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Daily Thoughts 8/31/2010 Labels: acqweb, book reviews, trustees
 

Daily Thoughts 8/30/2010 Labels: the Facebook Era, Tragedy of the Commons


Jim Collins is a professor at the University of Notre Dame. This book is published by Duke University Press in 2010. Jim Collins is writing for a popular audience. The word choice is quite interesting and wonderful. He uses terms like lit-lit, bibliotherapy, adaptation film, and superstore. There is melding of the academic with the popular. Jim Collins easily moves between subjects like Ladies Home Journal and modernist literature. The juxtapositions are striking.

The writing is at times funny, ironic, and witty. The author is describing how literature is transformed into a popular medium and taken out of the academy. He describes adaptation films (films adapted from literary works,), the New York Times Book Review, Oprah's Book Club, and chick lit.

Jim Collins explains how literature is treated as both a form of self cultivation and self actualization. Many people read the classics to be better people. We get a of an Oprah Winfrey episode of television where Oprah encourages people to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, the classic Russian novel. It is at times appalling, fascinating, and poignant.

I espcially liked his sections on books to film. Two of the books which he spends quite a bit of time on are The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and The Hours by Michael Cunningham both of which were turned into excellent films.

Jim Collins is describing the packaging of books into a complete line of products; books, films, furniture, and other products. Books become a brand unto themselves. This is an article that explains the phenomenon with the book, Eat Pray Love. http://www.mercurynews.com/fashion-style-headlines/ci_15797294?nclick_check=1

Classic literature becomes swept up in the process as well. Shakespeare becomes books like Shakespeare In Love and Jane Austen becomes The Jane Austen Book Club. This marketing is exploited by companies like Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other super shopping sites. Henry James and other writers become commodities.

I am not completely comfortable with this. I find some of it goes too far. For example, books like The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger are clear attempts at romantic consumerism; a mix of buying the right stuff, sex, and relationships.  Sex and the City for literature.

This is a very interesting book. It is quite topical for librarians, booksellers, and people interested in books. It even mentions Nancy Perl and her segment on books on National Public Radio. The book is well indexed and has an extensive bibliography. I highly recommend reading this book.
Posted by Book Calendar at 2:36 PM 0 comments Labels: book reviews, books, bring on the books for everybody, dorchester publishing, jim collins, literature Labels: the Facebook Era, The Oxford English Dictionary


Daily Thoughts 8/28/2010 (metatags) 

Daily Thoughts 8/28/2010 Labels: metatags
 nisse writing

Daily Thoughts 8/27/2010 Labels: libraries, online classes, the Facebook Era
 

Daily Thoughts 8/26/2010 Labels: acquisitions, bookletters, ingram, the Facebook Era


Daily Thoughts 8/25/2010 (Bring On the Books For Everybody, the Facebook Era) English: Interesting Story, 1898, Laura Muntz Lyall (1860-1930)

Daily Thoughts 8/25/2010

I have been reading more of Bring On The Books For Everybody.  I like Jim Collins description of many of the newer womens novels being "romantic consumerism".  It fits nearly perfectly with books like The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger.  He also uses another term postliterary novel for books like The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Jay Fowler which has a nice ring to it.  He is showing how books and films are tied in knots together.  I can see how shows like Sex and The City are a natural extension of modern "chick lit".

On the subway home, I finished reading Bring On The Books For Everybody. Jim Collins excerpts a paragraph from The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon in the final chapter of the book.  It is about the "cemetery of forgotten books" one of my favorite places in literature.  The author is challenging the idea of Fahrenheit 451 in the final chapter, offering us a vision of popular culture which combines literature with visual mediums like film and television.  It is much closer to my own view of the future of books.

Today was another quiet day.  We discussed vendors today.  I am going to take a look at Ingram.  Ingram has slightly better discounts than the other vendors for hardcover and paperback books.  We also discussed how we are going to keep track of missing books.  I spent quite a bit of time on the floor helping patrons with reference.

Last night was kind of interesting.  I had to work on cleaning up a trojan on my machine.  There were a lot of attacks on computers focused on companies spoofing other peoples machines and asking them to buy their antivirus software.  The warning comes as a popup, then says your machine is not properly protected.  I went through Computer Associates, Microsoft, and another company to get my machine back up.  It took many hours to clean up.  Microsoft had me use a company called Esoft to finally clean up my machine.

