Daily Thoughts 6/2/2009

The central shelving area of the "Marble Cube," Yale University's Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.

Daily Thoughts 6/2/2009

Today is another day for lots of little details. We are looking at the the way the cabinets are arranged in the Job Information Center. Things are going to get moved around.

My box came in from Book Expo America. I distributed the contents to different people, some catalogs for childrens and young adult, a few more catalogs of forthcoming books. A few contacts for urban fiction publishers in our area. I also checked through the books which I picked up to add. We have about half of them in our library system. We are adding about fifteen new titles. It was worth it to go. I plan on reading The Shortest Investment Book Ever by James O'Donnell. I also plan on reading a galley of Connected The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis, M.D., Ph.D., and James H. Fowler, Ph.D.

We spent quite a bit time of time this afternoon putting in new baskets for the slat walls. The new display area is almost completely done. We still have two more wall panels that need to come in to finish our new books display.

I finished reading Jeffrey K. Liker's book, The Toyota Way, 14 Management Principles from The World's Best Manufacturer. The book is quite compelling if more than a little bit driven. I remember one line from a manager, I work ten to twelve hours a day. This book is about how to build a high performance, lean, learning organization. Most of it is focused on manufacturing. The author likes to say there is a Toyota dna and a Toyota culture more than just a company. I find this a little disconcerting. The book turns a corporate philosophy into a way of life. I am still thinking about this. I will let it sit with me for a while so I can write a more complete review. The book did make me want to look at Frederick Herzberg's theories of motivation.

Daily Thoughts 6/1/2009

Portrait of Walter Scott (1771 - 1832), novelist and poet, oil on canvas, author of Ivanhoe.

Daily Thoughts 6/1/2009

Today is another day like most others. I spent much of this morning catching up on my reading in Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. I also placed some orders for fiction in my cart for Baker and Taylor. There were a few books which I had seen at Book Expo America which I thought we should get, so I suggested they be ordered. One of them is Abraham Obama from Last Gasp. I thought that there might be readership for this. It is fairly controversial. http://www.lastgasp.com/d/34587/

I am waiting for my box from the convention to come in. It should be interesting when it gets here. The shifting of the 700s went pretty well. Things are starting to come into place a little better. I still have to do more weeding there.

There were a few books which I plan on reading waiting for me, The Beats A Graphic History Edited by Paul Buhle and WWW: Wake by Robert J. Sawyer. Robert J. Sawyer has won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his previous work.

I read some more of The Toyota Way on the way home. It is very meticulous and detailed. The book is focused on improving processes in a company as well as eliminating waste. The author is describing a very hands on approach where the managers are constantly on the shop floor and looking at ways to improve things. At times it seems a little bit overbearing. The book does not have a lot of complex diagrams in it. There is a real focus on trying to explain things clearly. I rather like the idea of trying to condense reports onto a single piece of paper. My boss insists we keep our monthly reports to a single page.

Daily Thoughts 5/31/2009

Argosy All-Story Weekly cover A. Merrit, The Metal Monster (1920) A. Merritt wrote a number of classic fantasy novels, The Moon Pool, The Ship of Ishtar, and The Metal Monster pictured here.

I finished reading Robots Have No Tails by Henry Kuttner. Itis a collection of five short stories with two introductory essays, one by C.L. Moore, and one by F. Paul Wilson. The stories are about Galloway Gallagher, a drunken scientist and inventor. They are "gadget stories", or stories based around creating a new device. In each story, the scientist gets in trouble with the law and some shady business and has to figure out how a device he invented while drunk works so he can solve his problem. The stories are melodramatic and funny. If you want some light humorous reading these stories are entertaining. The cover art of the book very much reflects the content of the stories. Unfortunately, this book is not listed on Amazon. This is a link to the book, http://paizo.com/store/fiction/planetStories/v5748btpy83xa

I spent a little time reading at the laundromat while my clothes were in the washer first, then the dryer. I am currently reading The Toyota Way 14 Management Principles From the World's Greatest Manufacturer by Jeffrey K. Liker. The book seems quite biased in favor of the Toyota Production System. The author has taught many different companies about the methods of lean production and continuous improvement as practiced by Toyota. What I found interesting was that Sakichi Toyoda who was one of Japan's most prominent inventors was very influenced by Samuel Smiles 1859 book, Self- Help. This is a link to the project Gutenberg e-text. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/selfh10h.htm . I am finding The Toyota Way quite interesting. The beginning is as much a book about industrial history as it is about management.

Web Bits

A link to an article about Book Expo America's Day of Dialog between librarians and publishers. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6661514.html

Daily Thoughts 5/30/2009

The Adventures of Tarzan Starring Elmo Lincoln. This film is based on The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Edgar Rice Burroughs is considered the creator of the planet story with his Martian tales.

Paizo Press is reprinting many of the original Planet Stories from the original pulp magazine. I picked up a copy of Henry Kuttner's short story book, Robots Have No Tails about a drunken amoral inventor. The stories have a mix of sarcasm and dark humor.

The Planet Stories series includes books by Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore, Michael Moorcock, and Henry Kuttner some of the better pulp science fiction writers. Many science fiction writers consider Henry Kuttner to be one of the best science fiction writers of his time period.

I am also reading The Toyota Way 14 Management Principles From The Worlds Greatest Manufacturer by Jeffrey K. Liker. It is about the principles behind Toyota's management practices including kaizen and lean manufacturing.

This afternoon, I read The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein on http://www.netgalley.com/ . I enjoyed reading the book, the one issue I have with Net Galley is that you cannot adjust the font size in their online reader. The book itself was a very quick read. It was nicely illustrated with easy to read text and explanations.

Netgalley currently has 176 titles in their database of galleys. Most of these are for forthcoming items. This may be a good place to look for featured forthcoming books for libraries.

After looking at Libdrone's blog, I noticed that there was a search box on his blog http://libdrone.info/ . I decided to add my own. My blog is now searchable.