Daily Thoughts 7/26/009

John Buchan author of The 39 Steps which was made into an Alfred Hitchcock film.

Daily Thoughts 7/26/2009

I have been downloading Windows Defender to deal with spyware. Somehow the updates to Spybot Search and Destroy were being blocked so I had to go around the problem.

I tried to start watching Waltz With Bashir, but found it to be a very heavy, serious, dark, and philosophical film. It was not what I expected at all. The style of animation was different than any other I had seen before. Lots of somber greys, browns, and other dark colors. It was almost photorealistic but with more muted colors. The film was about memories of Israeli soldiers from the Lebanon war. The animation and story were very well done, but they are not what I wanted to see at the moment. There is a lot of dream imagery mixed in with memories, some of it sexually charged. I might watch it later. I was hoping for something less somber. Ths is definitely a serious film.

Daily Thoughts 3/29/2009

A woman looking at books on shelves in a library.Source: Foster, Ellsworth D. The American Educator (Chicago: Ralph Durham Company, 1921) L is for Library.

Daily Thoughts 3/29/2009

Right now, I am reading Up The Organization by Robert Townsend. I am finding a lot in common with the ideas in this book. It is making me more aware of some of the activities which are going on in my own job. I rather like the ideas about organization charts and job descriptions being counterproductive in many cases. Robert Townsend recommends two books to read in this book, The Human Side of Enterprise by Douglas McGregor and Managing For Results by Peter F. Drucker. I put The Human Side of Enterprise on hold.

Web Bits

I am rather surprised at the number of sites from a variety of different countries that have links to my site. There are blogs from India, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malaysia, Brazil, the United States, and many other places. There are two blogs in Portuguese and one in Indonesian (at least I think this is what it is) that are very interesting looking. I can't read them, but they are still fascinating.

Here they are:

http://luzdeluma.blogspot.com/

http://almocrevedaspetas.blogspot.com/

http://angrianiworld.blogspot.com/

While I was wandering through blog land, I found this link on the Genteel Arsenal who was recently added to my sidebar list of blogs which I read. I think this is quite relevant. It is an article on the state of British libraries. It mirrors what is happening in the United States. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/22/saving-british-libraries

The Media Savvy Leader, Daily Thoughts

Good Morning

Happy Halloween to you all.

The Media Savvy Leader, Visibility, Influence, and Results in a Competitive World by David Henderson

I was reading a bit of The Media Savvy Leader. I noticed that there was quite a bit on public relations in the book. On the back of the book, the category is business/marketing. There is no indication that there is any public relations content on the front or back cover. It might be good to get the word public relations somewhere on the back or front cover. It would help clarify what the book is about to the reader.

There is no CIP data with categories for the book The Media Savvy Leader. This is an example of a Cataloging In Publication Entry.

MacKowski, Chris.

The PR Bible for Community Theatres/ Chris MacKowski

p. cm

ISBN 0-325-00440-4 (alk. paper)

1. Community Theater-- Handbooks, Manuals, etc. 2. Publicity-- Manuals, Handbooks, etc. I: Title: Public Relations Bible For Community Theater II. Title

PN 2267 M34 2002

792.022-- dc 21 2002003541

There is an important reason to include this. The library has to determine where the book is going to go in the building. It is better that you determine the call number and the subject headings than they do. Call numbers and subject headings are chosen at the discretion of the librarians. The book, The Media Savvy Leader, could be put in a variety of other locations than you want, media studies, or communications for example if you don't give this information. I am assuming you want it to be in business, marketing, and public relations.

Also on P.73, there is a reference that the Handbook for Bloggers by Julien Pain and Dan Gillmor being available for free on the internet. There is no url for where the book is located. It might be nice to have a link. Here it is: http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542

I also think you might want to include a list of recommended books and websites at the end of the book. You do cite some books. This would be appreciated. It does not have to be formal.

So far I am enjoying the book immensely. There are a lot of useful tips on how to talk with the media. I really like the bullet pointed lists.

Daily Thoughts

This morning, I wrote my monthly report and sent it to my supervisor. I also did a new display, Making Comics. This includes titles on drawing, storyboarding, and writing. I put Scott McCloud's Making Comics, Will Eisner's Comics & Sequential Art, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema and many other titles in one of the glass cases in our lobby.

Planet Stories has reprinted The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett. Leigh Brackett wrote the script for film, The Empire Strikes Back my favorite of the Star Wars films. She is one of the best of the classic space opera writers. I really enjoyed The Hounds of Skaith. Her character, Eric John Stark is an excellent example of the classic adventurer character.

I found this article on Gary Trudeau's Doonesbury. Apparently, Doonesbury has predicted an Obama win and some papers are considering not putting the strips in because of the ethics of having the strips put together before the election is finished. It is kind of an interesting idea.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-doonesbury1-2008nov01,0,2244580.story

Afternoon Thoughts

Library of Congress, Washington DC, from pre 1910 postcard.

