Funny stuff

Graham Linehan writes one of my favorite blogs (not mention such lovely shows as Black Books and Father Ted) and today his post about Porn for Girls By Girls is ...is... delightful

If you are at loose ends in Denver this weekend, consider joining in on Santacon frivolity...it starts Saturday December 22nd around 1pm at 29th and Welton

Need something a little more traditional? There is still time to see Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol at the Denver Victorian Playhouse...I'm giving them a plug because I'll be working crew for their next production...The Lion in Winter

Need more book content in my blog? How about this...Loome Booksellers is closing and posted this lovely video about what happens to books when a bookstore closes




and this is what I want for Christmas




now that is what I call a boombox

three gems worth exploring (ok so I listed 4) (oops...make it 6)

good news from America's Libraries
Libraries Shun Deals to Place Books on Web
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: October 22, 2007
Several major research libraries have rebuffed offers from Google and Microsoft to scan their books, instead signing on with a nonprofit effort.

fabulous video from Michael Wesch (did that great Web 2.0 video earlier)
"This video explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively."

and a delightful blog on book related ephemera - who is Leonard Deming? (wouldn't this have a great theme for a noir mystery?)

last but not least went to see "Across the Universe" this weekend - what a delight - even better than "Once"

and now I can't get into Wall Street Survivor because the filter at work has decided it's a game .... however the filter is not blocking access to the website for buying World Series tickets and I have a better chance of winning Wall Street Survivor than I do scoring Rockies tix ... what is the world coming to....ay, yi, yi.....

Halloween

We have been talking about spooky things to do at work so I decided to start looking around for book or library related things that would help with a Halloween decorating contest....sooooooo.....I found this possessed book

I also found a fer real haunted library in Wyoming and another in Easton, Pennsylvania and then a whole blog post listing haunted libraries


now I need to get to work on sme decorating ideas

Been busy this week....

trying to get caught up on others blogs and I ran across:

this charming discussion about book collections, relationships and the Gaylord catalog at Paper Cuts - I love the comment "Take my car, take my money, but walk away with my books over my cold, dead body"

a cool recipe for Medieval ink - and recipes for Monster cupcakes (I know, I know, it's not book related but it IS Halloween)

a wonderful look at The Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris courtesy of Brass Goggles

a nifty calculator for determining the library's value to you courtesy of the Maine State Libraryy

a lovely article from The Guardian about the rooms where writers write

and last, but not least, J Godsey's post about the the upcoming release of Season 3 of Black Books

A little of this, and a little of that

another fabulous find - a true book artist, Jim Rosenau, who turns books into useful pieces of furniture and appears to have a sense of humor while plying his craft





Here is another take on Kerouac for those of you following all the events this year as part of the 50th Anniversary of the publication of "On the Road." Ulin gives a fascinating account of the Kerouac that we might not know - Kerouac towards the end of his life and includes Kerouac's hand drawn cover proposal for "On the Road"





Big news this week for those fond of archived info - the New York Times has dropped is fee service for access to their archives and now Jason Kottke is having a field day trawling through the stuff - I'm glad to see that someone is enjoying the type of research that has gone inside libraries for years

Last, but not least, how I spent TLAPD

Avast ye scurvy dogs!!

This be talk like a pirate day and t' celebrate I thought I would show you what happens t' books when pirates get ahold o' them

aarrrrrrr!!!!!

an o' course if ye be needin' books about pirates check out the fine catch here

or if ye be foolish enough to part with a small amount o' booty try the pirates here


and if ye need to read more about the fairer sex and piratery try here


and what would TLAPD be without honoring me favorite pirates

E-books and goodbye glasses

now I am the sort of person that actually likes to handle books but I am also slightly geeky and fascinated by e-texts. The problem with most electronic books is that you download the whole thing to either a special reader or your PC and I am not convinced that I can ever get comfortable reading that way. Today I stumbled across an electronic book club at ArcaMax (my favorite website for subscribing to Doonesbury) that e-mails you just a chapter a day of classic works. I had lasik surgery on my right eye last Friday and I am already able to read without my ugly old glasses which I kept slung around my neck courtesy of a lovely little chain (shades of Ruth Harrison)

... but I digress....

So the ArcaMax book club will deliver a chapter a day (about my speed) of whatever books you wish... I've never read Beowulf and with the movie version coming out this Fall, maybe this is a good time to get it off my lifelist of books to read. Subscribing was a piece of cake and now I will be receiving it in bite-sized chunks in my e-mail.

...and all of this is because another of my answers was selected as the Best Answer at Yahoo Answers and I received another 10 points......

...and that was because I decided to hang out at Yahoo again after Slam the Boards Day....

