Daily Thoughts 9/30/2009

Dicţionarul ortografic, ortoepic şi morfologic al limbii române (DOOM).
L. Kenzel, March 8, 2009, Gnu Free Documentation License, Version 1.2

Daily Thoughts 9/30/2009

Today has been another quiet day. I spent time removing the older books from the new arrivals section this morning, did some weeding in the 800s, and had a bookmark printed up.

It was nice, quiet and relaxed. We also printed some tear sheets from Westlaw Patron Access. Tomorrow, I will hand in the monthly report. It is going smoothly.

And Then There's This How Stories Live And Die In A Viral Culture by Bill Wasik

Bill Wasik

And Then There's This How Stories Live And Die In A Viral Culture

This book is by the inventor of internet "flash mobs" or groups of people who spontaneously formed when suggested to by internet messages. Bill Wasik is what might be called a memetic engineer or a person who creates quickly spreading ideas. This book is pure infotainment at its best.

Some of the different categories of idea he writes about are in politics, advertising, corporate culture, and indie rock. The writing is both critical and ironic in content.

There is a very hip, left wing slant to the politics in the book. It is genuine reminder that we don't have to buy into advertising or spin, we have the right to choose what we view on the internet.

Bill Wasik visits some of the "digerati"-- the digital elite to look at how they create spin with new media. He mentions The Huffington Post, Bzzagent, KEXP Online Radio, Youtube, and many other internet sites.

In his view we have started surveiling ourselves to create a kind of giant popularity contest where the most views win. People are absorbed into the public consumption of blogs and other social networks.

This is a fun book to read by a very erudite and funny author. It is a mix of geeky avant garde, new media and social engineering. Bill Wasik is a senior editor at Harper's and has written for Salon magazine. This shows with very smooth prose that sounds like he is talking to you personally.

Daily Thoughts 9/29/2009

This is an advertising image from 1916 for Brentano's books. There used to be a Brentano's Bookstore near Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, New York.

Daily Thoughts 9/29/2009

Today has been kind of interesting. We moved some furniture. We have an octagonal display table which we moved near the "new arrivals" section this morning. This adds to two small display tables which are there now. We now have a lot of display area.

I did some more weeding of the 800s. It is moving along slowly.

We also had a salesperson from Sentry Technology Corporation come to visit us. He demonstrated a self-checkout machine for libraries. The design was kind of interesting. It was based on automatic teller machine technology. You could see the words up close, but not from very far away. It also did renewals for books and if we wanted returns. I would imagine having automatically generated fines would be interesting for us. The system is called QuickChek Kiosk. http://www.sentrytechnology.com/librselfcheck.htm A number of local libraries already have the system. Most only use it for checkout and renewing books. They had three handouts which they gave away.

Another book came in for me to read, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Sometimes, I like to just browse through images in books. If you want to look at gadgets, Design Revolution 100 Products that Empower People by Emily Pilloton is kind of interesting. It includes images of things like a one handed tourniquet, a mobile water purification truck, spider boots for anti-mining, and zipcars. It is rather interesting.

Web Bits

This is a very interesting article from The Guardian in the UK. It is a plan for a national library card which links all libraries in the United Kingdom together. This is a major step forward for them. In the United States, it is hard to even get interlibrary loan from outside our county. We have a countywide library system. In Manhattan, New York there are three library systems, New York Public Library, Queens Library, and Brooklyn Public Library. Imagine if you could go to any library in the United States and check out a book using your library card. It would be a tremendous step forward. It would open up learning a lot.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/sep/28/every-library-a-local-library

A new term from John Clute for fantasy and science fiction. A little turgid but interesting. I have a signed copy of the Science Fiction The Illustrated Encyclopedia by John Clute at home. I like looking through it for the signatures of many different authors as well as pictures of book covers. http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2009/09/john-clute-fantastika.html

Daily Thoughts 9/28/2009

Herman Wouk in Jerusalem, 1955

Daily Thoughts 9/28/2009

This morning I started reading The Cost of Bad Behavior How Incivility Is Damaging Your Business and What To Do About It by Chris Pearson and Christine Porath. So far the book is about how being civil reduces performance, lowers concentration, and decreases employee retention. It even gives statistics on the specific effect that incivility has on work performance. Want to lose 12% of your workforce due to attrition, create an uncivil workplace.

I started writing my monthly report today. It is due in a few days. It is mainly about creating displays, putting in the new cd racks, adding display tables, updating bookmarks and marketing materials, and similar things. Displays have a large impact on circulation in my opinion. They are very important. This is also true of patron requests. This makes a lot of difference to people. We are ordering a lot more books that patrons request.

Today, I printed out a flyer that lets people know that requests to order material are available. It is on the circulation desk and near the "new arrivals" section. Hopefully, it will be noticed.

I also did some more weeding in the 800s which is moving along every single day. It is an incremental process. I try to do it every single day for an hour. It is like me spending time every day on making sure the displays are up to date as well.

One of the displays that we do is a current events display. I try and find books about topics that are in the news. I generally go to Yahoo news, pick out the headlines and search for a few of the subjects in the headlines. I do this regularly to refresh the display. My main aim is to display newer books that are in the news as well. It is more than books, I also try to display audio and video with the current events display. I have to create a sign for the current events display. This is something I will do tomorrow. A little self reflection sometimes gives you new ideas.

Today went pretty well.

Tomorrow is the day the Banned Books Week displays go up. All of my displays are going to be cleared out and we are going to put in displays of banned books. Think hard of what it would be like to live in a society where books were banned. Imagine if the world of Fahrenheit 451 were real. There is so much which is said in that book which is so close to what is happening now.

Daily Thoughts 9/27/09 Resting

I am taking a break. Maybe I will daydream of Ceylon.

Daily Thoughts 9/27/2009

I was going to write a bad review of The Whuffie Factor Using The Power of Social Networks To Build Your Business by Tara Hunt. I thought it was mediocre. There are better books to read on this subject, but I decided to rest instead. Find another book to read on the subject. There are plenty of books on social media.

I also finished reading And Then There's This How Stories Live and Die In A Viral Culture by Bill Wasik. This was a very entertaining and interesting book. He made a few comments on the philosophy of Epicureanism versus Stoicism at the end of the book which caught my attention.

Anyways back to resting.