Daily Thoughts 2/17/2011 (Events, Books, poetry, WEDC)

This little boy would persist in handling books above his capacity And this was the disastrous result.  Two panel cartoon showing Thaddeus Stevens standing on the top step of a step-ladder and lifting a large, heavy book from a high bookshelf; he falls off the ladder and is crushed by the book, the "Constitution of U.S." Date Created/Published: 1868 March 21.

Daily Thought 2/17/2011

There are two events of interest tonight.  We have the computer training for business in the computer lab from 5:30-7:30 p.m. and we have an Open Microphone Poetry Event featuring a local poet from 7:00-8:15 p.m featuring Mary Ann McCarra-Fitzpatrick.  She is one of the poets in an anthology called Blood Beats In Four Square Miles edited by James Fair who writes the poetry column for the Mount Vernon Inquirer.

I checked the displays this morning as well as looked over some of the items which we are inventorying in the mezzanine or storage area.  Three new books came in for me to read last night, Bite-Sized Marketing Realistic Solutions for the Overworked Librarian by Nancy Dowd, Mary Evangeliste, and Jonathan Silberman, Data Driven by Thomas C. Redman, and Redemption In Indigo by Karen Lord.

I had a chance to read through Library Journal, The New York Times Book Review, and Publishers Weekly Today.  I rather like the forthcoming title, The Most Human Human What Talking to Computers Teaches Us About Being Alive by Brian Christian.

The event for poetry went extremely well. We had the Mount Inquirer come in and take pictures of the event which was very nice.  It should provide some excellent publicity.  James "Jafa" Fair introduced the opening poet.  He is with the ACBAW Association of Community Based Artists of Westchester http://www.acbaw.org/main2.html  .  He video taped and took photographs of the event.

The lead poet was Maryann Mccarra-Fitzpatrick who read several poems from the anthology Blood Beats in Four Square Miles edited by James Fair.  http://mccarra--poetry.blogspot.com/2011/02/poetry-reading-mount-vernon-public.html  Five other published poets also read. Sister Sassy read a chapter from her memoir called "Guerrilla Girl".  It was an excellent reading.

We also filled the computer lab for the computer basics for business class from the Womens Enterprise Development Center. http://www.wedc-westchester.org/

I had a chance to read a bit more of The World In 2050.  The author is describing the relationship between water and energy.  Nuclear power plants, biodiesel, hydroelectric, and coal plants tend to use lots of water.
Solar and wind energy don't use as much.  I am surprised that the author does not touch on tidal power or tidal turbines.

Web Bits

TOC 2011: Keynoter Margaret Atwood Highlights Author Role
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/home/889316-264/toc_2011_keynoter_margaret_atwood.html.csp

Developing The Future of Books 12:30-1:30 P.M. New Work City http://www.nwcny.com/

Developing The Future of Books 12:30-1:30 P.M. New Work City http://www.nwcny.com/





It was very easy getting to New Work City. The office space is very close to the N and Q subway lines.
There was enough seating for the presentation. New Work City  served pizza, water, and soft drinks. The pizza was quite good.  The staff was helpful and pleasant.

As always, I include what catches my interest and seems relevant. I also like to throw in my own comments and thoughts.

This was a Roundtable discussion by Pearson Education in combination with Penguin Books. The presenters were sponsors of the New Work City space. Pearson is a massive publishing company. The talk focused on the development and entrepreneurial side of the ebook business.

The presentation was quite fascinating. Many of the people in the crowd owned Kindles or Ipads and some owned both. There were still people like myself who took notes in the old fashioned way; in a notebook with a pen.

Most of the audience used Amazon to purchase their books on Kindle or Ipad. This is kind of interesting to me because in the library space, Nooks and Sony are the two main platforms which are used to download books from Overdrive which is the largest provider of ebooks to libraries. If you want to read books from Overdrive or Epub books;  Bluefire is an application which allows people to read Epub on Ipad, or Iphone http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bluefire-reader/id394275498?mt=8

I learned we are at the beginning of the real takeoff of ebooks. in 2010, 10% of books are now purchased as ebooks.

