Daily Thoughts 6/15/2009

Portrait of Charlotte Bronte 1873

Daily Thoughts 6/15/2009

I spent some time this morning looking at the Black Expressions Book Club at the New Arrivals section. It lists a lot of popular new African American fiction. Black Expressions describes a lot of different categories of African American fiction. http://www.blackexpressions.com/ecom/pages/nm/browse/subGenre.jsp?cat2=3788929&cat1=&browse=

I spent some time today weeding the oversize books. I was in the photography section. It was interesting looking at all the different artists.

I also spent some time discussing programming. We are going to have a program on minority business, a financial literacy program, and a program on writing wills. What I am really looking forward to is a program on writing poetry in August.

I also had a chance to look at Titlesource 3 from Baker and Taylor today which is kind of interesting to look at. It has a lot of features which we can use to make our ordering easier.

A lot of people are coming in to use the computers at our library. There is a wait of over an hour for using the cybercorner most of the time. The new books section is right across from cybercorner so people often read while they are waiting or checkout books and other media.

Daily Thoughts 5/20/2009

Howard Pyle. Illustrator and writer of many books. I like his Book of Pirates.

Daily Thoughts 5/20/2009

A copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century 1910 by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill came in. This is one of my favorite graphic novel series. The main characters are Mina Harker and Alan Quatermain with other classic characters from early adventure, science fiction, and fantasy novels. The drawing is superb and the writing is very entertaining. It is also a graphic novel for adults. The story is quite violent and dark with occult elements in it.

I finished shifting the 700s. I created quite a bit of space for the library aides and other staff to move the 600s. They are relocating some of the shelving currently which is a very big project. I'm going to start working on weeding the 780s soon. I also have to work on the oversize 700s which will be a big project for weeding.

Today was also the collection development meeting. We sat around and discussed what we planned on ordering. I put my 300s, 800s, and fiction suggestions. The ordering process is starting to smooth out very nicely. Hopefully, we will soon have some better analysis for the purchase alerts and holds soon.

Tomorrow we are having the Baker and Taylor representative come to train us for Title Source 3. One of our staff said it was the best way to order video games from Baker and Taylor. We are also going to have some workflow training for ordering which I think will be very interesting.

Daily Thoughts 3/27/2009

Love Among The Chickens, P.G. Wodehouse. I just liked the title and cover design. It is quite appealing.

Daily Thoughts 3/27/2009

I am working on the Automatically Yours, a program with Baker and Taylor which allows a library to place standing orders by author for fiction. I have the selection list of authors ready. Hopefully, I will be able to have the process done next week. http://www.btol.com/promo_details.cfm?id=32 I am also going to ask Baker & Taylor if they have a standing order program for award winning titles , Hugo, Nebula, Edgar Award, Pulitzer Prize, Mann Booker Prize, RITA Award (romance) , Bram Stoker Award (horror), Fiction American Library Association Notable Books, Pen Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and a few others.

I placed a small order of fiction books to fill in gaps for books which we missed ordering for popular authors as well. A short list of thirty seven books.

I am going to another meeting for Earth Day this afternoon in the mayors office. We have a few things ready. There is a small display put together for books on Earth Day. The local high school special education department is doing a display with us on alternative energy, we plan on doing a cleanup day for around the library and a planting for the side of the library.

I am about half way through reading The Everything Managing People Book by Gary McClain, Ph.D. and Deborah S. Romaine. This is a very plain written, easy to understand book. There are no citations of major companies, just examples of every day things which may happen in day to day management of a company. This book does not promise to turn you into a gung ho super manager.

I watched a little bit of Slam Nation The Sport of Spoken Word filmed by Paul Devlin. This is a documentary about the poets in a national poetry slam in the United States. I rather liked it because it interviewed Bob Holman who is a major figure in contemporary performance poetry and Marc Smith from Chicago who created the concept of the poetry slam. There were some very interesting things that I learned. A lot of performance poetry is about how you use your lips and face to create stage presence and sound for an audience. Taylor Mali in the film was really excellent at doing this. Another poet who I really enjoyed was Saul Williams who is also an actor. He tells you that stage presence is really important in performing.

This is a fairly sexually charged film with some strong language. Both Beau Sia, an asian poet and Jessica Care More, an African American poet express a lot of sexually charged themes in their poems. Beau Sia also showed the pictures he likes to draw which are quite good. Jessica Care Moore won 5 Apollo Amateur Nights with her poetry. The movie so far is very interesting to watch. It is not what I expected. The group poetry pieces that are shown are very different.

Good Morning, A New Years Eve Manifesto

Zane Grey in Australia. Zane Grey wrote westerns. It is such an idiosyncratic picture.

Good Morning

Right now, I am reading The Merchant of Dennis The Menace The Autobiography of Hank Ketcham. Hank Ketcham new he was going to be a cartoonist from time he was six years old. He was an incredibly focused man. I can see parallels between the life of Hank Ketcham and Charles Schulz. Both were very clean, middle american white anglo saxon protestants. The book is profusely illustrated with black and white photographs and cartoons.

Today is a half day at work.

I picked up a copy of the dvd Capote about Truman Capote. I heard that it was a very goood film. I liked In Cold Blood and was wondering what the life of the writer Truman Capote was like. I could not finish the movie because the dvd was scratched. This happens sometimes. I'll have to return it and request another one. The first part of the movie was very interesting. It makes me interested enough to maybe read some of hist other works.

