“Ayn Rand man, I would like to apologize for a few things. To begin with, I am sorry that I did not state in simpler words, when you asked why Ayn Rand was shelved in the fiction section instead of the philosophy section, that the Fountainhead is a novel.” from best of craigslist, via library_mofo.
Category: books
ReadMe, a readers advisory sort of wiki page
One of the types of questions we get a lot in Ask MetaFilter is “what book should I read on XYZ topic?” It’s one of those questions that the hive mind is actually good at answering because it’s just brainstorming and list generation by a self-selected group of people, not the “do I need to get this wound looked at?” sort in which you really shoudl ask a doctor. So, someone on MetaFilter decided to organize these questions into a wiki page. MetaFilter has our own wiki where a lot of information that may not need its own home on the site can reside, and where users can contribute content directly. The page is called ReadMe and contains a categorized list of over 650 topics on what to read, linking directly to the Ask MetaFilter thread where the topic was discussed. There’s even a section about libraries. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but what an awesome resource and a good concrete example of the nifty aggregating effects of blogs, and the “anyone can build something” effects of wikis.
books change lives
This isn’t specifically about libraries, but I know that many librarians consider Neil Gaiman a member of our tribe, since he’s so bloggeriffic and knowledgeable and appreciative of our profession. So, I thought you’d enjoy this story about how Neil Gamain pitched in to help scifi fan Jason propose to his girlfriend during a book signing event. Here’s Jason’s blog post explaining how it all went down. Neil Gaiman says it was his favourite bit of his visit to the Phillipines. [mefi]
can you spot the library?
A few nifty book-oriented and awesome library facades. And for a few more links to fill this out, here’s a great old photo of Fred Bullock, a librarian at the Cardiff Public Library, c. 1900 and a link to the award-winning Kansas City design (from 2005) with some detail about how the project was actually conceived and managed. My favorite part is the jury comment for the competition
This project celebrates books, reading, and the city in a joyfully direct and legible manner. The lovingly rendered level of detail at a massive scale brings the books to life, transforming these modest, familiar objects into monuments infused with hope and possibility. The result may be the world’s most humane and enjoyable parking structure.
[libact]
the most unusual books of the world
In wiki format: http://mywiki.ws/The_Most_Unusual_Books_of_the_World. update: there was a gross image on the top of that page for a while which is the way of wikis sometimes. Someone alerted me to it (and here via comments) and said I should remove my link. Instead, I went in and cleaned up the wiki which has better long-term and wide-reaching results. Sorry folks, especially if this was your first goatse (safe link, I swear it!).[slowreading]