I also had a chance to read a bit of the Facebook Era.  There is a concept which is introduced called the "online social graph" which is a map of all the people on the internet and how they are connected.  Clara Shih reminds us that the internet is about people.  In her view social and consumer networks are beginning to merge and old fashioned advertising is no longer working.
Posted by Book Calendar at 8:41 AM 0 comments Labels: bring on the books for everybody, the Facebook Era, viruses
 

Daily Thoughts 8/24/2010 Labels: book reviews, collection development, facebook
 Child Reading A Book, Public Domain Clip Art

Daily Thoughts 8/23/2010 Labels: bring on the books for everybody


Bitter Angels by C.L. Andersen

Bitter Angels by C.L. Anderson Labels: archaeological science fiction, bitter angels, book reviews, books

Daily Thoughts 8/22/2010 (News Feed, Book Review List ) Johann Peter Hasenclever: Das Lesekabinett, 1843

Daily Thoughts 8/22/2010

I am trying something new with Feed Informer.  This is a feed of different news from various book news sites.  It is on a tab next to the Home button. http://bookcalendar.blogspot.com/p/book-calendar-news-feed.html

I am also thinking of creating a review list as well. The pages feature in Blogger In Draft will let me test a few ideas which I have.  I have started the review list.  It may take me at least a week to get everything in it properly.  http://bookcalendar.blogspot.com/p/book-review-list.html

Posted by Book Calendar at 8:50 AM 0 comments Labels: book review list, news feed
 

Daily Thoughts 8/21/2010 Labels: barnes and noble, bring on the books for everybody, grans


Daily Thoughts 8/20/2010 (winning grants, ingram, donations) Koninck, Salomon, Der Eremit, 1643

Daily Thoughts 8/20/2010

On the train to work I started reading Winning Grants A How To Do It Manual for Librarians by Pamela H. McKellar and Stephanie K. Gerding.  Right now, they are talking about planning and vision statements.  They have a bunch of steps to go through before the grants are actually applied for.  I read most of it on the train home.  The book included a lot of information on how to organize a team to create grants not just a single person.  I find one of the grant projects particularly interesting http://www.getgraphic.org/ which is a literacy program through graphic novels.  There is also a cd rom which comes with the book.  This includes a presentation on a subject relevant to each chapter in the book as well as a variety of forms to fill out.  It helped me think of an idea for business sponsorship. I still have quite a few video clips to watch.

We had a gentleman from Ingram come in to talk about his vendor services.  It was kind of interesting.  Ingram owns Lightning Source http://www.lightningsource.com/ the largest print on demand services as well as has a number of small imprints exclusively distributed through them.  They are the largest distributor of books in the world.  They also distribute video games which is interesting.

I did a little more spot checking in the 300s.  I also took a bit to look at the oversize 300s.  Like every morning, I checked the displays to see if they were in order.

This is an article on book donations which I found kind of interesting.  http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/ask-ala-librarian/book-donations
Posted by Book Calendar at 3:20 AM 0 comments Labels: donations, grants, ingram


Daily Thoughts 8/19/2010 (Book Blogger Appreciation Week) Daily Thoughts 8/19/2010

I am breaking my usual reticence and signing up to be interviewed as part of Book Blogger Appreciation Week.  It should be interesting.

Today has been quiet and steady.  I did some spot checking of the shelving to make sure things are in order and checked the displays.  On Friday, I am going to start weeding again in the oversize books.  I also took a little time to print up some flyers for some upcoming programs, an Open Book Chat, and the Graphic Novels Club next month.  One of our patrons suggested it would be better to call it an open book chat than a brown bag book chat.  There is also a business program coming up from the Women's Enterprise Development Center which comes every year.  It is called First Steps.  It is a combination of checking your entrepreneurial spirit and learning basic computer skills for business.

We finished our second year doing a program for Adult Summer Reading on August 17, 2010.  We had a few events associated with it; author talks, book chats, and a final literary tea.  It went well for our first time combining program with adult summer reading.

We did a little shifting of the audiobooks and checked the labeling.

I also checked out Starting an Online Business All In One For Dummies 2nd Edition by Shannon Belew and Joel Elad.  Hopefully it will explain valuation for online setups.  It is 814 pages long.  The book so far is a basic outline of how to start online.

