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We are the champions: The Book Divas of Houston took the title in last
weekend's Bookcart Drill Team World Championship.
Elaine F. Weiss Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
6/27/2007
Washington - The librarian from Ohio popped a wheelie on his book cart, and
the
audience went wild. The team of librarians from Texas wore red,
white, and blue feather boas as they danced the boogie-woogie while
pushing their book carts in pinwheel formation. The Delaware team
outfitted their performance vehicles in silver lamé and dressed in
rhinestones, as they executed their signature "wave-canon" maneuver.
Welcome to the Third Annual Bookcart Drill Team World Championships,
where librarians in elaborate costumes choreograph spinning carts,
execute dance and gymnastic routines to jazzy soundtracks, and shake
their booties to shake up the public perception of the stuffy
librarian.
Last weekend's world championship at the American Library
Association's annual meeting is the most high-profile, but not the
only, event of its kind. There are more than 200 library cart drill
teams around the country all part of an ALA image makeover and
public outreach effort.
"It's all about the image that librarians are stodgy, stern, always
shushing," said Caroline Langendorfer of Madison, Wis., a competitor
in the previous two world championships. "Cardigans. Hair buns. I
love shaking up [that] stereotype."
Taking team names like the Book Pushers (Benicia, Calif.), Dewey
Decimal Dancers (Frederick, Md.), Cartwheelers (Springfield, Ill.),
the Rolling Tomes (Virginia Beach, Va.), and the Las Vegas Bookies,
teams march in local parades, perform at state fairs and regional
festivals, visit schools to promote literacy, and compete in
state-level contests. And a few fortunate teams get to go for the
gold the gold book cart, that is, at the ALA World Championship.
"This is a wonderfully weird event," said Jon Scieszka, a well-known
children's book author who served as emcee and color commentator for
the competition Sunday at the Washington Convention Center, which
drew a standing-room-only crowd of more than 1,500 hooting and
hollering librarians.
Mr. Scieszka has become an unabashed book cart team groupie; together
with author/illustrator and fellow drill team aficionado Mo Willems,
he's made cameo appearances, in a bathrobe and crash helmet, at the
previous world championship events. "It's librarians performing
ballet, crossed with NASCAR, the World Series, the Olympics, and
Mickey Mouse on Ice all in an unholy combination."
The teams approach the competition with a sly wink and
characteristically solid reference skills. They consult the "bible"
of the movement, "The Library Bookcart Drill Team Manual." They also
scout the competition in advance, watching videos of the other teams'
posted on YouTube: "We did a little stealth work," admitted Janelle
Wertzberger of Gettysburg, Pa. "We're librarians, we know how to do
research!"
Rules are firm: teams have just five minutes to decorate their carts
("The secret is to use magnets," one contestant revealed, working
like a member of a NASCAR pit crew to get her cart in shape) but the
logo of the contest's sponsor, Demco, a major library materials
supplier, must not be obscured. The maximum routine is four minutes,
with a half-point penalty on technical ability scores for each 10
seconds over. There's also an artistic expression score from one to
ten.
Teams practice several times a week for months, perfecting spins,
passes, and special maneuvers with names like the Flower, Runway
Promenade, Bette-Midler Walk, and the One-Point Spin.
Each team has a choreographer, like Katy Gibson, who put her team
through a final rehearsal: "One, two, three, four, watch your line,
turn on five," she called out to the Book Divas from Houston, a
powerhouse group of elementary school librarians that captured the
Texas Library Association crown two years running, and placed second
in the nationals last year. They're aiming for gold this time and
sponsored their trip to Washington by selling a Book Divas calendar
like the English Calendar Girls, but everyone's fully clothed posed
in their trademark feather boas and appropriate book props for each
month. At Sunday's championships they were decked out in Rosie the
Riveter costumes, their lead cart sporting airplane wings and a
propeller, and the motto "Reading is Riveting" emblazoned on their
shirts.
"Let's practice our throws," a member of the Readin' & Rollin' team
from Milford, Ohio, said to her partner, as they shot book carts to
one another in time to a spiced-up version of "Flight of the Bumble
Bee." "This is our toughest maneuver," explains Marlene Noschong, and
on the shiny convention center floors the carts were moving faster
than the team was accustomed to (they practice on carpet) and their
timing needed adjustment. Teams also adapt their performances to
different venues: Parades, for example, call for different costumes
and moves.
"The community loves us in the parades," says Noschong of the Ohio
troupe, which performs in parades for the Cincinnati Reds Opening Day
and the Fourth of July. "They don't expect it. And we reach people
who don't necessarily come into the library, but now they see us in a
different light. It absolutely has a positive effect."
The Delaware Diamonds team, resplendent in black outfits with silver
rhinestones, had a case of the jitters, and with good reason: It was
their debut. It's a statewide team, drawn from 55 librarians who
answered the call to try out. Regulations cap teams at 12, and the
test was to do the hokey pokey with a straight face. The state
librarian of Delaware, Annie Norman, made the cut, and on Sunday all
aglitter, she waited nervously for the Diamonds to take their first
bow: "We were trying to get rid of our stodgy image," she laughed,
"and now we've gone straight to an eccentric image."
"I think it means a lot to the community, seeing librarians spoofing
themselves," said Deidre Ross, director of conference services for
the ALA. She started the world championship in 2005 when she realized
how popular the drill teams were becoming in local communities. "You
don't picture librarians doing this."
With the "graying" of the library profession half of all
credentialed librarians will reach retirement age in the coming
decade there is hope that this new fun and funky image of the
modern librarian will help recruit young people to the field.
When the carts got rolling, the competition was stiff. Chris Rich of
the Readin' & Rollin' team brought the house down with his finale: an
audacious one-wheeled spin, the triple Lutz of book cart stunts.
Everyone grooved along to the "Jungle Boogie" beat of the Gettysburg
Gett Down With Your Funky Shelf team performance, and they won high
artistic scores. The Delaware Diamonds were stunning in their Busby
Berkeley tribute, complete with a feather-fanned dancer sashaying
atop a runway of book carts. And the Houston Book Divas stole the
crowd's heart striking that famous Rosie the Riveter muscle pose.
When the scores were tallied, it was close, but the Book Divas rolled
home on the golden book cart (it'll be shipped to Houston, where
celebrations are planned). The Gettysburg Funky Shelf took the
silver-painted cart, and the Delaware Diamonds captured the bronze.
"I was dazzled; it was fantastic," exclaimed Holly Bunt, director of
the Western Reserve Academy library in Hudson, Ohio. She and her
colleagues immediately began thinking about forming their own drill
team. That's the way the drill team idea seeds itself across the land.
"It shows we can do more than sit at a desk and check books in and
out," said Ms. Bunt. "It shows we have creativity and coordination."
(c) Copyright 2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Click here to read this story online:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0627/p20s01-algn.html
