Daily Thoughts 8/19/2010 (Book Blogger Appreciation Week)

Daily Thoughts 8/19/2010




I am breaking my usual reticence and signing up to be interviewed as part of Book Blogger Appreciation Week.  It should be interesting.




Today has been quiet and steady.  I did some spot checking of the shelving to make sure things are in order and checked the displays.  On Friday, I am going to start weeding again in the oversize books.  I also took a little time to print up some flyers for some upcoming programs, an Open Book Chat, and the Graphic Novels Club next month.  One of our patrons suggested it would be better to call it an open book chat than a brown bag book chat.  There is also a business program coming up from the Women's Enterprise Development Center which comes every year.  It is called First Steps.  It is a combination of checking your entrepreneurial spirit and learning basic computer skills for business.




We finished our second year doing a program for Adult Summer Reading on August 17, 2010.  We had a few events associated with it; author talks, book chats, and a final literary tea.  It went well for our first time combining program with adult summer reading.




We did a little shifting of the audiobooks and checked the labeling.




I also checked out Starting an Online Business All In One For Dummies 2nd Edition by Shannon Belew and Joel Elad.  Hopefully it will explain valuation for online setups.  It is 814 pages long.  The book so far is a basic outline of how to start online.




 I read some more of Bring On the Books For Everybody by Jim Collins.  He is talking about how literature is becoming a source of deep personal satisfaction.  He cites Harold Bloom with his book How To Read And Why.  We get a lot of copies of Blooms Notes which are like Cliffs Notes   except for with Harold Blooms name on them.  When I checked the index there was no citation for librarian as a subject.  However, he did have a section on Nancy Pearl.

Daily Thoughts 8/17/2010 (Bitter Angels, Westerns, Programs, Graphic Novels )

Owen Wister friend of Theodore Roosevelt and author of the American Western-style novel, The Virginian photo from the Owen Wister Collection of the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. 

Daily Thoughts 8/17/2010 

I finished reading The Outlaw Josey Wales by Forest Carter on the train to work today.  It looks like there might be a little bit of a resurgence in interest in westerns, especially Max Brand and Louis L'Amour who are still both very popular.  There is a set of reviews for westerns in Library Journal online.  http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/885858-264/collection_development_not_ready_for.html.csp




Another article How Libraries Ensure Ongoing Freedom In America by Martha Randolph Carr.
http://politicallyillustrated.com/index.php?/news_page/iw/1654/  I rather like the cartoon.




Today was a bit busier than usual.  We had the final Adult Summer Reading Game which is the first time we are doing this.  We talked about the books we read during the sumer, had punch or tea, raffled off a bag of books and bookish items, and gave away a few books to attendees.  It was a nice afternoon thing to do.



I also got ready for tomorrow, picking out a number of graphic novels for the program tomorrow.  This time I went into the storage area and pulled out some of our older material; Peter Arno, Chas Addams, Gary Trudeau, Herblock, Gahan Wilson, and a few other classic cartoonists.  We even had one of the old fashioned cartoon instruction books from the 1930s.  I like to pull material that is related to graphic novels, not just graphic novels, record cover art, illustration, fasion design, storyboarding, drawing comics, and writing comics.



I also finished going through the trade paperback fiction to make sure things were in the right place.  We now have a much expanded section for African American fiction.  I'll probably be going through the hardcover fiction section next.



I also have some work to do with BWI to check on the Electronic Data Interchange.  Our first orders are going through them soon. 



On the way home, I read some of Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson which is a science fiction novel which mixes space opera and espionage.  There is a blurb by Linnea Sinclair on the cover who writes romantic science fiction.  Linnea Sinclair is an author which I like a lot.

Daily Thoughts

Mr. Charles Dickens’s Last Reading. Source:
Leighton, George C.: “Illustrated London News Vol 56” (1870)

Daily Thoughts

I filed looseleafs in the Guide to Employment Law and Regulations this afternoon. I plan on replacing several missing copies of McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated as well as a volume of the New York Code of Rules and Regulations. These two sets are some of the most used books in our law collection. We keep several different volumes of the set behind the reference desk and hold identification while they are being used. This is to prevent theft. McKinney's is quite expensive at $135 per volume currently.

This month is African American History Month. There was a reading this last Saturday for the Big Read. People took turns reading from Ernest J. Gaines A Lesson Before Dying. We also just put up a display for the Negro Leagues Baseball. It is in front of our desk. This coming Saturday we are doing a An African American Read In Chain for Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin In The Sun

Tomorrow, I am putting together a display for Lincoln's Birthday on February 12. A patron is donating a mystery about the assassination of Lincoln for the display.

We have fourteen people in our community room who are attending the first part of a series of four part series on starting a business.