I read some more of Bring On the Books For Everybody by Jim Collins.  He is talking about how literature is becoming a source of deep personal satisfaction.  He cites Harold Bloom with his book How To Read And Why.  We get a lot of copies of Blooms Notes which are like Cliffs Notes   except for with Harold Blooms name on them.  When I checked the index there was no citation for librarian as a subject.  However, he did have a section on Nancy Pearl.
Posted by Book Calendar at 12:28 PM 1 comments Labels: book blogger appreciation week, bring on the books, business programs
 Labels: bring on the books, graphic novels, literature
 

Daily Thoughts 8/17/2010 Labels: business programs, graphic novels, military science fiction, westerns


Daily Thoughts 8/16/2010 (book communities ) 

Posted by Book Calendar at 7:39 AM 0 comments Labels: book communities


Daily Thoughts 8/15/2010 Vincenzo Foppa, The Young Cicero Reading/Le jeune Cicéron lisant, c. 1464, Fresco


I am reading How To Write A Business Plan, 9th Edition.  I like what he calls business money forecasts SWAG (scientific wild ass guesses)  please excuse the language.  I am reading the material on cash flow and forecasting and it is starting to make some sense.  I am used to the idea of Ebay, you have something to sell you put it up on a website, someone bids on it, ebay takes a small percentage, and you get the check or payment when the material is sent to you.

If you are a used bookseller it is also fairly straightforward.  You buy a used book for 10-20% of the cost of the book which you are going to sell it at.  The used bookseller goes to a garage sale, a library book sale, a church rummage sale, or gets someone who wanders in with some books.  They might also go to an auction or advertise for people to bring in books.  They buy the books then they sell it.  If they sell online in addition to the store, they might use ABE (Advanced Book Exchange ) and pay a flat fee to have thousands of books listed.  If they find something particularly interesting they might sell it on Ebay or in a special catalog with a higher price and a little bit of advertising.

Most business plan books don't describe online businesses that well.  A lot of the selling online is dropshipped from the manufacturer, or is a downloadable file.  The manufacturer is giving the business person a percentage of the value of the merchandise in exchange for marketing their item, doing customer service, and selling the item.  They do not charge you that much to list the item.  If you are using affiliates it can be pretty low, a commission of 4% of the price of the book from Amazon.   This means there has to be a relationship with a distributor of goods if you are going to make any money.  There are three which stand out for books, Ingram, Baker and Taylor, and Book Wholesalers Inc.  It is not hard to figure out.

I like the description of the consultants office costing $30,000 in How To Write A Business Plan.  What single person office nowadays is going to pay $2000 for a copy machine, $1000 for a fax machine, or $1000 for a telephone system.  It seemed a little absurd.  I am thinking of what it must look like for people building small internet sites.  They are probably sitting in a corner office with a printer, a phone, and a desktop computer on a big desk.  They might have an office chair and a few bookshelves, but most likely it is very bare bones.

I remember a description of Amazon when it was first starting.  The desks were doors on top of chairs with a computer on top of that.  I also wonder what garage offices look like for many startups.  They probably aren't that pretty.  There probably are pizza boxes and diet coke.
Posted by Book Calendar at 11:05 AM 0 comments Labels: how to write a business plan


Fundraising When Money Is Tight A Strategic and Practical Guide to Surviving Tough Times and Thriving In The Future by Mal Warwick.

This was a very quick read. I read it in the morning. Now I am writing about it. Mal Warwick describes how to focus nonprofit fundraising efforts in times of recession. There is both less money to raise funds and less money available.

He argues that it is necessary to be more focused in fundraising efforts, focusing your activities on things which have worked before. He suggests cutting out activities that don't raise much money and asking more from fundrasing staff.

A few of the suggestions I liked were that telephone, internet, and direct mail are not separate. For example it is often more effective if you first send a person a letter, then make a followup phone call. I also liked his idea of going back through your old donor lists for the last three years and contacting all the people who did not give this year.

Mal Warwick makes nine major points in this book, reassess your donation process, strengthen your case for giving, stick to what you have in hand, be selective in cost cutting, go to where the big donors are, stay close to your donors, understand your donors personally, step up your online efforts, and get cooperation throughout an organization for raising funds.