Afternoon Thoughts

Today has been another rather busy day. I read a bit more on the train into work. When I got here, I found I had the video V for Vendetta waiting for me. I still have not checked it out. I've spent most of the afternoon ordering books in three different categories, computers, industries, and careers.

They still have over 200 books from my 300s order to process waiting in the storage area along with a book truck of graphic novels. I am looking forward to having them process the graphic novels. I check out books from the library like everyone else.

Other than that, I did a little bit more with the law books. They are starting to have a bit of a back log.

I changed the small display from banned books to books on writing. I filled it with a variety of classic books; On Writing Well, The Elements of Style, The Reader Over Your Shoulder, and other titles.

I went to check out V for Vendetta and found I had a few other items waiting for me, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp on dvd, The Nameless Witch by A. Lee Martinez, Marsbound by Joe Haldeman, and Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now. Sometimes I get surprised.

Todays Thoughts

I started reading Common Wealth Economics For A Crowded Planet. So far it focuses on four major issues, sustainable global economic development, common worldwide environmental problems like carbon emissions, drylands conflicts, and overfishing, population issues, and worldwide poverty traps. It is an interesting book focused on a left of center view of international issues. The author provides a lot of statistics and quotes a lot of science. It is not just a book that is purely political statements.

The labeling of books on the atlas stand was finished this morning. I also have started looking at books in the reference storage stacks to see if any of them can be discarded.

We are opening an account with Bookazine to order material. Previously we were only focused on Baker & Taylor for ordering. When I worked in Brooklyn, we used to order a lot of our mass market paperbacks from Bookazine. I think Bookazine does a slightly better job for mass market paperbacks than Baker & Taylor.

I was reading the Daily News, May 20 newspaper at the local greasy spoon diner. I had a turkey burger, a cup of minestrone soup, and a glass of water for lunch.

This time the paper surprised me. There was an article on the Tesla roadster, the all electric sportscar that can go up 125 miles per hour and has a range of 225 miles. This was on page BW 34. Also, there was an article on the Hunts Point green market. Apparently 25% to 50% of the pollution comes from idling big rig diesel trucks in the area. They are requesting business proposals to put in biodiesel or ethanol pumps. This was on page BW 4. For me, this is encouraging. I am a fan of renewable energy and transportation. It is nice to see these kind of articles in a major local paper.

The new books came in. I like looking at the unprocessed books. It annoys the technical service person sometimes. A bunch of GED books and a few ASVAB books came in which I had ordered. These still need to have security stickers, labels, and covers put on. Also, the book, Steampunk, Edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer came in. I am hoping to read it soon.

I rather like steampunk because it allows the writer to pastiche many of the characters from the classic science fiction books, John Carter, Captain Nemo, Mina, Queequeeg (not a science character) into their stories.

Sometimes when you are wandering in the land of social networking you find images and pictures which are quite entertaining. This is a link to a gallery of images called the Most Interesting Bookstores in the World. The images are quite striking. http://www.miragebookmark.ch/most-interesting-bookstores.htm

Afternoon Thoughts

Sterling Memorial Library Stocks, Yale (Public Domain Image)
I got this from wikimedia.org



One of my reserves came in today, The New Weird edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer. It is a short story collection of science fiction and fantasy in the tradition of Weird Tales. Ann Vandermeer is an editor for the newly reborn Weird Tales Magazine. It should give me a few new authors to look at.

Today has been a very slow day. Mostly, what I am doing is figuring out detail work to make my area more organized. I am going to have all the atlases in the atlas stand labeled ATLAS so they are not put on the regular shelves. I am also going to go through and check all of the multicultural and job information center books to make sure they are all properly labelled. I am tightening up the collection.

I have also been selecting books for discard. Someone always double checks the books to be discarded to make sure we don't make mistakes.

I am also looking over the books that came in to make sure they are labelled properly for reference before they go on the shelves.

The other thing I have been doing is placing new pocket parts in the law books and discarding the old ones. Today is my day to be particularly uptight. Go over the details to appear that I am doing my work properly.

Yesterday, my library aide went through and straightened all the books on the shelves, three to five inches space at the end of each shelf, spine visible on the shelf and each book a half inch in from the edge. Check to see that the books are not too tightly packed together, this splits the spine of the book.

Make sure all the bookends have cork on the bottom so they don't slip. (This is of course the ideal, it never is quite this way.) Double chcek to make sure that everything is in dewey decimal order. Make sure there are no books left lying around.

It reminds me of the librarians nightmare. In college someone once told me he would love to push the stacks over sideways so they crashed into each other like dominos falling sideways one after another. He would run through the library pushing over the stacks, then knocking all the books on the floor.

Sometimes the kids or teenagers like to push the books all the way to the back of the shelves. Or they like to run through the library knocking books on the floor. For awhile, where I work now, they used to have gangs that would run through the library and knock books on the floor. They don't have this anymore. Maybe it is just one of those library myths.

