Wandering Thoughts 7/18/209 ( Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg )

Franz Kafka 1906 Photographer Unknown

Daily Thoughts 7/18/2009

I was watching Fleischer studios Popeye this morning while doing my floor exercises. Something which I learned was that Popeye is quite often set in Manhattan. In the cartoon King of the Mardi Gras, Bluto makes a reference to Coney meaning Coney Island. Betty Boop has a Brooklyn, New York accent, also produced by the Fleischer brothers, and the early Superman cartoons look like they are set in New York in the 1930s. I find the idea rather interesting.

Last night, I read some more of Say Everything. This time the book was discussing journalism. Are bloggers journalists? Does my conference coverage count as journalism? Or my coverage of library events or visits to bookstores? The very nature of the First Amendment in the United State means anyone has the freedom to publish their thoughts. Blogs are syndicated content. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a form of syndication. Most blogs have this. Unlike "real journalists", bloggers don't have to be stuck on todays news. They can beat a dead horse and obsess on any subject they like. I don't pretend to have journalistic aspirations, but I do know that I have a professional knowledge of books.

Maw Books invited me to Book Blogger Appreciation Week on Septembr 14th- September 18th http://bookbloggerappreciationweek.com/ . I signed up as Anon Ymous , another variation which works is Sue Doe Nim.

Thinking back to Spanish language literature, there is also Schoenhof's in the United States. The selection looks quite interesting. http://www.schoenhofs.com/Spanish_Literature_s/1400.htm

I had a chance to finish reading Say Everything by Scott Rosenbrg this afternoon. I especially like a quote from P. 319, "We publish then filter. Say everything first; ask questions later." Scott Rosenberg is referring to an inversion in the publishing process where anyone can practically publish many things over the web. There is often no way to know whether it is good o not until you look at it. This is the opposite of editing first. Now, to filter out the junk you often turn to blogs and social networks to choose what is good. Those blogs with higher ratings get read more. We also turn to services like Twitter to pick out blogs or news stories which are interesting. There are many places exactly like this. I use the Ning Bookblogs group and Blogcatalog for this. On a more professional level, I use American Library Association Connect and Linked In.

This book does a very good job of both providing a history of blogging as well as give a much better understanding of the purpose of blogging. It is not a how to book, there are no tips and tricks. However, it does give many examples of the best and most historied blogs. The notes section has lots of citations from the internet. It is very much a list of some of the best posts on blogs.

My Thoughts for 7/17/2009 (Spanish Language Books)

Benno Caspar Haurisius, Scriptores historiae romanae latini veteres, qui extant omnes, notis variis illustrati, Heidelberg: Haener, 1743

Daily Thoughts 7/17/2009

Library Journal is reviewing a number of titles from Criticas Magazine which specializes in Spanish language reviews. The magazine was recently restarted. There needs to be more review material which is easier to find for Spanish language titles as well as Portuguese language titles. http://www.libraryjournal.com/microsite/49055/Criticas+Spanish+Language+Authors+and+Book+Reviews.html

There used to be a bookstore in Manhattan called Libreria Lectorum. It closed a while ago. Now there is a website, http://www.lectorum.com/ . It is sad to see the old fashioned bookstores go. I used to walk past it when I was going to Roger's Time Machine to buy comics on 14th street. I would stop sometimes and look in the window.

I am thinking about what a friend said. He told me that once I bought an Iphone, I would never go back to using a regular phone. I should do it. He also asked me to open a Facebook account under my real name. I have a Linkedin account under my real name as well as an ALA Connect account. I am social networked.

I read some more of Say Everything on the train home. What I am reading about now is anonymous blogging. It reflects on my own experience writing this blog. I am in that semi-anonymous blogging zone. I learned about the most famous blogger who was "dooced" or fired for blogging about their job. I think my posts about my job are pretty uninflammatory. This book seems to also do a very nice job of touching on the different experiences prominent bloggers have. We just got a copyof this book at our library. The one I am reading now came through interlibrary loan.