I found some of his ideas on raising funds online interesting. Google has a few charitable programs that are interesting. We recently added a donation button for our foundation to our website.
This is a very quick read with many constructive ideas on how to raise funds. Mal Warwick has written 18 previous books on raising money. http://www.malwarwick.com/
Posted by Book Calendar at 11:57 AM 2 comments Labels: book reviews, books, fundrasing

Daily Thoughts 8/14/2010 ( business plans ) The Alchemist, Sir William Fettes Douglas, 1853

Daily Thoughts 8/14/2010

I am reading How To Write A Business Plan, 9th Edition by Mike McKeever.  I find books which require you to create imaginary numbers difficult.  The idea of forecasting future amounts of money does not work well for me.  Setting down what you are supposed to do is not that difficult for me. Thinking of different ways to market products or coming up with new sources of cash flows is not hard.  I may have to get back to it later.
Posted by Book Calendar at 7:37 AM 0 comments 

Mental Health, Naturally The Family Guide to Holistic Care for a Healthy Mind and Body by Kathi J. Kemper, MD, MPH, FAAP

Kathi J. Kemper writes an overview of different actions a person can take to maintain physical and mental health. Her book is very practical. She reminds us to get enough sleep, exercise for 45 minutes to an hour every single day, take a complete vitamin and mineral supplement, reduce exposure to environmental toxins like lead, mercury, and pesticides, eat a healthy diet consisting of mainly plants, and actively seek ways to reduce stress.

The sections on relieving stress and communication give many suggestions on how take care of yourself. For example, there are numerous short meditative exercises and examples on how to talk to yourself positively. She also describes how prayer, music, and art improve mental health. The descriptions were basic and exact.

The book has sections on alternative medicine. Kathi J. Kemper does not automatically endorse different therapies. She describes what the medical research shows on different treatments. There is a section on herbal supplements where she states several of the popular herbal supplements for improving moods are not effective. She also discusses how to use vitamins safely. She cites the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine http://nccam.nih.gov/  as a reliable source of information on alternative treatments. She also describes the training process for homeopathy and acuptuncture.

As a book on mental health, the author focuses on five different areas; interpersonal communication, stress, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, anxiety, and depression. She does not attack the medical profession in the book. She reminds people to see a healthcare professional. In the reference section of the book, there are numerous citations from recognized psyhchology, psychiatry, nutrition, pharmacolgy, and alternative medical journals. The book is very much a book on integrative medicine.

I found Mental Health Naturally to be a very easy book to read. It was extensively referenced with lists of professional associations, a bibliography of recommended book titles, an index, and extensive notes for each chapter. It is one of the better books I have read on integrative medicine.
Dr. Kemper is nationally recognized pediatrician, doctor, and specialist in holistic medicine. This is a link to her biography. http://www.wfubmc.edu/Center-for-Integrative-Medicine/Media-Information/Dr--Kathi-J--Kemper.htm
Posted by Book Calendar at 6:49 PM 0 comments Labels: book reviews, books, kathi j. kemper, Mental Health Naturally

Daily Thoughts 8/13/2010 ( Paperbacks ) 

Daily Thoughts 8/13/2010

Posted by Book Calendar at 1:15 PM 0 comments Labels: libraries, paperbacks


Smart Start-Ups How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Benefit by Creating Online Communities by David Silver

David Silver is a venture capitalist and an author of over 30 books on business. This book varies between being a strategy guide to start an online community and a stream of ideas for starting a variety of online businesses. The book describes online communities as being both on the internet and on mobile phones.
I found the sections on how to start an internet company quiet interesting. He was focusing on social networks like myspace.com and twitter. Social networks are described as being successful because of the ability to generate mobs of people and focus on user generated content. David Silver describes them as requiring very little capital to create. He argues for a different strategy in creating communities. His view is that it is important to be part of the crowd, not appear to have a lot of money, ask for tips, try to encourage people to provide content for you, and create services which people will pay for. Part of the strategy he is describing is appearing to be in opposition to large media companies. For example if you are selling ebooks, you might tell people why you don't like paper books, or if you are selling music downloads, suggest why compact discs are obsolete. Being persuasive and generating controversy, even lawsuits will generate even more interest in your sites as well as money.Where the book did not do well with me was the constant stream of ideas which he proposed. It is easy to generate ideas but it is much harder to show how to execute on them. David Silver talked about everything from online legal arbitration societies to social sites on how to reinvent the American car. This was distracting. The sections on strategy and implementation were much better than the suggestions for new businesses. I liked his ideas on how to create an online business strategy. It very much describes how to think like a social networking business person. The book was written in 2007 and seems to have been right on target for 2010. If you can get past the constant stream of suggestions for new businesses this book is worth reading.
Posted by Book Calendar at 6:04 PM 0 comments Labels: book reviews, business, business books, internet, social networking

Daily Thoughts 8/12/2010 A cartoon from Drawn at a Venture by Fougasse (1922)
 

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2010 (Budget, Advocacy) 16th Century Decorative Alphabet.

