Daily Thoughts 5/12/2009

Promotional poster for Baum's "Popular Books For Children", 1901

Daily Thoughts 5/12/2009

I tried to start reading two different novels on the train. The first was an advanced reading copy of How To Rob An Armored Car by iain Levinson. It bored me. The premise was a group of potheads in dead end jobs turn to crime. I could not find much sympathy with the characters. The second book I tried to read was Daemon by Daniel Suarez. This is a near future thriller. I got through the first chapter then I got distracted by the characters. There were too many plot threads to make the writing very coherent and they did not mesh very well, so I put it down. I was hoping I would have something to read on the train in the morning but, I guess, I will have to pick up the New York Times instead and read it on the way to work tomorrow.

I had a typical day today. I spent some time in the morning weeding the 700s. I also plan to shift the books in the 700s around to create some space tomorrow. We put in a whole new set of baskets for the new book display area. We are waiting for two more slat wall panels. Then we will be finished redoing the new books display area. It looks a lot nicer than before.

We had Westlaw come over to do some training on the new interface for Westlaw Patron Access. The training was kind of interesting. Westlaw has designed a new set of drop down menus and directories that is more user friendly for the public to find law material. The search engine reminds me of Google now. The training took about an hour and a half.

I also spent time this morning going over the Purchase Alerts from the central system. Most of the holds are for dvds and music cds with a few bestselling titles. There were a few social science titles mixed in along with a few self help titles. What surprised me is that a lot of the dvds were for nonfiction subjects like the great depression and exercise. Sometimes when you look at holds reports they can be a little bit counterintuitive.

Daily Thoughts 3/4/2009

Advertising poster by American illustrator Louis John Rhead (1857-1926). "William Caxton made his own ink, but you can have yours made by The Ault & Wiborg Co., Cincinnati." c1896

Daily Thoughts 3/4/2009

Know Thing, No Thing, Nothing

I know know thing

The thing I know

Is not something

Do u know something

That I don't no

That Some Thing u know

Must be something

Full of my knows

That No Thing matches

I read some more of Words In Your Face. There is an interview with Bob Holman the founder of the New York City Poetry Calendar which is a weekly listing of poetry readings. It used to include all of the readings in the city. I would pick it up at Shakespeare and Company books when they were still open. I used to read it to find out when the science fiction and fantasy book readings were happening.

Today has been a fairly busy day. I spent some time having a new librarian shadow me at the reference desk and showing her where the different things were in the reference room. I showed her a few things which are kind of interesting. We keep a big binder with flyers from all the different community service agencies, several different files for career material and an annual reports drawer.

I also spent some time with Westlaw. Apparently a lot of libraries are restructuring their law collections. Computer databases are replacing a lot of the law digests. Keyword searching in Lexis and Westlaw are much easier than in the legal encyclopedias. Westlaw is finding itself in a facing lots of library budget crunches. My understanding is that on average the cost of law books goes up 12% per year or more and law databases go up in price 3-5% per year. Westlaw is making the books less and less affordable. They told me that they were cutting prices everywhere.

Other than Westlaw, I have been looking at places that offer grants. I thought this was interesting. This place sends free art books to libraries. http://www.ducprogram.org/orderform.php

Random House is opening a free library for science fiction books. I rather like this. More for me to read, and a little competition with the Baen Free Library. http://www.suvudu.com/

Daily Thoughts 2/25/2009

Pietro Magni The Reading Girl, Statue

Daily Thoughts 2/25/2009

This afternoon, I spent some more time talking to our Westlaw representatives about our contract to purchase books and online material. They are going to come to visit to look at our current collection of material. I need to evaluate the law collection a bit more.

I am reading Fundraising For Libraries 25 Proven Ways To Get More Money For Your Library by James Swan. The book has started out fairly well.

Daily Thoughts 2/24/2009

Rembrandt, Alte Frau Lesen, 1655

Daily Thoughts 2/24/2009

I spent some time looking through the local papers for recent philanthropic activity. I made a pile of photocopies to give to the director. I am hoping that it will be useful. It is not that easy to know with these things. I read through a lot of local newspapers to find associations like the African American Men of Westchester County, some fraternities and sororities, the local rotary club, and various wealthy people who gave a significant enough amount of money to a nonprofit to appear in the local paper.

We are talking with Westlaw, a major legal publisher about some of our print and online subscriptions. I am making sure all of our old cd rom subscriptions are not active. We are being offered some discounts. You have to be excruciatingly careful when negotiating with Westlaw. The sales people at Westlaw are lawyers and the people who write the contracts are also lawyers. Their agreements tend to be very complex and well done.

I am looking at Every Nonprofit's Guide to Publishing Creating Newsletters, Magazines, & Websites People Will Read by Cheryl Woodard and Lucia Wang. I am rather disappointed with this book. I thought it was a do it yourself kind of book. How to design your own newsletters, websites, and magazines. It is not. It is how to choose other people to make your newsletter, or how to hire a person who will do it for you. There is only a small amount on how to do it yourself. I think I am going to try another book on how to do these things. It is not what I expected.

Now for a little technological euphoria before I even get a new smart phone.

The revolution will not be televised

It has already happened.

Turn off your television and wake up.

Pick up your telephone.

Listen carefully within the decade.

Your phone will change.

The revolution will not be televised

Information should be free.

Your cell phone will be as powerful as

The desktop you are reading.

Smart phones will become cheaply cloned

In China, In India, all over.

Anyone, anywhere who had a cell phone

Will hold their own computer.

The revolution has already happened

In every single place on earth.

One billion people are free of poverty

A pool for information revolution.

More knowledge will be created on phones.

Than in previous human history.

The revolution has already happened.

You hold it in your hand.

Daily Thoughts

The Erythraean Sibyl Michelangelo 16th Century

Daily Thoughts

Another book came in for me today, The Last Wish by Andrew Sapkowski. It is a game based on a video game, The Witcher. This is the second book I am reading based on a video game, the other is Halo, The Cole Protocol by Tobias Buckell. Both of these are standalone titles, not parts of longer series. I am not a huge fan of serial game novels.

A lot of people like them, there is Warhammer 40,000, Forgotten Realms, and many other series. In fact, when I go to my local library, I find most of the paperbacks in the science fiction and fantasy section to be fantasy series based on games. Serials can be fun occassionally, but I often think an excessive focus on series saps creativity. I much prefer to read original series or novels.

In science fiction, there are the Star Wars paperbacks and Star Trek paperbacks. I like the new Romulan Empire novels and the Klingon Empire novels which have been coming out recently. They are a little bit different than the stories of the federation which I find rather bland. I even like a few of the authors. Peter David is my favorite of the novelists who wrote for star trek. I like the Timothy Zahn books in the Star Wars series. My favorite Star Wars novel was Splinter of the Minds Eye by Alan Dean Foster. Still, I like original novels better.

I shifted some New York Law annuals downstairs. They are government documents. In order to discard books if you are depository library, you have to prepare a list of the items you are discarding and send it to the government to get permission to discard the items. Sometimes, they don't give permission. We are a partial government depository. I also discarded some law books.

We have had to buy a computer database Westlaw Patron Access Terminal recently to replace our cd-rom databases. Like most libraries with a law collection we have a very large amount of books. This is because law is based on precedent, everything that has come before it.