Daily Thoughts 5/22/2009

Society of Illustrators Poster, 1913

Daily Thoughts 5/22/2009

I have been reading reviews from the internet. I took some time to look at Powell's bookstore and The Strand Bookstore online. The Strand was showing Burn This Book Pen Writers Speak Out On The Power of the Word, Edited by Toni Morrison. The book looks very interesting. style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">

I also spent some time going over the patron request sheet for new titles and wrote down some suggested titles for ordering.

Today was another quiet day. I filed some law looseleafs, made a few business calls, and entered some orders into Baker and Taylor. I also reviewed the process of ordering phone books for the library with a part-time librarian. Phone books are increasingly becoming a thing of the past. I usually use Worldpages online to look up phone numbers. Also many of the directories like the Thomas Register of manufacturers have moved online http://www.thomasnet.com/ and are easier to use in the online form.

I have been keeping a diary for the week on what I am eating on the recommendation of the book Emotional Eating. Something I noticed was that I was spending too much time near the snack machine. I started bringing my own snacks to work to replace eating peanuts and chips from the vending machine. I'll have finished tracking my diet for a week by tomorrow. I tend to eat when I get bored or worried.

Big Box Thoughts, Miscellaneous Tidbits

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) in June 1856 (aged 39).

Big Box Thoughts

Right now, I am reading Big Box Swindle The True Cost of Mega Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Business by Stacy Mitchell. This book is a statement against mega-retailers and megamalls.

I have some reasons to be against some of the larger retailers. In Manhattan, there used to be two independent science fiction bookstores. Both of them are closed. Barnes and Noble and Borders forced them out of business. Amazon also ate into their profits. At the time which Amazon was competing with the other bookstores, it was not turning a profit. It did not turn a profit in its first six years and was almost entirely bolstered by its stock price.

I have seen many small bookstores close. When a Barnes and Noble moves into a neighborhood it is often subsidized by local government because it promises to bring in more jobs. It does not matter that they will pay less wages, and the majority of the money earned will not go back into the local economy, but will go to the stockholders of Barnes and Nobles.

I have watched book culture get devastated in Manhattan. With the closure of many of the independent bookstores like Shakespeare and Company, Coliseum Books, and many of the smaller specialty stores, there were less and less literary readings. I used to spend time going to various science fiction readings in Manhattan.

I saw Barnes and Noble use a strategy called cannibalization, where they would open near existing bookstores and offer deep discounts. Barnes and Noble did not have to make a profit, they were subsidized by the other parts of the chains so they could run for several years undercutting local business. This closed Seventh Avenue Books in Park Slope Brooklyn. It also forced Nkiru Books to become Nkiru Center for Education and Culture, a nonprofit center not focused on making money, but providing cultural activities in Park Slope.

I am not regretful that the Strand Bookstore modernized and forced the Astor Place Barnes and Nobles out of business in Manhattan. If you go into Strand Bookstore, you will notice, they do not have the same kind of stock in science fiction and graphic novels as the Forbidden Planet store down the street. It shows they are willing to work with other local businesses. I am glad that the independents are becoming more organized.

I have always been interested in publishing and bookstores. For a while, I considered a dream of opening a bookstore but realized after talking to the owners of a few small shops, that the big box stores were destroying local stores, there was not much money in owning a bookstore, and the industry was consolidating. There was not much hope in this. Working as a librarian was a better career choice.

For me this is not just about bookstores, it is about other things as well. I buy from local businesses. The local fruit stand is cheaper and has better produce than the supermarket. The local deli has people you can talk to. The local diner is a place where you know the owner. It is not impersonal like fast food chains. We know the local bike shop owner. Shop locally it keeps community together. It is also quite often cheaper. Using local banks puts money back into the community. They are the ones most likely to fund local businesses.