Daily Thoughts 8/11/2010

Paintings of different peoples Ideal Bookshelves.  http://idealbookshelf.typepad.com/

We had our order meeting today.  I also read a little bit on preservation from a few websites. I am printing up the shelf talkers for tomorrow right now.

I finished reading Smart Start-Ups and Mental Health Naturally on the way to work on the train.

Things are getting rather interesting in the book trade.  It seems that Amazon is now challenging Barnes and Noble with ebooks.  It looks like things are very much up in the air in the book world.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/business/media/12bookstore.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&src=busln

I feel a bit perplexed.  Recently there has been talk about budget shortfalls in the city of over $4.4 million dollars by the end of the year.  This makes it look like we will need to be even more ready than before by the end of the year.  There is talk of retirement packages.  I am not sure what to make of this.  People cannot collect social security until they are 66 which is a rather interesting conundrum.  It is eye opening.

The math is rather interesting.  We received $250,000 until the end of the year out of $400.000.  This leaves 150,000 in debt leftover.  If we were $400,000 in debt July of last year and did the exact same thing we would be $550,00 in debt by the same time next year.  If you add in inflation of 5% to a 3.8 million dollar budget, you would need another $159,000.  Add $550,000 to $159,000 and you get $709,000.  I am not sure if this makes sense.  Lets say the city decides to cut the library funds by 3% because of a need to save money, that would be another $100,000.  I can imagine an $800,000 shortfall by next year.  This would be an absolute worse case scenario.

This is why people need to find ways to save money as well as generate revenue, get more people into the building, get donations, and get grants.  This is a possible truth of what we may be facing.  It is also a reason to think about advocacy and other things.

On the way home,  I read something a little bit different, a 55 page print out of the guidelines for a conservation/preservation grant from the New York State Board of Regents for libraries.  I was reading the section on photographs.  We have some interesting old photographs in our library.  A number of them have been used in books.  There is a box of old photographs of our library.  The box of course is a greyish acid free cardboard.  The photographs would make for an interesting display in our lobby.  The foundation date of our library building is on November 16.
Posted by Book Calendar at 6:01 AM 0 comments Labels: budget, grants, library advocacy


Daily Thoughts 8/10/2010 ( programs, local history ) Peter Dell the Elder: Portrait of Jakob Woler; Würzburg 1529; boxwood

Daily Thoughts 8/10/2010

On the train to work, I read a little bit more of Mental Health Naturally.  The section I read was on the communication; how to talk to yourself so you don't put yourself down as well as change negative conversations.  I also took a little bit of time to read some more of Smart Start-Ups.  I was reading about how to keep a low profile, ask users for funding, and generate interest in your site.

While reading through Shelf Awareness an email newsletter, I saw an interesting book on books, Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture by  Jim Collins.  None of our libraries have it yet.  I am going to request it through interlibrary loan.

This morning I spent a little bit of time in the local history room.  There is a fairly large photograph collection in there.  Many of the photographs are not yet identified.  There are also a lot of photographs of our building dating all the way back to its founding.  There is even a painting of the library from 1906 with a picture of a horse and buggy in front of the library.

I also spent some time in a meeting for planning the events that are happening in the next two months.  We are going to have the Graphic Novels Club and the Brown Bag Book Chat as ongoing events because they have been working so far.  I have to work a little bit on better publicity for these events.

I was reading through Publishers Weekly and came across something a little bit unusual.  There is a zombie novel written for teenagers written in a haiku style by K.A. Holt and illustrated by Gahan Wilson called Brains For Lunch.  It is a curiosity to me to see it in the books for teens section.
Posted by Book Calendar at 6:31 AM 0 comments Labels: local history, programs
 Astronaut Reading

Daily Thoughts 8/9/2010 Labels: advocacy, Mental Health Naturally, smart startups
 

Daily Thoughts 8/8/2010 Labels: book review blog carnival, iron yoga, Mental Health Naturally
 Labels: ebooks, Friend or Follow, Mental Health Naturally


Daily Thoughts 8/6/2010 (shelf talkers, readers advisory, ebooks) Christopher Amberger, Portrait of A Man, Oil On Wood Panel, 1540-1560, Wawel Castle, Krakow

Daily Thoughts 8/6/2010

A brief look at a social network http://bookcalendar.wackwall.com/  I found Wackwall on the Ning Bookblogs.  It is interesting to look at.