The presenters showed us a variety of new applications, many of which are experimental.  They were from very popular authors.  There were two children s book applications: Topsy and Tim which included puzzles and games for the Iphone and Ipad http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/topsy-and-tim-start-school/id379900572?mt=8 , and Spot the Dog by Eric Hill for Ipad http://www.funwithspot.com/uk/parents_teachers/news.html



The application that caught my attention was a book application of The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. This included three hours of video, music, art, and images. I found it surprising that the publisher would add in a television series to a book. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-pillars-earth-for-ipad/id382298124?mt=8   This reminds me of Vook which combines videos with books http://www.vook.com/

There was also some discussion about an app which was also a book called Paul Kelly How to Make Gravy which combined music with autobiography  Paul Kelly is from Australia. http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9781926428222/how-make-gravy-z-mongrel-memoir  Paul Kelly was compared to Bob Dylan. I have seen that some of the books which we get in about musicians are including cds of music with their biographies.

The app for the Paris Travel Guide by Dorling Kindersley. http://traveldk.com/apps/ew-cities  reminded me of Frommer's Travel Unlimited http://www.frommers.biz/content/travel-guides/  which is being sold as a database of travel books.

The presenters told us that paper is still the best technology for coffee table books and photography books. A few people suggested that it is still not possible to get a signed book via a computer. Many people still like reading books in paper. I learned that that paper is only 10% of the cost of a book  I think paper books will still be around for a long time, especially with print on demand.

There were some statistics about readership which were interesting. Ipads and Kindles are driving up the amount of material people read. People who have an Ipad or Kindle are likely to read 3x as many books. It is like digital music where people are listening all the time.The statistics reminded me of the NEA study which shows that reading is on the rise especially in electronic formats.  http://www.nea.gov/research/ReadingonRise.pdf


Another idea that caught my attention was that there are essentially three types of ebooks; apps, ebooks, and enhanced ebooks. There are other things which I have seen which are quite experimental. There is also something called the "Visual Novel" which combines games with novels. It is basically a mix of simple games, choose your own adventure, and manga style graphics. Hanako Games makes visual novels in the United States.

An audience member commented that there may be a new kind of agent coming into being with digital books.


The question about being able to make notes inside books was asked. I learned that there is a competitor to The Copia http://www.thecopia.com/  called Bookglutton http://www.bookglutton.com/  which allows social annotation of books. People share notes inside books.


The talk was very technology oriented. It touched on topics like virtual book clubs, cookbook apps, Amazon's policy that the ebooks they sell are leased, and the experimental nature of ebook apps.


Many audience members were interested in being able to purchase the physical book bundled with an ebook online. This is already happening with some technical books. Although it was not discussed, many authors make their books available online as creative commons to help drive their print sales.



Subscription models for ebooks was touched on. O'Reilly books has a subscription model for its technical books which is affordable called Safari Books.

I was surprised to hear that there was very little piracy of ebooks. Less than 1% of piracy comes from epub.

There was not a lot of talk about blogs. There was a little bit about bloggers becoming authors, but nothing on blogging communities like Bookblogs on Ning. http://bookblogs.ning.com/


The talk was very well presented and enjoyable to hear. It was a very different crowd than librarians, writers, editors, or publishers. There was a very wide variety of people there. There were thirty people at the talk.


At the end of the talk, we did a little bit of networking. I met Travis Alber, President of Bookglutton there. I also got a chance to get a better sense of how New Work City worked. It is shaping up to be quite congenial.

Daily Thoughts 1/22/2010

Library of Wat Tung Sri Muang, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand library; picture taken by User:Markalexander100, Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL) I found the image interesting. It was on Wikipedia. I think the license is correct.

Daily Thoughts 1/22/2010

I have been planning what conferences I intend to go to during the next six months or so. I have a list of things which I hope to attend.

FASTforward Enterprise Search Strategy Summit: Reflecting User Thinking - Controlling Business Outcomes, March 11, 2010, New York (By Invitation) -- This is by Microsoft

Web 2.0, Social Networking and Libraries Conference 2010 http://unabashedlibrarian.com/ul-conferences/2010-conferenceTuesday, March 16, 2010. This conference is presented by ILIAC which is an international association of librarians. There usually are a number of Russian librarians attending.

