Daily Thoughts 4/25/2009

Writer L. Frank Baum, writing with pen. 1911

Daily Thoughts 4/25/2009

Today was an interesting day. I spent some time this morning working with Professor Teaches Publisher 2003, a computer program which teaches people how to use Microsoft Publisher. I came in a little early to get this done.

We also did a cleanup around the library, raking up garbage and trash, and picking up bottles and other things. We spent around two hours picking up around the building. It also looked like the post office picked up around their lot and building this morning. The city is signing people up for block cleanups. Groups would get extra pickups for garbage on the weekend. It is part of Earth Celebration Week. There is also a small display of books for earth day in a case. The local high school special education department did a display on alternative energy in our front lobby. We had a nice earth week.

Early today, I also had a few minutes to go into the technical processing area and review some of the books for mending in the cage. Not everything will make it to the mending shelf.

I am sitting here looking at fiction reviews. It is a very nice day outside. I have picked out a few titles, Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone is one of them. Paul Coelho puts a page up with pirated versions of his own work to increase his print sales. He also comments on various issues with the internt. http://piratecoelho.wordpress.com/ . I also picked out books by a few popular authors, Dorothy Cannell, Stuart Woods, and Robert Littlell.

Daily Thoughts 4/14/2009

Depiction of Aesop from the Nuremberg Chronicle. Published in 1493

Daily Thoughts 4/14/2009

Today was another day at work. We are going to add The Multicultural Review which is a quarterly journal to our routing list. It is one of the journals which we subscribe to. We had a collection development meeting today. I described what I had ordered, some 800s and a set of graphic novels on the New York Times bestseller list. I also have to put several Job Information Center titles on order which are being requested regularly.

I updated the displays for current events and Earth Day which is April 22, 2009. I also put together a list of supplies to ask for the Earth Celebration Week. I basically broke it down into two categories, planting supplies for flowers, and cleanup supplies. I have to call the people who I called before to confirm what we need tomorrow. I have another meeting tomorrow.

I also ran an open microphone poetry program today as well. It went much better than I expected. Fourteen people came in and out this time. I have a decent supply of poetry of my own, plus we had about seven people who had brought their own poetry to read as well as several books of poetry which I brought in case somebody did not have anything to read of their own. There were a few people who came in just to listen. We had the usual refreshments, mini-muffins, apple juice, coffee, and water. The microphone was set up a little better this time. The crowd was a mix of late teenagers and adults. It is an inexpensive program if you can do it right. April is national poetry month.

I read some more of The Wikipedia Revolution. This book is very interesting. It is as much a history of the internet as a story about the creation of the Wikipedia Encyclopedia. The technology for creating Wikipedia was already in place by 1995, Wikipedia is in some ways more of a social innovation and a new way of thinking about organizing people than a technological breakthrough.

There are a lot of fascinating ideas in this book. For example a search engine does not need a volume number nor does it need for terms to be alphabetized for it to work. Also, a lot of the information from Wikipedia came from public domain sources like the census and the CIA World Fact Book. Wikipedia essentially took the CIA World Fact Book and expanded it with lots more information to make many of the Wikipedia country entries. A lot of the town descriptions are compilations of United States census data that have people adding additional information to make a more complete entry.

Daily Thoughts 4/7/2009

Japan's first treatise on Western anatomy, 1774. National Science Museum, Tokyo. Photograph by PHG, 2004. I just liked the image.

Daily Thoughts 4/7/2009

Would you buy a vook. It is a strange hybrid of book, video, and twitter. I signed up for the beta to see what it was all about. Maybe I will learn something.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040603765.html

I read some more of the Jack Kerouac, On The Road, The Original Scroll. It includes names like William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg in the text. This was not possible to include because of libel when the book was originally printed. There is a lot of very racy content. The language at times is vrey beautiful. Here is a quote, "Soon it got dusk, a grapey dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgundy red, the the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries." P.182

We got a giant post 4 feet x 8 feet, I think for Earth Celebration the week of April 18-25. It is being put up in the library lobby. I am still calling people for preparation for the 25th, the cleanup and planting around the library. I called Cornell Cooperative Extension to see if I could get one of their Master Gardeners to come down and give some suggestions for planting. There is a New York state grant for existing garden clubs, but apparently our city garden club disappeared several years ago. It is a kind of mystery, no one seems to know what happened.

I am helping my colleague on shifting and weeding the 500s and 600s. Most of the weeding is done, now it is getting stuff transferred into storage, and shifting books that needs to get done. I also spent some time today going over ordering for the 100s and 200s with the new part time librarian. Some of the discussion was fairly philosophical. Some of the ways I see the public library are as a place of self-education, a way to improve the ability of people to have harmonious communities, make people more functional in their jobs, and a repository for culture. It is going fairly well. I still have a few miscellaneous tasks which I have to catch up on. It has been very busy lately, a lot more than before.