I worked on selecting authors for more shelf talkers today.  These are small signs which you put next to a particular author indicating three to five similar authors.  I focused on initially picking out authors who are popular with a lot of books in our library.  People like Jodi Picoult, Debbie Macomber, W.E.B. Griffin, David Weber, Elizabeth Lowell, John Irving, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.  I will be doing the mystery section once I am done with the fiction.

I also did the monthly requests for the book mobile today.  There were a lot of requests for Daphne Du Maurier, specifically Jamaica Inn and Rebecca.  They also requested Rebecca as a dvd.  Michelangelo is also a very popular topic.  We get requests for books on him almost every time.  They also requested Erma Bombeck and a few other humorists.

In addition, as always, I checked the displays to make sure they were up to date.  I also wrote a flyer for the Brown Bag Book Talk which we are going to have on August 12, 2010.  Someone also asked for us to do a discussion about ebooks in the library setting.  It might take me a little bit to figure out more about this.  I am thinking about signing up for the Ebooks Libraries at the Tipping Point conference on September 29, 2010.

I inished up my class for Readers Advisory 101 online today.  I sent in my final assignment for the class today.  Soon I'll probably get a certificate for the class.  I handed the certificate for the library advocacy class I took online as well.  It has been an interesting time taking the class.  I'll probably go back and look through the transcripts of the chat sessions again for the Readers Advisory 101 class.

I did not have time to read reviews today.  It was simply too busy.  It is evening and I am typing this up.  I did not read anything on the train this time either.  Instead I took the time to write my thoughts down in a journal.  I keep lined journals where I write up my reviews longhand before I put them in the computer.  I take notes in them while I am reading but never go back and read them again.  I have three blank journals right now in my shoulder bag.  I have a Manhattan Portage LTD shoulder bag which I use all the time.  It is the second one I have bought.  They have proven to be very sturdy and good for carrying books to conferences and other places.
Posted by Book Calendar at 12:06 PM 0 comments Labels: ebooks, readers advisory, shelf talkers, social networks
 

Daily Thoughts 8/5/2010 Labels: readers advisory, yahoo


Daily Thoughts 8/4/2010 ( yahoo, literary tea ) Harper's August 1898
Daily Thoughts 8/4/2010

Today has been a steady day.  We talked about doing a "Literary Tea" for our end of Adult Summer Reading program where we would serve tea, cookies, small sandwiches, and fruit.  The Friends of the Library would be there to help.  People will sit and discuss the books they read during the summer.  Then we will hold a raffle for a bag of books and goodies for those who participated in the Adult Summer Reading program.  It should be interesting.

I spent some time going through my orders, reading Library journal and Publishers Weekly,  and looking over grant materials.  There is a preservation grant from New York state which might be worth doing.

I also put the book, The Outlaw Josey Wales by Forrest Carter on hold.  It is the book which the film starring Clint Eastwood is based on.  I sometimes like reading a good western.  The paperback was released in February 2010.

This morning while I was on the train, I read some of The Yahoo! Style Guide.  There are numerous exercises on how to determine what your ideal user is.  This is a sample of a model user. I wrote it for both entertainment value and what I think a user might be like.

Posted by Book Calendar at 5:22 AM 0 comments Labels: literary tea, yahoo style guide


Daily Thoughts 8/3/2010 ( Librarians Social Networks ) 

Daily Thoughts 8/3/2010


New York Librarians Meetup Blog


Urban Librarians Unite


Book Blogs on Ning


Book Bloggers Convention

http://www.goodreads.com/ Goodreads


Linkedin American Library Association
Posted by Book Calendar at 7:25 PM 0 comments Labels: social networks, writing, yahoo Labels: book reviews, books, business, telecommuting
 Reading-room of the Bibliothèque Mazarine (Paris)

Daily Thoughts 8/2/2010 Labels: ebooks, libraries, undress for success


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.
Posted by Book Calendar at 7:32 AM 0 comments Labels: barnes and noble, cbldf, nook