Daily Thoughts 7/30/2010 ( ebooks, reviews )

Artist: Reymerswaele, Marinus Claesz. van Title: Deutsch Hl. Hieronymous, 1541
Daily Thoughts 7/30/2010

Article-- Will the Book Survive?  by David "Skip" Prichard    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-28/the-future-of-books-ceo-ingram-skip-prichard-feels-confident/?cid=topic:mainpromo1




"eBook Feasibility Study for Public Libraries," http://www.cosla.org/documents/COSLA2270_Report_Final1.pdf




Checked the displays this morning and started doing my orders for August.  I also put out flyers for a public service announcement by Dwayne Wade about library cards and did my first shelf talkers for the authors Danielle Steel and Stephen King.  I am going to be doing more as time passes.




I am reading more of Kraken by China Mieville.  There is a neat section on Simon a Star Trek obsessed mage which is darkly funny.  It is an appropriate comment on fandom.




The new copy of the Overstreet Comic Book Guide 40th Edition came in.  I will take a little time to see if there are any interesting ground level comics which I have not seen.  It has become a standard guide for pricing comics.  Some stores often sell the easier to get comics at half the price guide price and the harder to find titles at full price.




Overdrive sent me some marketing material which I can print up as well as some staff training material.  I think I might print up some of the 11" x 17" posters. 




The recent Kirkus Reviews has a graphic novel section with a few interesting titles in it; Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, and Siege by Brian Michael Bendis, Illustrated by Joe Quesada really stood out.  Siege should be an excellent superhero comic both the writer and illustrator are top notch.  Also there is an autobiographical comic by Sergio Aragones called Mad's Greatest Artist, Sergio Aragones.




Roald Dahl has an authorized biography coming out called Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl by Daniel Surrack.




On the way home, I finished reading Kraken by China Mieville.  One of the way you know a novel is good is that the main character at the end of a novel is often very different than how the character is at the beginning of the novel.  At the beginning of the novel, Billy Harrow is a curator at a museum, by the end of the novel he is a warrior adept at saving the world and fighting magic.

Daily Thoughts 7/29/2010 ( readers advisory, book game )

Okumura Masanobu Itinerant Vendor of shikishi and tanzaku (paper and books) 1720–1730 Signed: Okumura Masanobu hitsu. Publisher’s seal: shu-no-hyōtan (in form of a calabash); seal of Masanobu’s own publishing house: Tōrishiochō.  Actually it is an actor playing an itinerant vendor for paper for poems (shikishi and tanzaku), books, and instructional material on waka poetry and koto playing as indicated on her crate. She is holding a calligraphic copybook (tehon) and a brush. One of the books at the top of her crate is named: Genji-monogatari. 




Daily Thoughts 7/29/2010

I put in some comments for my Readers Advisory 101 class on Enders Game by Orson Scott Card.   I also read the section on library marketing for readers advisory.  I may create some shelf talkers for the shelves.  These are cards which say if you like a specific author, then you might like these other authors.  Usually they are lists of three to five other authors.  Some libraries also sometimes maintain a cart for books that are always popular reads.  It is something to think about.   A lot of people use the Novelist database to create the shelf talkers.



I did not get as much as I wanted done today.  I am thinking about a couple of things to do.  We are planning on doing a library card registration drive.  We need to get more people through the front door.  As part of this, we will probably try to get more Friends of the Library to register.




There are also a few minor things that need doing like updating some bibliographies and creating some shelf talkers.  I also need to speak to someone from the Mount Vernon Public Library Foundation.




The book the Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross came in for me to read.  It is a mix of espionage, horror and weird tale.




I read some more of Kraken by China Mieville.  I am finding a subplot in the book to be quite entertaining about a labor union of wizards familiars and other magical constructs.  It is wonderfully quirky.