This is a link to a letter from the president of the American Booksellers Association, urging President Obama to help small businesses:

http://news.bookweb.org/6507.html

Miscellaneous Tidbits

While I was looking around the web, I took a look at a large independent bookstore, Tattered Cover. They have a very extensive list of literary awards. Here it is:

http://www.tatteredcover.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp;jsessionid=abcot7YMusg586I8sCK6r?s=awards

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (A Trip to the City)

Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (A Trip to the City)

I read the Ten Roads to Riches on the way into the city on the subway. Then I finally got to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. There was a five dollar fee to enter. I found out the comics library was still in upstate New York in storage. Still, it was really interesting looking around the exhibit of Kim Deitch's works. There was original art work from Gothic Blimp Works, an underground tabloid comic done in 1965. Later that day when I visited Roger's Time Tunnel, a comic book store, Roger told me that the last time he had seen a copy of Gothic Blimp Works was seven years ago. He showed me a few listed on ebay with a $120 starting bid.

There were also pages from Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a graphic novel which we have at our library. One of Deitch's characters that is very interesting is Waldo, a kind of psychedelic version of Felix the cat. There were also a variety of other works throughout the room, including color pages from Fontaines Fables. It was a very interesting exhibit.

This is a short video from Youtube interviewing Kim Deitch at the MOCCA opening reception. His frenetic energy also shows in his art work.

After I went to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, I went to Housing Works Used Book Cafe and looked around for a bit. They had an interesting young adult paperback which I bought. Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson. It is c2007 by Scholastic for half cover price $3.50. I just couldn't hlep myself. It is a perfectly wicked title. It is worth having just for the cover.

I had a chance to walk through the village. I stopped in the Strand Bookstore and used the bathroom. It is often hard to find decent bathrooms when you are walking around New York. I was going to stop in Forbidden Planet, but when I went inside, it was so packed that I could not walk three feet without bumping into a person.

I then walked down to Roger's Time Machine. I have to give them a plug. Roger always gives me a very nice deal when I buy comics from him. Today, I bought Andromeda #6 Alan Dean Foster Special issue c1979, Star Reach #7 c1977, Myth Adventures #2, 3, 4, and 6 by Warp Graphics based on the novels by Robert Asprin and drawn by Phil Foglio for $19 total which is a very good price. The store had a lot of people coming in right before thanksgiving.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/rogers-time-machine-new-york

The Library Bookstore Model (General Thoughts).

Pococurante's Library in Voltaire's Candide or Optimism

Library And The Bookstore

Many libraries are taking bookstores as a model for improvement in libraries. This is often an incredible mistake. Some of the bookstores which are being used as a model like Barnes and Nobles or Borders only sell new books. At one point Barnes and Noble had a sale annex in Manhattan. I think it closed in 2005. It offered discounted and used books. In a way, this demonstrates that Barnes and Noble does not do well selling used books in a competitive market like Manhattan.

In April of 2008, the Astor Place Barnes and Noble in Manhattan, New York, several blocks away from Strand Books closed. I think it may have been due to pricing competition with the Strand. A major advantage which Strand books had over Barnes and Noble was depth of sales. They sell both new and used books. In a similar manner, another one of the independent book warehouse stores, Powell's in Oregon, interfiles all of its books, used, new, paperback, and hardcover. This makes the way books are shelved similar to public libraries. Metro New York library consortium offered a tour of the Strand bookstore for librarians recently. http://www.metro.org/index.php?option=com_jcalpro&Itemid=182&extmode=view&extid=224

You may think what does a bookstore have to do with a library. Many libraries look to bookstores as a model of customer service. There was even a book written, Creating The Customer Driven Library Building on the Bookstore Model by Jeannette Woodward. It is an American Library Association Edition, c2005. This makes the ideas fairly new and cutting edge in the library world. Bookstores generally do a better job displaying new titles than libraries. Bookstores tend to have more table space for new books as well as better disply furniture.

In my daily experience, I constantly hear the word Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other new bookstores as places to look for materials to select for libraries. Because Powells and The Strand have more depth in their collection, they can often offer categories of books on their websites which are simply not as easy to find on other bookstore sites on the web. For example, The Strand has sections on their website for Drug Abuse, Labor Union studies, Linguistics, Motorcycles, and some subjects which are simply not available as categories in Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. Strand has a much deeper taxonomy. This is also true of Powells.com with categories like Pacific Northwest and Deaf Studies.
http://www.powells.com/psection/psection.html

Libraries are more specialized institutions than new chain bookstores. In chain bookstores ordering is done from a central warehouse, and processes are run from a standardized franchise manual. They can hire based on training people from a manual. Subject knowledge is not as necessary, because the worker for the most part is not making selections on what to buy, the central warehouse is.

