Daily Thoughts 6/4/2010

Château de Chantilly, Oise, Picardie, France. Le cabinet des Livres. 29 August 2008(2008-08-29), Tango7174, Gnu Free Documentation License 1.2, From Wikimedia

Daily Thoughts 6/4/2010

Book Blogger Convention, Content, Comraderie, and Cake http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/896491.html#3941145 . I like Shelf Awareness, I subscribe to the email newsletter. They often have nice daily recommendations of books to read and summations about authors and other people in the book trade.

I was at this panel at Book Expo America, BEA Librarians Shout It Out. http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/895877.html#3940027 It was excellent.

Book and Bake Sale

It is book and bake sale time at the library. The Friends of the Library are selling coffee, cake, and books in the community room. It has a pleasant genteel feel to it. They are also running the sale on Saturday. They are raffling off an icecream maker. They also have the petition out to keep the library open. A retired children's librarian who is part of the Firends of the Library helps run the sale.

There are piles of books on the tables, pleasant people to talk to, and lots and lots of books. In addition there are a lot of audiobooks. The crowd is mostly older ladies. Eventually, the book dealers will show up to look at the books, usually at the end of the show. Some will be asking to take away all the books that did not sell at a discount.

It is a genteel kind of thing to do. There were a lot of the regulars who went to the book sale. Several regular library patrons and even a few people who lived across the street from the library came to the book sale.

I spent some time during lunch looking over the books on the tables; self help, sports, fiction, art, religion, childrens books, audiobooks and general nonfiction. It was nice talking to people who wandered in for a few minutes. Usually all of the librarians at some point go down to the booksale to look around say hello to the Friends of the Library, look at the books, and say hello to people. The cookies were tasty. I'll get some coffee tomorrow.

Library book sales are generally good public relations. They sell books inexpensively which we would not necessarily add to the collection.

Everyday Things

I spent some time looking at the displays. I also spent some time looking at Bookletters this morning talking to our representative about layout. I am working on creating another bookmark, this time for Latino American authors.

On the train home, I read some of Linchpin Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. It is about how work is changing. He is describing how the world of work is changing so fast that it is necessary to have people comfortable changing things as part of organizations. People who are creative, artistic, and can find solutions in addition to managers and workers. Things are changing so fast that it is hard to keep up with things at times.

Daily Thoughts 5/15/2009

I like the idea that it cost 25 cents for the World Almanac in 1903.

Daily Thoughts 5/15/2009

Today is one of those oddly memorable days. The Friends of the Library are having a book sale. Every single time I go in to the book sale, I run into a book dealer I recognize. I am hoping that one of them will be able to help me get me the contact information on someone I lost track of. I used to spend time pricing science fiction titles at a now defunct bookstore.

Before I got married, I used to go out to the flea markets on the weekends to look for old comic books, science fiction books, and collectible paperbacks. I would buy them and trade them in for comic books. A lot of this kind of thing is dead in Manhattan now. I still stop by Rogers Time Tunnel sometimes to look at their collection. It is a very old fashioned comic book store. http://www.yelp.com/biz/rogers-time-machine-new-york . It is one of those hidden gems in New York if you know where to look.

It feels like a long tail end to the death of many of the smaller independent bookstores. Unless a bookstore becomes very focused and trains their staff very well, they cease to exist. It has gotten to the point where many of them are training their staff better at selecting material and customer service than the big chain bookstores in order to survive. I heard that some of the dealers would come in three times today to see what was being put out for sale at different points in the day, in the morning, at noon, and at the end of the day.

There is no generalist bookstore in the city where I work. There is a small christian bookstore. The library is effectively the local source for books. I think this is increasingly becoming true in many cities across the United States. You either travel to a large mall or superstore, buy through the internet, or go to your local library.

The cooperative system was putting in new computers in our computer center today. They are also expanding the wireless access points by September to handle up to 25 people. A lot more people are using Iphones in addition to laptops in the library. Once again, this is an indicator I should probably get an Iphone or a smart phone. It is a matter of spending money to do it. I don't like spending money.

I spent some time also distributing phone books to the staff. A lot of people have stopped using phone books and now use the online yellow pages. I know I do, but some patrons still ask for local phone books in paper. The providers of yellow pages have gotten much tighter about what they will give out. It costs money for us to get phone books outside of the county. Verizon now has a special subsidiary, Idearc to handle the marketing of telephone books. We also have an extra supply of local phone books which we leave out for patrons to take.

I did my usual small tasks, reading the New York Times Book Review, filing law looseleafs, checking the displays to see that they were in order, and took some time to look at the slat walls. We are almost done ordering accessories for the slat walls. They look very nice. A whole set of new books are being processed to go out.

The large print standing order is being gone over by our representative. I reminded them to look at the Essence bestseller list for African American titles to see what was available in large print.

I read some of Emotional Eating A Practical Guide to Taking Control by Edward Abramson. I don't like the idea of dieting. My doctor told me I must lose weight and eat less sugar if I want to maintain my health. I initially tried to change the way I am eating, I have cut out most sweets, soda, and extremely fatty food. I am also trying food substitution, eating low fat foods like low fat milk, low fat cottage cheese, and low fat mayonnaise as well as eating more fruits and vegetables. I am also exercising. Quite frankly, I don't like moving quickly. I am doing floor exercises and walking but don't want to run or swim. I am trying to find ways around the cardiovascular exercise by trying a pedometer to see how I can move during the day.

The next obvious step is trying to find out why I eat too much emotionally. I have always thought diets were useless, but I have to lose weight. This means I have to change my habits and how I think about food.

Booksales

After my trip to the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Festival, I stopped off at a used bookstore called Housing Works in Manhattan. I was surprised at how sparse the selection was. The selection used to be quite good. I guess not as many people are donating books to charitable organizations.

I should not be surprised. They don't have a booksale at the library near my house. This is kind of surprising. You would think every library needs a book sale. But, I guess this is getting quaint and old. People are clearly not reading as many books so booksales don't do as well.

The booksale at our library even looks a little quaint to me. It doesn't seem to be selling a whole lot of books. Even our larger booksale didn't do so well with a room full of books. Very few booksellers came to buy books. According to my supervisor, the book dealers used to line up to buy books from our booksale. Maybe, people are selling their books on ebay instead. You never can be too sure about these things. When I went to the sale, I did not see much to buy. However, I did buy a brownie and a cup of coffee.

Right now, It is very hot where I am working. It is 92 degrees inside. The fans are blowing around the building while I am sitting here. I took some time to look through the New York Times Book Review for this week, but didn't find anything.

I put another book on hold, The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria. It is #7 on the Publishers Weekly Nonfiction Bestseller List. I think the book is focused on the rise of China and India. I'm not too sure yet. I also placed Shadowbridge by Gary Frost on hold.

Two more books came in for me to read, The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. There is a surprise, Neil Gaiman wrote an introduction to the book which should be entertaining. The book is a trade paperback. The other book which came in is Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge.

When I get up to walk around the building I sweat a bit. I weeded some more law books this morning. My library aide, called in sick today. It is quite hot.