{"id":897,"date":"2011-04-18T09:03:01","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T13:03:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=897"},"modified":"2011-04-21T21:35:11","modified_gmt":"2011-04-22T01:35:11","slug":"the-missing-the-lost-and-the-stolen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/birthmarked\/the-missing-the-lost-and-the-stolen\/","title":{"rendered":"The Missing, the Lost, and the Stolen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now and then, when I\u2019m taking a quick break from writing, I go to WorldCat.org<\/a>, the free website that catalogues books in libraries worldwide, to see if anybody\u2019s reading my book.\u00a0 Birthmarked<\/em> is listed<\/a> in 720 libraries. \u00a0That seems like a lot to me.\u00a0 For a frame of reference, Harry Potter I<\/em> (1998) is in 5,021 libraries, and Printz-winning Paolo Bacigalupi\u2019s Ship Breaker<\/em> (2010) is in 1625.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

WorldCat.org NY Public Library, Birthmarked<\/p><\/div>\n

One amusing thing about the site is that it organizes the libraries by distance from my own zip code, so the system farthest away that carries my book is, at 10,400 miles, the Sutherland Shire Libraries in Australia.\u00a0 I get a kick out of that.<\/p>\n

For no particularly logical reason, I\u2019ve picked one library system to be my litmus test of whether anyone\u2019s reading my book, and that\u2019s the New York Public Library, which lists fourteen copies in eleven different locations, from Battery Park YA Fiction to Yorkville YA Fiction.\u00a0 If even one copy of Birthmarked<\/em> is checked out, I feel like I\u2019ve scored.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s as many as six.<\/p>\n

\"\"This weekend, I found something new when I checked the site.\u00a0 A copy has gone missing.\u00a0 MISSING!\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s just sincerely lost, but maybe MISSING is a euphemism for STOLEN!\u00a0 I\u2019m imagining some reader liked Gaia\u2019s story so much she stole it, hiding the hardcover furtively under her black jacket as she slunk out of the library and down the marble steps into the rain.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sort of a compliment, but only sort of.\u00a0 The problem is, now that my book is stolen, nobody else gets to read it.\u00a0 The poor frazzled librarians with their dismal budgets can\u2019t replace it, so the book will remain listed forever as missing, or maybe the entry will end up deleted.\u00a0\u00a0 In the meantime, once read, the book will molder under the thief\u2019s bed, with cookie crumbs and other stolen books, sadly wishing it were back on its old shelf beside\u00a0Day of the Assassins<\/em> by O\u2019Brien, Johnny \u00a0(unless that’s gone missing, too).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My friend Kay Cassidy, who runs the Great Scavenger Hunt Contest\u2122<\/a> for over 700 libraries nationwide, recently advised me not to sign the copy of Birthmarked<\/em> I sent along for one of the prize packs that she awards to librarians.\u00a0 Kay said that signed copies are more likely to walk.\u00a0 In short, making a book special defeats the purpose of donating it.\u00a0 Sad, right?<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m imagining the scope of hundreds of books all stolen<\/a> away.\u00a0 The police blotter<\/a> from Shaker Heights, OH recently posted that $12,000 worth of books were stolen over a seven-year period from two libraries there.\u00a0 We can start multiplying.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too awful to bear, frankly.\u00a0 So instead, I\u2019m hoping MISSING really just means \u201cmomentarily misplaced,\u201d like what happens with my keys upon occasion, and the book will show up soon, abashed perhaps for having let itself fall down a crack behind some other book for a day or two.\u00a0 I\u2019m picturing it getting a little dusting off and a quick shove back into place, ready for the next hungry patron.<\/p>\n

Sometimes optimism is all we have.\u00a0 Optimism and libraries.<\/p>\n

*Edited to Add: As of today, 4\/21, the MISSING listing has been changed to DUE 5-11-11, so the book has been found!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now and then, when I\u2019m taking a quick break from writing, I go to WorldCat.org, the free website that catalogues books in libraries worldwide, to see if anybody\u2019s reading my book.\u00a0 Birthmarked is listed in 720 libraries. \u00a0That seems like a lot to me.\u00a0 For a frame of reference, Harry Potter I (1998) is in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[9,67],"class_list":["post-897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birthmarked","tag-birthmarked-2","tag-libraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}