Daily Thoughts 12/10/2009

A Chinese bamboo book, open to display the binding and contents. This copy of The Art of War (on the cover, "孫子兵法") by Sun Tzu is part of a collection at the University of California, Riverside. The cover also reads "乾隆御書", meaning it was either commissioned or transcribed by the Qianlong Emperor. This photograph is licensed under Creative Commons by the Vlasta 2. It was found on Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 12/10/2009

Last night, I finished reading The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts The Classic Chinese Guide for Success in War, Business, and Life interpreted by Hiroshi Moriya and translated by William Scott Wilson. This book is similar to the Art of War by Sun Tzu. It is a treatise on strategy for espionage, battles, deception, diplomacy and maneuver in warfare. The book itself is much more Machiavellian in its intention. There are suggestions on how to use a beautiful woman as well as a young fool.

Each of the 36 secrets is a saying about how to handle warfare. The book itself is broken into six parts. The statements are very short, several words long. An example of one of them is "Bar the door, Grab the Thief." Another one which is easy to see the references to in modern China is "Make The Flowers Bloom on the Tree." Each saying is interpreted in the terms of war during the warring states period of China or in the context of the classic Chinese novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is full of battles and intrigue.

In addition to a bit on ancient tactics, there are examples from more modern times, Mao's guerrilla warfare, the Imperial Japanese army, the allied landing at Normandy, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Hitler's blitzkrieg, and many other events in modern history.

This book is first and foremost about strategy. There are some examples on how to be patient and outlast people, use envy, and other forms of psychological manipulation to reach your ends. Some of these examples seem like they could be useful in modern business. We keep this book in our management section. I found out about this book from a business blog.

It is not an easy book to read. The writing is very philosophical and makes many references to Chinese History, the I Ching, and various forms of Chinese philosophy. There are notes on the back on each chapter, but no index. The book is printed by Kodansha International which is a very prominent Japanese press.

I am also reading A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine. Its main focus seems to be the Roman Stoics, more specifically aspects of tranquility. There is a bit on one of my favorite philosophy books the Enchiridion by Epictetus.

I've been looking at mysteries. They have a nice mystery list in the Sunday Book Review of the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/books/review/Crime-t.html?_r=1&ref=books . I also have looked at the Edgar Award, Golden Dagger Award, and the Agatha Award for mysteries this year.

Kirkus Reviews and Editor and Publisher closed today.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=174719

Daily Thoughts 12/9/2009

Mercantile Library Building.Robert N. Dennis collection of stereoscopic views. / United States. / States / New York / New York City / Stereoscopic views of libraries and organizations' buildings in New York City (Approx. 72,000 stereoscopic views : 10 x 18 cm. or smaller.) Between 1865-1896 Public Domain

Daily Thoughts 12/9/2009

It was very interesting visiting the Center for Fiction, the new name for the Mercantile Library. Brenda Wegener gave us a tour of the building. I got there a little early and looked around. They have a bookstore downstairs where they have author signings. E.L. Doctorow was doing a signing in the afternoon on December 9, 2009. They also sold new copies of the books which they gave out awards for. There was a lot of very nice new fiction which they were selling; a few of the titles were Teresa Svoboda, Trailer Girl, The Vagrants by Li Yunyi, Special Topics In Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl, and The Cradle by Patrick Somerville. There were also some literary biographies like Camus A Romance by Elizabeth Hawes.

I had a few minutes to look around upstairs. There is a nice selection of literary journals. There was a review magazine for mystery called Deadly Pleasures which was interesting to look at. They have a website with lots of useful information. http://www.deadlypleasures.com I also saw many review magazines which I had not seen before like Book Forum. The environment was very collegial with overstuffed chairs, nice lighting, and plenty of quiet. It reminded me of an old fashioned gentlemans club.

Brenda Wegener took us around the building. We started on the first floor. In the book sale while I was waiting, I noticed they had copy of Henry Miller's Plexus.

