Daily Thoughts 6/4/2010

Château de Chantilly, Oise, Picardie, France. Le cabinet des Livres. 29 August 2008(2008-08-29), Tango7174, Gnu Free Documentation License 1.2, From Wikimedia

Daily Thoughts 6/4/2010

Book Blogger Convention, Content, Comraderie, and Cake http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/896491.html#3941145 . I like Shelf Awareness, I subscribe to the email newsletter. They often have nice daily recommendations of books to read and summations about authors and other people in the book trade.

I was at this panel at Book Expo America, BEA Librarians Shout It Out. http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a1/895877.html#3940027 It was excellent.

Book and Bake Sale

It is book and bake sale time at the library. The Friends of the Library are selling coffee, cake, and books in the community room. It has a pleasant genteel feel to it. They are also running the sale on Saturday. They are raffling off an icecream maker. They also have the petition out to keep the library open. A retired children's librarian who is part of the Firends of the Library helps run the sale.

There are piles of books on the tables, pleasant people to talk to, and lots and lots of books. In addition there are a lot of audiobooks. The crowd is mostly older ladies. Eventually, the book dealers will show up to look at the books, usually at the end of the show. Some will be asking to take away all the books that did not sell at a discount.

It is a genteel kind of thing to do. There were a lot of the regulars who went to the book sale. Several regular library patrons and even a few people who lived across the street from the library came to the book sale.

I spent some time during lunch looking over the books on the tables; self help, sports, fiction, art, religion, childrens books, audiobooks and general nonfiction. It was nice talking to people who wandered in for a few minutes. Usually all of the librarians at some point go down to the booksale to look around say hello to the Friends of the Library, look at the books, and say hello to people. The cookies were tasty. I'll get some coffee tomorrow.

Library book sales are generally good public relations. They sell books inexpensively which we would not necessarily add to the collection.

Everyday Things

I spent some time looking at the displays. I also spent some time looking at Bookletters this morning talking to our representative about layout. I am working on creating another bookmark, this time for Latino American authors.

On the train home, I read some of Linchpin Are You Indispensable? by Seth Godin. It is about how work is changing. He is describing how the world of work is changing so fast that it is necessary to have people comfortable changing things as part of organizations. People who are creative, artistic, and can find solutions in addition to managers and workers. Things are changing so fast that it is hard to keep up with things at times.