Daily Thoughts 9/5/2011

Paul Fisher, A Good Book, 1905

Daily Thoughts 9/5/2011

I spent some time updating Twitter and Facebook.  I also finished reading No Shelf Required.  It was interesting reading the different options for delivering and purchasing ebooks.  There are subscriptions, pay per view, automatically buy an ebook after a certain number of views, buy a set of ebooks as a package, subscribe to a series of ebooks as they are released, and many other options.

This morning, I finished taking the Youtube Essentials course on Lynda.com which giave me a better idea how the service works.  I plan on learning a number of different programs while I still have the option to use Lynda.com, InDesign, Photoshop, and Flash.

I started reading A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin this morning. I rather like the story because the author does not stint on villainy.  He makes his treacherous characters truly nasty.  It adds to the story quite nicely.

I took some time to look at the 2011 Washington Irving Book Awards which are presented by the Westchester Library Association.  They are all for Westchester authors.  http://www.westchesterlibraryassociation.org/bookmark.pdf

Daily Thoughts 9/4/2011

English: RGB GYRICON-- Prototype Electronic Paper Display by Eugene Polido, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 from Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 9/4/2011

This morning, I spent some more time on Facebook and Twitter.  I am working on a Youtube channel for the library http://www.youtube.com/mountvernonpublic   I am just starting on this.

I finished reading Lincoln As I Knew Him.  I read it for a Biography Book Club which we are having on September 20, 2011.  I also read some more of No Shelf Required.  There were some interesting questions which came up.  How do you interlibrary loan ebooks?  What are the fair use rights for ebooks?

It made me think of the New York Times Bestseller fiction List for Ebooks http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/2011-09-11/e-book-fiction/list.html

Daily Thoughts 9/3/2011

[Painting by Edgar Ritchard of two books and an unframed painting] [picture]1931.]


Daily Thoughts 9/3/2011


I read some more of No Shelf Required Ebooks in Libraries this morning.  I have been learning about the major ebook distributors for libraries; Ingram Digital Editions, Overdrive, and Netlibrary,  I have quite a bit more to learn.


I also spent a little bit of time on Facebook and Twitter.


I put the book Blur: How To Know What's True In The Age of Information Overload by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel on hold.

I also went to Barnes and Noble today.  The first thing which you see when you come into the store now is the Nook e-reader.  The whole window display in the front of the store was for ebooks. It is clear that Barnes and Noble is pushing ebooks.


Also when I was in the store, I noticed that there were tables for summer reading assignments for the schools.  I heard one of the clerks at the front desk tell someone they even kept a binder for the assignments from the different schools in the area.  We do this at our library.  It is the first time I am seeing this at Barnes and Noble.  Part of the job of libraries is to visit the schools to talk about books and other materials, distribute library cards to students, and check on the different assignments that occur in the schools.

I read a bit more of Lincoln As I Knew Him tonight.  The people writing the anecdotes and statements are interesting; John Wilkes Booth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Walt Whitman are among the writers. 

I read a review of Goliath by Scott Westerfeld.  I very much like the cover http://bookyurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Goliath.jpg   The book is coming out on September 20, 2011.  I liked the other books in the Leviathan trilogy.


Web Bits


It is Banned Books Week on September 24 through October 1st.
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

The Dog-Eared Paperback, Newly Endangered in an E-Book Age by Julie Bosman http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/03/business/media/mass-market-paperbacks-fading-from-shelves.html?_r=2&hp

Daily Thoughts 9/2/2011

[Exterior view. Falling Books, by Frank Eliscu, a four-story relief in bornze over the main entrance. Library of Congress James Madison Building, Washington, D.C.] Date Created/Published: 2007. 

Daily Thoughts 9/2/2011

I read a little more of Lincoln As I Knew Him.  I also spent some time making sure that there was space available for programs which I planned.  I updated the current events display with a few books on Dick Cheney and Mike Bloomberg who were in the news recently.

I also took some time to update the Facebook and Twitter account which are growing steadily.  I also spent some time going through our patron recommendation forms which we take at the reference desk as well as our online suggestion form for material.  There were requests for the authors R.A. Salvatore who is a fantasy writer and Denise Hunter who writes christian fiction.

I compiled the monthly statistics for programs.  The amount of people attending programs has been steadily growing.

I also learned today that patrons can access our catalog fairly easily with tablet devices through our wireless system.  It was interesting learning this.

On the way home, I read some more of Lincoln As I knew Him.  The anecdotes present a person who was strikingly odd looking, had a singular personality, and was subject to deep melancholy.  Most of the anecdotes are very positive.  I also started reading No Shelf Required which is about ebooks.  I learned that the early history of creating ebooks was focused on classic works and works of history.  People were seeking to make literature more available through projects like Project Gutenberg and the Perseus Digital Library http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/  This is the first time I have read about the Perseus Digital Library.