Beverly Clearly (for Beverly Cleary)

Children's author Beverly Cleary is clearly a master of the form. Cleary is seen here strolling through Grant Park in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and fictional handful "Ramona" (the latter in lifelike statuary mode). At 93 years of age, Cleary just signed off on a film adaptation of the book Ramona and Her Father. Cleary is not only an award-winning writer—whose memorable characters include Ramona's older sister Beezus, Henry Huggins and Ribsy, Otis Spofford, and Ellen Tebbitts—but was also a children's librarian who credits her own childhood librarian with instilling in her the desire to both read books and write them. There are three instances of Beverly Clearly in OhioLINK, and six of Cleary + Clearly. I once wrote Beverly Cleary a fan letter and in return she sent me a publisher's brochure listing the titles of all her books and a note saying she was glad I liked them. I wish I still had it. She was my favorite author.

Yours truly,
Carol Reid

Reslove* (for Resolve*)

Be it resolved: Reslove* is found nine times today in the OhioLINK database, and is thus deemed a "moderate probability" typo on the Ballard list. RES can stand for any number of things, but I'm rather partial to the charmingly named Rabbit Education Society. These folks take a middle-of-the-road position on rabbit rights, as it were, clearly loving the hoppity little creatures, but demurring at the tactics and viewpoint of radical organizations like PETA. According to them, the commonest stereotype about bunnies is both puffed up and tawdry: "The RES does not recognize the term 'overpopulation' as it is inaccurate and has not been proven to exist and is a word meant to stir the emotions and demonize rabbit breeders as a part of animal rights propaganda." Hare today, gone tomorrow. I read that if you want to see more rabbits, you should plant soybeans. I rarely see rabbits. I bet I could learn a lot from them. Look what it did for Jimmy Stewart.

(Educated rabbits, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

Worls (for World)

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man," according to the endlessly quotable George Bernard Shaw. Worls is on the D, or Low Probability, section of Typographical Errors in Library Databases, but it presents a special problem when you try to correct the records where it is found. "World" is the obvious correct form, given that the D and S key are neighbors on the QUERTY keyboard. However, the K and L keys are just as close, so the cataloger might have been shooting for "Works." If it is a missing letter typo, the correct word might be "Worlds." Looking at the 240 entries for Worls in WorldCat, our blog entry might come as some surprise to an author named G. Randolph Worls. We can't say this enough - check for context before you change a record.

Today's photo features Don Larsen, a Yankee great who is the only man who ever pitched a perfect game in the World Series. He graciously put up with getting his picture taken with me and my son. Happy Birthday, Don. The original can be found at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/85667038/

Writter (for Writer)

"In Hollywood the woods are full of people that learned to write, but evidently can't read. If they could read their stuff, they'd stop writing," according to Will Rogers. Writter is most obviously a typo whose intended target was "Writer." It could also be a misfire of "Written." Indeed, a check of the nearly 400 writters in WorldCat this morning shows both targets. In addition, there are instances where Writter is somebody's name. It is in the B, or High Probability, section of Typographical Errors in Library Databases, meaning that it was found between 16 and 99 times in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery. It was written in red, meaning that it was just added to the list in 2009.
These updates are performed in the early months of each year by Tina Gunther from Biola University in California, whose efforts are absolutely vital to this project.

Choosing today's photo was a problem. We have so many writers in our virtual file box: Paul Theroux, E.L. Doctorow, Sherman Alexie, Armistad Maupin, and Yogi Berra to just scratch the surface. We settled for Garrison Keillor, who was signing autographs at the 2007 American Library Association meeting in Washington. The original is found at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/81323174/

Curiousity (for Curiosity)

"The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing." This was written by Oscar Wilde several centuries ago. Fortunately, that is no longer true of today's news-reading public. The typo Curiousity is found on the B, or, High Probability section of Typographical Errors in Library Databases. That means that it was present in more than 16 but less than 100 records in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery. Its presence on the list is Curiousi* which just gets it over the line for the B list with 20. Without the truncation it is in 13 records. This should make you curious enough to check your own catalog to see if you accidentally loaded one of the more than 150 records with this typo that are still present in WorldCat.

Today's photo portrays a young girl climbing on the famous statue of Alice in Central Park. Alice was, of course, famous for the phrase "Curiouser and Curiouser." The original is found at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/28894969

Serach (for Search)

"Truth hurts; not the searching after - the running from." This according to John Eyberg, a man whose witticisms are found all over the web and even in several books. Otherwise, he is a bit of a mystery, with not so much as a Wikipedia page to tell his story. Serach is found on the D list of Typographical Errors in Library Databases, meaning that it was found at least twice but no more than seven times in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery. Indeed, it is found in nine records in OhioLINK this morning, but most of these relate to the biblical personage Serach. That brings up a point that we can't make enough - the words we highlight here are only possible typos in your catalogs. Each of these has to be examined individually before any record is changed.

Today's photo is a montage in honor of Google for adding an interface that makes it fairly easy for a non-programmer to create themes in IGoogle that are then added to the directory. This opens up theme creation to people like an old librarian with a large supply of digital pictures taken in the west of Ireland. The original is at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/image/114751188

Auguts (for August)

"The English winter - ending in July, / To recommence in August," wrote Lord Byron in the days before there was any talk of global warming. August was the sixth month of the ancient Roman calendar, and was thus called "sextilis," even after 450 BC, when January and February were moved from the end of the year to the beginning. In 8 BC, the month was named after Augustus to celebrate a series of military victories by the Emperor. Meanwhile, the months of September through December still bear the names of their original positions as the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth months on the Roman calendar. On to the typo here - "Auguts" is on the D, or Low Probability, list in Typographical Errors in Library Databases, meaning that it was found more than once but less than eight times in OhioLINK at the time of its discovery.
Today's picture shows waders and seabirds enjoying the beach in a prior summer that did not feature 18 days of rain in a row. The beach is Point Lookout on the south shore of Long Island.
The original can be found at http://www.pbase.com/image/47290646.jpg