Daily Thoughts 7/15/2010

Der Gemeindeschreiber, Gemälde von Albert Anker, 1874, 64.5 x 51 cm, Privatbesitz, Von Anker bis Zünd, Die Kunst im jungen Bundesstaat 1848 - 1900", Kunsthaus Zürich, uploaded by Adrian Michael. I am not sure what it says, but I like the picture. Germany has donated large amounts of images and content to Wikimedia and Wikipedia as a state effort. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Bundesarchiv

Daily Thoughts 7/15/2010

The Bookcase You'll Want to Live In from the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jul/13/the-ark-bookcase

State Cuts Library Aide and NYLA reacts. This article has a bit on Mount Vernon Public Library and mentions one good thing, there now will be cooperative bidding for services which might reduce some of our costs. http://books.lohudblogs.com/2010/07/13/state-cuts-library-aid-nyla-reacts/

There is something else happening here with the message that the internet can provide all we need. The problem is that it comes at a price. Netflix is not free, it is a lending model for videos where people can send the videos back by mail. Another service like Netflix, except for books is Bookswim which sends 3 books a month in the mail for $23.95 which get sent back in packages sent in the mail, much like Netflix. http://netted.net/2010/07/15/shelf-space/?id=Today#toggled The emerging models on the internet cost money, in most cases more than a library does. In an increasingly competitive business world, many publishing companies see libraries as indirect competitors for their revenue.

Today, we did a Brown Bag Book Talk where people sat with us from 12:15-1:45 p.m. and discussed the books they were reading during the summer. A lot of the patrons were reading books on spiritual subjects like feng shui, dreaming, and buddhism. One patron mentioned the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho who is a Brazilian writer. It was interesting talking to patrons about what they were interested in reading. In a way, this was directly tied in with my Readers Advisory 101 class which helped me focus on what was being said.

I also took some time to collect some of the new graphic novels for my Graphic Novels Club next week on Wednesday. I like talking about books and graphic novels with patrons.

On a more serious note, I spent some time looking at Buy a Book forms which many libraries use to get donations. These usually involve someone making a donation to purchase books. The books purchased then get a bookplate with the persons name on it on the inside. We try and pick out the nicer, more literary quality books, illustrated books, and art books when we put bookplates tied in with donations inside books.

All of my colleagues are back which is a tremendous relief. I am happy that we got the money to keep going. However, it is far from over. We still have to figure out how to get more allies, raise funds, improve library services, get more people through the front door, and improve our public relations. Government budgets do not look like they will improve in the near term.

I am going to Poets House tomorrow http://www.poetshouse.org as part of the New York Library Meetup. Hopefully, I will get to talk to some people there and have a very nice tour of a poetry library. Maybe, it will help me do a better poetry program in the future.

On the train home, I read some more of Booklife which is turning out to be quite interesting. I am reading about online booktrailers, public relations for authors, blog tours, and many other surprising subjects. The book is better than Jeff Vandermeer's fiction which is saying a lot. I very much enjoyed his fantasy novel, Finch.

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer

Finch is the third book in a trilogy. The reader does not have to read the trilogy to understand the story. Each book stands alone. The books in the series are all avant garde in their writing style. Each book does make references to the other books in the series.

In this book Ambergris, also called the City of Saints and Madmen from an earlier title in the series has been taken over by the gray caps, a strange mushroom people. The city is rotting, covered with fungus, spores, and mushrooms. Even some of the people in the story have become infested with mushrooms and spores.

Detective Finch must find out why a gray cap and a human have been murdered in the same room together. This is during an ongoing civil war. The story tries to be a mystery, a spy story, and a dark urban fantasy all at the same time. It can be confusing at times, but the author manages to pull it all together successfully.

As you read, the novel becomes stranger, slightly more mind bending, and sinister with each page. It is a descent into an otherworldly place where loyalty and trust are not always clear. Characters are not who they seem to be, even the detective is someone else in the end.

Daily Thoughts 1/26/2010

"Our Three-Volume Novel at a Glance", a cartoon by Priestman Atkinson, from the Punch Almanack for 1885 (which would have been published in late 1884). This is a jocular look at some clichéd expressions which were overused in the popular literature of the time. It contains absurd literalistic interpretations of a number of conventional metaphors, accompanied by some outrageous visual puns. In the nineteenth century, popular novels often appeared in three-volume editions when first published, in order to allow three customers of commercial "circulating libraries" to be reading parts of the book simultaneously. I've abridged the second and third "volumes" of the cartoon in this scan. From Wikimedia.

Daily Thoughts 1/26/2010

This morning, I took some time to look at Microsoft Word 2007 Quicksteps on the train so I could familiarize myself with the new version of Word which we have on the public computers. Another day, I'll probably sit down and check the program some more.

I also read some more of The Medieval Craft of Memory. It makes me think how much we take certain things for granted. For example we have a specific numerical order to the alphabet which we are taught as children, we are also taught to associate each letter of the alphabet with a specific picture like a for apple.

We also use sequential numbers for street addresses. This makes it easier for people to find and remember where an address is. We create to do lists in sequential order to get things done. Many of these are techniques to make us remember. Right now, I am reading the section called The Art of Memory by Jacobus Publicius. This section unlike the others is not focused on religion. It has a more general approach.

I think this is a book which is very interesting, but is not likely to be reviewed in the popular journals. One of my colleagues has asked to read it after I am done. It is the kind of book which is very hard to review. The content is quite philosophical in nature. I am not sure I could give full justice to some of the content. Much of the content is on how to memorize large portions of the bible. There are some very striking images on how to memorize the parts of the gospels. There are supposed to be three steps in memory, first the memorization of poetry, then memorization for oratory, then memorization for the law and religion.

Most of the content was translated from latin. It is very hard to find similar material. It also opens people to a very different view of the world. This material was written for practical use by teachers, priests, academics, and intellectuals during the middle ages. This makes the book a very specialized subject. Some of it still has relevance for our time.

I picked out some graphic novels for the graphic novels club this afternoon. I also chose some books on Thailand to go out to the book mobile. This morning, I had a chance to read through the latest New York Times Book Reviews as well as Publishers Weekly.

I planned on doing the graphic novels club for teenagers and adults. I had one of those unexpected things happen. A lot of the ten to fourteen year olds ran in to look at the graphic novels. I made some adjustments in my selections of graphic novels. The tweens. They mainly came in for soda. They took out a number of them, including a few dvds. X-men was the favorite comic. One of the dvds was Max Fleischer's Popeye. Also, Baby Mouse was popular as well as some of the shojo-- ladies manga. There were a number of girls who wanted more girl superheros. I'll have to look for more comics with lady superheros.

I started reading Jeff Vandermeer, Finch. This feels like a very experimental novel. Jeff Vandermeer has been building a fairly strong author website. His blog announces the promotion of his wife, Ann Vandermeer to Editor in Chief of Weird Tales. http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2010/01/25/breaking-news-weird-tales-announcement/ . I find this rather interesting. It reminds me a bit of the marriage of C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner who both wrote fantasy novels.

The novel Finch is published by Underland Press, http://www.underlandpress.com . This is a relatively new press. It has a brand new set of authors, many of which I am first seeing. I found the opening dialog to be quite different in style than many books I have read. I think the book has quite a bit of experimental content in it. I think some people may like it. It is a mix of urban fantasy, weird tale, and detective story with a bit of psychedelia thrown in to make it stranger.