Westchester Library Association Conference, May 7, 2010, The conference for Westchester County, New York Libraries, http://www.westchesterlibraryassociation.org/

New York Is Book Country, Sunday, May 16, 2010 This is a book festival done in New York. They are restarting this year. http://www.newyorkisbookcountry.com/events/home.jsp

Book Expo America May 25-27, 2010 Jacob Javits Center, This is the largest publishing and bookseller trade fair in the United States. http://bookexpoamerica.com/

Book Blogger Convention, May 28, 2010 http://bookbloggerconvention.com/ This should be an interesting convention of book blogs. Many are going to be at Book Expo America as well.

Web Bits

I was looking around the web and found the site for the Westchester Journal News books section. It lists a lot of events with local authors. http://books.lohudblogs.com/

I read James Mankelow's book, Manage Stress. I am not sure that I want to recommend it. It is the kind of book that is a long series of self revelatory exercises. You will get exactly what you put into it out of it. There are dozens of self reflective checklists, questionnaires, charts, and other tools.

If you like to question yourself and what you think, you might like the book. It is perfectly in line with his website, Mindtools. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/jnm.htm This site is basically a skill building site focused on mental tools; speed reading, filing, goal setting, memorization, time management, mind mapping, brainstorming, leadership skills and other career oriented mental tasks.

Terminator Salvation, Cold War by Greg Cox

Right now, I am reading Terminator Salvation, Cold War by Greg Cox. He writes series books having written for Alien, C.S.I., DC Comics, Ironman, Star Trek, Superman, Underworld, and now Terminator. I remember the first book which I remember him editing was Tomorrow Sucks, an anthology of vampire science fiction. It was pretty silly. The book is no longer in print. It was printed in 1994.

He certainly seems to have gotten formula writing down pat. I didn't even know there was an International Association of Media Tie In Writers until I looked at his website. The author list is kind of interesting http://www.iamtw.org/about.html, This makes him a working writer. This is his list of publications. Basically entertaining, a bit silly, and fun. http://www.gregcox-author.com/bibliography.html

This book occurs just before the movie, Terminator Salvation. This is the third movie in Terminator series. It is part that setting. There are a whole new series of books in that setting done by Titan Books. They appear decent starting line up of writers; Alan Dean Foster, Timothy Zahn, and Greg Cox all have a solid track record writing science fiction.

There is a certain appeal to series books. They are predictable and the good guys always win. The bad guys never disappear of course. That is the strength of these kinds of books.

Terminator Salvation, Cold War, is the story of the beginning of Skynet. The artificial intelligence, Skynet launches nuclear missiles in the beginning of the story. Then the machines start attempting to kill all of humanity. I rather like that in the beginning people are not sure who started nuclear war.

The nuclear launch is during 2003, so it is definitely an alternate history setting. The story jumps between 2003 and 2018. This adds to the setting of not being quite the same as our time.

John Connor is not that prominent in this story. The heros of the story are Molly Kookesh an Alaskan survivor, and a Russian submariner named Lusenko. The machines are the ultimate enemy so we can look at most people as heros.

What surprised me is that at the end of the book, there is a brief bibliography of nonfiction works that the author used to write the book. It includes Tom Clancy with John Gresham Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside A Nuclear Submarine. Tom Clancy wrote a whole series of nonfiction books on the military.

The writing is solid, smoothly written and easy to read. It shows a practical workman like craft which makes for a good story. I like to occassionally read series.

Thoughts for Today. Graphic Storytelling And Visual Narrative-- Will Eisner-- Recommendation

Good morning,

I put the calendar poster from the Russian Public Library of Science & Technology in our staff room. It was from the conference yesterday. I also took a moment to look at http://www.sivacracy.net/ this morning.

I tried to read Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, but found it to not be to my liking. The setting was very caustic. It also made constant references to other works by Mo Yan in the middle of the text which I found rather distracting. The writing was good, but I didn't particularly like the story. The main character was a self-righteous , arrogant, workaholic who got on my nerves. I could not relate well to him. I decided to return the book this morning.

Right now, I am taking a few moments to think about a few things. Sometimes people recommend titles without reviewing them extensively.

