Daily Thoughts 9/21/2011

Charles Dickens, William Powell Frith, 1859

Daily Thoughts 9/21/2011

I finished reading A Pleasure to Burn Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury.  Two of the stories are novellas which the book Fahrenheit 451 is based on; Long After Midnight and The Fireman.  They are variations on the central story.  The book is pleasure to read.  It was published by Subterranean Press.  http://www.subterraneanpress.com/

This morning, I updated the Facebook and Twitter account.  I also checked the displays and spent some time on Lynda.com learning a bit more about Drupal and Microsoft Word 2007.

A few of the books read for the Biography Book Club on Abraham Lincoln were Lincoln A Foreigners Quest by Jan Morris, The Lincoln Enigma Edited by Gabor Boritt, and Lincoln by David Herbert Donald.  We are going to read a biography of a famous New Yorker for the next Biography Book Club.

We had the Internet Job Search Hour today from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m..  A lot of it is helping people fill out long complex applications for positions like nursing assistant or security guard which take almost an hour to fill out.

I also spent a small amount of time weeding in the mezzanine.  The mezzanine is the name for the two floors for storage of older material which the library has.  There are always things that need to be done.

Daily Thoughts 9/20/2011

Edmund Blair Leighton, Sweet Solitude, 1919


Daily Thoughts 9/20/2011

This morning I bought some refreshments for the Biography Book Club which is happening at 4:00 p.m. today.  We are reading about Abraham Lincoln.  There were some fliers handed out at the Friends of the Mount Vernon Public Library meeting last night.

I checked the displays, udpated the Twitter and Facebook accounts. I spent some time going through the gift books.  I also spent some more time on Lynda.com watching videos on InDesign.

I also am working on an order list for test books.  I spent some time reading through the Chief Leader which is the civil service newspaper for New York city.  They list jobs in the five boroughs of Manhattan as well as the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority.)  They also report on open positions as well.

This afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. we had our first Biography Book Club.  We talked about different biographies on Abraham Lincoln.  For the next Biography Book Club, each person will read a different biography of a famous person from New York.

This evening, the Mount Vernon Public Library had an Intermediate Computer Class from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

The book, A Pleasure to Burn Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury came in for me to read.  I read some of it on the train home.  There are some interesting themes in the short stories.  For example, a theme in the writing is how modernity rejects horror authors like H:P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, Arthur Machen, and   Edgar Allen Poe as superstitious.

Another theme in the book A Pleasure to Burn Fahrenheit 451 Stories is the censorship of reading aimed at creating a mass culture.  It is interesting that Ray Bradbury also criticizes the preference of driving over walking and watching television over reading as part of mass culture..

Daily Thoughts 9/15/2011

Andrea Del Castagno, Sibylle Von Cumae, 1450

Daily Thoughts 9/15/2011

I had a very busy day yesterday.  I updated the Twitter and Facebook account, checked the displays and made sure the fliers were up to date.

I also opened the computer lab for the academic use between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.

Later in the evening, we had the Writers Networking Workshop from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in the rotunda.  They are preparing for a presentation at Lola's Tea House in Pelham on September 29, 2011 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m..  The program is going very well.

I also put the book, A Pleasure to Burn Fahrenheit 451 Stories by Ray Bradbury.  This is a collection of short stories based on the novel, Fahrenheit 451.

Web Bits

Library Quotes
http://www.libraryquotes.org/quotes.php


A Century of Philanthropy: The Carnegie Corporation of New York
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/features/09132011/century-philanthropy-carnegie-corporation-new-york


The Mount Vernon Public Library is a Carnegie building.  Construction started in 1896.  The building was finished in 1904.  There is a lot of old beautiful art in the building including a fresco by Louise Brann and the Doric Hall entryway.