Daily Thoughts 3/5/2009

The 'Glasses Apostle' in the altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen (Germany).Painted by Conrad von Soest in 1403, the 'Glasses Apostle' is considered the oldest depiction of eyeglasses north of the Alpes.

Daily Thoughts 3/5/2009

Wings

Madame butterfly

Whisper your wings

Flapping breeze

I am looking at Big Bank Takes Little Bank by Paul Beatty. Paul Beatty won the first National Poetry Slam prize which was to get his book published. Words In Your Face talks about this process. Surprisingly, Words In Your Face, contains very little poetry, it is mainly the history and politics of the slam scene in New York.

It looks like Words In Your Face is going to take quite a while to read. The text is dense with interviews. I just read an interview with Maggie Estep who is considered part of the first wave of New York slam poets.

Today was another constantly busy day. I spent a lot of time at the reference desk this morning. I also did some more shadowing with the new librarian. I am mostly done with showing her where things are on the main floor. There are a lot of other small things which need to be redone.

I also spent some time decoding the circulation statistics. I am comparing circulation by specific dewey call numbers and trying to figure out what it means. I have figured out quite a bit of things after looking at the numbers. The most popular books in the art books section are on knitting and crocheting, oversize architecture books, graphic novels, and classical composers. Computer books are quite popular, so are Christian inspiration titles. People read Freud a lot in our psychology section.

There are a few odd and unexpected things. James Patterson is the most popular fiction author in our library. People like to read books on perfume. The circulating law books are the most popular books in the social science section. The most popular history books are on World War II. People read a lot of english grammar books. In the sciences, math is the most popular subject followed by biology in our library. People read more engineering books than cookbooks. Shakespeare is the most popular subject in literature, and Othello is the most popular subject in Shakespeare in our library. In biography, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther, and Saint Augustine are the most read about figures.

In the computer books, Windows is the most popular subject. For test books, accounting civil service tests are the most requested. I am about half way through the statistics sheets going towards the less used material. It is quite interesting.