Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

Public Domain Art, Photo Montage Dickens,Collins,Gaskell and Proctor

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

There is a new university digital book archive called Hathitrust which has 4 million volumes. I find it interesting. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6709706.html

It is the end of the year ordering time. I have been spending some more time on the New York Times books page. I have been looking at the cooking books and the gardening books as well as some other books.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/

There are some other minor things to get done. We have to finish ordering art books for a grant. We are trying to get some very nice oversize art books with the money. We also have to decide on a new label for the inspirational fiction books.

I have two philosophy books on my desk. The first is A Guide to the Good Life {the ancient art of stoic joy} by William B. Irvine. I have always felt an affinity to stoicism. The other book is The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts The Classic Chinese Guide For Success in War, Business, and Life, Hiroshi Moriya. It is translated by William Scott Wilson who also translated The Book of Five Rings and Hagakure.

On the train home, I read some more of Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence. The book was talking about how emotions are contagious, people act synchroniously with each other, and our neurons are designed to react to other peoples emotions. We don't exist in isolation.

I have been working a bit more on Linked In. I think I may have my first recommendation given to me soon. I hope it works. It is an interesting process. A lot of it is complete hype. There is a lot of nonsense around social networking tools. There is also a lot of time wasting and a tendency to make promises that are not quite right. I think one third of it is hype, one third of it is technical skills, and one third of is is genuinely useful networking. This is an article from Business Week which explains this phenomena. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm