Daily Thoughts 7/23/2009 ( New Arrivals )

Daily Thoughts 7/23/2009

I finished reading Sarah Micklem's book Wildfire. The book is full of surprises and did not turn out how I expected at all. I am thinking about how I am going to review it. It is quite good, but it is also very visceral with lots of sex and violence. Surprisingly, this is not described in an inappropriate manner. The writing still maintains a strong sense of style and voice. I am going to review it in the next couple of days.

I spent some more time reading review material this morning. Later in the afternoon I took a few minutes to look at the Romantic Times Website and the Black Expressions site. I am looking for a good general place which lists recent novels translated into english.

We received two end slat wall panels for the "New Arrivals" area. This finishes the furnishings. It is looking excellent. We checked the bestseller lists to see if there were any to display in a bestsellers area. It turned out that all of our bestsellers are being checked out which is a very good sign for circulation.

I did a small amount of weeding in the large print also today. We are also shifting books in the 700s. Today has been a productive day.

Daily Thoughts 4/3/2009

La Lecture, Pierre August Renoir, 1889

Daily Thoughts 4/3/2009

The Human Side of Enterprise Annotated Edition Updated With New Commentary by Joel-Cutcher Gershenfeld by Douglas McGregor. This is considered a classic book on management theory. It is the book which named Theory Y. This book contains commentary, annotations, suggested reading, and a few brief questions at the end of each chapter to help you think about what was being written. I am finding it very interesting.

Reading books on business management is a kind of strange experience for me. The books have this tendency to veer between being extremely controlling or having a kind of sticky sweet cooperate with the company message (cinnamon bun or big stick). It is like reading another language which often makes little common sense. But, I am learning a new perspective which at times is very uncomfortable. I am trying to read practical books, not motivational sales authors like Zig Ziglar or Og Mandino.

April 30, 2009 is Poem In Your Pocket Day which is part of National Poetry Month. This is a link for some of the poems for your pocket. http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/409

I put the new graphic novel, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1910 by Alan Moore on hold. I am looking forward to reading this soon. I also put Slumdog Millionaire on hold on dvd.

I have been going over ordering books with a new librarian. It has been interesting. I went over reading reviews in magazines like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal. The starred reviews are usually the ones which people are most likely to buy. The last line of a book review often says whether or not to buy the book or not. In Choice magazine, an academic book review journal on the last line of the review they tell you what type of library should buy a particular type of book; academic, undergraduate, public library, etc.. Last lines and paragraphs are often what you should read before looking at a whole book review.

I also showed her the Library Journal online review section http://www.libraryjournal.com/community/Book+Reviews/47112.html as well as Powell's review summary, http://www.powells.com/reviews/all . This was fairly easy stuff to do.

We also have a breakdown of circulation by call number so this was helpful in finding what books are popular. In addition, we write down things which patrons ask for which we don't have. We ordered two more copies of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Sometimes what people want more than anything is something that tells them that they are wonderful.

I often check the shelves to see what is there. Usually I check for the most popular authors, subjects, and publishers. Most publishers are on the web now, so it is very easy to see what publishers are just coming out with. Sometimes you learn more by explaining what you are doing than doing it.

I spent some more time at city hall this afternoon discussing Earth Day. A lot of it was acknowledging I could get people to come and asking for supplies; flowers, some some small plants, trash bags for cleanup, and other things.

I am going to have to go over the standard way of doing things in the next week or so. I put several books on collection development and collection management on hold for my local library. I think I need to review what I am doing.

Collection Development Meeting

Painting The Writing Master by Thomas Eakins 1882

Collection Development Meeting

I did not get a chance to go to the conference today because we had a special visit from a Rutgers University Professor, Kay Cassell who is an Assistant Professor at SCILS. She gave a three hour talk called Developing A Public Library Collection in the Electronic Age.

A lot of people came to hear her speak from all over the library system. She spoke for three hours. We had coffee and cake. She gave a simple two page handout for us to go over. Most of the things suggested were practical in nature.