This is different for places like the Strand or Powell's which sell used books. Used books require specialist subject knowledge of books. There are far more older books than new ones, and most of them are not salable items. The person selecting used books has to be able to discard most of the books brought in to find the ones which are salable. Because of this, they are paid more than in a new bookstore. The used book buyer is also most of the time more experienced and skilled. Strand Books is a union shop. Barnes and Noble is not a union shop and pays much lower wages. It is supposed to be quite harsh to be apprenticed to the Strand initially.

I am going to make a slight change here. Many booksellers subscribe to the American Booksellers Association Bookbuyers Handbook. It is a fee service as part of membership.

http://www.bookweb.org/resources/bbh.html

Even with these differences, places like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, The Strand, and Powells.com are for profit institutions. With increasing competition, some used bookstores are becoming nonprofit agencies. For example, Nkiru Books in Brooklyn, the first African American bookstore in Brooklyn, became The Nkiru Center for Education and Culture. It could not survive as a for profit bookstore and changed into a nonprofit center. It supports itself by giving lectures, providing literacy programs and doing workshops. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nkiru_Center_for_Education_and_Culture

Also, some bookstores start out as nonprofit centers, they take donations of books for a cause. A good example of this is Housing Works Used Book Cafe. They get lots of donations of books from publishers all over Manhattan. Their cause is to support homeless people with Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome. I really do like their selection of books.

http://www.housingworks.org/social-enterprise/bookstore-cafe/

Both Nkiru Center for Education and Culture and Housing Works Used Book Cafe would be considered social enterprises whose purpose is to create self-sustaining socially useful enterprises that pay for themselves.

Because both of these places are examples of nonprofit institutions, in a way they are much closer to being like libraries. Sometimes, libraries want to get ideas from bookstores. They are after all in the business of books.

Many libraries run small book sales. They do not generate a lot of profit for the most part in my experience. They are an example of a goodwill gesture to the community in my thinking. We run a larger Friends of the Library booksale every several months. This is done by the friends because it is considered a conflict of interest for librarians to be selling books. A retired librarian runs the sale. Most of the proceeds go to programming.

Instead of turning to Barnes and Noble or Amazon, it would be better for libraries to look at organizations that are more independent like Strand Books, Powell's, or The Nkiru Center For Education and Culture, and Housing Works Used Book Cafe. These are examples of successful bookstores with unique characteristics.

At one point, I considered becoming a bookstore owner, but I learned an important truth. A bookstore owner of a decent bookstore does not make as much money as a senior librarian and must work much harder than most librarians. Becoming a bookstore owner is a labor of love. So is becoming a comic bookstore owner. There is no degree in bookstores like library science. The main credential is a savvy business sense and a love of books. However, much can be learned from joining the American Booksellers Association.

There is a course for starting bookstores done by the American Booksellers Association in association with Paz and Associates. It goes into the details of how to run a bookstore. This is an example of a sample five day intensive course.

http://www.pazbookbiz.com/Bookstore-Training-Workshops/Opening-A-Bookstore-5-Day-Workshop.aspx

Also, I watched the small science fiction and mystery bookstores fold in Manhattan. They simply could not compete with the larger chain stores even if the bookstores had specialties. This is a sad story all across the United States. It is very difficult to stay open as a small independent bookstore Forbidden Planet is the only science fiction bookstore left in Manhattan and it mostly sells comic books, manga, and dvd; very little science fiction.

After most of the science fiction bookstores folded, I had a lot of material which I had collected over time. I would price books at a couple of the stores, mainly old paperbacks. I also attended shows, signings, and readings. I ended up selling off most of my science fiction books. Many of them were signed editions from people like Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, and others. I spent a few dollars on setting up an ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) storefront and an Ebay storefront years ago when I was first getting married. I used most of the proceeds to help pay for my wedding.

