Daily Thoughts 9/14/2010 (Business Books)

Public domain clipart.

Daily Thoughts 9/14/2010

While I was looking at the concept of coworking I found an interesting office called Paragraph.  Paragraph is a coworking space for writers in New York. http://paragraphny.com/space/ Coworking seems to be a new trend.

I am looking at the purchase alerts. This is a list of what people have requested to be sent to our library. One book which caught my attention was Four Fish The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg.  It stands out because most books with environmental themes are not requested a lot.  Also Sherrilyn Kenyon who writes dark romantic fantasy has a lot of different books being reserved; Dream Chaser, Dream Warrior,  The Dream Hunter, and Dark Side of the Moon.

Today has been interesting.  We put together a list of the different resources available for business available at our library.  This includes databases, websites, books, and other resources.  We have a strong Job Information Center collection.  We also have been buying quite a few books on business on the internet and social networking.

Daily Thoughts 9/13/2010 (Coworking, Publishing)

Picture from Information Commons, University of Sheffield, UK, Author Markpeak,Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Information_Commons_Sheffield_4.jpg   I wanted to get a sense of what an information commons looks like inside a library.  It gives me a bit better idea of what might be going into the new Information Commons at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Daily Thoughts 9/13/2010

I went for a checkup with my doctor this morning.  Things are fine.  I'm just a little tired. 

I have been reading more of Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan.  It has given me a few new ideas.  I am probably going to adjust the banner at the top of my blog a little bit.  I decided not to review Common As Air.

I went by a place called New Work City which is in Manhattan http://www.nwcny.com/ .  They are a coworking space for the tech community in Manhattan.  The space just opened on September 1st, 2010.  They recently had a startup summit on September 10-12. The space is about twenty feet away from the Canal Street exit for the N and R subway line.  You go up a flight of stairs and you are there.  The place has an unfinished feel to it.  The front of the building has still not been filled with desks.  It is very new.

There were several small breakout rooms for conferences.  Four people were using one of the rooms as an office for a new startup.  There was a coffee urn.  The walls were mostly bare of art.

Most of the people using the space were sitting at laptops typing away.  I was met by a gentleman sitting at a desk.  I asked about internet access.  They have wireless access points and some dsl lines.  They are planning on getting some cable modem lines in as well.  It all appears to work quite well.  They will probably have more desktop computers and servers when there are more permanent people in the space.

The fee seemed reasonable $600 a month per person to use the space as an office.

I found the group because I was wandering around looking at MBStartups on Twitter http://twitter.com/mbstartups  around eventually bumping into New Work City.




I got invited to a Publishing Business Virtual Conference and Expo on September 16, 2010 for free.  I am not quite sure what to do with it yet.  http://www.publishingbusiness.com/PBV2010/A1007038_PBv_agendav3.pdf

Daily Thoughts 9/12/2010 (Brooklyn Book Festival)

Looking west along north facade of en:Brooklyn Borough Hall at dusk of a cloudy June 15, 2008, Public Domain http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Boro_Hall_dusk_jen.JPG  The publishers tents for the Brooklyn Book Festival were outside Borough Hall.

Daily Thoughts 9/12/2010

Brooklyn Book Festival

This morning, I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival Librarian's Breakfast at the Brooklyn Historical Society Library from ten o'clock in the morning to twelve noon.  It is a very beautiful library with polished exposed ornate woodwork.  None of the woodwork is painted which makes it even more beautiful.  The library itself is a research library with no lending. It is extremely clean and well organized.

Unfortunately, the main speaker, Marilyn Johnson was unable to attend due to illness.  Still, it was an enjoyable morning.  There was a group called the Quotables who read out loud quotes from different authors: we were supposed to guess the quotes.  They read quotes by Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote, Edwidge Danticat, Walt Whitman, and others.  I won a poster by guessing a quote.  It is on my kitchen wall now.   There were several people that I recognized from the New York Librarians Meetup  http://www.meetup.com/nylibrarians/  and Barbara Genco who is doing the Facebook page for the ebooks Libraries @ the Tipping Point Summit http://www.facebook.com/pages/LJSLJ-Ebook-Summit/128650870500572




There were two librarians from Westchester.  One worked for Backstage Library Works http://www.bslw.com/ , and another worked as a school media specialist.  There were also quite a few librarians from Queens,  New York.  They served coffee, bagels, and mufins for breakfast.


Anthony W. Crowell, Chair of the Board of Trustees for Brooklyn Public Library announced that Brooklyn Public Library was going to have an Information Commons which would be a special area for computers in the library.  He said that they would call the librarians who worked there "informationists" which was kind of interesting.

It was a pleasant way to spend a morning talking about libraries.  Some of the topics that came up were, professional development.  Metro New York was mentioned http://bit.ly/aVcMkS well as the ALA
 online courses http://bit.ly/cL3YVk .  Another conversation was about advocacy.  Turning the Page Online is well worth taking if you are interested in advocacy.  http://bit.ly/atGdEz 

The breakfast was sponsored by Target which has an educational grant for libraries http://www.target.com/grants

After visiting the Brooklyn Historical Society Library, I went outside into the light rain.  There were lots of tents with publishers at the book festival.  Some of the publishers which I recognized were Akashic Books, Two Dollar Radio, Small Beer Press, Granta, Verso, Graywolf Press, Black Lawrence Press, Drawn and Quarterly, and Dorling Kindersley. It had a very indie feel to it.

 Small Beer Press has a site which sells ebooks called Weightless Books http://weightlessbooks.com/ I like Small Beer because they produce fantasy books which are "slightly weird" and not overwhelming.   They have an excellent roster of quality fantasy wrters; Kelly Link, Karen J. Fowler, Poppy Z. Brite, Kathe Koja, Carol Emshwiller,  and John Crowley are just a few of them. 

