Daily Thoughts 5/10/2010

George Washington's Home, The Library, Mount Vernon, VA, postcard.

Daily Thoughts 5/10/2010

The next book in the Leviathan trilogy is Behemoth. It is a young adult steampunk novel set in Istanbul which should be very interesting to read. The book is coming out in October. I enjoyed reading Scott Westerfeld.

I am reading Dan Roam , The Back of the Napkin Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, Expanded Edition. It is about visual problem solving. That is how to think through ideas using simple diagrams and pictures. It is very easy to follow. The author uses stick figures, squares, triangles, clean lines, and other simple methods to make it easy to understand what he is writing about. It is more than a book on just solving problems; it is also about how to pay attention to the world.

Today was very quiet. I am thinking about what I will do for Book Expo America. I have to look at the floor plans to check where I will be going as well as where I will be meeting people on the floor. I am going to plan out which sessions I am going to attend. I also have to figure out what I am going to do at the Book Blogging Expo on May 28 as well.

I also am thinking about what I should do to further my own training and education. There is going to be a webinar for Bookletters tomorrow which should be interesting. I have not done a whole lot of webinars. I am looking forward to reading a book called DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education (Paperback)~ by Anya Kamenetz. I am very interested in how online classes work, even online degree programs.

I am also considering reading Iron yoga : combine yoga and strength training for weight loss and total body fitness by Carillo, Anthony. When I had more time I used to lift weights. I now mainly do floor exercises every night. It would be interesting seeing how floor exercises would be combined with light weights.

The Marketplace of Ideas Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand

The Marketplace of Ideas Reform and Resistance in the American University by Louis Menand Louis Menand is critiquing the concept of a liberal education in todays world. He is doing this from the point of view of a professor inside the university system. The book is focused on what happened in fairly recent history.




There is a lot on the production and dissemination of knowledge. This is focused on teaching and research. Libraries are not that well covered in this book. There is more about the creative process of selecting what will be taught inside a university. A liberal education is often thought of as a way to teach people how to learn and grow on their own.


Louis Menand covers recent ideas; interdisciplinary education, the focus and creation of humanities degrees, and common beliefs of professors. Some of it is quite topical: the liberal bias in the professorship and how students are chosen based on the needs of the university are gone over.


This book is a quality title. It is a professor writing for a more general audience. The book is part of a larger series called Issues of Our Time edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Daily Thoughts 8/25/09 ( self education )

'Chaucer at the Court of Edward III' , Ford Madox Brown

Daily Thoughts 8/25/09

Frederik Pohl just received an honorary high school diploma from Brookyn Technical school. http://www.locusmag.com/News/2009/08/fred-pohl-earns-high-school-diploma.html
I sometimes think of the importance of having a high school diploma. I never finished high school. I tested out with a California High School Proficiency in the 11th grade and went to community college. Personal things made it important for me to be on my own. This is not for everyone. I have a masters degree, despite having not finished high school. This is also true of a couple of my cousins. Frederik Pohl is one of the best science fiction writers.

I like college far more than I liked high school. It is a place where you are going voluntarily to learn. I am even considering going back to college part time to get a masters in publishing to supplement my masters in library science. I just like the idea. New York University School of Continuing and Professional Studies has a publishing program. There is quite a bit on electronic publishing which I am very interested in. http://www.scps.nyu.edu/areas-of-study/publishing/ I took the Introduction to Publishing course there and enjoyed it a lot.

For a while I worked at an internet service provider as a sourcer for human resources. One of the things I leanred there was the importance of self education. To effectively run an internet service provider you have to find a lot of people who are into serious self education in lots of technical subjects. The way you moved ahead in these places was to get various computer certifications, A+ computer technician, MCSE Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, MCSA Microsoft Certified System Administrator, CCIE Cisco Certified Internetworking Engineer, Java Sun Certification, A+ Network Security. These certifications were tests to show you new a particular subject. In addition to getting certifications technicians read a lot of computer manuals to stay up to date; perl, c++, and many other programs were popular.

A college degree did not guarantee technical proficiency. I try to make sure there are a decent amount of new computer books. This is also true of many other fields. There are all sorts of certifications ranging from stock broker to phlebotomist.

Thoughts On Self Education

I received a comment yesterday sitting on the train while I was reading MBA In A Day. Some guy said, "I learned more from reading books than I did spending six years in college, it is more efficient and faster." I never got the guys name. But, I think in many ways this is correct. Teaching yourself to learn for your own purposes is a gift. Not everyone is self directed. Libraries are a boon to this kind of thinking.

Anyways, I am off to work. I will be finishing up reading MBA In A Day will give my thoughts on the book later tonight or tomorrow.

Today has managed to be pretty busy. I am one of two librarians at the reference desk, so I have spent a lot of time answering peoples questions today.

There are also two programs going on today. I helped them find some anime dvds for the teenagers to take out, Wings of Honnemaise, Ghost In The Shell, Howl's Moving Castle, Spirited Away, Our Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Porco Rosso, The Castle Otranto, Castle In The Sky, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, Tenchi Muyo, Fist of the Northstar and other anime classics which we have as part of our film collection. A few other titles were checked out already like Neon Genesis Evangelion and The Animatrix. A lot of stuff by Hayao Miyazaki. I hope they like the program.