Once again, I found out that selling books through a small electronic storefront would be a brutal experience with lots of competition and constant legwork. There are absolutely no barriers to becoming a small bookstore today. You can spend a few dollars and set up a site on ABE very easily. There are over 13,500 stores listed on the site. http://www.abebooks.com/

I looked at this and thought there must be a way to combine bookselling, librarianship, and publishing into something else. I even took the Introduction to Publishing course at NYU (New York University). It was an interesting experience. I am still considering taking an intensive workshop from the American Booksellers Association on opening a small bookstore. The details will be available in May 2009 from Book Expo America. Book Expo America as part of their program runs the course for new booksellers.

I know that I really don't want to open a small bookstore, but I do want to learn more about the publishing business. This is true of many librarians in 2008, 1800 librarians attended Book Expo America, the trade show for the American Booksellers Association.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6566655.html

Because you asked earlier, you wanted to know my background if any in collection development or ordering. For a while I was in the history/biography and religion department of the central Brooklyn Public Library. I did extensive ordering for history, biography, and non-western religions. I also headed the paperback ordering committee for the Brooklyn Public library for a year, and worked with several different ordering committees at Brooklyn Public Library.

Right now, I am doing ordering for social science, business management, job information center, graphic novels, science fiction, and law books. I also previously made extensive suggestions for the reference collection before I was given the general responsibilities for pieces of the circulating collection. The old head of collection development at Brooklyn always said I should be working for a large internet company.

I really don't want to open a small bookstore, I want to create some kind of internet business based on books and information. I even applied to Contentville before it folded. It was supposed to be a content supersite, but they forget to negotiate properly with the writers they were taking articles from. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/07/37804

I have not applied to any of the large online bookstores. I feel like I am searching for something a little bit different to do with books and information. This is one of the reasons I am blogging about books.

I am watching Shelfari and Librarything which are social networking sites for books.

One of the reasons I am so fascinated with collection development is that it bridges the gap between bookstores and libraries. I like talking books and I like selecting books. I really enjoyed going to Book Expo America, New York Comic Con, and more recently New York Anime Festival because of the publishers.

Many libraries like Queens are completely focusing on circulation and letting go of the majority of their older materials. They are becoming like office boxes with lots of clean new material. What Queens does not offer is prestige or research institutions. Their collection is heavily merchandised. In a way, it reminds me of a big box bookstore. With loss of older material comes less of need for as much skilled staff. There is a lot of money coming in from the state, but not private donations. Queens has the highest circulation of any library in the United States.
http://www.qgazette.com/news/2008/0806/features/011.html

In contrast, New York Public Library keeps much of its older charms. It maintains a much deeper collection than Queens library does. They also use this deeper collection to create an environment focused on prestige and research. They may not collect as much money from the state, but they collect more money from private institutions. A lot of New York Public's collection is quite old. Maintaining research institutions means they have a lot of highly skilled people with unique talents. It could not be otherwise with places like The Humanities and Social Sciences Research Library. If we wanted to compare it to a bookstore, it would be like Powell's in a way one of the most prestigious and unique institutions of its kind.

I know this is an odd comparison. Part of what I am writing is for some of the staff to read about where I work. They know I am writing this blog. We are in a transitionary stage where the board of directors would like to change the library we are in working in to something different. I am really not sure what that vision is, but I am not exactly comfortable with it. I would much rather that where I am working does not become like a big box sterile bookstore. It has quite a bit of charm and should maintain some of the unique collections it has.

I could compare the place where I am working to a ramshackle castle in need of repair with leaky pieces here and there and rather remarkable attributes; a frescoed rotunda which houses art exhibits and a very extensive local history collection. The building seems to be at odds with itself. It could be compared to one of those old New England bookstores where everything is not quite right, the owner lives upstairs, and everything is a clutter of the old and the new. The cash register, electronics, and website are new, but the shelves are messy, the lighting needs to be redone, and the building needs a new stage for readings and signings. This changed recently.

I might as well update this. We have a new director, this year and all the lighting is put in properly. The roof leaks are fixed, we have working airconditioning, and we even have new carpeting. Yesterday, I went out and did some block cleanup around the library with community members, so the physical plant has been improved. It is starting to improve considerably.