A title I can recommend highly if you like graphic novels is Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative by Will Eisner. Will Eisner is considered the father of "graphic novels". His book, A Contract With God And Other Tenement Stories, is considered by many to be the first graphic novel.

Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative is based on Will Eisner's class at the New York School for the Visual Arts. I can recommend it highly because although, it is how to write comic books, it covers a lot of material on how to create action and activity in your writing. This is one of the few books which I have read more than once. The style he shows is original and is not based completely on superhero comics.



Two new titles came in today through reserves Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon and The Somnabulist by John Barnes. The Somnabulist looks quite interesting, it is a fantasy novel set in Victorian England. Victory Conditions is the fifth and final book in the Vattas war series.

Evening Thoughts

I really didn't get a chance to read much today. Today was another busy day. I thought I would have a chance to look at the magazine section for a few minutes, but things caught up with me quickly. I'll probably take a few minutes to look at the periodicals section tomorrow.

I ordered a thousand dollars worth of Job Information Center books, mostly career oriented books, Opportunities In Nursing, Opportunities in Carpentry, and similar titles. I also ordered a variety of start your own business, business planning, and franchise type books. Franchise books are in demand. 80% of franchises succeed unlike most new businesses.

I spent a bunch of time putting in looseleafs for the law collection in addition to my usual three hours a day of helping people at the reference desk. I also checked the email reference for questions by email. There were a few questions yesterday, but not today. It was quite busy. They are also checking over everything which we are ordering lately and having us sign off on our orders. Every last cent is being checked.

On the way home on the train, I took a look at Stardust. There is a free coupon in the back of the paperback for a smll popcorn if you went to see the film in a theater. This is the first time I have seen a publisher do this. I am number 119 on the waiting list for Stardust, the film.

I am planning on showing another film, Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. Everyone recognizes the line "Play It Again Sam." I am also thinking of which three oscar films would be interesting to show in a public library. I haven't decided yet.

I have ten books on reserve at work and none of them came in to read today. It is a slight disappointment. Something will come in tomorrow.

It is hard to get yourself going so you can write something every single day. Sometimes, you just have to start writing. I didn't know what to expect today.

Thoughts for the Day

I am looking at a new series called Best American Comics, it is c2007, the series is in its second year. The editor is Chris Ware. Last year in 2006, the editor was Harvey Pekar. This is a comics lit book collecting high quality samples of works by alternative comic artists. Some of the artists are Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adriane Tomine, Kim Deitch, Charles Burns and others. The books is very colorful.

I also have a copy of Richard Matheson, I Am Legend, the vampire novel which the new film starring Wil Smith is based on. I noticed that Richard Matheson renewed the copyright in 1995, the original copyright is 1954. The book which is a trade paperback is perma-bound, coated in plastic to make it last longer.

I am Legend is also printed on acid free paper so the paper will not brown. It looks like the glue holding in the pages will dry out before the paper and the cover goes. This is what seems to happen with trade paperbacks with acid free paper and high quality covers. The pages come undone fairly quickly, but the cover and the paper stay in perfect shape.

Anyways, SCORE Service Corps of Retired Executive did a free sales and marketing seminar last night at the library. I went and got groceries for light refreshments, mini-muffins, a vegetable platter, apple cider, and a jug of water for the attendees. We had ten people attend. These kinds of things are always kind of hard to do. I did the rough draft for the flier and the press release to the local papers. The lady in the office did the final editing for release to the public. It is impossible to know how many people will attend these kind of workshops.

I am going to prepare a film today, something out of copyright, The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Lana Turner. I'll end up getting individual bags of popcorn, they have big bags with little bags of popcorn inside them, and juice. We have a projector for presentations that can be rigged up to a dvd player and a fold up movie screen so we can show films.

I am still thinking of Rumi. Some of the poems are very short stories. My favorite of these is the story of the Ocean Frog. The Ocean Frog lives in the wide ocean while the ditch frog lives in a small ditch. The ditch frog tells how huge his home is which is two feet by three feet while the ocean frog listens. The ocean is seen as a metaphor for living in the presence of god or the universe having wide vistas of perception.