Once while I was in California, while I was working as a library aide in four year college, they had an earthquake at the main library. We spent a day wandering around picking up books off the floors and putting them on shelving carts. While we were picking the books up off the floors, other people were straightening out the shelves so we could start putting the books back on the shelves. On the second day, we started putting the books back on the shelves. We got overtime for three days. We worked for ten hours each day to get the library back in shape.

I also worked part-time as a library assistant at University of Pittsburgh in library school. The stacks have a very different feel to them. We had condensed rolling stacks for the government documents on tracks. You would turn a wheel and the whole stack would move creating an opening so you could walk down the aisle. I sometimes worried that I might get crushed. But, they had automatic sensors so you wouldn't get caught while the stacks were being rolled close. Government documents are mind numbing things. They assigned me to do this. I also answered reference questions at the main desk. So, in a way, I started as a reference librarian and I am still one.

Thoughts for Today

I just got Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut. This is a posthumous collection of essays and stories. I really like the picture of Kurt Vonnegut sitting in a chair next to some flowers on the back cover. Unfortunately, I cannot find any public domain images of Kurt Vonnegut.

I also am looking at the April copy of Previews. Previews is the magazine of the comic book industry. It lists all the forthcoming comic books and various parapernalia coming out in May. Most comic book stores carry it to select what they will order for the coming months. It is worth looking at because it lists the bestselling comics, graphic novels, manga, toys, and similar things during the previous months.

Today has been a slow day at the library.

I put Goblin War by Jim C. Hines on hold. It is being billed as light humorous fantasy.

The Last Whale, a blog which is going to be turned into a book in October/November 2008 by Fremantle Press joined me as a freind on Facebook. I think the book is about efforts to end whaling in Australia. The blog has a lot of information on it about Japanese whaling and Greenpeace. http://thelastwhale.blogspot.com/ The Last Whale is also an Entrecard member a part of another social networking tool.

So far, I am finding the Facebook experience to be quite entertaining. It seems to be much more appropriate for me to use than Myspace.

Nikki Leigh asked if I wanted to join her Blog Tour network for authors. It looks kind of interesting. This is it: http://www.nikkileigh.com/blog_tours.htm . I am really not sure if I want to do this yet. I took a look through the different blogs. The majority of the books appear to be vanity presses, self-published material, and romances. I will take a pass at joining the network. It is still a very interesting idea, however.

I still have not done any guest blogger posts. Nor, have I done any interviews of other people. It would be an interesting experience. But, I have not tried it before. I might be open to it. If anyone wants to make a suggestion on the best way to do this, please let me know.

Blog2Print, Morning Thoughts

Hello, I was looking at various sites last night. I decided I wanted to start posting and looking at sites that are part of the corporate world. Mostly, I have been focused on personal blogs. But, last night, I went ahead and decided I should probably start posting to and looking at "professional" blogs in the publishing and library world. I've always been nervous about this. I am not sure what effect this will have on my site.

I was at Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog and found a couple of interesting things. http://www.jwikert.typepad.com/ . The first thing I noticed were two services that turned blogs into books. The first was http://www.blog2print.com/ a service that for a fixed commission you can turn your blog into a book which people can purchase. It is a very interesting idea. There was also something called http://www.blurb.com/home/1/ which turns your blog into a book for a fee. It sounds kind of interesting, so because I like to experiment, I put blog2print on my website.

I found Joe Wikert's Publishing Blog 2020 by looking at the Really Strategies Blog. Really Strategies was one of the firms which sponsored the Publishers Reception for the Information Industry Summit. http://blog.reallysi.com/ . I often like to hop from recommended site to recommended site. There is a very different feel between corporate sites and personal sites.

Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog reminds me of Kimbooktu http://kimbooktu.wordpress.com/ . Both of the blogs are focused on book technology. Kimbooktu is more focused on physical book technology, but I still feel there are some real similarities between the two blogs.

I also am starting to look at some of the more prestigious blogs. I posted on http://www.blog.oup.com/ for a first time. For a while I was afraid, I might be thought of as ridiculous. But, it was an interesting experience.

One of the few things which professional blogs have an advantage over smaller personal blogs is that they can requst interviews with authors to be included in their sites. I can of course go get some interview from youtube to post on my site, but it is not the same as reading a transcript of an interview on a blog which is supposed to be authentic. It is not that easy for me to get a major author to committ to having an interview put on a small personal blog. There is usually an honorarium requested for this kind of thing. This is one of the few advantages I can see right now for publishing blogs.

This afternoon I returned Debt Is Slavery to my local library. There was nothing which I wanted to check out during this visit. There were a few titles which I had read earlier which might have been interesting, but, I would prefer to write a review from a fresh perspective.

The walk to my branch was pleasant. It was quiet. There were very few cars on the street. The weather was clear, crisp and cold. The only thing of interest was a spindly tree limb wich had fallen on the sidewalk.