Daily Thoughts 4/25/2009

Writer L. Frank Baum, writing with pen. 1911

Daily Thoughts 4/25/2009

Today was an interesting day. I spent some time this morning working with Professor Teaches Publisher 2003, a computer program which teaches people how to use Microsoft Publisher. I came in a little early to get this done.

We also did a cleanup around the library, raking up garbage and trash, and picking up bottles and other things. We spent around two hours picking up around the building. It also looked like the post office picked up around their lot and building this morning. The city is signing people up for block cleanups. Groups would get extra pickups for garbage on the weekend. It is part of Earth Celebration Week. There is also a small display of books for earth day in a case. The local high school special education department did a display on alternative energy in our front lobby. We had a nice earth week.

Early today, I also had a few minutes to go into the technical processing area and review some of the books for mending in the cage. Not everything will make it to the mending shelf.

I am sitting here looking at fiction reviews. It is a very nice day outside. I have picked out a few titles, Paulo Coelho, The Winner Stands Alone is one of them. Paul Coelho puts a page up with pirated versions of his own work to increase his print sales. He also comments on various issues with the internt. http://piratecoelho.wordpress.com/ . I also picked out books by a few popular authors, Dorothy Cannell, Stuart Woods, and Robert Littlell.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

Thomas Pollock Anschutz(1851-1912)Woman Writing at a Table Oil on canvas, c.1905

Miscellaneous Thoughts

The NEA has a new study which shows that people are starting to read literature again. For me this is an incredibly positive sign. It means that we will have more people learning again which will help start the economic recovery.

http://arts.endow.gov/news/news09/ReadingonRise.html

A social networking package for libraries, Librarything now has a module for library catalog to enhance the interactiveness. This looks quite interesting.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6631420.html

I walked up to my local library and looked around for a bit. I was looking for a high quality book on Microsoft Publisher, but they did not have it. I was not satisfied with the book I had gotten sent from another library previously. We have a couple new books on Microsoft Publisher 2007 at my job, but we are waiting for the cataloging information before they can be processed and I can use them.

I also took a look at accounting titles at my local public library. None of them are at the CPA level. We have had patrons coming in and asking for fairly advanced accounting. The problem is that many of these books are over $120 each and are very academic, for the brand new titles, they can run over $200 each for an accounting textbook. Most public libraries don't buy academic titles. The cost is very high and the cost for theft or loss is much higher than popular titles. There were a few titles which I wrote down to purchase.

Many professional nonacademic titles are approaching the price of academic college textbooks. This makes it quite difficult in some cases to support the public libraries mission of buying generalist nonacademic material. I have often thought that the more money you stand to gain from the knowledge in a technical book, the more a publisher will attempt to charge you for it.

Right now, I am reading The Devil's Eye by Jack McDevitt. It is an Alex Benedict novel. She is an archaeologist of both human and alien artifacts. The story is a mystery set in the far future. One of the good things about the novel and Jack McDevitt's writing is that it shows humans keep the same motivations even in a science fiction setting. Jack McDevitt won the nebula award for his novel Cauldron.

Daily Thoughts

Rembrandt (1606-1669): "Portrait of Johannes Elison" (1634)

Daily Thoughts

Today has been very busy again. I did a lot more weeding in the social sciences section. I am also shifting the books around as I am weeding. This takes quite a bit of time to do. My colleague is weeding the education books right now. I am two thirds done with the social science books. I will definitely finish by the end of the month.

We finished working on the services brochure for our library. I also started working on a new business card for the library. I think I am beginning to get a sense of Microsoft Publisher. There are quite a few things more which we can work with. The next thing to do is to create a new sheet advertising our community spaces.

I also spent some time going over my orders to make sure I was not duplicating anyone elses orders. Everything appears to be clean. So, I think I am caught up with a lot of different activities. On Wednesday, I am doing another poetry open microphone.

I was too tired to read on the train to work this morning. I took a short nap instead.

The movie, Wall-E came in for me to watch. It looks very entertaining.

Right now, I am quite tired. I was so tired that I could not read. I could write though. I feel like a third person right now. An odd kind of poetry seems to be reaching me.

Burn

Burn star bright red hot

A meteor descending earthward

Crater a mile wide

Sleep

Sleep waits for no man

Heavy lidded coffee eyes

Fueled in the long night

Innocence Nonsense

This is in no sense nonsense

It is a series series of thoughts

Thoughts written with writing

Philosophical philosophies in the now

Are you truly innocent inside

Or are filled fully with nonsense

This is a nice little biography of one of my favorite poets, Bob Kaufman.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/kaufman/about.htm He has a flavor in his writing that is all his own. I especially like his poem, Abomunist Manifesto.

I have been looking at the idea of purchasing ebooks. There has been a tremendous surge in ebook usage; in the last year, Sony ebooks sold 300,000 units, and Amazon sold approximately 400,000 units of kindle, and over a million programs for reading books on the ipod have been downloaded. http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/web_tech/ereader_application_stanza_counts_one_million_downloads_105395.asp