Daily Thoughts 7/24/2010

Library Park, Bath, ME; from a 1917 postcard. This shows the Roberts Fountain, with the Patten Free Library at right

Daily Thoughts 7/24/2010

September is National Library Card month. http://www.ala.org/ala/conferencesevents/calendarofevents/otherinitiatives/card/librarycard.cfm

Long Overdue A Fresh Look at Public and Leadership Attitudes about LIBRARIES in the 21st Century http://www.publicagenda.org/files/pdf/Long_Overdue.pdf

I took a little bit of time to look at the Booklife Now blogroll http://www.booklifenow.com . It had a site which I find very useful and entertaining if you are in the publishing world, Shelf Awareness. I read it every day in my email. http://www.shelf-awareness.com I added it to my own blogroll.

I walked up to the library this morning and I spent some time looking at Consumer Reports, both the buying guide for 2010 and the September 2009 issues on Digital Cameras. Then I went to Amazon and cross referenced the highest rated digital cameras. From what I see, the Samsung SL102 is getting the best ratings. The Samsung TL110 is also getting excellent ratings. It looks like they are selling out of the TL110 in the stores and not discounting it which is a good sign that something has good quality. The TL110 has digital video, so it would be possible to do both videos and pictures which would be very nice.

I have been reading more of Digital Photography for Dummies, 6th Edition. I think I will be prepared to buy a digital camera pretty soon. I just have to look around. J and R Computer World in Manhattan has an excellent reputation. I sometimes go there. I also might just buy it from Amazon and spend a little extra money to get a better warranty.

Of course, I have a little bit of trepidation because I am not sure what will happen in six months if the library I am working at manages to either not raise additional funds or manages to lose its central library status causing a considerable loss of funds. This means it makes me wonder if I should not be holding onto my cash as much as possible.

Anyways, I started reading Cognitive Surplus Creativity And Generosity In a Connected Age by Clay Shirky. Cognitive surplus is that eight hours of free time where we either are not working or sleeping. It used to be that this was filled with television, a passive medium. Now, people are starting to use it for more interactive media in interesting ways. Clay Shirky talks about shared activities on a large scale like Wikipedia, Facebook, and other online social activities. People are no longer passive in the media landscape. Everyone in effect becomes a producer of content who wants to. I am not a huge fan of television, I find the internet and social media to be personally entertaining and rewarding even if I am not paid to use it.