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     On our first date, my husband-to-be asked what I did for a living.  I told him I was a school librarian.  "Well there's a profession that will be obsolete in twenty years," he chuckled. I did not chuckle. I did marry him and twenty five years later I am still waiting for his prediction to come true.

   OK, I admit that twenty five years ago I never dreamed that I would have a phone that could help me find my way around the zillion streets of Atlanta named "Peachtree."  Or a device that could download hundreds of books, cutting down considerably on overweight luggage fees. My 1989 school library had computers, but they were little more than fancy typewriters. Who knew that entering the right search words on my jazzy little laptop could find pictures of the battleships my father-in-law served on in WWII?  Or the history of the long demolished amusement park of my childhood, the genesis of The Roller Coaster Kid?  Yes, Craig was right...I could access all that information without setting foot in a library.

    But yet there are still libraries. In my neck of the woods, it appears that most people are there for free computer time and to check out videos. If I am there, it is to do research. Guess what? Not everything is available on the Internet. At least not for free.  When I wrote Jimmy's Stars and Yankee Girl I spent months reading newspapers from WWII and the 1960's....on microfilm machines.  While there are a good number of old periodicals available online these days, they never seem to be the ones I need or there is a hefty fee to join a database.  All the branch libraries in my immediate area were built in the last 15 years and don't have microfilm machines. But if I need one, all I have to do is go downtown to the main library.

   The library is a source of professional literature such as Library Journal or Publisher's Weekly. Usually they are kept in the librarians' work area, but they have always let me read them on the premises if I ask.  There are also databases and reference materials that I can't find anywhere else...at least not for free.

    I have had the good fortune to have worked in a university library which gave me access to all
kinds of information not found in a public library. My library allowed the public to use the collection for a nominal yearly fee. As an employee I had free reign, but even if I hadn't, I would have paid the fee.  It's something to investigate.

     I could go on forever about the information that you will find only in a library....but why tell you?  Check it out yourself. By the way, my husband has had to finally admit that libraries and librarians are not obsolete or likely to become so any time soon.

Posted by Mary Ann Rodman

This week we have author/illustrator Roger Roth with us.  He comes from a creative family, where his great uncle painted sets for the New York theater at the turn of the century, his mother went to art school (she later became an elementary school teacher) and his dad was a writer. He’s been interested in art since he was young, and actually, by 1st grade kids were paying him to draw their portraits!  When he was 15, his parents sent him to Saturday art classes at the Philadelphia College of Art (now called University of the Arts) and he studied under Milton Feldman.  Roger says this was very important to his development as an artist and when he published his first children’s book (The Giraffe That Walked to Paris), he dedicated it to him.

When he is not working on a children’s book, visiting a school, or doing an editorial illustration, you can find him at the University of the Arts, where he is a senior lecturer in the illustration department.

His wife Darlene, is a writer and editor, and they worked together on Star of the Week. It’s a story about a girl who resembles their wonderful daughter, Eden and inspired by her story. Roger, Darlene, Eden, and their dogs, Dobo and Drizzle live outside of Philadelphia.

Roger graduated from Pratt University in 1980, with a degree in fine art and has been a working artist ever since.  He’s done everything from painting murals in restaurants to illustrating a column in the New York Times (He did that for 4 years). He’s been illustrating children’s books since 1982.

He has written and illustrated two children’s books, both came from real life experiences. He used to work as a sign painter, and the man who owned the company, Clarence, was the inspiration for The Sign Painter’s Dream. He loves to go ice fishing with his friends, Chris, Ed and Rick, so that theme turned up in Fishing for Methuselah.

His editorial work has appeared in many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Barron’s and he has also done a lot of work for advertising agencies.

Over the years, his work has drawn a lot of positive attention. His editorial work has been selected for the Best of Newspaper Design Annual, the International Graphic Annual of Advertising and Editorial Graphics