Not long ago, one of our patrons registered a complaint about a children's picture book called "Princess Buttercup."

The book was about a party being planned by a group of fairies -- diminutive beings, all female. Princess Buttercup set out to gather honey for the party, then got distracted, then got lost. Eventually, she flagged down a butterfly, and found her way back.

That's pretty much the whole story: a slice of the whimsical social life of mythical creatures.

Every so often, someone asks me if libraries are really necessary now that we have Google.

We brought it on ourselves, I think.

There were a lot of librarians, pre-Google, who tried to define our profession solely on the idea of "information." Ask a librarian, and we'll look it up for you!

Then the Internet came along, then Google emerged as the top search engine. And the people who just would never take the time to phone a librarian, or stand in line at a desk to ask something, found Google marvelously convenient.

Recently, my wife brought home a fascinating film from the library called "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill."

It told the story of a man, Mark Bittner, who had once tried to start a life as a musician. That hadn't worked out. He wound up in San Francisco, where he spent a lot of time studying various Eastern philosophies, and reading poetry, particularly the works of Gary Snyder.

Someone told me about a recent study of long term survivors of open
heart surgery. They were surveyed to find out what motivated them to
recover. The reason was not, as you might suppose, "to avoid death."

It was for some more positive outcome: to spend time with their
grandchildren. To tour Europe. To learn to play a musical instrument. To
finish the garden.

It makes you think. Many people work in businesses that have problems,
too. At some point, the question becomes, "how do we get better?" In