Statue of Niccolo Machiavelli. Supposedly Machiavelli used to like to put on his court robes at night before he sat down to read so he could be in his imagination with the great thinkers throughout history.
Evening Thoughts
Today has been very busy. I haven't really had a chance to write the reviews of two books which I have read, The Public Domain, and A. Lee Martinez, The Automatic Detective. I enjoyed reading both titles. I forgot to bring a pen on the train this morning. Maybe, I am making an excuse. I try to write a little bit on my blog every single day.
I tried to read the manga, Ruruoni Kenshin by Nobuhiru Watsuki a bit this morning, but found myself a little bored. It seemed a bit too formal in some ways to me. The little bits of history on the characters were interesting, but overall the story did not excite me that much.
When I read the history of Japan, I prefer to read about Japan before westerners came. This is just a personal bias. The setting in this manga is during the Meiji period. This means there are elements added like guns and other elements.
The volume I read was the Vizbig Edition, Volume 1, which compiles Volumes 1-3 into a single trade paperback volume. I think people who like more formal traditional manga will like this work. It combines sword fighting with romance and intrigue.
This morning I spent some time weeding the computer books. I am trying to thin out the collection of items that are not being used before more of the new books start coming in. We have to keep many of the older books because of the issue of legacy computing.
Underlying programs like c, perl, java and html remain the building blocks of newer programs like xhtml, c++, css, and other computer programs. Also many people still use older editions of windows, we still get requests for windows 95, 98, and XP. The same thing applies to things like unix and linux. Not everyone is hurriedly switching over to Vista or Ubuntu.
Books on the older programs are often no longer sold in the bookstores even though people are using them. They turn to the library because it is the only place where people can get the material. Not everyone wants to switch to a newer fancier system.
I spent several hours looking at computer books to see if we still need them. I also spent some time looking at some of the new books which just came in. I am going to wait and see what is coming in before I order more new books. I will probably also weed our current graphic novel and manga collection, both to reduce the number of books that are not circulating, and make the newer material look more visible. Very crowded, packed shelves make it hard to find new material. I like to have around 6 inches to one foot at the end of each shelve.
Tomorrow, I also have my poetry open microphone. We moved it down from four o'clock to five o'clock to have a chance for more adults to come. Hopefully, we'll also get a new microphone. I think, I will be ready for the program. I also usually pick out a variety of poetry books for people to look at which I bring down on a book truck. In addition, we will be serving light refreshments. I like to serve water and juice. I don't like serving soda, especially when little children are around, it makes them very jumpy.
I picked out a few books from the new books to look at. One is a manga, Tekkon Kinkreet Black and White All In One by Taiyo Matsumoto. There is a parental advisory on the cover for content. Also, there is a label which says now an animated film. Another book which looks interesting is Don't Make Me Think, A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition, by Steve Krug. The final book which I plan on reading is The Future of The Internet And How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain.
Once again, I am starting to pile up books to read. Oddly enough, I didn't really have any magazines to read today. I read the paper this morning with my coffee, but that is an almost ritual thing.
The Great Library at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Canada, 1870 