I also received a lateral transfer to being a collection development librarian from being at reference. I am working with one other librarian in the collection development department. I have had a chance to start cleaning up the shelving, sorting through the mending, and cleaning up the technical process storage area. I am working on updating the collection. There is a tremendous amount to do. Every single day I have some new things happening.

We have a whole bunch of new displays put in. I handle a glass case for displaying books and a big octagonal book display where we put current events titles. The tiered octagonal display is the same kind you would see in a bookstore. We are also putting in slat walls to display new books. I went through a catalog with one of my colleagues and we ordered accessories to display books on the slat walls. Slat walls are used in both libraries and bookstores for displays. It is a convergence of ideas. One of my colleagues went to Barnes and Noble for a session called Market Your Library Like A Bookstore about doing bookstore style displays and marketing.

Things have changed considerably again, I am no longer in charge of everything. I am still the law librarian, but we now have a new librarian who is shadowing me a bit to teach her how to handle the business collection, and I am training someone to take over the Job Information Center. I am still ordering graphic novels though, I like graphic novels.

Please excuse me for a moment. I check back now and then to see who is looking at my blog. I find it rather interesting that some library students have read this piece and it is quietly being sent around. I find it rather interesting. I made a few minor updates to make it easier to read. If you would like to leave comments on sections you would like to see expanded please do so.

Morning Thoughts

19th Century Phrenology Chart. Nothing like a little pseudoscience.

Morning Thoughts

I have been looking at Baker & Taylor online for a little bit. They have a section of selection lists for libraries. I have been looking at their starred reviews lists of books as well as some of their specialized e-lists on different subjects. Some of them are useful for selecting items. Baker & Taylor is a very large book distributor. We buy most of our books through Baker & Taylor. So do a lot of the public libraries in the United States. We do our own technical processing.

I spent some time looking through the Strand Books website http://www.strandbooks.com/ . They are arranged very differently than Amazon or Barnes and Nobles. The Strand has a number of categories for books which are interesting like substance abuse and social work which are worth looking at. We have a fairly high demand for items in these categories.

I also took a few minutes and looked at the different categories at Powell's bookstores. Powell's is another megabookstore like the Strand. I find Powell's categories to be much more refined than Barnes and Nobles or Amazon. http://www.powells.com/psection/psection.html

The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez has come in for me to read. I didn't realize until I picked up the book that the author also wrote Gil's All Fright Diner, a humourous horror novel about preventing the end of the world.

I am also thinking about what I am going to do for my Open Microphone Poetry Reading on Thursday. We moved the time down to 5:00-6:00 p.m., it really should be later, but there is no one who can fill in for the time slot.

Morning Thoughts

Morning Thoughts

I am hoping to get a chance to travel into Manhattan today. I would like to visit the Strand Bookstore. Not far from the Strand Bookstore is Forbidden Planet, so I should be able to get a chance to go to both a bookstore and a comic book shop today.

I will be heading through Grand Central station. They have Posman books there. It is one of the best organized and cleanest bookstores I have ever seen. Everything always seems to be in its place there. I occassionally pick up a paperback science fiction book from there. They don't have the hugest selection, but a lot of what they do select for the customer is well chosen.

I took the train into grand central after doing some morning chores. It was pleasant going into Manhattan. I just sat this time and didn't read. Sometimes it is soothing listening to the clicking of the wheels.

I got to the village and got off the fourteenth street stop. First I went to Forbidden Planet. It has a very different feel than it used to have. They now have an open upstairs where they sell games and manga. It was fun going upstairs because it was kind of nostalgic looking at all the different dice and games.

I looked around downstairs as well. They had quite a few different comic books with a very large alternative comic books. I noticed that the large format collected graphic novels for DC are called Showcase Presents. I also took a look at the science fiction paperbacks. They have an awful lot of series paperbacks like Star Trek, Star Wars, Iron Man, and quite a few superhero novels.

They even had a superhero mass market paperback called The Judge Dredd Omnibus. I used to love reading Judge Dredd before Sylvester Stallone took the role of the main character for the movie and and nearly wrecked the franchise completely with his terrible acting.