... but I digress....

DIY Dylan

Without a doubt, the coolest thing I have seen in a while (even if it is a marketing site) - you can create your own message and Dylan will play it for you

Steampunk Fashion

I found a splendid example of an extremely practical steampunk apron over at Wyldfir Studios. Since the necessary equipment to start our book repair and binding workstation (thanks sq12tk at Ebay) just arrived at work, I think I will have to create an appropriate apron to wear while engaged in such activities. Along the way I discovered my Steampunk Name, courtesy of Brassgoggles (Ms. Lydia Beeching) and IRL I was just inducted into Daughters of the British Empire (if they only knew how I spend my days)

In the last few days I have become fascinated with Vapo Cresolene Vaporizers such as the one on the right - looks like I won one on E-bay

Last but not least, in deferrance to my aging eyes, I succumbed to lasik surgery on my right eye - lets see how this all progresses

Beautiful Libraries

as usual I discovered another lovely blog today - Iconic Books - and lo and behold there is a splendid link to a stunning tribute to libraries at Curious Expeditions - without a doubt my favorite has to be the picture of Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer Der Staten-Generaal Den Haag, the Hague, Netherlands which has a hint of steampunk about it


On another note...what are you doing to ready yourself for Talk Like A Pirate Day? I'm hoping to spend it a few days late at Full Sails

Blog Day 2007

today is the 3rd annual blog day so I suppose I need to do my bit...

Best site of the day (thanx to Library Garden) has to be Cupcake Bakeshop -today's recipes include Dark Chocolate Truffle cupcakes - if only I had more time today to bake because tomorrow I'm off to Three Stags Autumn Autumn Battle and Faire where our humble theatre troupe will premiere our productions of "The Eel Pie and the Cheese Tart" and "The Pilgrimage"

Now for all of you Star Trek and Edward Gorey fans, here is a treat courtesy of Boing Boing - apparently Gorey was a Star Trek fan and now Shaenon K. Garrity has prepared an illustrated version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" as if Gorey had done it - priceless!



And of course mentioning Gorey reminds me that I need a steampunk link today (isn't Gorey steampunk with humor?) so here goes.. courtesy of The Steampunk Home ... a lovely photo of Boston's Old Charles Street jail - I want a chandelier like that in my house

Bookshelves

An important part of any book lover's home, has to be bookshelves. Thanks to the Steampunk Home blog, I am becoming fascinated with bookshelves that hide rooms. The link to the fascinating company, Hidden Passageway, got me thinking about a remodeling project that I could handle at home. And of course, a Google search brings up not only the necessary instructions, but the use of a Sherlock Holmes tome to reveal the hidden room - I'm in heaven!!

At Yankodesign I saw some fabulous bookcases that are a new take on the old brick and board shelves that I lugged around for years!! That candle is absolutely splendid



then I found some lovely bookshelves for dog lovers
makes me think of that wonderful Grouch Marx quote
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read"

Now I think I need to get another dog.......

Pirates...books..reading

I love it when I actually see something in the local paper about books and reading. This morning, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi does take on the AP-Ipsos poll I mentioned yesterday. As a book-lover and reader he finds it surprising to see the number of Americans who never read books. He also gives a plug for our favorite bookstore, the Tattered Cover.

And now on to the most important book news of the day - the theme for this year's Banned Books Week is ... (ta da!!!) PIRATES!!!!!! .... how much happier could a Pirate-loving book mistress such as meself be? Well, if truth be told, they could have held it during the week of September 19th which, as readers of this blog should know, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day
(yikes - thar I be in Arr-e-gon for TLAPD 2005)

In case you need to prepare for TLAPD, you might consider downloading "The Pirates Own Book" by Charles Ellms from Project Gutenberg. Originally published in 1837, it has tales of the great pirates including Blackbeard, Jean Lafitte, Robert Kidd, Edward Low, and Anne Bonney

Aaarrrrrr... life be good!

And while I'm at it...

One in four American adults read no book last year!!!!!

*gulp*

An AP-Ipsos poll reveals that the average person read four books which is something of a relief to those of us who love the world of books.

I have been saying for years that adults are by and large unable to sustain reading for long periods of time as their brains have been re-programmed by the gotta-have-it-now sound-bite passing for information society in which we live.

On a brighter note, more women than men and more liberals than conservatives read books...perhaps there is hope for society yet!

Just when I thought I had seen it all .....

Old book smells for e-books? As a former used book seller and librarian I always gag when people tell me how much they love the smell of books....don't they know that they are talking about mold and dust? So a new e-book company, CafeScribe, claims to be giving a scratch and sniff old book smell sticker to each purchaser of their e-texts.

