Daily Thoughts 7/1/2009

Daily Thoughts July 1, 2009

Today has been another quiet day. I spent some time ordering a few fiction titles. I still have to check through a couple of different sites for African American, inspirational, mystery and suspense titles. While I was looking at Locus Magazine online, I noticed that The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was on the bestseller list. I put it on hold. I am going to look at http://www.indiebound.org for fiction titles tomorrow.

I also spent some more time weeding the music section. I have to be very careful. It is one of those subjects like history, biography, and art where books can remain quite relevant for a very long time. I spent some time looking at a book on the discography of Sun records.

I am looking at weeding the mysteries and suspense also. Mysteries and suspense are our most popular fiction titles. Ruth Rendell, Hugh Holton, Stuart Woods, John Sanford, and James Patterson are extremely popular. My current favorite mystery author is Joe Lansdale. I also like Sparkle Hayter, Andrew Vachss, Max Allan Collins, and Sharyn McCrumb. Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb is one of my favorite mysteries; it lampoons science fiction conventions. Max Allan Collins also writes comics in addition to novels as well as television shows.

On the train home, I read some more of Building A Special Collection of Children's Literature in Your Library.

Daily Thoughts 5/21/2009

N.C. Wyeth in his Studio, ca. 1903-04, He was a student of Howard Pyle and illustrated Boys King Arthur. I like the style of illustration he uses.

Daily Thoughts 5/21/2009

I may actually have a use for Twitter. A while ago I was discussing web sites for collection development on Twitter. Some of the twitterers mentioned a number of young adult web sites for collection development.

The Harris Poll: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters_k12.asp

Bulletin For the Center of the Childrens Book http://bccb.lis.illinois.edu/

http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/booklistsawards/booklistsbook.cfm YALSA book awards

Today has been a quiet day. I am having someone replace plastic book covers on the book. They get old, wear out, and have things spilled on them. Also, they need to be cleaned sometimes. I am doing little mundane things like this today.

I also spent some time ordering a few titles from the Indiebound bestseller lists which are designed for independent bookstores. I rather like them, they are put together by the American Booksellers Association.

Daily Thoughts 5/9/2009

A World War I vintage poster by John E Sheridan drawn for an American Library Association book drive. January 1, 1918. This came from Wikimedia. I really like Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 5/9/2009

I enjoyed reading an article from the May 1, 2009 Library Journal, Publishers and Librarians, Two Cultures One Goal, on Pp. 22-25. It is a short article comparing a day in the life of an editor and a librarian. There is a link at the end of the article on marketing book to libraries. http://www.libraryjournal.com/publishers .

I went through my typical reading this morning, Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly. I have to read fast because I have so much to read and look at. I also looked through the Public Library Core Collection, Nonfiction, Thirteenth Edition for books to possibly purchase in the 800 dewey number.

Web bits

A book of inspirational quotes by bloggers. It is kind of pretty. http://www.shadesofcrimson.com/TheQuoteEffect.pdf

Indiebound for the Iphone. It makes me want to go out and buy an Iphone. First Stanza ereader by Lexcycle, now Indiebound for Iphone. It just looks very cool. http://www.indiebound.org/blogs/matt/indiebound-iphone

Ekaterina Sedia, one of my favorite new authors has an excerpt of an interview on Locus online. Her fantasy novels are very interesting.http://www.locusmag.com/2009/Issue04_Sedia.html

Daily Thoughts 2/22/2009

William Michael Harnett (1848-1892)
Still Life Writing Table
Oil on canvas, 1877
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

Daily Thoughts

Good morning, I am drinking my morning coffee right now. I am thinking about the post I made yesterday about magazines. I especially like The Indie Next List which is a list of bestsellers from Independent Bookstores. http://www.bookweb.org/indiebound/nextlist.html . I often think that librarians don't look outside their field enough for recommendations of books to buy or read.

Right now, I am reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. I decided to put it down after the first 100 pages. While I liked some pieces of it; I found it to be very dark and often gratuitously violent. It also seemed to have a bit too much of the gamer audience in mind.

I am reading Starliner by David Drake. It is part of the Baen Free Library.
http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/0671721216/0671721216.htm . David Drake is one of my favorite authors of military science fiction. He is a reliably good author with plenty of entertaining writing.