I am trying out a Tumblr account. http://bookcalendar.tumblr.com/ . It looks like an interesting sharing network for a variety of different things from links to videos to picures.

Baker & Taylor is laying off 60 people from their retail division which is bad sign. It means that less people will be buying books from bookstores. If less people buy books from stores they are likely to use the library more. However, because less money is being spent there will be less tax money for libraries. It is a kind of vicious circle. The coming year will be about increasing efficiency without increasing costs. This means a lot more will be expected of people.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6625720.html

This poem is after the style of the Beat poets, it is a kind of lyrical nonsense poem in an attempt at a jazz kind of rhyme. I am thinking of Bob Kaufman the beat poet who wrote the Abomunist Manifesto when I am writing this.

A New Years Manifesto

I manifest a festive festival

This festival of manifestos

New years festival on all days

To remind your mind to enjoy

Manifests positive manifestations

Affirm your new years affirmations

Resolve to resolve your resolutions

And remember to remember joy

Happy New Years!

Daily Thoughts

Jane Austen

Good Morning

There are a lot of people who come into our library to use the wireless internet access. Many of them are accountants, (numbers people) or computer people, (system administrators, web designers or programmers). I try and talk to them to see what they want in our computer books section. Because of this I have ordered books on Ubuntu linux, Suse Linux and Oracle for the systems side, and Crystal Reports, Dreamweaver, and web design for the design side.

They usually come in and sit in a quiet corner. A lot of them want an outlet so they don't have to rely on batteries. I like when professionals come into the library to work. They are usually quiet and don't ask a huge amount of questions unless the wireless internet goes down. Also, I think they make an excellent constituency for keeping the library open. It is a place to work.

I spent a bit more placing orders in different carts for January in Baker and Taylor. I think I have my initial orders in for mass market paperbacks (all categories), Job Information Center, 650s (Business management and accounting), computers, graphic novels and manga, and 300s mainly social science.

These are some beautiful pictures of the inside of a refurbished convent library. I found the link on the Kimbooktu, blog. http://www.fotoreport.at/galerie/stifte/admont/

On another note, I have the new list for low circulation items from the cental computer office. This has already speeded up the weeding somewhat for the 300s.

I also finished reading The January Dancer by Michael Flynn. It has a rather nice surprise ending. The book might take me a little bit of time to write up properly as there are some interesting aspects to the story I have not seen in a while in current science fiction.

Good Morning, Good Afternoon

George Orwell

Good Morning

I have just started reading The January Dancer a science fiction novel by Michael Flynn.

I found another social networking site for books. This one looks fairly interesting. I am hoping that it does not fold like the other sites which I joined earlier. It is in alpha right now, so it should improve considerably. Lit Minds http://home.litminds.org/index.html It is also a .org which makes a slight difference in how its funded.

Good Afternoon

I am getting the hang of using the Baker and Taylor order system. It is speeding up my ordering process for new books. I am readying next years orders.

I also had a chance to go through letters sent to us from various performers for library programs. They all want you to spend $200-400 for an hour or an hour and half program. Mostly it is musicians, mainly jazz and ragtime music. There are several Brazilian jazz musicians offering to do programs. There is also a lady who wants to teach tarot and a watercolor artist. Sistah Souljah wants $5000 to do a short program at our library.

Good Morning, Conferences

Isaac Asimov in his younger days. Did you know the early term for science fiction in 1925 was scientifiction?

Good Morning

On the train to work I started reading Getting Results For Dummies by Mark H. McCormack. This book is really interesting because the author is in sports management. When he gives examples he uses famous sports figures like Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer. He also uses a lot of anecdotes and real world examples. I rather like this quote, "A pen, a legal pad, and a plan are all you need to get organized."

When I came into work the book Copyediting and Proofreading for Dummies was waiting for me. I think that will be the next book which I read.

I organized the main display on the floor, did some weeding in the social sciences, and made a phone call to confirm that Westchester Residential Opportunities was going to do a "Foreclosure Information Workshop" at the library on January 29, 2008. I am looking forward to seeing this done. I have also contacted the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America about doing another workshop on foreclosure as well.

Today was a snow day. City employees got to go home early. I rushed to finish another set of orders for mass market paperbacks from Baker and Taylor's Paperclips and finished an order with ten minutes to spare before one o'clock.

Then it was into the snow and freezing rain. The trains were very slow and crowded, but I still had a chance to read some more of Getting Results for Dummies. I also had a large cup of coffee to keep my insides warm. I am enjoying the book despite the mundane subject. The author is a surprisingly good writer.

Conferences

I am hoping I can attend a wide variety of conferences this year.

On February 6-8, 2009 is New York Comic Con at the Jacob Javits Center. It looks to be a very good conference this year. I look forward to going there. Hopefully, I will collect a lot of material for the library there. http://www.nycomiccon.com/App/homepage.cfm?moduleid=2577&appname=100453

On Friday, May 8, 2009 is the Westchester Library Association. I am going there as well. The conference is titled: Making A Difference: Changing Libraries for Changing TimesDoubletree Hotel, Tarrytown NY

On May 28-31, 2009 is Book Expo America at the Jacob Javits Center. I am definitely going to try and be there as well. Book Expo America is held every other year in New York. I plan on collecting a very large amount of publishing catalogs when I go there as well as requesting to put our library on publishing mailing lists.

http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/

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.