One of my favorite things about little web kerfuffles like the "blog people" dustup is that they give me a chance to roam outside my usual web haunts and read new sites [found through serendipitous search, links, and yes even through Google] that might not otherwise cross my radar screen. A few I've been enjoying that are working their way into regular reads:

• OCLC's It's All Good blog has always been on my "sometimes" list but I really enjoyed Revenge of the Codex People
• Rafe Colburn had a small entry about the article and reminded me that rc3 should be in my RSS reader.
• The Scitech Library Question blog chimes in. Great resource for science librarians, and super URL.
• the possibly luddite exploded library also has a few Australian words about it, reminding me to subscribe

The start of her library.... My pal Matt and his wife and their innovative baby shower.

Romance novel cover art really does seem to write its own jokes sometimes. [lj:libraries]

I don't speak Portugese, but I can make out the hug me tight part of this librarian sculpture. [thanks david]

If your patrons could check out books on tape loaded onto this cute little number, do you think circulation might increase? [thanks scully]

Ukulele books. NOT books about ukuleles.

We have Banned Books Week, Canada has Freedom to Read Week [which started yesterday]. What's the difference? Just look at the two web sites and think about the differences in presentation and approach. Think about which event makes you feel more included, or piques your interest more.

Canadian version of Harry Potter saves 30,000 trees. How? By being printed on recycled paper. Learn more about Greenpeace's campaign to encourage publishers to go the green route at their Save or Delete site. [ode]

A quickie one-off joke. When I mess with OPACs at other libraries, I often try a search for my name, or my book. NYPL has eight copies, but one is missing.

People who still love words have to be forgiven everything.

Also, I just finished Tara's book Web Search Garage and really got a lot out of it. She discusses more than Google, more than syntax, and more than just the basics and offers some really good step-by-step approaches to ferreting out tough-to-find information specifically the things that are not just Googleable. I will give you a dollar if you read this book and don't learn at least one new thing from it. Check out the preview chapter and a few freebies on her page.

A short short story, written entirely in copyright statements. [teleread]

It was really gratifying seeing so many librarians and others putting their reading lists online. Even though we don't do a lot of reading at our jobs, I think being well and broadly-read is an important part to being a good librarian. Here's one last not-online reading list that I've been enjoying over this wintery weekend.

The 15-week best selling book America The Book, besides being unavailable at Wal-Mart, was also being banned by the Southern Mississippi library system because it contains the heads of the Supreme Court justices superimposed on age-appropriate naked bodies. Apparently, as of today, the library system has reversed their decision.

Looted Books: The Austrian National Library confronts its Nazi Past.

A few more booklists: Jenica, librainiac, Anirvan [who runs bookfinder], Marissa, Rochelle, lazygal & Carolyne.

Did you know you can add Project Gutenberg titles to your library catalog? The list of titles is now available in MARC format [or should be any minute now]. A few more PG feeds at this address.

My secret stash of book on tape

A few more librarian booklists from 2004: Lis, Cedar, Brian, bookish, TangognaT's textfile, Steve, "The Cataloger" .... Any others? Keep in mind that I count graphic novels as books, as Lis counts long fanfic as books, so my numbers and your numbers may not be at all comparable.

I read Amanda's list and decided to make one of my own, slightly edited because I track my books a bit differently. Please note that unlike [what I assume about] Amanda, I have neither a full-time job nor much of a social life, leaving me much more time for bookish pursuits.

number of books read in 2004: 103
number of books read in 2003: 75
number of books read in 2002: 91
number of books read in 2001: 78
average read per month: 8.5
average read per week: 1.98
number read in worst month: 4 (July)
number read in best month: 15 (September)
percentage by male authors: 78
percentage by female authors: 22
fiction as percentage of total: 53
non-fiction as percentage of total: 47
percentage of total liked: 87
percentage of total ambivalent: 10
percentage of total disliked: 2

Diary of the future first head librarian at Boston Public Library sold on eBay for almost $600. [thanks matthew]

One of the cool things waiting for me when I got back was my copy of Priscilla Schontz's Librarian's Career Guidebook which I wrote a chapter on freelancing for, ironically, right before taking my current job.

Sorry Books are a project started by the Australians for Native Title as way for ordinary Australians to express their remorse for what happened to the Stolen Generations.

How to build with books. Not for the faint of heart. [mefi]

Bookstore sorts all books by color for one week as an art project [more photos]. [metafilter

More and more lately, I get books in the mail. I thought it was about time I had some sort of stated policy about this. My FAQ nonwithstanding, if you have a book you think I would like to read, feel free to drop me a line if you actually know who I am and can explain why you think I would like it. I've read almost all of the books I've gotten from colleagues and strangers alike (Tara's Web Search Garage is the one outstanding because I keep using it) and have put reviews up on my book review page. If I discuss anything in this blog that could possibly be seen to have a "go out and buy this" implication attached to it, I will clearly state that I got a free review copy or was contacted by the author or publisher about the book, either here or in the review. Exceptions to this are "current awareness" links to things I read about on other blogs -- Library Elf comes to mind -- if I also hear from the publisher/company, I might neglect to mention that fact if it's not germane to why I'm linking to it. That said, here's my policy, such as it is, which I'll link to the FAQ.

librarian.net review and promotions policy

• If you would like to send me a review copy, please email me and tell me why you think I would like it. I prefer short succinct messages to copied and pasted press releases. I delete 9 out of 10 copied and pasted press releases.
• I cannot guarantee I will read every book I get. I have read most of the books I have gotten so far.
• I have no review mechanism on any of my sites for reference works, magazines, movies, or software. Unless there is some very specific library angle -- better than "librarians should buy this for their libraries" -- do not send me these.
• You can keep the promo materials that get sent with review copies, I tend not to read them. Do not put me on an announcement list. Do not add me to any mailing list without my explicit permission.
• Reviews, if I read the book, good or bad, will be posted to my book review page, not on librarian.net. I will mention, as I usually do, where I got the book. Reviews will rarely contain links to other web sites.
• There are "buy this book" links on my reviews pages that go to Powell's. I receive a small associate fee if you purchase items using these links which I think is 7% of the purchase price. In the lifetime of this program, the links have brought in $55, total. Powell's is not the cheapest online bookstore, but they are worth supporting, in my opinion. However, please consider the library as your first option.
• Unless I have contributed to a book or the author is a good friend of mine, I practically never make new book announcements on these pages and I don't intend to.
• I accept no payment of any kind for anything on this site with the exception of rare specific promotions that are clearly marked, such as the "buy this bumpersticker" auction. The site is hosted for free on ibiblio's servers and updated during non-work time using free software. If you feel the need to contribute, send me links, or a postcard and/or unused [preferably interesting] postage that I can use to send out my postcards.
• If my rules are too rigid, or this is not what you were looking for, you may want to consider bookslut, bookzen or biblioblog.

As an example. I wrote a chapter for Priscilla Shontz's book The Librarian's Career Guidebook. You can see a page from my chapter here and more excerpts on the page on her site.

Two ad campaigns try to link books and reading to sexiness, one fairly overtly, and one using a wry bit of double entendre. [thanks cheryl & robert]

Less than glowing review of Revolting Librarians Redux hits the blogs. Unlike the previous review which I felt had some good points, this one just seems sort of pissed off that the book wasn't what the author was looking for. There's nothing like listening to librarians complaining about complaining librarians. I especially appreciate the snotty things she had to say about my sister's illustrations which I actually liked. On the brighter side, her copy will probably be for sale soon, maybe you can get a cut-rate copy if you haven't read it already. She's also one of those NextGenners looking for work which is enough to make anyone grouchy.

I figure anyone who wanted to bookmark Library Dust has done so already but I feel the need to draw your attention to Michael's holiday selections which, while not always in good taste, are pretty amusing to me

Crosspost of something I put on the info-commons web site: Neal Stephenson "interviewed" by Slashdot where he touches on some book and publishing issues near and dear to many librarians.