After I went to Forbidden Planet, I went to the Strand Bookstore. The Strand Bookstore has changed and improved itself. It bought the second story of the building it was in and expanded the art books to the second floor as well as the childrens books. There is also a nice new elevator to all four floors in the bookstore. I remember when they had a tiny little unisex bathroom that was always filled with graffiti. They put in two new clean bathrooms.

I was not impressed with the selection of science fiction books. It did not have that good of a selection. However, they had a very nice selection of graphic novels, focusing mainly on comics literature and alternative comics. I bought a copy of a graphic novel, In Odd We Trust written by Queenie Chan and Dean Koontz, illustrations by Queenie Chan. It looks interesting, it was also very affordable, $5.50, half the cover price of $11.00. Their graphic novel section seems to not compete that much with Forbidden Planet because it does not have the same focus.

I also looked through the fantasy art section of the Strand and bought a large oversized book called Fantasy of the 20th Century, An Illustrated History, By Randy Broecker for $11.95, the price on the cover is $19.95. They seem to be able to sell many of their books at a deep discount. At one time, they even sold reviewers copies mass market paperbacks at half cover price. I noticed that they stopped doing this, except for in specific sections. Now, they sell trade paperback and hardcover reviewers copies at half price. This is quite a good deal.

If you look around the store, you can find interesting bargains. I bought two copies of journals with Cat In The Hat covers for $3.95 each. I also bought a copy of Best Loved Tales of Beatrix Potter for $7.95 which contains four Beatrix Potter books. It seems like I went on a brief spending spree.

When I walked down the block to see if the Astor Place Barnes and Nobles was still there, I noticed that it had closed its doors. I asked someone when this had happened. They told me "about three months ago."

After going into the newly renovated Strand, I can see why other local bookstores could not compete with it. I also noticed that they had renovated the bag check area so it was easier to take and give back bags as well as added a whole new set of merchandies with the store logo. Their website is pretty well done as well. http://www.strandbooks.com/

After I was done going to the Strand, I walked down to 7th Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan. I wanted to go to Rogerst Time Tunnel. If you look up on the second floor on 7th Avenue there is an awning which says Rogers Time Tunnel, Nostalgia. I hadn't been there for two years. When I went inside, it looked as if nothing had changed.

It was like stepping back in time two years. Roger, the owner of the store, asked me if I still new about the store in New Utrecht which had old magazines for sale. I said I didn't. It really didn't matter. It was pure nostalgia for me. He also said, except for my taking care of the paperbacks to make sure they were priced and in order, nothing had changed. I used to pick up collectible paperbacks for trade for him as well as old magazines. I haven't done this for a very long time.

I took a few minutes to go through the ground level comic books. I picked out four copies of Andromeda which is a science fiction comic book from the 1980's. No. 1 features James Tiptree's The Man Who Walked Home, No. 2 features A. E. Van Vogt's Process, No. 3 features Arthur C. Clarke's Exile of the Aeons, and No. 4 features Jack Vance's Narrow Land. Narrow Land was my favorite story of all four of these. It tells the story of conflict between different groups of amphibious egg laying bipeds with different head crests. I read these on the train coming home.

There was also a free sample comic preview of The Stand by Stephen King which is coming out in comic book form soon. I enjoyed my brief visit to Manhattan.

Right next to Roger's is a small donut cafe called The Donut Pub. It has been at its location since 1964. The donuts and coffee really are quite good. The clientele is a bit shabby, but I still like to sit and read comic books there sometimes and sip coffee. I got a blueberry crumb cruller and a cup of coffee and sat and read the sample comic preview of The Stand.

Thoughts for the Day, Blog Promotion (Entrecard, Fuelmyblog, Blogcatalog)

Today, I walked down to my local library in my neighborhood. It is nice being in a neighborhood, living in a house, not a giant an apartment building. Houses are much more livable than giant apartment buildings. Like many neighborhoods, my home neighborhood has a library, but not a bookstore. I am not sure if there ever was a neighborhood bookstore. If there was, it was here long before my time. If you want to go to a bookstore, you have to get in your car or take a bus a decent distance to the local mall. There is a Barnes & Noble there but no independent bookstore.

