Daily Thoughts 10/15/2009

The lion statues at the New York Public Library, with a mantle of snow during the record December 1948 snowfall. Public Domain. A lion in winter.

Daily Thoughts 10/15/2009

I finished reading Confessions of A Radical Industrialist by Ray C. Anderson. This is a reminder that there is a better way when it comes to sustainability and clean technology. He calls for large scale home insulation, more efficient energy appliances, benign chemicals to replace toxics, better recycling technology, more renewable energy, a new transmission infrastructure for electricity, and new hybrid vehicles. I would add greener cities, more green buildings, more urban agriculture, and more locally focused businesses.

This is an excellent book if you want to understand large enterprise and how it relates to sustainability. Earlier in the book, he reminds the reader that General Electric, Toyota, and Cisco Sytems are moving towards sustainability and Google has a program to make electricity cheaper than coal from renewables.

Today is another quiet day. I am working with a colleague to get some signage removed. I also contacted someone about doing a poetry program. I am going to be ordering some Danielle Steel large print for the book mobile because people are asking for it. The book mobile is going to
use the patron request form soon as well.

We started counting the books in the Job Information Center. It has been a steady day. Nothing revolutionary. Some more of the signage is going to be changed. I am thinking about doing a graphic novel book club. I am trying to find something which is available at a lot of different libraries that not everyone has read. It might have to be something a little older.

Paul J. McAuley has won the Philip K. Dick Award, The Sideways Award for Alternate History, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Award, and the British Fantasy Award. His writing is superb. I hope he wins the Hugo Award or the Nebula Award eventually. I am reading his book,The Quiet War. It is hard science fiction. He uses a lot of biology in his stories, much more so than many science fiction writers. He is trained as a botanist.