Guantanamo Bay Prison library reading preferences lean towards Harry Potter. The prison "librarian" and Air Force translator spent ten months in solitary confinement over spy charges including one charge of taking two souvenir photographs.

I read about the review of the new book The Librarian a few days back and paid it no mind. Then I got the following email and while I think that flaming the author would be in bad taste, a pleasant email from a modern-day librarian setting him straight might not be out of line.

Speaking of books, I am very much looking forward to reading Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy once I can get my hands on a copy. Check out the rest of the latest issue of Progressive Librarian including a [deservedly?] lukewarm review of Revolting Librarians Redux

Want to keep your loved ones close to you [and your books] even in the afterlife? How about these book shaped urns? [thanks jude]

While I think it's going overboard to sic collection agencies on people for overdue fines, having this man show up on your doorstep just to pick up the books you haven't returned might not be all bad.

What is on Jonah Edwards' bookshelves? Part of the larger bookshelf project on Flickr.

Libraries still not buying porn, or even books that seem like they might be porn. While I object to the misuse of the word schizophrenia this article otherwise has some good points about what librarians say versus what they do in their own librarias as far as sexually explicit books are concerned.

FDR reminds us that Books are Weapons in the War of Ideas [larger image]. Here's another Books Are Weapons poster.

Is it like banning a book if Wal-Mart decides to stop selling it? Interesting story about Wal-Mart deciding to stop selling "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a famous racist tract which has long been known to be fake. Some discussion of this over at Reason.com and Metafilter.com. It's interesting to watch how the other online retailers that still stock the book have been editing their web copy, post-hubbub. Of particular note, Amazon's page [current page, Google cache] used to contain this phrase from the book description [provided by the publisher] "If, however. The Protocols are genuine (which can never be proven conclusively), it might cause some of us to keep a wary eye on world affairs." Reading all the customer reviews is a bone-chilling exercise.

The Ska Librarian aka Dan Cherubin has written an excellent article on Banned Books Week for Counterpoise.

"Books Cause Dangerous Thought. Leave Books Here - Don't Make Us Come Get Them" [thanks chuck]

The Economist reviews a new Borges biography.

How many copies of the 9/11 Commission Report does your library have? Massachusetts Representative William Delahunt, hearing that his constituents were having trouble getting the book from their libraries bought copies for all 60 public libraries in his district. It was also heartening to hear that some libraries were showing their patrons how to access the content of the book on the internet as a backup. [thanks kate]

One of the purposes of librarians is to help refer people to authoritative sources. When the bulk of "sources" were printed books, we could usually be assured that the editors and publishers performed a large amount of the vetting for us, and often reviewers and the opinions of other librarians or professionals would fill in the blanks in the cases of problems or questions. Online and/or open source versions of reference sources -- which can change on the fly, and lack many of the markings we traditionally associate with authority -- have become a new question mark in the world of librarianship, addressing the question "what is an authoritative source?" Jessica has been going over this on her scratchpad lately, most recently discussing this experiment in which deliberate misinformation was put into Wikipedia to see if it stayed. Upshot? The changes were replaced within hours. Does this prove that the Wikipedia is authoritative? Not necessarily, but it's one more data point explaining how the system works to people that aren't familiar with it, and one more data point to use with naysayers who think that having a resource be freely editable means that by definition it can't also be authoritative.

Creating an RSS feed of the books you have checked out of the library, a neat tool from Peter R. Steven thinks he should contact Dynix and other vendors to show this tool off. I'd love to see it integrated into an OPAC but with our Sirsi OPAC, I'm just hoping for Netscape 7.1 support.

