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Dewey Decimal divas
Librarians ditch their cardigans and don feather boas to compete in the Book Cart Drill Team World Championships.
from the June 27, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
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."
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