I have to go into Manhattan to go to the big bookstores. I rather like going to the Strand. I also like going to Housing Works Used Book Cafe. The store is very beautiful with tall ceilings and a wooden balustrade. All of the proceeds go to help keep homeless people with AIDS off the streets. Some of the local publishing houses donate their review copies to be sold there. Their selection is very good. http://www.housingworks.org/usedbookcafe/

If I am going to the Strand in Manhattan, I will also stop off at Forbidden Planet to look at the science fiction, fantasy, and comic art books. I haven't been in a while. If I have time after that, I might wander down to Roger's Time Tunnel, a very old school comic book shop. I like looking at the movie stills in Roger's shop, not just the old paperbacks and old comic books.

I could also go online and order a book from Amazon or Powell's but it still wouldn't be my local bookstore. I miss the small neighborhood bookstores. There are still small neighborhood libraries which I am glad exist. Some people claim that the neighborhood library is not necessary, but if there are no longer neighborhood bookstores in many small American communities where are community members going to go to read or get books if there is neither a library or a bookstore. Are they going to go online and order a book from one of the giant commodity bookstores?

Anyways, I first went in the morning, the library was closed before one o'clock so I dropped my books in the book slot and peered through the window. Sometimes if the book cart is positioned wrong, the books slide off the cart onto the floor. Most of the time this doesn't happen. My books were on top of the cart.

Later in the day, I came back and went inside. I looked around and asked for the seven books on the Mythopoeic awards list. They did not have a single one of them. It was a slight disappointment. I'll get some of them tomorrow.

Everything these days is merchandised in todays library. They break portions of the collection into little shelving units, humor, biography, graphic novels, new books, new travel books, and many different categories. The main advantage of this is that it becomes easier for patrons to find categories of books they want. The disadvantage is the people shelving the books have a dozen different places to put the books and it is much easier to misshelve items.

I had today off because of Martin Luther King's Birthday, I usually get Monday off when I work on Saturdays, but Monday we were closed so I got Tuesday off as well. This is one of the benefits of being a government worker. I know Wall Street was open on Martin Luther King's birthday. In a way, it would be better if it was a national holiday for everyone because of what it represents, but the United States still holds to a certain views that don't match with how many people are acting.

On Wednesday of last week, someone asked for the speech, "I Have A Dream," by Martin Luther King on tape or video. We had the audiocasette of the speech, but it was part of a nine hour long collection of audiotapes, none of the tapes were labelled with what was on each tape. So, searching for a one and a half minute speech would not have been practical. It was rather odd.

A lot of audiocasette and cd companies that make nonfiction audios don't label what is on each individual tape. Imagine if you would, that you were listening to the unabridge bible on audiocasette, there were 66 tapes, and you wanted to find a specific passage or book of the bible. It would be incredibly hard. I imagine with nonfiction MP3s, it would be much easier, because you can check each track of the MP3.

We pulled the speech off of Youtube. The teacher was going to play the audio of the "I Have A Dream" speech over the loudspeakers at the local schools in the morning.

There really wasn't anything which I wanted to pick up to read at my local library today. I am pretty picky about what I want to read. This is why I place so many books on reserve and wait for things.

I still am taking some time to read selections from Rumi. I have been flipping back and forth in the book, reading a poem or two every day.

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I focus on three sites for blog promotion, Entrecard, Blogcatalog, and Fuelmyblog. I am going to make a few suggestions and thoughts about each one.

Entrecard is basically a business card network, where you display a small picture on your blog for advertising purposes. I try and focus on specific categories in entrecard. This means, I focus on relevant categories in the ad network for my blog; books. writing and literature, and the environment mostly.

My Entrecard page: http://entrecard.com/user/922/

With entrecard, one of the first things I do is make sure my ads are going to be running. I cancel any advertisers who don't choose to run my ad within three days. This keeps my ad list clean. I also check each blog which is going to advertise on my blog for objectionable content. I feel it is best to click each day on the blogs which are going to advertise on my blog, as well as the blogs who have visited my blog. I generally advertise in the Books Category and Writing and Literature Categories first. I spend all of my points on these two categories.

