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By David Rothman

Rochelle HartmanThe Raccoon has confessed. When Rochelle Hartman started blogging a year ago yesterday, she expected that “I’d put it aside in a few weeks like a complicated needlepoint project.”

After all, the woman behind Tinfoil + Raccoon has attention deficit disorder. While the subtitle of her blog is “Looking for the new and shiny in library land and beyond,” she doubted that T+R would survive her ADHD.

Instead she has created one of the most useful and readable of library blogs–and stuck to it.

She doesn’t just write about Rochelle the librarian but also about Rochelle the mother. When one of the young Raccoons, for example, had trouble finding an up-to-date book of interest to prospective video games creators, Rochelle used that as a peg in an essay against the Netphobia of certain teachers. “She’s really buzzed about learning more,” Rochelle wrote of her daughter. “I’ve had numerous students over the years who have come into the library to work on research papers, and balk when I show them one of the subscription databases, chock full o’ authoritative, paid-for, full-text sources. ‘My teacher says I can only use one internet source,’ they tell me.” Oh the folly!

Those are the kinds of gems, you can expect from Rochelle. On top of that, I’ve especially enjoyed the way she’s beaten up on today’s electronic books–about the technical complexities, about the Rube Goldbergish DRM and the rest. Rochelle is far more tech-hip than the typical librarian, ADHD or not, and yet even she cannot stomach such joys as HotSync. I’ll never be happy about e-book technology until it’s Rochelle-friendly. Thanks, Rochelle, for helping to keep the priorities straight–whether involving the world at large or people with special challenges. And happy Blogsday!

Raccoon details: Rochelle originally called her blog “Curious George is My Copilot.” I’m glad she settled on the raccoon name instead. You see, real-life raccoons are attracted by the bright and shiny–tinfoil and whatever; they’re among the ADHDs of the animal kingdom. The irony is that T+R, while written in a light style, has a far better signal-to-noise ratio than more pundit-like blogs.

A raccoon’s childhood: While Rochelle can be self-deprecating, T+R’s success is in many ways quite in character for her. Not only does she hold an MLIS degree from the highly regarded library school at the University of Illinois, but she’s also on the ALA council and the board of LibraryCity.

Beyond that, the ADHD is just one obstacle Rochelle has had to overcome. Rochelle grew up in a rural area underserved by libraries–the kind of place where raccoon hunting sometimes can be more in vogue than books, at least excluding the Bible. Rochelle loves both cultures and is obviously keen on the idea of shrinking the gap between them. E-book technology and other aspects of digital libraries, if done right, can help. I want to see more books reaching the sons and daughters of raccoon hunters–and more blogs and books from them, too, especially writings as valuable as Rochelle’s.

Using e-books well in rural areas: Schools need to use technology to provide more personal instruction, not less, and one way is to strengthen the library-school connection at the individual level. Check out E-Books and Homer Hickam.

 
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