Daily Thoughts 8/2/2010 ( libraries, ebooks, EDI )

Reading-room of the Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris)

Daily Thoughts 8/2/2010

Copia is planning a $99 ereader for epub books.  Copia $99 Ereader http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/29/how-low-will-e-reader-prices-go/




Barnes and Noble is planning a big push for the Nook.  It certainly looked like they were doing this at the store I went to on Sunday.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/business/media/30nook.html?_r=2&ref=technology




This morning we spent some time going over invoicing for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange).  We invoiced  two graphic novels that came in to be added to the collection, Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso, and Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition, Volume 5.  It was the administrative function of putting in prices, checking things in, and invoicing items.  We have three vendors currently in EDI, Baker and Taylor, Book Wholesalers Inc., and Midwest Tape.







Today has been quiet.  I updated my graphic novels club flier this morning and printed out some more of the public service announcement for getting library cards.  I also had a chance to get access to Zoom Info for a short trial period of three days. I spent some more time checking for a variety of titles; philanthropy, corporate giving, social responsibility, donor, donation, philanthropist, foundation, charity, and a few other job titles.  I have a small folder full of profiles.




The next step which I'll probably take is to look through some of the local papers for fundraising events and profiles of people.  I'll probably look in the Westchester Wag and a few similar papers.  The Westchester Wag lists a lot of charity events.  Not everything is online.  Many magazines only have their current issue online and want you to subscribe to get issues or buy their backlist separately.







Three more books came in for me to read, The Betrayal of American Prosperity by Clyde Prestowitz, Undress for Success by Kate Lister which is about working from home, and Made Possible By Succeeding With Sponsorship A Guide for Nonprofits by Patricia Martin which is about corporate sponsorship.




Article -- It Takes A City to Raze A Library http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randy-susan-meyers/it-takes-a-city-to-raze-a_b_635789.html 




Right now, I am reading Undress For Success, The Naked Truth About Making Money At Home by Kate Lister and Tom Harnish.  It is about working from home in all its aspects from home business to telecommuting.

Daily Thoughts 8/1/2010 ( Nook, CBLDF, Barnes and Noble )

Main reading room (Czytelnia Główna) of Warsaw Public Library in Warsaw, Poland, 16 July 2010, Darwinek, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, From Wikimedia

I read some more about grant writing this morning.  Hopefully, I will be able to get a trial subscription to Zoom Info which is a pay database for searching people.  It is quite useful if you are searching for people.  A lot of people in recruiting, sales, or marketing use it for lead generation.  http://www.zoominfo.com/




I went to Barnes and Noble today to look at the Nook.  I like it better than the Kindle.  It has two screens; a small lcd strip, and a larger black and white e-ink display which is kind of interesting.  You can look at book covers in color.  The navigation took a little bit to get used to.  Barnes and Noble gives away one free ebook each week. There were also sample sets of free ebooks being advertised.



 They also allow you to send a copy of a book once to another person through email for some titles through a program called LendMe.  This means there is already more sharing than the Kindle or Sony Ereader currently offers.   You can read any ebook in the Barnes and Noble brick and mortar store for up to one hour.  It is time limited.  I learned that the basic model  starts with 2 GB of memory storage which is enough for 1500 ebooks, but the memory card slot is expandable.  An 8 GB expansion card could hold a lot of books-- 6,000 ebooks.  The Nook looks like a hybrid of Ipad and Kindle with some features of both.




I also walked around the store looking at the end cap displays.  It feels like they are doing many of the same things which libraries are doing currently.  There were a few titles that I may suggest for purchase.  One of them looks especially good, Digital Photography for Next to Nothing by John Lewell.  It is about using open source software for digital photography.  I also liked the self help title Long Fuse Big Bang Achieving Long Term Success Through Daily Victories by Eric Haseltine.  As usual I bought a cup of coffee, the price of admission these days for bookstores.




While I was going through my old mail, I found a notice for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, they have new offices in New York as well as an updated website http://www.cbldf.org/  I find the organization to be quite interesting and entertaining in addition to being a defender of the first amendment.

Daily Thoughts 7/31/2010 ( grants, libraries )

Central Stair Hall, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. (1900-1902) Detroit Publishing Postcards Series 5000.
Daily Thoughts 7/31/2010

I walked up to my local branch library and picked up a copy of Webster's New World Grant Writing Handbook by Sara Deming Wason.  It is a basic overview of the grant writing process.  I found this article from Oxfam kind of interesting.  http://www.mrss.com/oxfam-eoy-2008-fundraising.pdf   It shows a fairly common web application called a lightbox combined with a web video that is used as part of a fundraising campaign.