I often request books through interlibrary loan because I am waiting for books as they come in for me. I can return and pick up books from the library very easily. It is one of the perks of the job. It is not that easy to run out of books to read, cds to listen to, or dvds to watch.

We put the express dvds in the new materials section today. A lot of them went out very quickly. I am also handing over my law responsibilities to my colleague.

I did a tour of the building for a new board member, going through many of the different areas in the building; reference, periodicals and newspapers, law, young adult collection, adult nonfiction, oversize adult nonfiction, large print, music cds, scores, dvd, audio, video, videogames, playaways, mezzanine (2 floors of closed stacks with many rare items), rotunda, job information center, computer lab, computer center, local history room, community room, childrens room, staff areas, maintenance, business offices, and administrative offices.

Daily Thoughts 7/16/2009 ( America Reads Spanish )

Sebi Ryffel from Los Angeles took this picture under a creative commons share alike license on July 17, 2008 Entrance pathway to the Rose Garden, Temple of Love, at Huntington Library ( a botanical garden, art museum, and library).

Daily Thoughts 7/16/2009

This morning I read some more of Say Everything. I just finished reading a section on the founding of the company Blogger by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. At one point, Blogger almost shutdown, it was being run out of Evan Williams's living room. It is very much a story of audacious risk and success. It shows how it is possible to start a company with very little, run it out of ones basement and then turn it into a successful web business. It is a very good example of "bootstrapping."

I have been thinking of switching this blog to wordpress.org. However, I am following my ideal of not spending money to blog. I found out that Wordpress charges to have the ability to post videos. Wordpress considers this a value added service. I don't, I like posting videos. This leaves me with sticking with Blogger. If I wanted to spend money to blog, I would probably be using Movable Type.

I like the new Peace, Love, Books poster for the American Booksellers Association. http://www.redbubble.com/people/indiebound/art/3349361-2-peace-love-books

I am looking through a site called http://www.americareadsspanish.org/ to find titles that are popular in Spanish which have been translated into english. There are two new authors which I have found which look interesting, Don Miguel Ruiz and Rosa-Mendoza Gladys.

On the way home, I read some more of Say Everything. I have hit the halfway mark. At this point Scott Rosenbergy mentions Cory Doctorow and The Clue Train Manifesto obligatory subjects for books on blogging. I think The Clue Train Manifesto is rather silly. I am not a huge fan of Cory Doctorow's blog Boing Boing. I however, am a fan of his novels. My favorite was Eastern Standard Tribe. I also like his essays which appear in Locus Magazine. Say Everything is turning out to be a very entertaining book.

Daily Thoughts 7/15/2009 ( Weeding )

John Steinbeck, 1962, Nobel Prize for Literature photograph.

Daily Thoughts 7/15/2009

Today has been another busy day. We finished designing the graphic novels label which looks quite nice. We printed some spine labels to make sure it looked right.

I also spent some time looking at the purchase alerts. We are getting a lot more fiction on our purchase alerts list. I think this is because of the new books display area. We are displaying a lot of new material. The fiction is moving much faster.

The gentleman from Ghana came to take away our deaccessioned books today. He took all of them. He is going to be volunteering to create a high school and they need books. There are very few resources over there.

We had a collection development meeting today. I suggested that we might want to order some more Latin American and Latino authors for our collection. We have a very large Brazilian popularion. I do not know the major authors that well, but I would be looking for authors like Jorge Amado, Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Paulo Coelho, and other Portuguese or Spanish language titles translated into english. I have all my orders pretty much in place right now.

We also have the graphic novels label created which looks quite nice. I hope the ebooks poster will be displayed soon.

I read some more of Say Everything by Scott Rosenberg. The latest chapter is about Dave Winer one of the early programmers of blogging software. He envisioned a world where a billion different web pages could talk to each other. Also people could voice their opinions without interference. He was very much a free speech advocate. The book gives some very interesting history of the internet which you might not see in other titles.