Some of the subjects which people were interested in were free electronic resources, providing good free reference service, how to deal with old books by popular authors, and what is a good core collection.

There was a brief mention that Library Journal now had reviews for electronic resources online for free. Also, we should not just look to libraries to learn how to find things, we should look outside. The Book Expo America was mentioned as a good place for Collection Development Librarians to go to. Book Expo America is on May 29-31 at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan, New York.

There were a few things that were discussed which I found interesting. There were a variety of databases mentioned which we did not own, Chilton's Car Repair Manuals online, JStore, and Tell Me More (A language learning program.) She reminded us that we should not have a lot of databases, but a few strong useful databases. A favorite ebook resource was the Gale Biographical databases. We are currently looking at Hoover's.

There was a small amount of talk about ebooks. Mostly people talked about Overdrive which is the ebook package which is ordered through our library system. We mainly purchase audiobooks through Overdrive. She mentioned that travel books and computer books make excellent ebook purchases. There was a reminder in New York Public Library, they only bought books as individual titles for ebooks because they did not like the bundles which included too much older material.

There was a reminder that less reference books are being produced in print. People are turning to online resources because they provide quick short answers that are often as good as book sources.

Another big problem is that magazines and newspapers are increasingly becoming electronic. The Christian Science Monitor is moving to a daily online format and PC Magazine is becoming an online only publication. Many people are reading most of their magazines and newspapers online. The old fashioned sitting with the newspaper is slowly becoming a thing of the past.

In addition to buying ebooks we should be looking at a variety of formats. We learned at one library the kids were not using boxes like Xbox, they were using DS handheld games. Also, the average age of a gamer is 33 years old, close to middle aged.

An idea which we may consider is creating a "virtual library" of all our online resources in a single place on a web page. This makes it easier to manage online resources. One person mentioned that they used Shelfari, the social networking tool as part of their library home page.

She reminded us that we should survey our patrons to find out what they want. They should not just be surveyed; people also should be invited to do small focus groups on what they wanted to see in their neighborhood library.

She told us her copy machine makes PDFs of documents. This kind of blew me away. We have nothing like this at our libraries. Academic libraries are way ahead of public libraries in terms of electronic resources. They require people to do their homework using electronic databases unlike public libraries.

She suggested that we look at the Wharton Grove Public Library collection development policy. She told us that Wharton Grove breaks down their weeding policy by dewey number. We should also have an electronic resources policy to make sure there are rules around the use of computers.

There was a little bit about weeding. Some people mentioned that they sent some of their discards to Better World Books which sells discarded library books and sends a percentage of the money back to the library which gave them the books. Also, it is not a bad idea to give some of your discards to local agencies. When I was in Brooklyn Public Library, they often sent some of their discards or gift books to the prison libraries to help them.

Towards the end of the conversation, Sony Ereader and Kindle were mentioned. It was reminded to us that there are some libraries that are lending out Kindle ereaders to the public. We badly need to catch up with technology. Things like blogs provide excellent two way communications between patrons and the library.

The room was packed with librarians. It was well worth going to the meeting.

Ordering Graphic Novels, Hot Text

Panel From Krazy Kat by George Harriman

Graphic Novels Ordering:

Good afternoon, life has been quite busy. I have a small reprieve, I spent most of the afternoon ordering graphic novels about a $1000 worth. First, I looked through the bestseller lists from Diamond Comic Book Distributors for the last several months. They list the top 50 bestselling graphic novels for each month. Most of this is superhero comic books which would be sold in comic book stores.

After I looked through the Diamond Comic Book Distributors list, I took some time to look at the bestselling graphic novels on Amazon. Again, this is mostly superhero comics. People are focused on a few characters, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, the Hulk, and Ironman. Then it switches to teams like the X-men, and the Justice League of America. There is a small sprinkling of other material like DMZ, Sandman, Fables, and slightly alternative titles.