Daily Thoughts 4/3/2009

La Lecture, Pierre August Renoir, 1889

Daily Thoughts 4/3/2009

The Human Side of Enterprise Annotated Edition Updated With New Commentary by Joel-Cutcher Gershenfeld by Douglas McGregor. This is considered a classic book on management theory. It is the book which named Theory Y. This book contains commentary, annotations, suggested reading, and a few brief questions at the end of each chapter to help you think about what was being written. I am finding it very interesting.

Reading books on business management is a kind of strange experience for me. The books have this tendency to veer between being extremely controlling or having a kind of sticky sweet cooperate with the company message (cinnamon bun or big stick). It is like reading another language which often makes little common sense. But, I am learning a new perspective which at times is very uncomfortable. I am trying to read practical books, not motivational sales authors like Zig Ziglar or Og Mandino.

April 30, 2009 is Poem In Your Pocket Day which is part of National Poetry Month. This is a link for some of the poems for your pocket. http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/409

I put the new graphic novel, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1910 by Alan Moore on hold. I am looking forward to reading this soon. I also put Slumdog Millionaire on hold on dvd.

I have been going over ordering books with a new librarian. It has been interesting. I went over reading reviews in magazines like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. The starred reviews are usually the ones which people are most likely to buy. The last line of a book review often says whether or not to buy the book or not. In Choice magazine, an academic book review journal on the last line of the review they tell you what type of library should buy a particular type of book; academic, undergraduate, public library, etc.. Last lines and paragraphs are often what you should read before looking at a whole book review.

I also showed her the Library Journal online review section http://www.libraryjournal.com/community/Book+Reviews/47112.html as well as Powell's review summary, http://www.powells.com/reviews/all . This was fairly easy stuff to do.

We also have a breakdown of circulation by call number so this was helpful in finding what books are popular. In addition, we write down things which patrons ask for which we don't have. We ordered two more copies of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Sometimes what people want more than anything is something that tells them that they are wonderful.

I often check the shelves to see what is there. Usually I check for the most popular authors, subjects, and publishers. Most publishers are on the web now, so it is very easy to see what publishers are just coming out with. Sometimes you learn more by explaining what you are doing than doing it.

I spent some more time at city hall this afternoon discussing Earth Day. A lot of it was acknowledging I could get people to come and asking for supplies; flowers, some some small plants, trash bags for cleanup, and other things.

I am going to have to go over the standard way of doing things in the next week or so. I put several books on collection development and collection management on hold for my local library. I think I need to review what I am doing.

Daily Thoughts 4/1/2009

Lecture sous la lampe (Reading under the lamp) by French painter Léon Pourtau (1872-1898)

Daily Thoughts 4/1/2009

Today was a pleasant day. I called a few more people about Earth Day. I have three groups ready to help with the library for Earth Day, The Friends of the Library, one of the neighborhood block associations, and the local Family YMCA. I contacted both churches about Earth Day that are close to us. It is a matter of persistence. Our local high school is doing a window display about alternative energy in the display cases at the front of the stairs.

I ordered a few literary criticism books this morning. In our literature section, Shakespeare is the most popular subject, and Othello is the most popular play by Shakespeare. The bard still rains supreme in literature and plays.

Two books came in for me to read, On The Road, The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac. This book is rather interesting. It is how Jack Kerouac originally wrote On The Road. It was written on a single roll of paper without indentations or paragraphs. I have not started reading it, but it is very visually interesting.

The other books is The Human Side of Enterprise Annotated Edition by Douglas McGregor. This book is the basis of Theory Y style management or a participative, interdependent management style. The central idea is how to motivate people who are self directed and self motivated, or find the motivators to make people more self directed and self motivated. I find myself in this category of people.

Daily Thoughts 3/30/2009

Photo Credit : NASA

Daily Thoughts 3/30/2009

I've started reading How The Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. This book is a workbook which focuses on a method of changing your goals and dealing specifically in ways to committ to change by acting on complaints.

Today was another day, nothing special today. I was shadowed by one of the new librarians. I decided to go over active listening and knowledge elicitation techniques. Things like scenarios where you have more than one place to find what you are looking for (usually there are at least three places to find a common piece of information). Quid pro quo; having information ready to give a patron like flyers, small facts, bookmarks and similar things to get them to better tell you what they want. I think that quid pro quo (something for something) is actually a Roman strategy where when Roman soldiers would enter a new territory, they would send out a person with bits of information about themselves to give to the locals in exchange for local information.

Also, systematically clarifying a patrons questions, asking for support materials like homework assignments or magazine articles finding alternative search terms for what a person is looking for. This would include definitions, spellings, plural forms of words, alternate spellings of words and names, searching by publisher, mixing and matching pieces of titles, and other strategies.

I called the local YMCA director and the Friends of the Library to get them to agree to be part of the block cleanup and planting for Earth Day. I'll probably call the neighborhood associations tomorrow and visit two churches that are near us. I am supposed to have a bunch of people who want to be part of the event by the end of the week for the mayors office. The Friends of the Library head suggested I might want to get some younger people to help.

I wrote my portion of the monthly report as well as what I plan to do this week. Libraries are big on paper. We have lots of it.

