Daily Thoughts 3/28/2010

Fox Writing With A Quill Pen, J. Mason, 1852

Daily Thoughts 3/28/2010

I went to Barnes and Noble this morning. I looked at an advertisement for a Nook. It asks if you would like to carry Barnes and Noble in your hand wherever you want to go. I am looking forward to when there are less dedicated ebook machines. I would like to be able to download from whichever bookstore I want. I think a laptop would be the best choice for me because I think you can download the Kindle software to a laptop as well as the Nook software and other bookstore sites.

There were a few interesting books worth looking at. I do not order a whole lot of science fiction and fantasy series books. I am thinking of getting a few World of Warcraft paperbacks, as well as a few paperbacks from the Forgotten Realms series and the Warhammer 40,000 series. I also saw a few novel that seemed interesting, Frank Delaney, Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show as well as a new humorous fantasy book by A. Lee Martinez, Divine Misfortune.

I read another science fiction book today, The Crucible of Empire by Eric Flint and K.D. Wentworth. It is a military science fiction novel. What is different about this story is that humans have been conquered by an alien race, the Jao. However, they are not enslaved. Earth has become a kind of partner in a larger interstellar war against an aggressive species called the Ehkat. This is the second book in a series started with The Course of Empire. There is another humanoid species added to the story in this novel, the Lleix who convinced the Jao to separate from the Ehkat. I am finding it quite entertaining.

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Daily Thoughts 2/17/2010

Printing Press Mural, Library of Congress, United States.

Daily Thoughts 2/17/2010

I did not read a whole lot today. I did another exercise for Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management. I also walked up to my local library and returned a book.

I went to Barnes and Noble and looked at what they had. We are getting many of the titles at Barnes and Noble, plus quite a few things which are more intellectual which they are not getting. As usual, I noted a few titles that seemed interesting. Seth Godin, a prominent writer on advertising and the internet has a new book, Linchpin. There is also a fantasy novel which looks interesting, The Adamantium Palace by Stephen Deas.

I also went to Target today. They have all the bestsellers on the New York Times Bestseller list as well as the Publishers Weekly bestseller lists arrayed for sale. It is kind of interesting. Plus, they have a lot of self help books, romance books, and diet books. Most of it is pretty bland. The library gets most of the bestsellers now. It was interesting looking at the young adult bestsellers. There were a lot of vampire novels. There were a few popular diet and exercise books which looked like they might be worth getting, The Weightwatchers New Complete Cookbook, and Making The Cut by Jillian Michaels which is an exercise book.

I have had a chance to read some more of The Talented Miss Highsmith. Right now, I am reading about the contents of Patricia Highsmith's library in the Swiss literary archive. Most important for the biographer of this book, Joan Schenkar are the 38 cahiers (small notebooks), and 18 diaries which helped in the composition of this book. Some of the titles are catching and appropriate, especially Grimm's Fairytales and The Personality of Cats. Something of a writers resides in the books they keep. There are quite a few mystery novelists that I recognize that are quite good, G.K. Chesterton, Ian Rankin, Chester Himes, and Raymond Carver, I also found it interesting that more than one copy of the Merck Manual and Gray's Anatomy is listed.

I read a bit more of Viral Loop by Adam Penenberg as well. I am reading about viral marketing right now. He describes how hotmail became popular. More importantly, he describes how it is possible to make a feature length movie with a digital videocamera which costs about $10,000. This is going to get even cheaper to do. It is also possible to show a movie very cheaply as well. With a laptop, a projector, and a screen you can show a movie. This will get even cheaper as projectors drop in price. I found some of the subjects a bit off putting. Viral jokes and commercial advertising can be a bit blunt.

Daily Thoughts 5/15/2009

I like the idea that it cost 25 cents for the World Almanac in 1903.

Daily Thoughts 5/15/2009

Today is one of those oddly memorable days. The Friends of the Library are having a book sale. Every single time I go in to the book sale, I run into a book dealer I recognize. I am hoping that one of them will be able to help me get me the contact information on someone I lost track of. I used to spend time pricing science fiction titles at a now defunct bookstore.