Guess the book by its cover game http://www.sporcle.com/games/bookcovers.php

Daily Thoughts 7/28/2010 ( Bayou, Advocacy, Kraken, Made Possible By )

Simon Guggenheim, American businessman and philanthropist

Daily Thoughts 7/28/2010

I am looking at an IMLS Institute of Museums and Library Services grant and trying to figure it out.  It is the first time I am looking at this material.  It makes reference to a document called 21st Century Skills, http://www.imls.gov/pdf/21stCenturySkills.pdf  I find it kind of interesting.  It is a bit different.  There is also reference to a course called Shaping Outcomes which is about Outcome Based Planning and Evaluation for librarians.  http://www.shapingoutcomes.org/ 




Link to information on save libraries widget.  I just added it to the sidebar in this blog. http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/cro/getinvolved/saveyourlibraries.cfm




Jeremy Love's comic Bayou, Issue #1 is now free on the web.  It is quite interesting.  https://comics.comixology.com/#/issue/2584/Bayou-1




I put Smart Startups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communites by David Silver, Wiley, c2007 on interlibrary loan.  I am requesting it from another library system than my own.  This process can take several weeks. 




I also requested another book as a hold, Made Possibly By Succeeding With Corporate Sponsorship by Patricia Martin.




On the train home, I read some of Kraken by China Mieville.  It is an urban fantasy novel.  Somehow, it maintains more believability than most fantasy novels I have read.  It is in that eerie space where things are real but not quite real.  The place where horrible things happen for not quite explained reasons.  There is an almost fortean feel to the novel.

The City And The City China Mieville

The City and The City by China Mieville

This novel is almost a detective story, but it becomes something much more. The setting is in the city of Beszel and the city of Ul Qoma two fictional cities in Eastern Europe which share a common border. They almost seem real, but, if you read carefully they become more and more fantastic as you get deeper into the story.

Beszel and Ul Qoma are divided much like Berlin might be divided or Jerusalem. There are zones which cross into each city and areas which are in both.

This novel touches on how we choose to see the world and how it affects the way we perceive reality. Visitors perceive Ul Qoma and Beszel very differently from the native population.

There are hidden things which the main character, Inspector Tyador Borlu of the Extreme Crime Squad must uncover to solve a murder. His inspection is fascinating because it intersects with the politics, myths, legends, and conspiracies between the two cities. This makes it more than a typical mystery. It becomes an urban fantasy.

The setting is not usual at all. There are elements of Eastern European, Jewish, Russian, Muslim, and Turkish culture in the mix. There is also mention of Berlin and Jerusalem two other divided cities.

Sometimes, I had to put the book down and think about what I had just read. There were many instances of situations in the novel which I had never thought about at all.

I think this book will win awards. It is unique. Get it, read it, enjoy it.

Daily Thoughts 7/27/2009 ( Books On The Air )

"Haiti. A drama of the black Napoleon by William Du Bois : With the New York cast." Poster for Federal Theatre Project presentation of "Haiti" at the Copley Theatre, 463 Stuart St., Boston, Mass., showing bust portrait of Toussaint Louverture. From Wikimedia. I liked the image.

Daily Thoughts 7/27/2009

I have been thinking about books in the media. We get a lot of requests for material which people have heard about on the radio, television, and the internet. I think I'm going to have to pay more attention to this. We have been aiming to boost our circulation a lot. These are some places to look for media tie ins.

Books In The Media
http://news.bookweb.org/mediaguide/

NYPL Books On The Air
http://www.booksite.com/texis/scripts/bookletter/showfab.html?sid=5796&qlname=NLAIR

There is also ICV2's movies and television section if you want to know which comics are going to be turned into films. http://www.icv2.com/search/index.php?q=movies/+tv

This is a video of China Mieville talking about The City and The City.

Today has been a quiet day. I have been watching things happen slowly. They have been moving ahead with the shifting project in the 700s. I showed someone how to do weeding with the laptop. I talked about creating a section for genre fiction-- mysteries and science fiction in the "New Arrivals" area who was returning from vacation.

I am thinking of merchandising the graphic novels. It should happen fairly soon.

I checked out Xenopath A Bengal Station Novel by Eric Brown. It is a science fiction novel. I also read the latest copy of the New York Times Book Review. I am also looking at a copy of How The Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In by Jim Collins. Very every day stuff.