On the second floor there is a new book sections with many popular titles. These are mainly literary fiction. However, there were also lots of suspense and mystery titles. Brenda Wegener said that they had never removed a mystery title from the collection. This makes the collection quite unique in that they have many mysteries that no one else will have. They have a very nice list of their recent acquisitions on their website. http://www.centerforfiction.org/collection/acquisitions.php

They get many literary fiction titles in translation from Europa Editions. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/books/26europa.html

The arrangement of the library is quite interesting. All of the fiction books are alphabetical by author. There are two floors of fiction stacks in the library plus the store, and the new books section. There was a brief mention of a 19th century collection of older material. This intrigued me a bit because we have quite a bit of material of this age and earlier at our library.

This is the first time I have been in a membership library. There is an annual membership fee of $125, and $95 for students and seniors. They are currently doing a 2 month trial membership for $25 a month. Brenda Wegener said that they had 320 members.

Some of the things which I learned were quite different. A membership library can focus a lot on readers advisory and gets to know its patrons very well. Some people come in to just sit and enjoy the quiet.

There is also a writers studio with 18 people in the studio. There is room for 30 people. It appears to be a clean, pleasant, place to be. They also run 10 to 11 book clubs per month, as well as a number of classes on writing. The space has a very genteel quality to it. They mentioned they were looking for potential writers in residence and were also doing a fundraising campaign.

It was a pleasant evening organized by Stephanie from the New York Librarians Meetup. I am very glad that I went. http://meetup.com/NYLibrarians

Daily Thoughts 12/8/2009

Vincent Van Gogh, 1887, Three Books, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Daily Thoughts 12/8/2009

Today I am going to the New York librarians meetup. It should be interesting. We are visiting the Mercantile library in Manhattan which is a fiction only collection. I look forward to learning a lot from the visit. I order a lot of the adult fiction for the library where I work. I think this trip will be both an educational experience and a chance to meet with other librarians.

There is a new name for the Mercantile Library, it is called The Center for Fiction. This is their website. I will write more about it tomorrow. I am going to take the time to look at their recent acquisitions to compare them with what we may be getting. http://centerforfiction.org

I will write more about it tomorrow as it is getting late.

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

Public Domain Art, Photo Montage Dickens,Collins,Gaskell and Proctor

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

There is a new university digital book archive called Hathitrust which has 4 million volumes. I find it interesting. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6709706.html

It is the end of the year ordering time. I have been spending some more time on the New York Times books page. I have been looking at the cooking books and the gardening books as well as some other books.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/

There are some other minor things to get done. We have to finish ordering art books for a grant. We are trying to get some very nice oversize art books with the money. We also have to decide on a new label for the inspirational fiction books.

I have two philosophy books on my desk. The first is A Guide to the Good Life {the ancient art of stoic joy} by William B. Irvine. I have always felt an affinity to stoicism. The other book is The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts The Classic Chinese Guide For Success in War, Business, and Life, Hiroshi Moriya. It is translated by William Scott Wilson who also translated The Book of Five Rings and Hagakure.

On the train home, I read some more of Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence. The book was talking about how emotions are contagious, people act synchroniously with each other, and our neurons are designed to react to other peoples emotions. We don't exist in isolation.

I have been working a bit more on Linked In. I think I may have my first recommendation given to me soon. I hope it works. It is an interesting process. A lot of it is complete hype. There is a lot of nonsense around social networking tools. There is also a lot of time wasting and a tendency to make promises that are not quite right. I think one third of it is hype, one third of it is technical skills, and one third of is is genuinely useful networking. This is an article from Business Week which explains this phenomena. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm

Daily Thoughts 12/6/2009

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Daily Thoughts 12/6/2009

Tomorrow, I will go through Library Journal's best books of 2009. This is another excellent list of books like the New York Times 100 Best Books. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6707422.html?desc=topstory

I have been working on my Facebook, Twitter, and Linked in accounts. They are slowly growing. I still have a lot more to learn on how to use them properly. I learned that the maximum number of followers on Linked In is 30,000 people. I can't imagine the use of that many people in a personal social network unless you are a salesperson or a recruiter. It is an interesting number.

I read some more of Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence at the laundromat today.