Category Archives: On the Web

Birmingham, Book Talk, Events, On the Web

National Readathon Day 2015

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Penguin Random House has joined forces with a few other companies to found the National Readathon Day event. Mark your calendar for January 25, 2015, if you’d like to participate. The hashtag is #timetoread.

The event is a fundraiser with aims to raise money to combat illiteracy as well as shine a spotlight on the fact that younger folks are turning away from books. You can click through and get more details on how to participate and even info on how to set up your own reading party for the National Readathon Day.

But even if you don’t get to participate, if you are reading these words, I would like to encourage you to volunteer at an adult literacy program in your area. Somehow I’m always surprised when reading the stats on literacy in America. The National Readathon page states that:

  • 40% of American adults are at or below basic reading levels
  • 14% of American adults are completely illiterate

Literacy_CouncilHere in Birmingham, AL you can check out the Literacy Council over on 2nd Avenue North. They do a really good job and offer training classes for tutors and volunteers. The schedules are good too. There is a small cost involved for materials so make sure you read up on everything.

Book Column, Bookstores, On the Web

Fun Stop Motion Book Video

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The folks at Type books up in Ontario produced this stop motion video, called The Joy of Books almost three years ago and it’s still a good one.

What is it about sitting back and watching all the books go ’round? I also have to say that the whole “shelve your books by color” contingent is bolstered – it really works when the rainbow of book spines are moving along to the beat.

Creative people are cool. Creative book people are +1 beyond that though.

 

Book Talk, library, On the Web

Largest Photo Is of the Inside of a Library

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One of the largest indoor photos ever posted online comes in at over 40 gigapixels and is a fly-around-the-room tour of a library! How awesome is this place?

strahov library largest photo

This single image is made up of more than 3,000 images stitched together. If they were printed out the site claims the photo would be 78 feet long!

strahov largest library photo

This gargantuan gigapixel image has been online since 2011, showing the world the largest and smallest details of the Strahov Library. The Strahov Llibrary is in Prague inside the Strahov Monastery.

largest photo of a library

I could just watch this image all day checking out all of the spines in such detail. What an amazing library. This 40 gigapixel image is very cool, but I bet this place is something else when seen in person.

Book Column, Book Talk, On the Web

Google Explore For Book Lovers

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Last week Google launched a new search feature for their Google+ social network. Basically, it adds groupings, tags, etc. and makes the network all searchable so that you can skim through all of the content generated on Google+.

So what’s the first thing I did? I did a few simple searches through Google Explore to see if I could find any books and book-related content that was of interest. I really wasn’t looking for people “curating” (like pinterest or tumblr), but for real content that harkened back to the days of book blog rings and such.

So I clicked on the “Explore” button up top…

google explore book search

and searched for “Books”. I was thankful for the Google Explore displayed all of the books-related tags that I could follow and check out.

google explore books

Early on I found these not worth following because of all the ads, spam and sales pitches:

  • #free
  • #eBooks
  • #kindle
  • #kindlebooks
  • #author

The rabbit holes I really enjoyed falling down through Google Explore were:

  • #Reading
  • #BookReview
  • #AuthorInterview
  • #BookLovers (the best of the bunch)

google explore book lovers

As you can see, once you click on #BookLovers you’re presented with a whole new slate of sub-categories and tags to click through. As new as the feature is (and as under-used as Google+ is) it’s not hard to quickly separate the signal from the noise and find folks worth following. From there it’s a single-click to add them to a new (or old) circle to keep up with them.

When I next have a few free moments I’m going to click around with category, subject and book genre searches. Hopefully those will yield more leads to books worth reading. So check it out and let me know if you find any bookish folks worth following.