Following Amazon, I looked through Publishers Weekly and chose the graphic novels with starred reviews in their review sections. Following this, I went to the award sites. There are three major comic book awards, the Harvey Award named after Harvey Kurtzman the founder of Mad Magazine, the Eisner Award named after Will Eisner, one of the creators of Captain America and the Spirit, and the Ignatz Award which is an alternative comic book award, it is named after Ignatz Mouse in the cartoon Krazy Kat.

I took a minute to look at Fantagraphics and Pantheon two of my favorite alternative comics publishers. Most of the material being presented was pretty boring. There was an interesting book on Fantagraphics called Rebel Visions The History of the Underground Comix Revolution 1963-1975 by Patrick Rosencrantz which looked quite interesting. I also took a minute to look at the Midtown Comics website. Midtown Comics is in Manhattan. Virgin Comics is putting out a revised version of Dan Dare done by Garth Ennis. I was a little surprised at this.

I tried to create a mix of alternative, slice of life, superhero, and comics lit in the inital order. I have to wait and see how much of the order will be out of stock, out of print, and back ordered in a while.

Tomorrow, I think I will probably start looking at the computer books I have to order. I really have to take some time to visit a place where there is a lot of manga and look around carefully before I order any manga books. I don't know manga as well as I do graphic novels.

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Hot Text

I finished reading Hot Text Web Writing That Works by Jonathan and Lisa Price on the train to work. This book has a lot of material in it. The book describes how writing for the internet is very different than writing for the printed page. The attention span of the reader on the web is much shorter, people do not like to scroll through pages of stuff, and want their answers much more immediately. I am going to start working on a review of the book, either tonight or tomorrow in the morning.

The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll, Short Stories

The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll is a collection of his short stories. All are set in a kind of magically realistic universe infused with an odd mysticism. Some of the stories in the collection I liked are Mr. Fiddlehead about an imaginary friend that grows up with its creator and changes her life. Another story is about a man who adopts an exceptional dog who causes some bizarre changes in the persons life, Friend's Best Man. The Jane Fonda Room is about a trip to hell where the person gets to watch all of Jane Fonda's movies for eternity. A Wheel In The Desert, The Moon On Some Swings is about a man trying to capture his last important images through photography as he goes blind. The writing in these short stories deals with issues like death, sorrow, mysticism, and the every day moments that seem to stretch into forever. There is a real sense of magic and wonder in the writing. Even with the magic and wonder it touches on ordinary every day life things and the present. This makes for some exceptional fantasy writing. His writing is both different than most other writers and touches close to the heart.

I don't often read short stories. Most of the time when I read short stories, it is to find new writers which I hven't read. I will pick up a recent anthology of science fiction or fantasy writers and look for short stories by people I haven't read before. After I read a few of the stories, I will look in the back of the anthology to read the brief biography of the writer that is usually included. If both the short story and the biography are interesting, I will often go look for books by the author so I can read them.

Anthologies also help when I have to find out about a style of literature which I have never read before like Brazilian Literature, or Scandinavian literature. These often give me a jumping off point to find other authors. Also because the stories are short, I can skip over the ones I don't like and be selective about which ones I am going to read.

Short stories are a very good point for looking for new authors. The general publishing pattern for many writers is to write several short stories to establish an audience before they attempt to write novels. Many publishing houses will not as readily accept manuscripts from novelists who have not written short stories first.

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After looking through Bloggers, Blogs of Note; I found three major science fiction and fantasy authors, David Brin, Robert J. Sawyer, and Neil Gaiman who used blogger as their blog platform. It is one of the little things which happens when you look through lists obsessively.

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I found another directory of blog literature sites this time with over 700 blogs listed. I am applying for membership to this list. It is really, really big.

http://metaxucafe.com/cafe/find_members/index/

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I also pinged my site today using http://www.pingoat.com/ to announce that I had updated my site. This is supposed to increase traffic to this site by letting search engines and directories know that you are keeping your site up to to date.