My page on blog catalog: http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/wehireu

With blogcatalog, I join groups focused on my interests, I am a member of 10 groups, Writers and Writing, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Popular Science, Book Readers, English Literature, Eco Friends, Dialogue Raises Consciousness, Comics and Graphic Novels, Anime and Manga, and Entrecard Group. These are not general groups, they are groups focused on what my blog is writing about. They are not generic groups designed to ask for reviews.

Every day I check to see who is reading my blog. I don't just randomly add websites to my friends list. I also checked the directory in my categories, Art & Entertainment-- Books, Art & Entertainment-- Comics, and Writing. I added many of the blogs which were the top blogs in their categories to my friends list. If I find a blog which I like in the directory, I will look to see who is friends on their blog and add the blogs which I like from their list.

Fuelmyblog:

I don't get as much traffic from fuelmyblog. But, one of the first thing I do everyday is check to see who has recommended my blog, then give them a positive recommendation in turn. This has let me build up a recommendation list of 31 blogs. It has also put me in the top category position. Once again, I focus on checking three categories, Books/Writers, Entertainment, Art/Design. I try to look through a blog category each day and make a recommendation for one blog. This adds up quickly.

Slow Day And The Independent Giant Bookstore.

Today will be a slow day. Both Steven Erikson's Bonehunters and George R.R. Martin's A Feast For Crows are giant books and will take quite a while to read. Now I understand why there are not as many reviews of these books. They are very long.

Barnes and Noble Booksellers used to have a used book annex in Manhattan, New York. It went out of business. I remember it as being mediocre compared to the Strand, the biggest bookstore in New York, which has become like a giant warehouse. Strand even sells used books by the foot as backdrops for movie, television, and plays. http://www.strandbookstore.com/. It is not uncommon to see people walking around Soho with Strand bookbags. It is a sign of literacy.

I go there sometimes to the basement to buy half price reviewers copies in hardcover. I used to go there before booksignings to pick up my half price copies to get signed.

They have an incredible variety of books. Almost anything you could want if you are a bibliofile. The shop is a tightly run union shop. Many of the people who work there, have worked there for years and have lots of experience in selecting books.

They have even opened an annex in the financial district and a downtown Manhattan kiosk.

I wish I had a chance to visit Powells books in Oregon. They are supposed to be the largest used bookstore in the world.

The other used bookstore I am going to mention which is massive is Logos books in Santa Cruz. For a while after the building was destroyed in the Santa Cruz earthquake, it was in a giant inflatable warehouse. It was actually kind of interesting to walk around in. I haven't seen the new store yet.

The common theme for these places is size and experience. They are putting many of the smaller independents in their areas out of business. The chains cannot complete with them in the used book business. Barnes and Noble really are focused on new books where a formula works.

It takes a certain amount of skill to sort through older books, identifying the collectible and rare books, the regular used books, the bargain books, and the unsalable garbage, then pricing and grading them appropriately.

If you are ever in Manhattan and feel nostalgic, I am going to recommend Roger's Time Tunnel, a very old school comic book shop. 207 W 14TH St Ste 2New York, NY 10011-7105Phone: (212) 691-0380 .

Ring the doorbell. They are on the second floor and will buzz you in. They don't have a website, but if you are looking for a place to find the very old, odd, or unusual comic book, it is a good place to go. They also have movie stills, magazines, paperbacks, pulps, posters, and a variety of other things. If you feel nostalgic and are into this kind of thing and like a fanboy atmosphere, it is a great place to visit. Their pricing and willingness to buy and sell is very good.

When there was still an outdoor flea market in New York around 20th avenue, I used to pick (search for bargains) at the flea markets and bring in comic books and other items for trade there.

Anyways, I added my first widget, http://www.fuelmyblog.com/ . They were nice enough to ask about my site.

I am looking for other widgets or links that aren't too complicated right now. I just added a fish tank. A lot of bookstores have a cat. So Book Calendar now has a fish tank...