Daily Thoughts

Damien L'Homme (formerly attributed to Sébastien Stoskopff): The Great Vanity Still-life - detail (1641, Oil on canvas)

Daily Thoughts

I tried to read The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson on the train to work today, but found it to be rambling, meandering, and unfocused. I did not like the style the book was written in. It was apparent to me within the first chapter of the book. I like the subject, but not the content of the book.

So, I switched The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia. This book has a wonderful poetic quality to it. The imagery is dreamy and sweet. It is in a mix of a steampunk and fantasy setting.

I spent almost the whole day weeding books from the social sciences section. Right now, I am in the section on drug abuse and social welfare. We have a lot of books in this section. I ended at the beginning of the section on true crime. I think I might get some more books on gang prevention. It is something which the community needs.

After weeding, I went and checked the books in the sections I am ordering for to see how they are circulating. The computer books section are moving very fast. So are the Job Information Center books. I think we might change the heading to a more proper one; Education Job Information Center. We also order lots of books on getting into college.

I take the time to check on all the sections which I am in charge of regularly. This gives me a sense of whether or not I am ordering the right things. As part of this, I check the new books section to see what has come in the last few days. It makes it seem like magic when I can pull out a new book which someone is looking for because I checked the section earlier. We order from the New York Times Bestseller List, Publishers Weekly Bestseller List, and Ebony magazine books list.

I set up an appointment for a lawyer to come in and do a workshop on living wills. Our books on living wills are going out faster than we can keep them. She already did a program on wills earlier. It is also an easy program where she comes in and has all the handouts already prepared. There are a number of other programs which are in the pipeline as well; a possible digital photography program, a SCORE program probably on having a home office, and a program on financial literacy.

I watched the restored edition of The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. Sometimes, I think a librarians degree is like the scarecrow's degree, a ThD, Doctorate in Thinkology. It was fun watching it tonight.

Overwhelmed.

Pay attention to what you say and do.

Overwhelmed

My boss asked me to come into work today because there was no one in the building from our department. I did it. It is probably a mistake. I'm still a bit under the weather.

Still, I think I am doing alright, not great, but alright. I'm trying to focus on light duties. I filed the monthly report, ordered some annual reports, and read the New York Times Book Review. The New York Times Book Review was advertising a new Neil Gaiman book, The Graveyard Book. It is a novel for middle graders. Most all of his books have been for teenagers and adults, so this is something new.

I also read the New York Times Bestseller list and put Killing Sacred Cows, Overcoming The Financial Myths That Are Destroying Your Prosperity on Hold by Garrett B. Gunderson.

It took me a while to pick out books on the financial crisis for the display stand. There are a huge number of subjects the books can fall under; social security, short selling, mortgages, bad debts, politics, economics, globalization, government corruption, hedge fund trading, banking, predatory lending, financial crisis, and recession are just a few of the subjects.

There are many different books which seem to touch on the financial crisis the United States is in. It seems to reach into many corners of the collection. It is not just one cause, if you start looking for information on the financial crisis, it becomes a tangled web that spreads its fingers into every aspect of finance.

I am not surprised by the failure of the initial bailout. It never addressed the people on main street who are the ones who will hurt most. In the last bailout in the United States, the 1988 Savings and Loan bailout, there was not so much information available to everyone. Now, it is impossible to hide. You get it from the news, from the government, from books, from the internet, and many other places.

People have started checking out items from the book display stand. I think the display will do well.

I filed some more Bender's Forms for the Civil Practice in the law collection. I am almost caught up with my law filing. I like it when most of the looseleafs are done.

Things are a lot more caught up than before. I think I accomplished a lot this month. I think I'm starting to feel a little better.

I like to walk around my sections and check to see if everything is in order. I pick up magazines, books and other things and put them on the sorting carts. I do quick checks to see if books are out of order or lying on top of the shelves. Sometimes, I find soda cans, or candy wrappers lying around. I checked the clipboards of the government jobs to see if they were up to date, cleaned off the old flyers from the job information center bulletin boards, and neatened things up a bit.

I got the top image from this list of resources. I do like it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources

There is a new incarnation for the Society of Midnight Wanderers. It has a nice new interface.

http://mwsociety.wordpress.com/

More Thoughts.

I have the rough outline for the review of Full of Bull done. I will probably write the review later tonight. I took some more notes on the train in to work. I sometimes juggle my tea with lemon and honey and writing notes on the train in to work. It can be cramped sometimes.

I alternated between taking notes and reading more of The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie. The first part of the book is kind of confusing. The second part seems to clear up many unanswered ideas. The book is full ideas and at times can be quite sensual if not adult in content.

While I was looking for items to purchase for the Job Information Center, I came across a rather interesting manga. It is a career manga called The Adventures of Johnny Bunko The Last Career Guide You'll ever need by Daniel H. Pink. I wonder what it will be like reading a manga on how to further your career. I requested the book to be sent to my library so I could read it. It might be good for the teenagers, people getting their first jobs, or people entering college. I'll have to see.

I also found another interesting urban fantasy book called The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar. I hope it is interesting. Sometimes, it is interesting reading about a setting that is real, you can pick out places you might have been. Fantasy books often give a unique viewpoint on real settings. I put the book on order.

Another book came in for me today as well, The Courts of the Crimson Kings by S.M. Stirling. It is set in the romantic mars where aliens terraformed mars millions of years ago with life forms from earth.

Right now, I have been doing various things, mostly updating the law collection and ordering books for the Job Information Center. I have to eventually get down to weeding some of the law books.

Morning Thoughts, Afternoon Thoughts

Bananas One of My Favorite Fruits

Yesterday, I went through the county civil service postings to find job titles to order for our civil service test books section. I am trying to match current open positions with the test books in our collection. I will also go through the Chief, the civil service newspaper for New York which has a listing of all the open civil service positions and try to better align our set of civil service test preparation books with the positions that are being offered.

We order most of the test books which people ask for. I'll be ordering the test preparation Series 7 Stock Market Exam next month because our current copy is missing. Not everybody who wants test books asks for them however. We still have to be able to anticipate what they want. We order a lot of nursing test preparation books.

The National Black Nurses Assocation is one of the largest professional associations in our city. We order a lot of test preparation books for phlebotomy, nurses aide, nursing assistant, home health aide, practical nurse, paramedic, and registered nurse. A lot of people follow a career track of first becoming a nursing assistant, then becoming a practical nurse, then a registered nurse.

One of my colleagues suggested Bananas How The United Fruit Company Shaped the World by Peter Chapman, Canongate, c2007. It reminds me a bit of the Woody Allen film, Bananas. I sometimes think quite a few political and business solutions are ridiculous.

A few more books came in for me to read. Now, I have eight books to read on my desk. Sometimes, it is hard to decide which book I will read first. The books are The Long Emergency Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century by James Howard Kunstler. Nothing like a little fear mongering to brighten your day. I am hoping it will give me a little insight. The other book is a science fiction short story collection Pump Six And Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi.

I finished reading Leviathan The History of Whaling In America on the train. It ends with the end of the whaling industry in America. Most of the whale hunting grounds have been depleted, and Arctic whale hunting turns into a disaster for American whalers. Whale oil is slowly pushed out of the market first with the introduction of kerosene, then with petroleum. I think there is something to be learned from reading this on how energy industries are created and die.