Daily Thoughts 6/17/2009

Soren Kierkegaard in the coffee-house. Sketch in oils by Christian Olavious, 1843

Daily Thoughts 6/17/2009

Proposed layoffs for libraries and cuts in service have been reduced considerably. This is good news for libraries in the five boroughs of Manhattan. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6665611.html

I spent a few minutes looking through http://books.alltop.com/ this morning. It is a news feed for books. I liked the blogs and sources they chose. I even found a few things to order for our library. It seems to cover a nice selection of news.

Queens Library in New York has won the library of the year award from the American Library Association. This is an article from the Daily News, a newspaper I sometimes read during lunch with my coffee. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/queens/2009/06/15/2009-06-15_boro_wins_library_of_year.html

American Library Association has created its own social network called ALA Connect. They are seeking librarians to come join the network. It is a fairly new network for librarians. http://connect.ala.org/

Today was a solid day. We are preparing to lay carpet on Friday, so we had to clear off some of the display space. I also filed some law looseleafs, Guide to Employment Law and Regulations. We are preparing to do some more organization in the technical services area. I think it will be helpful to do this. I am also hoping to get some of the gift books processed.

I read some more of A Complaint Is A Gift on the train home. It is a practical book on customer service; it includes things like service recovery and how to reduce the number of complaints.

Diaily Thoughts 6/9/2009

Prang's Fine Art Books, Poster

Daily Thoughts 6/9/2009

I watched some of The Battle For Algiers on dvd. It reminds me of many things which are happening in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a classic film about terrorism, colonialism, and change.

I am standing at the main library of Queens Public Library. One of the things which Queens Public Library does is not create special reference collections for books on library management. I will be taking three books on librarianship out; Guide to Developing A Library Music Collection by R. Michael Fling, Fundamentals of Technical Services Management by Sheila S. Intner with Peggy Johnson, and The Thriving Library Successful Strategies for Challenging Times, Edited by Marylaine Block. One of the things I was looking for was books on managing non-print materials. We have lots of information on selecting books, but not enough information on selecting dvds and cds.

I also picked up two graphic novels, Drinky Crow's Maakies Treasury by Tony Millionaire. This book is irreverent, gross, violent, and funny. Maakies is a comic strip printed mainly in alternative newspapers. It features a drunken crow (Drinky Crow) and drunken monkey (Uncle Gabby) who often sail around on a sailing ship. It draws a little bit from the early strips like Krazy Kat or other early animal funnies. The other book which I selected was Conan and The Jewels of Gwahlur by P. Craig Russell. P. Craig Russell is known for his opera adaptations like Parsifal and the Ring of the Nibelung. http://www.pcraigrussell.net/

I am standing here using the computer at the library. It has no printer attached to it. Nobody minds if I continue to use it for a few extra sessions because everyone wants to print something. I also used the self-checkout machine. It was rather interesting. All you had to do was place your card on top of a plate and it was read automatically. Then you placed all your books on top of the plate in a stack and it read the barcodes automatically and gave a printout of what you had checked out. Queens Library is using radio frequency identification self checkout. http://www.queenslibrary.org/index.aspx?page_nm=Annual_Report05_RFID

I read Maakies on the bus home. It was grossly funny. They even had a few people showing off their tattoos of Drinky Crow in some of the comic strips which was very outrageous. This is a link to the comic strip on the web. http://www.maakies.com/archive/index.html

I enjoyed reading the Conan story. It was very true to the original character who is a charlatan, trickster, and thief in his early years. Conan is off to steal some jewels and become rich. This is not a story of constant fighting, but treachery, intrigue, and cunning with a beautiful woman and some monsters thrown in for good measure.

The art work is beautiful. In addition to the story, there is a sketch book after the story which includes drawing from Barry Windsor Smith and Roy Thomas of Conan. P. Craig Russell is trying to keep the feel of the earlier comic versions of Conan. Despite this, it does not feel like a traditional Conan story. It is much more dramatic than most Conan stories. There is also more background story and art.

Car Troubles, Queens Library

Postage Stamp of the National Library of Faroe Islands.

Car Troubles

Like many of you, I have car troubles. I had to take my car in for an inspection. They told me that it hadn't been driven enough, I had to take it out and drive it around for at least an hour on the freeway or else the inspection equipment wouldn't pass the car. It has been quite an annoyance.

My car is still in the garage getting maintenance done. They have to change the oil, rotate the tires, change the battery, and a bunch of other things to get the car in proper shape.

Right now, I am sitting at the main library in Queens, New York. Queens Library has the highest circulation of any library system in the United States. In other words, more people use it than any other library system. In some ways, it is laid out very differently than most libraries I have been to.

First of all, the library is heavily merchandised with lots of display racks for a variety of subjects including computers, self-help, mythology, new books, bestsellers, and any of a number of different subjects. You could spend a whole day wandering through the merchandised sections of the library. The bookshelves run along the walls, while the merchandised sections are in the center. Green and white signage hangs from the ceilings which is quite visible.

I went through and looked at a bunch of different subjects and wrote down a variety of new titles for computer books. They have more computer books than I have seen in most large bookstores. They also have a greater variety of subjects on computers. I still have a couple thousand dollars of computer books to order.

Sometimes when I go to libraries or bookstores I carry a small notebook to jot down titles which I am interested in. I have several pages of books jotted down after this visit. After walking through the computer books section, I walked through the social science section and noted down a few books that looked interesting. One title which really stood out was The Blue How To Profit By Investing In A Better World by Daniel De Faro Adams and Joe Andrew.

After I was done with the more serious works, I went to the manga and graphic novels section. There were a few things that interested me. Herge's Tintin can be quite controversial, but I think we might want to get a couple for the adult section. Some people consider them to be quite ethnically and racially biased. I also am going to probably order a few books by Goscinny who does the Asterix books. These in a sense are comics classics. I am also considering getting a few reprint volumes of Segar's Popeye.

Not everything in comics is about graphic novels and manga. We still have to get editorial cartoons and comic strips. Aaron McGruder is fairly popular at our library. We also don't have many popular strips. I intend to get a few of Scott Adam's Dilbert books for our collection after looking at the queens collection.

We have a very large African American population where we work. Three cartoonists which stand out who are African American are Lance Tooks, Aaron McGruder, and Kyle Baker. All do excellent work.

The computer station where I am sitting is very busy. There is a very large line to use the computers. It has a very large variety of people in the lines. Queens is also one of the most ethnically diverse places in the United States.

It is odd looking at the screen because they have set the standard type to very large to help the visually impaired. It is like reading a large print book. I don't particularly find it comfortable.

I have an hour to sit here before I go back to check on my car. I checked back on my car and it won't be ready until tomorrow. It is one of those things where unexpected things happen. I'll deal with it as I go along.

I don't really have to worry about driving it unless it is the weekend or I have a specific trip I have to make. I usually take the train to work.

Something I noticed about the Queens main branch is that it is not that effectively designed for reference work. Because almost all the collections are focused on high circulation and there is not as much reference material, there are a lot less people seeking reference questions.

People come in to check out material and use the computers more than anything else in Queens. There were no really identifiable special collections at all. I did not even see a multicultural collection. There is a very large Job Information Center collection. This seems to be the main specialized collection for reference in Queens.

It seemed that an emphasis on circulating material limits the amount of research being done. A research collection is structured differently than a circulating collection. In a more research oriented collection like New York Public Library there tends to be a lot more older material and much greater depth to the collection. It also is much more prestigious because of the depth of the collection. Most of the material in Queens was new material on the shelves. I did not find this particularly appealing. It reminded me too much of a bookstore model for libraries.