Before I got married, I used to go out to the flea markets on the weekends to look for old comic books, science fiction books, and collectible paperbacks. I would buy them and trade them in for comic books. A lot of this kind of thing is dead in Manhattan now. I still stop by Rogers Time Tunnel sometimes to look at their collection. It is a very old fashioned comic book store. http://www.yelp.com/biz/rogers-time-machine-new-york . It is one of those hidden gems in New York if you know where to look.

It feels like a long tail end to the death of many of the smaller independent bookstores. Unless a bookstore becomes very focused and trains their staff very well, they cease to exist. It has gotten to the point where many of them are training their staff better at selecting material and customer service than the big chain bookstores in order to survive. I heard that some of the dealers would come in three times today to see what was being put out for sale at different points in the day, in the morning, at noon, and at the end of the day.

There is no generalist bookstore in the city where I work. There is a small christian bookstore. The library is effectively the local source for books. I think this is increasingly becoming true in many cities across the United States. You either travel to a large mall or superstore, buy through the internet, or go to your local library.

The cooperative system was putting in new computers in our computer center today. They are also expanding the wireless access points by September to handle up to 25 people. A lot more people are using Iphones in addition to laptops in the library. Once again, this is an indicator I should probably get an Iphone or a smart phone. It is a matter of spending money to do it. I don't like spending money.

I spent some time also distributing phone books to the staff. A lot of people have stopped using phone books and now use the online yellow pages. I know I do, but some patrons still ask for local phone books in paper. The providers of yellow pages have gotten much tighter about what they will give out. It costs money for us to get phone books outside of the county. Verizon now has a special subsidiary, Idearc to handle the marketing of telephone books. We also have an extra supply of local phone books which we leave out for patrons to take.

I did my usual small tasks, reading the New York Times Book Review, filing law looseleafs, checking the displays to see that they were in order, and took some time to look at the slat walls. We are almost done ordering accessories for the slat walls. They look very nice. A whole set of new books are being processed to go out.

The large print standing order is being gone over by our representative. I reminded them to look at the Essence bestseller list for African American titles to see what was available in large print.

I read some of Emotional Eating A Practical Guide to Taking Control by Edward Abramson. I don't like the idea of dieting. My doctor told me I must lose weight and eat less sugar if I want to maintain my health. I initially tried to change the way I am eating, I have cut out most sweets, soda, and extremely fatty food. I am also trying food substitution, eating low fat foods like low fat milk, low fat cottage cheese, and low fat mayonnaise as well as eating more fruits and vegetables. I am also exercising. Quite frankly, I don't like moving quickly. I am doing floor exercises and walking but don't want to run or swim. I am trying to find ways around the cardiovascular exercise by trying a pedometer to see how I can move during the day.

The next obvious step is trying to find out why I eat too much emotionally. I have always thought diets were useless, but I have to lose weight. This means I have to change my habits and how I think about food.

Daily Thoughts 5/14/2009

Jack London The Sea Wolf

Daily Thoughts 5/14/2009

Part of this morning was spent shifting books in the 700s, specifically the art books. I still have quite a bit of shifting to do. I also did some roaming reference where I am assigned to seek people out on the floor who are looking for answers. I also weeded some fiction titles with very low circulation. There were a few other miscellaneous tasks to complete throughout the day, starting to file some looseleafs for the law collection.

This afternoon, I spent some time talking to our representative about large print books. We need them to provide us with more African American titles as well as more of the New York Times Bestsellers in large print. I sent them some lists of suggested authors to see if they could customize the standing order to better meet our needs.

Tomorrow, I think I am going to go in the technical service area and check to see if we can order new copies of some books instead of sending them to the bindery. There are quite a few titles that need to be rebound. New copies may be cheaper than rebinding in some cases.

There are a couple of new benches in front of the new books area. They add a nice touch to the area.

Web Bits

Amazon is selling ebooks as a loss leader on Kindle. http://www.teleread.org/2009/05/13/amazon-losing-money-on-999-e-books/

A few profiles on independent bookstores in New York from the Bookweb blog. http://ibnyc.wordpress.com/category/indiebound-spotlights/