Daily Thoughts 12/18/2009

Photograph of author Michael Chabon at a book signing at WonderCon in 2006. Taken by Charlie Reiman. Licensed under Creative Commons attribution 2.0.

Daily Thoughts 12/18/2009

Thinking about how you might incorporate reading challenges into the library environment. We are going to do the 52 books 52 weeks program where people log what they read each week. It is an encouragement for reading. I'm thinking that there are ways to incorporate smaller challenges throughout the year like a graphic novels reading challenge, a classics reading challenge, or a poetry reading challenge.

Today is a day to think of programming. People have been asking about poetry programs. We are also going to continue with the Graphic Novels Club. I am thinking about which writer or artist to do next. People also like manga. We may have the local high school comics club coming to the library Graphic Novels Club.

It is almost time to make my new years resolutions. Haven't decided on what I am going to make as a resolution.

It has been a while that I have been writing on this blog. I am past my 1000th post which I think is pretty impressive. I will continue writing every day. I think it is a good exercise to improve my writing as well as reach out to people.

Writing this blog has led to some very interesting experiences. I got to go to Tools of Change for Publishing because of it. It also encouraged me to get out more and try a lot of different things. I feel like social media has opened a lot of new venues for me which I would not have tried before like the New York Librarians meetup, attempting to build contact lists on Linked In, and reaching out to authors on Facebook. I would have never been so willing to reach out to colleagues without the impetus of a blog. It gets me to try new things.

Sometimes, you find interesting things while going through the internet. This is a relatively new human powered search engine. It looks to have fairly high quality content. The content reminds me a bit of the newspaper site, Arts and Letters Daily. http://www.findingdulcinea.com/home.html
Finding Dulcinea Librarian of the Internet. The tagline is what makes me interested.

I checked out two more books today; Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld which is on the Locus Bestseller list and The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sixtieth Anniversary Anthology edited by Gordon Van Gelder.

I think somewhere I lost my focus a bit. It is becoming apparent to me, I should cut back on reading about social media and start getting back to reading about business and science fiction. My readership has been dropping a little bit.

Please let me know what you would like to read about. It would be helpful. I would like to get back to my original focus. I probably should be getting back to writing a little poetry as well.

Anyways, I noticed something interesting. Apparently, New York Public Library is working on a new website. This is a link to the preview. http://new.nypl.org/

Daily Thoughts, Reading With A Purpose

A public domain clip art image which I liked. Reading In The Study.

I did a bit of weeding for the electronics section. Now, I am ordering consumer electronics books. Books on audio, appliances, television repair, home theater, and similar subjects. I have started using http://www.worldcat.org to look up and see what different libraries around the country have on various subjects as part of my ordering process. I find it to be a very useful tool. It is almost a national library catalog for the United States.

People are taking more books from the display stand for current events.

Today is another quiet day. I have to go to one of those standard trainings on violence in the workplace and sexual harassment on Monday. This one is a little bit different. The local police department is giving the training to different agencies around the city. I think it will be more complete than the other ones I have attended. The public library is open to anyone who comes in.

Also the new director of the system is coming on Tuesday for a visit. We are a cooperative library system. This means we share resources but not rules or regulations. We have a common catalog and interlibrary loan, but separate budgets. Each town in our county runs their library differently.

I have started reading Mirror Mirror by Gregory Maguire. For some reason, I could not get myself to read his most famous book, Wicked about the Wicked Witch of the East from the land of Oz. It was even turned into a Broadway play.

Reading With A Purpose

Many people participate in reading challenges. I have done one so far. They usually involve reading a number of books in a particular subject like China, graphic novels, science fiction, or by a specific author. Sometimes people will read through a list of different authors in alphabetical sequence, or titles in alphabetical sequence.

There are a lot of different reasons to read. I am hoping to read a number of science fiction and fantasy novels and review them. My goal is to get some of the reviews linked to by the authors of the books. This has already happened with Slow Train To Arcturus, and A Secret History of Moscow. There is something very satisfying in getting your reviews acknowledged.

Although, I have never really asked openly, I would not mind receiving reviewers copies of books to read. I really don't need them because I am always surrounded by books, but if something especially interesting became available, I would not mind reading it. Maybe a new general interest non-technical computer book like Groundswell or Wikimomics would be interesting to receive.

The other reason I am reading is to improve my skills. I think that books like Spunk and Bite will improve my writing skill. I am not just looking to improve my general writing skills by reading, but specifically, my writing skills for blogging. Hot Text helped me a little bit with this. I am always looking for something new to learn.

Another hope I have is to gain access to free conference or training opportunities. A couple of years ago, they gave away free passes to bloggers at Book Expo America. It would be nice to go as a blogger and get in for free. I don't think this will happen again. Still, there is a nice discounted rate for librarians. I am looking forward to going to the O'Reilly Tools of Change For Publishing Conference.

Of course what I really should be doing right now is writing the reviews of the two books I finished reading yesterday.