The other bit of business was helping make sure a SCORE Marketing workshop was done correctly. We signed up nine people to attend the program. Seven people are currently listening to the speaker. A lot of it was calling all the people who signed up for the program to ask them to come the day before. We set up the tables in a u shape, much like a big conference table. Light refreshments were put out as well. We get juice, water, and cookies for people to drink and eat.

Right now I am doing the night shift at the reference desk. I have three unopened magazines sitting next to me, the May 15, 2008 Library Journal, the May 19, 2008 Publishers Weekly, and the May 15, 2008 Booklist. I am kind of reluctantly looking at them. I took a quick look through them. I chose a few reference books to order and put a book on hold, In The Court of the Crimson King by S.M. Stirling. I am a bit intrigued by God's Demon by Wayne Douglas Barlowe. However, I am a bit wary of the content. Wayne Barlowe's site is really fascinating http://www.waynebarlowe.com/

I am off tomorrow, because I work this Saturday, luckily our time is a bit flexible where I work. We don't get overtime, but we do get some flexibility with our time arrangements so it evens out in the end.

Value of the Library, A Free Life, Book Blogs

New York Public Library, Postcard Circa 1920

People sometimes wonder what the value of a library is in terms of a community. After some calculations, it costs about $30 per person in tax dollars our community to have our library. If a person checked out two hardcover books which originally cost $24.95 each, they would have saved money going to the library. For people who read many books a year or check out many videos a year, the library more than pays for itself in terms of personal savings.

If a politician wanted to justify the existence of the library, where would the librarian go first. The first place which they would go is the Job Information Center which exists in most American public libraries. It contains career books, resume books, starting a business books, test books for preparing for civil service positions or getting certified for a professional position like an EMT, nurse, real estate exam books, and usually several books on college. In other words it helps people get jobs and creates jobs by helping people start new businesses.

The newspaper section also helps people find jobs. In our library we have the Chief which lists all of the civil service positions in New York City and the Journal News which lists many local job openings. People come every day to look at the job listings.

The next obvious place they would go would be the literacy center, where there are books about learning to read for adults. Included in this are books about getting a GED-- General Equivalence Degree for high school. Many public libraries also offer some kind of remedial preparation for the GED as well.

Another purpose of the public library is to support the local schools curriculum. Both the childrens room and the young adult room specifically buy books to support the local school curriculum. The two sections that immediately stand out in the public library setting are the science experiment books and the classics. Every American public library has a section on the classics where the major works of literature are like Huckleberry Finn, Things Fall Apart, To Kill A Mockingbird and many other classics.

A major purpose of the library is self education, this means buying lots of practical every day life skills books like sewing, plumbing, personal hygiene, coaching little league, and other skills. In addition, there are large amounts of books on finance and personal finance.

Many of these books you will not find in a local bookstore. Bookstores carry titles which sell immediately. Libraries have many older books which are used regularly, but do not go out all the time. The average shelf life of a book in a bookstore is two weeks to a month. The average shelf life of a book in a library is several years.

The library creates a repository for older novels and material which are often not available in the regular bookstore. Many are out of print and cannot be ordered. This has a lot of value. You can quite often get all of the books written by a particular author, many of them which are no longer available in the bookstore. In other words, it creates a record of what people have been reading.

Also libraries keep the classics, many of which won't sell in the bookstore. Things like The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, Das Kapital, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, The Prince, The Republic, The Wealth of Nations, are expected to be kept at the public library. This is an expected function of the library.

Also public libraries keep many books which bookstores have a hard time with because of censorship. The American Library Association supports the "Freedom to Read Foundation". This means that there are more protections in the library setting for books in many cases than in bookstores.

Another function which a library is supposed to help with is bridging the "digital divide". Libraries provide free computer access to many people who cannot afford to buy their own computer. This allows them to communicate using email, write resumes, write letters to their representatives and use computers which they most likely cannot afford. It provides some children their first access to computers if they don't have them at home.

There is a lot of value in the public library. It tends to more than pay for itself in terms of tax dollars because of job creation, literacy, and self eduction.

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I have read some more of Ha Jin's A Free Life. The main character has moved to New York where he first starts as a busboy then moves up to being a cook in a Chinese restaurant. He also edits a literary journal. Eventually, he leaves New York to go back to his family. The rich person decides that they should leave.

Nan, the main character then buys a restaurant in Atlanta from an older Chinese couple and the whole family moves there. This seems to reflect the real life of many Chinese people who come to the United States. They are following in the footsteps of the American dream. Eventually Nan buys a small house with his wife and child. He is working fourteen hours a day and barely has

time to focus on his interest in poetry and writing. It seems he has lost his dream to become a writer to become the "American Dream." The novel is very realistic so far.

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I finished playing Eschalon Book 1 from Basilisk Games. It was a thoroughly enjoyable independent single player roleplaying game. I am happy that they let me drop a link in their forums.

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I also spent quite a bit of time looking at two sets of links to book blogs:

Bookish Blogs
http://kimbooktu.wordpress.com/bookish-blog-links-a-z/

Bookaholics Blogring
http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/2007/07/bookaholics-blo.html