I had a post a few weeks ago about the Library of Unwritten Books project. Apparently, it has its own website. If you're in England or Scotland, keep your eyes open for their book-boxes. [thanks owen]

An unlikely place for campaigning: in the subject lines of pirate ebook titles. From alt.binaries.e-book.technical. [thanks clint]

My friend Steve -- who is married to a real live librarian -- compiled a list of eleven graphic novel/comic titles that libraries should shelve. The idea caught on and now TangognaT [holy crap I never noticed that was a palindrome before!] has collated those lists into one uberlist.

So they're gearing up for the RNC in New York. I do not expect to be going etiher as a "blogger" or a protestor though maybe I can answer some questions for Radical Reference. It seems like the bag-checking on the ferries are getting a bit out of hand. I can see weapons being dangerous but -- and I can't believe we're going through this again -- books?! What book? This book. [thanks chuck]

As many of you may or may not know, Richard Brautigan's book The Abortion was one of my major insirations to become a librarian, in the hopes that I can one day live in the library that I work in. That book has inspired others to do different things, like the Library of Unwritten Books for example.

The Christian Science Monitor takes on the media conclusions to the NEA "reading in crisis" report, finding some other folks to place the blame on.

Another observation stemming from the DNC. Obama's speech [which you can read it its entirety here] disussing anti-intellectualism, further discussed by the New York Times. Librarians take note.

Linda Barry chimes in on the mundanity of Summer Reading Programs. I like our summer reading program, frankly, but maybe the librarian always does.[sorry about the ad, thanks tammi]

While I was looking for Michael McGrorty's page to link to another wonderful essay of his, I found this interesting page about library dust.

This is the entry I was trying to link to: On Reviewing Books by Michael McGrorty. I heartily concur. My book reviews are online here.

Libraries, a Neglected market an article by the guy who wrote the ebook How to Market Your Book to Libraries. I can give you a few tips for how not to market your book to libraries, and a few suggestions.... [thanks robert]

• Don't pretend you are a patron and send us email telling us how good the book is. We know if you are or are not a patron, and we have Request for Purchase forms you can come in to the library and fill out, or we wil happily email you one. Patrons requests are taken quite seriously, non-patron requests are frequently not.
  
• Don't generically email us your press release and a link to your Amazon.com online store. We have distributors that we purchase the bulk of our books through, and we would prefer to go through them if we can. It takes extra effort to order from smaller presses and publishers, let us know why that effort is worthwhile.
  
• Don't tell us that the book is just right for our patrons if you know nothing about the community we serve. If you have local knowledge, please include it.
  
• Do feel free to send us an inquiry as well as some information about the book and -- most importantly -- reviews that have appeared in print or online; the larger or more local the review the better.
  
• Do look at our online catalog and see if we have books similiar to yours that you could compare your book to, or perhaps that your book would improve upon.
  
• Do realize that purchasing decisions are not made immediately, and are not made by all staff. Be prepared to take "We'll see" as an answer, feel free to politely follow up at a later date.
  
• Do try to attend local or national library conferences with professional and interesting promotional materials. Librarians get a lot of good ideas at these events, perhaps your book could be one of them.
  

I didn't realize that Eldred from Eldred v Ashcroft lived near me. Apparently he's been at Walden Pond giving away some of Thoreau's works. But there's been in trouble because he may be cutting in to the profits of the bookstore. I'll see if maybe he'd like to come to my library.

Who is Jonathan Rundman and why is his latest album called Public Library? Be sure to download the title track Librarian.

Slate chimes in with its own muddled analysis on why people aren't reading and finds as an unlikely blame-target: Dr. Seuss? It's an interesting article with the Seuss connection being drawn more for linkability and compelling headlines than actual malice. The argument being that the sort of superego narrative characters like The Cat in the Hat make even making a mess a quick tidy affair, and that our imaginary lives and our "literary" choices aren't always compelled by such tidiness.

Divine marketing opportunity. Collect donations for people not to buy your book, but to put your book in a public library. The indie press No Media Kings crowd would like you to do just that in their NO MEDIA KINGS, YES LIBRARY BLING drive. Don't miss their how to make a book section.