Wasn't it Mencken that said “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”

Steampunk

I have always been a fan of steampunk but I never knew it until now - if only I had my own jetpack.....

Book Mules

this is, without a doubt, the coolest mobile library that I have ever seen

BOOK MULES!!!!

Where did the summer go?

Wow - August 1st and I see I haven't posted since April - yikes, better get busy...

here are some of my favorite sites right now:

this guy digitizes pics from old books
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/

this guy builds the computer in the style that I want - I think I will have to build my own - I should look around for an old flat screen monitor so I can get started
http://steampunkworkshop.com/lcd.shtml

ever wonder what you should do with those old Reader's Digest Condensed Books? try sending them here
http://booksoflove.com/Merchant5/merchant.mvc?Screen=SELLERSINFO

or turn them into art objects - results here
http://www.logolalia.com/alteredbooks/


yikes - I have to actually do some work now - more links later

Wiki's and the library community

I have previously blogged about my experiences editing articles on Wikipedia and in setting up a private wiki for our library to use in developing policies. I've been using PBWiki and just love it. The newest version makes editing and adding new pages so easy. We have 4 different staff members all contributing to the wiki and find it very helpful for coordinating our policy development that we need to have done for accreditation. If you've never used a wiki before, check out the PBwiki tour!. It is so easy to use and incredibly useful for coordinating projects no wonder that their motto is “Make a PBwiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich”

I've also created a wiki for a documentary film project that has multiple contributors. We have folks that add all sorts of research on their own schedules which means we don't have to set face-to-face meetings too often. If you want to see what that wiki looks like, check here


They also offer some educator videos so check them out today!

Snow and Silly Librarians

it was supposed to snow today - a lot ......

and today is Friday the 13th .......

and the snow didn't come ......

and we were supposed to have a CHUG meeting but postponed it because of the anticipated storm....

so .......

a very funny librarian recreated the event....... here

and who says we don't have a sense of humor?

Economics stuff

This is what I get for not posting since Thursday - a backlog in my bloglines account of important stuff to read - so today's post is about Economics and has absolutely nothing to do with books but with information

this started by reading The Travelin' Librarian's newest post with the clip of the roller coaster ride through the history of housing prices - if you check his blog look for the funny clip on Will It Blend!
Somehow or another (doncha just love the internets?) from the roller coaster ride I stumbled across the standupeconomist and his principles of economics clip - all of a sudden I find out that
a) Scientists have a sense of humor and sponsor sessions from the Annals of Improbable Research at their annual meeting
and
b) Economics can be funny

Then I wondered whatever happened to the Journal of Irreproducible Results which I fondly remember from my time as a Librarian at the Franklin Institute and lo and behold here it is

now from the JIR site, I found a thoroughly important study on the greatest threat to our ecosystem, none other than the publication of The National Geographic Magazine
as a former bookseller and current librarian, I would like to add that unwanted issues of NG are the bane of our existence!

now back to my real job

Library History Buff

cool new site of the day - check out Larry Nix's website on library history and assorted stuff - he's got bookplates, china, stock certificates, card catalogs and their amazing re-uses, post cards etc. etc. etc.

Wikipedia

Editing Wikipedia is so much fun - today I cleaned up the bibliography on Joan of Arc and added a reference to the article on Basil of Caesarea - I think each time we add a new book I will check to see if it can be added to and article in Wikipedia and then link to the OCLC citation

Rex Libris

Rex Libris - new to me, but then I tend to be the last one to hear about such stuff - anyway they are going to make a movie about this heroic librarian - guess I need to get caught up on my comic book reading

Book clubs

ok - so I am the laziest book reader that I know - it takes me forever to actually read an entire book and everyone at work has been pestering me to join in the book club - this month they took my suggestion and decided to read Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz since it keeps in the Catholic theme that they like - so I ordered it via ILL and faster than a speeding bullet, it has arrived - looks like I'm going to actually read it this weekend

in surfing around, I found this great website for book clubs that includes discussion guides - check it out

Uses for old books

Thanks to the Librarian in Black for pointing out the very useful post on Instructables about building bookshelves out of old encyclopedias. What a fun website - look at some of the other book related things I found

How to make a secret book for stashing your gin or gun or valuables
The all important invisible book shelf so that you can mystify your friends
How about making that crummy old book into an I-Pod case?
Or your own version of digitizing books using "Steal this book" as an example
Then you can take a digitized book and turn it into a wall hanging
Or perhaps you need some book covers and have a stash of old brochures hanging around
Need a clock? Have a favorite book? Marry the two
How about dissecting that really bad novel that you just read?