It is kind of interesting reading about the different types of foundations and trusts from community trusts to family foundations to corporate foundations.  It is mostly new to me.  I am reading it in the context of  getting new technology like MP3 players, Ipads, Nooks, digital cameras, and software into the library.




I have been going through all my old emails for the last couple of years where I came across examples of people, corporations, and foundations giving money to libraries in our county and compiling them into a single document.  It is mainly a mix of news articles and biographical profiles.

Daily Thoughts 7/30/2010 ( ebooks, reviews )

Artist: Reymerswaele, Marinus Claesz. van Title: Deutsch Hl. Hieronymous, 1541
Daily Thoughts 7/30/2010

Article-- Will the Book Survive?  by David "Skip" Prichard    http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-28/the-future-of-books-ceo-ingram-skip-prichard-feels-confident/?cid=topic:mainpromo1




"eBook Feasibility Study for Public Libraries," http://www.cosla.org/documents/COSLA2270_Report_Final1.pdf




Checked the displays this morning and started doing my orders for August.  I also put out flyers for a public service announcement by Dwayne Wade about library cards and did my first shelf talkers for the authors Danielle Steel and Stephen King.  I am going to be doing more as time passes.




I am reading more of Kraken by China Mieville.  There is a neat section on Simon a Star Trek obsessed mage which is darkly funny.  It is an appropriate comment on fandom.




The new copy of the Overstreet Comic Book Guide 40th Edition came in.  I will take a little time to see if there are any interesting ground level comics which I have not seen.  It has become a standard guide for pricing comics.  Some stores often sell the easier to get comics at half the price guide price and the harder to find titles at full price.




Overdrive sent me some marketing material which I can print up as well as some staff training material.  I think I might print up some of the 11" x 17" posters. 




The recent Kirkus Reviews has a graphic novel section with a few interesting titles in it; Anne Frank: The Anne Frank House Authorized Graphic Biography by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, and Siege by Brian Michael Bendis, Illustrated by Joe Quesada really stood out.  Siege should be an excellent superhero comic both the writer and illustrator are top notch.  Also there is an autobiographical comic by Sergio Aragones called Mad's Greatest Artist, Sergio Aragones.




Roald Dahl has an authorized biography coming out called Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl by Daniel Surrack.




On the way home, I finished reading Kraken by China Mieville.  One of the way you know a novel is good is that the main character at the end of a novel is often very different than how the character is at the beginning of the novel.  At the beginning of the novel, Billy Harrow is a curator at a museum, by the end of the novel he is a warrior adept at saving the world and fighting magic.

Daily Thoughts 7/29/2010 ( readers advisory, book game )

Okumura Masanobu Itinerant Vendor of shikishi and tanzaku (paper and books) 1720–1730 Signed: Okumura Masanobu hitsu. Publisher’s seal: shu-no-hyōtan (in form of a calabash); seal of Masanobu’s own publishing house: Tōrishiochō.  Actually it is an actor playing an itinerant vendor for paper for poems (shikishi and tanzaku), books, and instructional material on waka poetry and koto playing as indicated on her crate. She is holding a calligraphic copybook (tehon) and a brush. One of the books at the top of her crate is named: Genji-monogatari. 




Daily Thoughts 7/29/2010

I put in some comments for my Readers Advisory 101 class on Enders Game by Orson Scott Card.   I also read the section on library marketing for readers advisory.  I may create some shelf talkers for the shelves.  These are cards which say if you like a specific author, then you might like these other authors.  Usually they are lists of three to five other authors.  Some libraries also sometimes maintain a cart for books that are always popular reads.  It is something to think about.   A lot of people use the Novelist database to create the shelf talkers.



I did not get as much as I wanted done today.  I am thinking about a couple of things to do.  We are planning on doing a library card registration drive.  We need to get more people through the front door.  As part of this, we will probably try to get more Friends of the Library to register.




There are also a few minor things that need doing like updating some bibliographies and creating some shelf talkers.  I also need to speak to someone from the Mount Vernon Public Library Foundation.




The book the Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross came in for me to read.  It is a mix of espionage, horror and weird tale.




I read some more of Kraken by China Mieville.  I am finding a subplot in the book to be quite entertaining about a labor union of wizards familiars and other magical constructs.  It is wonderfully quirky.




Guess the book by its cover game http://www.sporcle.com/games/bookcovers.php