Another press which caught my attention was Purgatory Pie Press.  They make books on making books and paper toys.  I especially liked the book Magic Books and Paper Toys by Esther K. Smith at their table.



Akashic Books was interesting to talk to.  One book that caught my attention was a collection of Caribbean poetry, So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets from the First Ten Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival edited by Kwame Dawes and Colin Channer.  They also have a blog. 




Many of the booths had local literary magazines like N+1, small press authors, and small press publishers.  The Strand Bookstore was there as well as Greenlight Bookstore.  I have never been to Greenlight.  There some literary groups like Poets and Writers, The Center For Fiction, and the Writers Studio from Manhattan.  I picked up a copy of the latest New York Review of Books.

Gryphon Books was a bit nostalgic for me  http://www.gryphonbooks.com/  Gary Lovist, the owner of the press writes The Antique Trader Price Guide to Collectible Paperbacks.  He also runs the Collectible Paperback Show in Manhattan which is coming up on September 19, 2010.  http://www.gryphonbooks.com/Gallery/DivaAd.html  I found the show to be quite interesting when I went there.



I kept track of a few titles in a notebook which I carry while was walking around; The Flatiron: The New York Landmark and the Incomparable City That Arose with It by Alice Sparberg Alexiou , The Wilding by Benjamin Percy, and  Everything is Going to Be Great by Rachel Shukert.

I also got two free poetry books, Heredities Poems by J. Michael Martinez and How To Live on Bread and Music by Jennifer K. Sweeney.  These were courtesy of the Academy of the American Poets http://www.poets.org/

There was an Advanced Reading Copy of Burnt Books Rabbi Nachman and Franz Kafka  by Roger Kamanetz which is coming out in October by Schocken Books.  Schocken Books has a series of Jewish biography which is very well done.

It was a pleasant walk in the light rain.  I filled my bag with various pamphlets, bookmarks, buttons, and catalogs which I will look at when I get back to work on Monday.

Daily Thoughts 9/11/2010 (Common As Air, Social Media 101, Brooklyn Book Festival

Poster design by Alex Keil, featuring book cover, Germany, 1930 Blickfang - The Eye-Catching Covers of Weimar Berlin on A Journey Round My Skull Flickr Photostream , Creative Commons Attribution From ,
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajourneyroundmyskull/3981015443/ 

Daily Thoughts 9/11/2010

I read some more of Self Esteem, Third Edition this morning.  Right now, I am creating a long list of everything which I think I should be doing.  It is definitely too much for me to accomplish in a realistic manner in the next couple of centuries.  But, I am very much like that.

Some of the books on social media like Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan which I am reading right now,  tell you that you should not write too much about yourself, people are not that interested in the mundane things like the toast you made this morning, the coffee you drank, or the time you spent cleaning the sink.  I think it has more to do with the ability to make the mundane interesting.  I got my coffee from the local deli owner who is a bald gentleman with a goatee, I like my rye toast with grape jelly and butter, and I rinse the sink out after I use it every morning.  The little details of your personality can make a blog very interesting.  The mundane with the plain is what kills interest.  I read the first three chapters last night and will probably read a little more of it each day until I am done.

I am almost finished reading Common As Air by Lewis Hyde.  He is arguing against excessive control of intellectual property.  Lewis Hyde hide quotes the term "De minimis non curat lex", law is not interested in trivial matters to challenge the increasing focus on control of individual consumers by the music industry. This book is very much in the tradition of professors writing for the interested lay public about important ideas.

I went back and added June and July of 2008 book reviews to my list. It is clear that I will have to go back and edit many of my entries to get them to appear cleaner.  It might take some time to do this. I also have been copying a few of the reviews into Goodreads.  Goodreads allows the user to cross post their reviews to Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.

I am going to the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow.  There is a librarian breakfast at 10:00 a.m. at the Brooklyn Historical Society.  There also should be several people from the New York Librarians Meetup at the breakfast. http://www.brooklynbookfestival.org/BrooklynBookFestival/festival.html

Daily Thoughts 9/10/2010 (Books, Ordering, Libraries, Newspapers)

Gustav Wentzel, norwegian painter, 1859-1927, Frokost II / Morgenstemning (breakfast II / morning mood) , 1885, National Gallery, Oslo. 




Daily Thoughts 9/10/2010

The Wall Street Journal is launching a book review section http://www.observer.com/2010/media/wall-street-journal-will-launch-book-review-section




The New York Times will go digitally only soon. I can see people paying for a print on demand if they still want a paper version, but mostly digital only. This is the wave of the future. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/09/arthur-sulzberger-we-will_n_710251.html

My book bag is full of books now.  I am still reading Common As Air, but I am also reading Self Esteem Third Edition by Matthew McKay, Ph.D.  This is mainly a workbook.  There are a variety of exercises on how to redirect your thoughts.  One of them which I liked quite a bit was to write down all the positive and negative aspects about yourself, then change the negative aspects into neutral factual statements, and finally combine everything into a more positive description of yourself.  I also have started on Social Media 101 by Chris Brogan.  I am reading three books at this time.  I have two more to read later, Rework by Jason Fried and  David Heinemeier Hansson, and Zero History by William Gibson.

Another book also came in for me to read, The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee it is a mass market paperback.  Jeff Vandermeer reviewed it in the New York Times Book Review.

I have been doing some ordering.  I noticed a few books of interest.  The one that caught my attention most was Djibouti by Elmore Leonard.  It is a crime novel about modern day Somali pirates.

On the way home, I read some more of Common As Air by Lewis Hyde.  There is a quote which I find especially interesting from Noah Webster in the book, "Nothing is more dangerous to liberty than the power of entailed art and ideas."

I finished adding August and September of 2008 book reviews to my book reviews list.