sheesh - so many books, so little time

Library Hotel

I no longer have any excuse to not make a trip to New York since I just found the place to stay for a fruitcake booklover after reading the most delightful review in the Washington Post. I suppose I could always combine it with a trip to the Library Bar in the East Village or have lunch at the Algonquin Hotel. Yikes - too many book musings - must get back to my real work

Edible Books

So late in the day yesterday I wandered over to Boulder for 8th International Edible Book Show & Tea. What a hoot! Members of The Book Arts League get together every year for a fundraiser and true demonstration of their incredible talents. Entries ranged from a fabulous Sudoku board of cheese and sausage to a beautiful rendition of one of my favorite pop-ups, Jan Pienkowski's Dinner Time

Looking at last year's entries, I have to say that the stack of books done by Amy DeWitt, Pastry Chef at the St. Julien Hotel & Spa, is still my favorite

Complete with a silent auction, the event finished with the consumption of the entires - what a feast for booklovers!

Who Says Librarians don't have a sense of humor?

OK - I was busy yesterday listing to NPR to see if I could detect the fake stories so I never made it online. Imagine my surprise when I read this mornings blog postings to see that OCLC and Google made a surprise announcement yesterday about their upcoming merger. Andrew Pace summed it up best with "Where's our cut?" and Jenny Levine's post on ALA TechSource gave us the insider's perspective.

Post-literate society

I've long been saying that we are already in a post-literate society and today I viewed a charming example from that bastion of intellectual development - the NIT

seems as though the folks at the NIT can't spell the name of the winning team correctly - I think you guys forgot a very important I!

now I need to get back to my research on e-texts and libraries

Wikipedia and our library

I love it when I learn how to do something new. Today I actually ventured into the editing world of Wikipedia and added a bibliographic link to a book in our library through Worldcat. If only more librarians would do this - not to mention I found out how to easily get the citation formatting style for a reference for an item found in OCLC (I know - slap to my forehead)

Cell phones and bookstores

here is an event that totally sings to me - it combines theatre, books, bookstores, anarchy and originality

Blooker prize

blooks... blooker.... flicktion..... the Blooker shortlist has been announced

I love it when new words are created ...maybe we should start a short list of new terms from the blogosphere

Eventide

After devouring Popular Music from Vittula, I looked around for something else on my must read list and spied that copy of Eventide by Kent Haruf that I checked out of the library a couple of months ago. I must admit, that I love Haruf's spare-style of writing. He captures the small town on the Colorado Plains most eloquently and I often recommend Plainsong to those looking for a quiet yet satisfying read. Eventide is its sequel and while not as haunting (to me) as its predecessor, I found it a lovely read. He picks up with the aging McPheron brothers and introduces new characters and brings back a few of the others from Plainsong. Haruf's nomination for the National Book Award for Plainsong was deserved but I found Eventide not quite as filling. All-in-all a worthwhile read especially when paired with Plainsong or used for a reading group.

Popular Music from Vittula

For Christmas I received one of those Page-A-Day calendars and with it came the opportunity to sign up for a free e-mail subscription to one of their calendars. Since they offered one for Booklovers, I naturally chose that one and what a treasure it has been.

The February 12th issue mentioned a book that I had never heard of before and sounded intriguing, Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi (Seven Stories Press, 2004). What a treasure! I have raved about this book to everyone I know and always start off by saying "I know this book is about life in a small Swedish village which is above the arctic circle and really is more Finnish than Swedish, but you have to read it". Here is a delightful coming-of-age tale about two boys set in the 1960's an it includes a visiting African priest, a mysterious girl in a Vovlo, rock and roll music, and the brutal yet beautiful life in such a remote locale.

A movie version , directed by Reza Bagher was released in 2004 and it apparently made some of the film festivals in the US - haven't located a DVD yet

Intrigued? Read a sample here: http://www.ralphmag.org/CL/vittula1.html

has it really been that long since i posted here?

Ok - so I peeked at the blog and saw that I never finished the tale of my journey to Oregon. After the TLAPD festivities, I thanked Dennis for being such a wonderful host and headed back East. I took the scenic route through Sisters, OR and then headed toward Idaho and I-84. I had some books on tape in the car and realized that I was entering Ivan Doig country so it was time for "This House of Sky" - what a magnificent writer and just the story I needed to make the long drive trough Utah and Wyoming. If you haven't read Doig, I recommend starting here. His memoir of life among the sheep men of Montana after World War II and his relationship with his father give a sense of time and place that all can cherish.

I managed to finish my journey with a truly beautiful ride over the Snowy Range in Wyoming and down to Centennial, a picturesque town that I hadn't visited in several years. I headed on down to Loveland with one last burst of adrenalin, knowing that this road trip was about some sort of release that I desperately needed.