I checked on the shelving in the main library. They ordered a whole new set of metal bookends which was nice to see. The library aides did a nice job of putting the books in order-- edged ( the books being one half inch in from the edge of the bookshelves with all spine labels visible) and having three to five inches free at the end of each shelf of books with a bookend placed.

It is funny how sometimes when you think you have done nothing is when you have done the most sometimes. Things just fall into place.

Safari Books Online sent me a thank you letter through the mail for trying out their online service. I was rather surprised by this. It looks like excellent marketing.

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.

Daily Thoughts 3/25/2009

Camille Monet at Work, Claude Monet, 1875

Daily Thoughts 3/25/2009

I started reading Eat That Frog. It is already turning out to be a fantastic book. It is a distillation of many key points on how to not procrastinate, prioritize and get things done quickly. I think it may be the best book I have ever read on this subject. I put the book down during the day, misplacing it.

I also had a very interesting conversation about the Iphone with a patron at the library. He has had an Iphone for quite a bit. He tells me that the main advantage to having an Iphone is that there are so many applications that people can have on it. I told him about the free Stanza ebook reader and he downloaded it. He also took a look at the mobile reader platform for Google Books which was also interesting. I am still trying to convince myself to buy an Iphone. It is disruptive technology. At least I keep telling myself that.

When I got home, I thought about it for a while and realized that the book was available online through http://www.safaribooksonline.com/Corporate/Index/ . They have a free trial for 10 books for 10 days. So, right now, I am trying out the Safari Ebook library. The first book I am reading is Eat That Frog. It is an online subscription service to technical books.

I am also working on putting together a display for Earth Day which is on April 22, 2009. I will include some books on the environment, alternative energy, gardening, and recycling. I think it will be a first step in setting up things for the city.

On Friday, I will be working on ordering new fiction. I am going to try and fill in the gaps on buying books by the most popular authors by circulation. I am going to look at the last four years for each author and whether or not we have the books.

Tomorrow is tax day which is a challenge. I think I have all my paperwork ready.

Daily Thoughts 3/23/2009

Heyman Dullaert. A trompe l'oeil with plumes in an ink bottle, a letter, a seal stamp, a delft pot and a bottle, arranged upon a wooden shelf. Oil on Panel

Daily Thoughts 3/23/2009

Today was a day for two major projects. The first was picking out the shelving for our slat walls. We are getting a mix of clear acrylic displays and wire mesh displays. I was being very conservative in the amount of display shelving we are going to get initially. We have a little more than 250 books which we have to display now. I am guessing this will increase to 300 books to display fairly soon. I spent time looking through the Demco and Gaylord catalog for furniture.

I also talked about my time on last weeks meeting for Earth Day, April 22, 2009 at City Hall. We were thinking of things which we could do with the cities request. There is the local neighborhood association, the Friends of the the Library, and the Library Foundation which might be able to help a little bit.

Two books came in for me to read today Eat That Frog, 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done In Less Time by Brian Tracy and The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen. I also placed another item on hold, Putting service into library staff training : a patron-centered guide by Bessler, Joanne M. I have never really understood the real meaning of the words "patron centerd library," it seems to be a nebulous buzzword like "core collection" or "lean manufacturing" which can mean a lot of different things to different people.

Daily Thoughts 3/20/2009

Evert A. Duyckinick, Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women in Europe and America. New York: Johnson, Wilson & Company, 1873.

Daily Thoughts 3/20/2009

This is a nice little article on the first color ebook reader. http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/03/worlds-first-co.html

Today had a few unexpected things. I went over shelving with the library aides and the person managing shelving. I reminded them that all the books should be edged; one half inch from edge of the bookshelves and even. There should be no books lying on top of the other books. At the end of each shelf there should be a hands breadth; four to six inches of empty space left at the end of each shelf. When the books are not edged, it is often hard to see the spine labels. When the books are too tightly packed together, it breaks the spine of the book and causes books to split in half.

I also walked around and looked at the shelving to check for repairs and sections of books that were out of order. This is called "walking the shelves". It looks like I am walking back and forth systematically between the aisles and looking over the bookshelves from top to bottom. It is more than doing individual shelf reading where you check to see if individual books are out of order.

I am going to be selecting extra pieces with a colleague for the slat wall displays that are going up for new books. This should be interesting. We also got new book detection systems for the library.

I went to a meeting at city hall for Earth Day which is April 22, 2009. The main focus of the discussion seemed to be neighborhood cleanup and recycling. They wanted civic organizations to adopt blocks for neighborhood cleanup. The largest church had agreed to do some pickup of trash and light painting around our neighborhood. We do need it. They are also asking us to do something for Arbor Day. I am planning a display of environmental books for Earth Day. Also, it is about the time for planting flowers.

I read some more of Social Software In Libraries. The author was going into areas which we have not done yet, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), VOIP (Internet Telephony), screen capture software, instant messaging reference, vodcasting, podcasting, and a wide assortment of technology. There is a tremendous amount to think about in this book.