading. And I may have felt passionately about Michael Pollen's In Defense of Food (I was the one on Wednesday night who rather loudly whispered "That books sucked!" when the OCOB group mentioned it. I don't like being told that everything I do is wrong, particularly when it comes to the love of my life, food.). But the extent of my discourse about that book was with my roommate, who thinks that Michael Pollen is a god (perhaps she thinks he is God? No, she's an atheist, but I think she believes he's as close as it gets), when I complained about his abrasive manner of presenting his arguments. And the extent of my HeLa discourse was limited to in class. I find this one more surprising, because with a science background, I would expect myself to engage more passionately in these discussions, but assigned readings just really don't do it for me.

Pearl Growing

I know that this post is going to be a bit different than most other this week, because I'm not going to write directly about Henrietta Lacks. Instead, I'm going to write about an information-gathering technique that is much more broadly applied than it would seem in library literature, that of "pearl growing". Now, stick with me, because this actually does apply to Henrietta (or at least to the book). Pearl growing is a term using in reference services for the process of finding a paper applicable to the topic you're researching, looking at the keywords assigned to that paper, and conducting searches based on those new terms. You may only start with one or two words that explain your topic, but through pearl growing, you get a wide vocabulary and a broad base of searchable terms to help you find additional applicable resources.

Now, how does this relate to Henrietta Lacks? Well, I'm taking a bit of artistic license and expanding my definition of pearl growing. If Buckland can classify an antelope as a document (and no, he can't; a document is a VERY strictly prescribed in its sense, as far as this future librarian believes), then I can classify Rebecca Skloot's technique as pearl growing. Skloot goes about gathering information regarding HeLa in a method very similar to that of a reference librarian. A reference librarian may only have books and articles available to him or her to answer the question posed, whereas Skloot is mostly using people and interviews, but nonetheless Skloot uses each interview, telephone call, and medical record as a method for adding words and people to her search. From reading medical records, she gains the names of doctors involved in the medical procedures on Henrietta. From the doctors she finds there, she finds the names of other doctors and the identities of professional organizations concerned with HeLa. Skloot is almost explicit in her use of pearl growing when she talks to the owner of the convenience store in Virginia, who was the proprietor of the to-be HeLa museum and who took her to the cemetery where Henrietta was buried. I don't know that Skloot would describe her technique as pearl growing, but I don't know how we can deny the fact that she adds people and search terms to her repertoire every time she meets another person or reads another person.

So, one may ask the question of why we read the Henrietta Lacks book for LIS 450. Considering that one group in the class is exploring the topic of "One City, One Book", we can certainly argue that we read for similar purposes: reading is a social activity, we glean much experience out of everyone having read the same book. However, I believe that HeLa offers us further insight: the process of interview-based research is not terribly dissimilar [please excuse me, George Orwell, for such an anglophonic (yes, I coined that word) phrase] from that of library research, and we as librarians should keep in mind that the marriage of library and interview-based research can often be quite complementary to one another.

nacre (ˈneɪkə) -n
	the technical name for mother-of-pearl

I have to give a shout-out to Rex Parker, my favorite blogger. Rex Parker daily solves the New York Times crossword puzzle, giving explanations of many of the answers in the day's puzzle. I only comment on his blog today because nacre is an extremely common crossword puzzle, and is related to the growing of pearls. Click on the picture of the crossword to access Rex's blog.